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The most reductionist view of a plot is: Equilibrium > Disturbance > Equilibrium. Or to reduce it down to two words: Something Happened. Even trying to subvert it by making your plot: No...
In my opinion, if you are feeling that a reader might get bored, then the readers might actually get bored. Consider the following: Start the novel with the central conflict. Give a teaser, then ...
If it distracts from your plot and from your theme, then yes - sooner or later, that dialogue should be rewritten or cut entirely. Real conversations get sidetracked; they go off on tangents. If ...
When you're done the outline, send it to me. If it's good, I'll steal it. Haha, just kidding, but seriously don't work for a year on an awesome detailed outline and then show it to just anybody o...
I'm personally of the opinion chapters exist more to organize information and events. It's functionally identical in most cases to have 20 chapters to having 10 chapters twice as long. Of course fo...
The various parts of a novel may be tied together in different ways. They may be connected by the threads of plot. But equally they may be thematically related to each other, or provide thematic co...
Think of your objects first. Sit down and brainstorm a bunch of things. Things which can be hidden reasonably well in a school. Things which might have thematic links to your characters, things wh...
A subplot is a plot. As such, it has the same shape, the same components, the same effect as a regular plot. The reason you have a subplot is to provide thematic counterpoint of elaboration to th...
Subplots are generally thematically related to the main plot. They provide thematic elaboration or counterpoint to the theme of the main plot. If your subplots are doing that for you main plot, the...
I don't think it is reasonable to call a setting thematic in itself. It should also be said that a theme is not a message. A theme is what you deal with in a story or an essay, not what conclusions...
A good book should form a thematic and, ultimately, moral whole. Multiple characters may reach their moment of crisis, but there will generally be one central climax that plays the major notes of t...
I decided a few chapters into a book I'm writing that I dislike present tense, and that I would need to go back and make all instances of present tense past tense to maintain consistency. However, ...
Shippers will always mistake close friendships as homosexual, because of all the natural chemistry that comes with written close friendships. Folks will have 'shipping goggles' on no matter what, a...
You have two feet. Any attemp to wear three shoes will end badly. I'm the kind of writer who finds starting new projects and exploring new ideas more fun and easy to do, rather than stick to an al...
I think it's like this: a normal person wants a lot of things: a new car, a raise, sex, some peace and quiet... When something dramatic happens, a person suddenly realises what's really important ...
If you want to show people it's a war game, maybe you play out combat situations, roll dice to see who gets shot and who lives and dies based on the situation and whose number comes up. Literature...
tl;dr- Cliches seem bad when things are there just for the sake of the cliche itself. To avoid this, you can develop meaningful notions of the gods – including what they are, why they're there, a...
Chapter names serve many purposes so, as long as your choice is one that fits with other chapter names, it's fine. If you always named the chapter after the POV character then you had one named af...
I’ve managed to write a fantasy book, Lord of the Rings-style. That is, a single story that would almost certainly be published as three separate books with multiple branching plotlines. Or at le...
I wrote an answer to a similar question a while ago: https://writing.codidact.com/questions/34255#answer-34261 Like in that answer, to be honest, I think you're spending too much time thinking abo...
In this answer, Mark Baker makes a statement about story: All story ideas are basically a variation on one thing. A man (or woman, or child, or small furry animal) has two desires, both of which h...
As Viktor said, FrameMaker is probably the best widely-used tool for doing what you're trying to do. Another (Windows-only) tool that I'm using now is Madcap Flare, but it's pretty pricy. Other...
A Quick Note I asked if this was an okay topic over on Meta, and they said it should be okay, as long as I "describe the writing-related context -- what you're writing, who (if anybody) you're col...
Copywriting Persuades People to Take Action in the Real World. The action may be buying something, or contributing to a charity, or calling or writing their congressman, or going out to vote for s...
Do it for the sake of storytelling If you're asking yourself "should I bother", then you're not thinking of it as a passion project, like an artist would, but you're thinking of it as a way to mak...
