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I think we should distinguish between what I would call a personality flashback and a plot flashback. A plot flashback occurs when, for whatever reason, the narrative begins after the events of t...
Determine what sins he needs to be punished for, and set up mirrors. If it's murder: someone important to him should die. If it's toppling a government and he sets up a new one: his new governmen...
Relationships are contrived. They are contrived by the people in them. They are formed because one of the parties sets out, more or less deliberately, with more or less forethought, to create the r...
"Redouble" is almost always used in the idiom to redouble one's effort, meaning to increase the effort one is exerting. "Double again" has the very specific meaning of This was increased by 100% ...
Find an editor and ask that person to help you find a spot to split it. This absolutely can be done; David Eddings's Belgariad series was originally planned to be three books and his publisher had...
Handle laughter not as words spoken, but as a physical action. Looking at my own work, I just say "laughed." I never write multiple "Ha". I have written, Jack was amused. "Ha. Then we'll char...
I call this a "grains of rice" problem. It's from a question over on Graphic Design SE, How do I draw rice grains in Photoshop?, but the idea is the same. If you want to draw grains of rice, you ha...
Overbearing pride. He's done a lot. He's seen a lot. He has a lot of experience. He's very accomplished, and he thinks anyone would benefit from learning from him. The "nostalgia" and "being over...
The ring in LOTR is not a symbol. Because of the timing of its publication many took the ring to be a symbol for the bomb, but Tolkien denied this, and the history of composition makes it impossibl...
You haven't specified any preferences for format (source or output), and that's going to be relevant. If it's up to you, for your source I recommend a text (not binary-format) markup language -- H...
I don't want to embellish, and it would go against my ethics to stray into creative writing in a non-fiction account I think you're off-base here. Memoirs (which is what you're writing) are n...
Two suggestions: 1) The reader knows that the killer is after Pete the Protagonist, right? So the killer is stalking Pete, in increasingly tense scenarios. Each time the killer gets closer but doe...
Few readers will notice difference of style between different characters. Perhaps for one or two of them, but not for a dozen. What distinguished people much more than their style is what they want...
I would say it's dependent on context. There are times when you cannot "bury the lede," to borrow a term from journalism (and that is the correct spelling), and there are times when it's okay to pu...
If the errors make the book unusable — for example, switching "row" and "column" makes what you're reading unworkable — I'd look for a way to contact the publisher and inform it about the errors. T...
Re compatibility: Scrivener allows you to export in many formats; the company makes a point of not holding you hostage to proprietary software. One of my favorite features of Scrivener is the orga...
If, as you say in comment to Kitsune, you refuse to make a distinction between your Theme and your Plot, then the answer, due to your insistence, is that you will bore your readers by repeating exa...
It will make very little difference. The publishing industry is desperate for good stories. They don't much care where they come from. Anything interesting or exotic about the author's background c...
Poet e e cummings and singer k.d. lang are both referenced in all lowercase letters. Singer Prince famously went by an unpronounceable symbol for a few years (which many wrote as The Artist Formerl...
Tension (of any sort) lies in what doesn't happen. To create tension you create the expectation that something is about to happen, but then don't let it happen. This keeps the reader waiting for it...
There's no difference — As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs. No italic, no bold, no apostrophe.
1) A similar but not exact iteration of this is the Water! trilogy by Gael Baudino. It's not well-known and I found the experimental format exhausting. Still, Your Mileage May Vary. In the three ...
+1 Mark, insightful as usual. Agree with StarPolisher; avoid the trite promise that cannot be kept. That said, promises can be made, promises that are at least plausibly able to be kept if the MC ...
This is a rhetorical question and, used well, can enhance the essay. The key to using this device is to first raise a question, issue, or concern that the reader might reasonably have, and then to...
Skip the peaceful period. If there's no conflict, there's nothing to write about. Go to "Part II" of your book. Open with the characters having a party to celebrate two decades of peace. In the mi...
