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"Turn exposition into ammunition" is shorthand for a writing technique. A quick Google turns up this article: http://michellelipton.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/mckee-on-exposition/ Money quote: “...
Close the intro. Promise yourself that you will write it last. Start a blank Scrivener page. Start writing down everything that comes into your head about the topic. Follow your thoughts whereve...
Writing a full translation will approximately double the time you spend creating each post, so as other answers have said, you'll need to consider the cost versus benefit. However, thee's another ...
It's extremely, extremely difficult. Not too many people making movies. Lots of people writing screenplays. Gargantuan investment to get a movie made. Not an easy sell. Now, it depends to a larg...
Let me ask a question right back: Why does an author need/want to show some friends or workshop members the work he's done? It's not required, sure. But somehow everybody does it anyway. And they ...
I mostly agree with Malvolio's first paragraph. I think color-coding might be useful in early drafts as you're settling pieces on the chessboard, but you should have each character's distinct voice...
too much dialogue. too much information about what you want the reader to guess (that is, the suspenseful bit). not enough information about the characters to care. The point of suspense is to l...
Suspense is all about anticipation. What you've done very nicely is set up an immediate problem, probably a threat - the missing girl. You've also established a mystery - the guy's past and presen...
Why would you add extra anything if your plot doesn't need it? Most writers have trouble taking things out, and you're trying to stuff things in? We should all have such troubles. ;)
Your two examples are from very different people. The first guy is confident, mocking, and ironic. The second guy is insecure, nervous, and looking for validation. So as iajrz points out, it depen...
You almost certainly want to avoid a shopping list of details about the park. You're not describing the wind and the trees and the building and... You're describing one unified moment in space and ...
I largely agree with this answer, to which I add: Order of perception by your POV character fits nicely into all the other stuff that you're telling through that POV, so it's a good place to star...
"Intellectual" often means a labyrinth of language. (Try reading any doctoral dissertation.) Try this instead: “The universe changes gradually, from one condition to another, without any abru...
I think Craig's answer is solid, but in terms of getting the balance right, one trick I use is to read the dialogue out loud. It works even better if you can rope someone else into reading one of...
I believe in creating dialogue touchstones: find each major character a couple of lines that they would say, that no other character would say. Some of these might be catchphrases, or might sound...
Basically, anything that the reader considers implausible when he's already suspending disbelief, can spoil the illusion and break that suspension. The key issue to understand is that up to a certa...
A popular variant of the whodunit structure is the howdunit or the howcatchem, in which the question isn't who committed the crime - it's how he managed to pull it off, and/or how the detective suc...
Here's the perspective of an editor who does some writing on the side: It depends on what you need in a dictionary. When editing UK writers, I usually use Cambridge, I think I'd continue to use t...
The postscript is indeed of limited use, but it might still be useful when one has something else to say, but doesn't want to compose the email all over again. People still do compose letters fro...
If you want to look up by both title and date, I'd list each entry as: [Entry title] [Entry date] [Page Number] where "Page Number" refers to your existing 2-page numbering. You'll have no tr...
You could arbitrarily re-number the pages. Use a prefix like A, start at the lower outside corner of the first page, and call it A1. Your next page, left or right, is A2. Continue to the end. Use t...
On the general topic of opening with a dream, I'm going to second Kate's excellent comments: it's a technique that's heavily predisposed to backfire, because you're explicitly kicking off with some...
Sounds perfectly clear to me. I think your English is quite good.
To expand on Craig's suggestion, go ahead and write the exciting scenes if that's what keeps you motivated, so long as you're willing to "kill your darling" later on. Self-editing is one of the h...
A story without an "antagonistic theme" is a story with "no conflict." Conflict drives plot. Without plot, you have a character study. Without conflict, the character has no reason to change, grow,...
