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No, I love it. I think it's great. The narrator is sort of echoing the perspective of the the person being observed, and you're absolutely right that the two characters see things differently and s...
Spend more time with your character outside the book. Have you ever seen those email questionnaires which go around occasionally? What's your favorite toothpaste, Coke or Pepsi, Beatles or Stones...
I'd have to see these excerpts in context of her thoughts in other situations, but I think if you're doing it deliberately to mimic her feelings and thoughts, it's fine. It feels like nervous-energ...
I am in the middle of editing a book where I'm adding this technique, so I endorse it whole-heartedly. :) My two rules are: Don't confuse the reader. Make sure that no matter what, it's clear who...
1) Character drives plot. Go back to your character sheets, or cook up a few secondaries, and see what their backstories tell you. I've seen J. Michael Straczynski credited with: Conflict is...
In addition to S.F.'s excellent answer, "Less is more." The post you linked to could have one of those meme photos, but not all three. Having said that, using one of the meme photos does liven it u...
In addition to Zayne's answer, Creative might cover poetry, essays, or non-fiction, while Fiction is specifically fictional narratives (short stories or novels).
Read a lot of archaic and extremely rare books, take notes, and make a point of using your list as a thesaurus. Practice using your list by writing paragraphs or stories as exercises just to get us...
You might try Scrivener. I can't find anything in the documentation about those languages specifically, but it doesn't rule them out either. Free to try for a month, so you've got nothing to lose.
I think if you indicated somewhere (preface, end notes, first footnote) that the translations are all yours, you could either write the Arabic and then your translation, or write it in English (or ...
You found Scrivener clunky.... ::swoons:: ::recovers:: You might want to try Adobe InDesign, which will allow you to export directly to epub and PDF, at least. Very easy to lay out, edit, and e...
I'm actually at the point now where I want to take hundreds of scrappy scenes and bits and pieces and try to give my novel some structure. So the question you've asked is actually uppermost in my m...
For a first draft, you can use placeholders. XXX, TK (publication shorthand for "to come"), TECH, literally the word [placeholder] in square brackets — anything to indicate that you'll fill in the ...
Most fiction that includes technical details get them wrong. Fiction does not sell based on the accuracy of its technical details, but on the strength of its story. Indeed, many stories absolutely ...
Avoiding the problem (as per Lauren Ipsum's answer) is probably the best way to deal with this. But let's assume you don't want to change anything about your paragraphs. The answer is unambiguous: ...
If it's important to character or plot, liven it up a bit. Dress it with stage business. Add some thoughts or descriptions of the setting. I don't find it particularly dull in context. Not every c...
Don't be afraid of white space. It's easier for comprehension not to break a paragraph or sentence mid-thought. I would rather have a big chunk of white space at the bottom of a page and then see t...
Yes to both. Repetitive sentence structure grates on the ear. Also, sometimes it helps to clarify the speaker before the dialogue, and sometimes you actually want action or a pause to occur before ...
I have no experience with screenwriting specifically, but I see no reason why this would be different from the considerations in the fiction market (where "sending chapters" is always the first thr...
Analysts Read from the beginning (the Title) to the end without any sneak peaks ahead. They don't want to accidentally read any spoilers. The book "Writing Scripts Hollywood Will Love [An Insider'...
I've done this for brochures and other literature, and it's a bit of extra work compared to marking up a PDF with circles and arrows. But some publications have had problems with people using diffe...
You have a few things going on here: 1) If the story is first-person, your problem is solved. We rarely address ourselves by our given names in internal monologues. 2) If your story is in third p...
Try something like this: This application is for users of (ESP) who need to understand its results quickly and easily. (Product) takes the metrics compiled by (ESP) and presents them in a way ...
As silly as this may sound: the ability to turn every single function OFF if desired. Bells and whistles are great. Some people love them. I hate a lot of them, although not always. Sometimes I w...
You have two things going on: a flashback from the main narrative, and a dream. If the dream is taking place in the past, that may be a literal flashing-back, but it's not actually a flashback. A...
