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"Both" can act as emphasis when one of the two is unexpected. In this usage, the unexpected one is placed second. For example, consider the difference between: Tom and his manager thought the...
There is a lamentable process by which averages become aphorisms. That is, we see a common pattern and turn it into an absolute rule. Adverbs are often used badly, so don't use adverbs at all. Writ...
Dialogue consists of two characters trying to get something from each other. Each has a desire that they want the other to fulfill. Each has some reluctance in fulfilling that desire, or else has d...
There is a kind of brainstorming process that some writers seem to go through when trying to come up with something to write about. It goes something like this. Can I take two apparently incompatib...
The Carnegie Hall method: Practice, practice, practice. You know those Word-A-Day calendars? We joke about them, but they're not bad as a starting point. Each day you pick a word you want to start...
I think the answer to this is, almost anything. More characters, fewer characters, different setting, different ending, longer, shorter, rougher, gentler. People get asked for all of these things a...
A character is a bundle of desires. They are defined first by their primary desire: the thing that is driving their action in the story. Second, they are defined by their secondary desires, the thi...
Most works of art bear the artist's name. Most works of craft do not. The person who paints your portrait signs their work. The person who paints your house, or your sign, does not. Using a ghost...
I haven't used it in years, and it may be better now, but my experience was that it would periodically misinterpret whole phrases. The problem was not that it made more errors than I did typing -- ...
Theme is not necessarily a message. It is more the thing that you are exploring. If the theme is love, for instance, you don't have to take a position on love, you don't have to have a covert messa...
I just wanted to write a story about these two friends. So, maybe that is your theme. That friendship is beautiful, rich, enduring; that friends help each other through obstacles, or despite t...
A character that is not lucid enough to see or interpret what is going on around them is not lucid enough to have a POV. If they are not lucid and you say: Something poked her shoulder. Then ...
Your characters may not have names, but they have to have some identifiers. Other examples in fiction: Star Trek's Borg use designations which specify where each drone (individual) is in the hi...
yes, and in fact I encourage this. If it's from a child's POV, try to use a child's language, understand and perspective. Don't stress so much about what's "allowed." Do what seems to work for you...
There are no rules. There is a lot of advice. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. A lot of it is generalized inappropriately. There are also a lot of conventions which it is safer to follow unle...
There is nothing terribly wrong with the sentence structure per se, but it has an effect that may or may not be desirable, and probably is not desirable quite as often as you are doing it: it chang...
Writers often indulge a charming fantasy that publisher and agents are looking for originality. They are not. They are looking for works that fit into a well established sales channel and that habi...
Finish the story. Finish it whether it's one book, two, or five. Writing is practice for writing; editing is practice for editing. No effort is wasted. If you have two or three really good books,...
If the POVs seem balanced (rotating one per chapter or in some other predictable pattern), then it's not breaking any rule. For length -- the projected draft is 225k -- maybe the actual draft wo...
The danger you can run into with that kind of detailed planning (there are dangers in all approaches to a large piece of work) is that it can lead you to focus on plot at the expense of conflict. ...
Make it clear that it's from Character B's POV. Don't overthink it. It's okay to create a structure and break it for an effect.
Actually, most stories that have a specific antagonist depend on the antagonist being stronger than the protagonist, so logically the antagonist should win most of the time -- unless they do someth...
You can certainly have an ensemble cast, and you can certainly send a team on a shared quest. Hundreds of novels and movies do exactly that. But while a team can have a shared plot, a plot is not t...
This is the reality of the thing: there are hundreds of thousands of people who would like to have written a novel. Many of them are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to advance their...
I'm struggling at the moment to think of a novel which does have a subtitle (beyond "A Novel" to differentiate it from a non-fiction work). Look at the NYT Best Books of 2016. Not one novel has a...
