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You can't be one hundred percent sure that you don't have any mistakes in your writing. It's the same as with testing a program - you can find bugs and be certain that a version therefore has flaws...
I would do the room first. This is a matter of your style. I personally write with very spare descriptions of what people LOOK like, and focus almost entirely on what they feel (or how my POV char...
Setting is character. Where you meet someone tells you something about them. It may tell you a lot or it may tell you a little. It may tell you the most significant thing you need to know about the...
Together nothing can stop us. The problem with your intial idea is that you are saying that you are invincible for them. You are positioning yourself as a threat that can't be overcome, challe...
The central issue here is not the extent of description, it is focus. Good prose allows the reader to focus on one thing at a time. When it is time to describe, it describes. When it is time to dea...
Can you go overboard with this? Obviously you can go overboard with anything, but a few dead parents (or both parents dead, maybe even three parents dead (natural and adoptive) is within the ...
You should show how they interact with your protagonist before to give the reader a feeling for the importance of these characters. Everyone knows that parents are important, but highlighting the b...
Conflict and Action. It doesn't make a difference what your character does, really, as long as she is in conflict in every scene, small or large. From disagreements with friends or enemies to figh...
Yes, I would consider this a DxM. To me, a DxM is any logically unjustified outcome, and this twist is not logical. I won't talk about how to fix it or how to write, just what makes me think so: ...
One way would be to condense the "Kansas" part as much as possible. I don't have "The Wizard of Oz" on me, but let's look at "The Hobbit" as a similar example. It starts with about two pages of wha...
You readers are invested in your character. There are multiple things they like about him, right? Those things cannot just disappear - that would leave your reader angry, frustrated, and feeling be...
The good character who turns bad is a classic feature of literature. It is the essence of the literary form we call tragedy. Thus Macbeth opens with high praise for the virtuous Macbeth: SOLDIER...
It is not and never has been about making the protagonist likable. It has always been about making them recognizable. If you want a great example of an unlikable protagonist, try Graham Greene's Br...
You don't You normally wouldn't start by writing the complete story from start to finish and then proceed to start developing the other parts of a game: gameplay, art, music, ... Regarding the st...
Give the reader something to connect to early on, and the protagonist doesn't even need to redeem themselves. (No reason why they shouldn't, it's just that it isn't necessary for not alienating the...
There are several risks you run with a character who mostly fails. Your character may feel incompetent. A protagonist usually needs to gain our sympathy and our respect. If the chain of failures ...
This is a useful book, Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook. Each name comes with its original translation of meaning (although some are just 'mythical mother of Jason', or a few per page 'u...
From personal experience (central Europe) I would say that shaking your head is normally a "No" and nodding your head is normally a "Yes". But looking through English.SE: When moving one's head to ...
"Show, don't tell" is a guideline - not a rule There are no rules when writing fiction. There are tips and tricks for what works for most audiences and what does not work for most audiences. But u...
Rate the people giving you feedback on a personal scale of "How close are they to my target audience?" Not everyone will be equally close to your target audience. If you aim to write a book for pe...
Is there like a rule of thumb for these things? Three! I will take "rule of thumb" as meaning a rough measure that does not apply in all situations. It is actually hard for people to keep v...
It's likely a sarcastic way of asking you whether you are writing a review study, which is the review article you intended to write, or a piece of literature, meaning prose, which is likely not wha...
If you aren't yet published with an established fan base: post everything you feel comfortable with publishing Your goal should be to build up a fan base so that people know your name and know wha...
It depends on the context. In technical writing, using the list format is generally preferred. In a novel, you would always keep the list inline. In popular non-fiction you will find both styles us...
It should be easy for you to divide your book into scenes, a continuous segment of time in which your characters interact. By this definition, it is still a scene if it is in multiple locations, I ...
