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Don't spice up the goal, spice up the antagonist. Pinky and the Brain had the same goal every week: to take over the world! It mattered not a whit. It was just an excuse for mousy mayhem. Taking ov...
You can use a sidekick as the POV for your genius villain. Think of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes; by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle's stories are ruined if told from the POV of Sherlock alone, but com...
I think the Supreme Court definition applies; to paraphrase: erotica and pornography are pretty much undefinable but we know it when we see it. If you are describing the genitals or breasts of nak...
Although I upvote Mark and Alexander, I can suggest an alternative writing trick: Find a way to exchange cause and effect: You are thinking "betrayal" causes "Kicked Out." Instead think of how "Ki...
I think it is unwise to rely on style changes to delineate a character. First, it is far from certain that the reader will notice the difference, or interpret it in the way you intend. Don't rely o...
Only put in what is necessary for the plot. You develop the character so that the actions s/he takes make sense for the plot. If the character reveals something about his/her past, there should be...
The ending is obvious in most books. In a romance, will the heroine get the guy? Obviously yes. In a detective novel, will the detective get the bad guy? Obviously yes. Wanting to know how it end...
Your story line should have an arc: a beginning (problem), middle (attempts to fix the problem), and end (resolution of the problem). If you have multiple story lines, each one has its own arc. Th...
After the last word of the story, before any aftermatter like a glossary, author's note, list of characters, timeline, or appendix. So yes, after the epilogue, because the epilogue is still part o...
Let's start by setting something straight. Changing your mind is not the problem What you are after is why you are changing your mind. Looking over your work and rewriting it is a natural part o...
Your ideas are valueless. (Sorry!) My ideas are valueless too. There are approximately 197 billion story ideas floating around the litosphere just waiting for someone with a net to scoop them up. ...
Agents represent people, not manuscripts. The author/agent relationship is a long term business relationship on which the author's career and livelihood largely depends. If you don't like and trust...
Showing that one person is a better fit psychologically is very difficult, especially since we don't seem to know what constitutes fit or why one relationship works in real life and another does no...
To appeal to a broad audience, write simply and directly about things of interest to a great many people. Nothing in this formula stands in the way of creating great literature. Greatness in litera...
Can you? Of course; you just did. Your characters, I might point out, are not inaminate. They are alive. They have thought, opinion, and agency. They may be made of silicon, but they are not "inani...
Here's the thing about Watson: he is a fully developed character. If you met him at a party, you would say to yourself, isn't that Doctor Watson? This is even more true in the Sherlock TV series (i...
Stories are not about proving points. A novelist may have a point they want to push, but if the point overwhelms the story than the result can only appeal to the people who already agree with the a...
I just hate the common categorization scheme for point of view and voice. It is so misleading and causes so much unnecessary anxiety, not to mention awkward narration. To begin with, point of vie...
You don't specify what length of story you are trying to write, but a novel, at full length, is a highly complex piece of work regardless of genre. If you were learning to be a programmer, you prob...
A university assignment probably falls under "non-commercial individual use." You aren't making money off the content. Quote it and cite it, don't try to pass it off as your original work, and you...
There is a huge difference between plot and story. A plot is a sequence of events that happened for a reason. A plot requires only technical detail. A story is an experience. It is the observatio...
Well, from a commercial point of view, there is nothing wrong with melodrama. People make very good livings producing melodramas, and for the most part I think they are unapologetic about it. In ...
I would suggest that rather than thinking in terms of external conflict rather than internal conflict, you should think in terms of internal conflict caused by external conflict. In a romance, th...
The Carnegie Hall method: Practice, practice, practice. You were able to come up with the cooked noodles metaphor, right? So clearly your describing skills are not broken. You just have to work th...
I'd say change it, you don't need permission. At first, I was going to ask in comment What is your motivation for changing the name? But then I realized that did not matter, if you are inclined t...
