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One approach to this I encountered in the novels "A Series of Unforunate Events" by Lemony Snicket (which were definitely intended mainly for a teenage audience) is to use big words as an example t...
There's a fine line to be drawn between educating your readers with words that may be unfamiliar and putting them off if you use too many of them. Consider too how your readers are consuming your ...
No. Use the words that you want/need to use. Kids have NO idea what is or is not a big word. Kids are a blank slate. Every word is big to them. So no word is big to them. This is why there a...
Indiana Jones was the obvious protagonist and main character in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But as to being "the most important character", if that quality is measured by contribution to the plot, it...
It can work sometimes, especially if your main character is a pinball protagonist who is simply caught up in events happening around them or to them. For instance Arthur Dent is very clearly the ma...
Here's an example from television, which while not in print media, is nonetheless a story: On an old episode of Babylon 5, a fleet from really far away invades. The Babylon 5 crew must scramble f...
Before you read this answer, understand that this is written not so much as a writer, but as a reader with knowledge of mental health issues, both professionally and personally. Take the exampl...
Yes, it can be confusing. The basics are simple, through commonly misunderstood, but there are grey area along the borders. The first and most basic rule of copyright is that you cannot copyright...
Warp drives first appeared in science-fiction back in the early nineteen-thirties. As a result warp drives are neither copyright nor trademarked as belonging to Star Trek. Impulse drives is a term ...
Any piece this short has to assume a lot of knowledge from the reader. Therefore: write your piece like your would a conclusion to a longer piece, while leaving out any summarizing you may normal...
The problem with an act of patience is that it is just waiting for something else to happen. One way I can think of to make that "exciting" is by making the wait a progression, so incrementally it...
@Amadeus describes an "act of patience" as "not doing". I would argue that an "act of patience" can also be about keeping on doing, day after day, something that is very hard to do - it is about pe...
With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule. 4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, y...
I had to think about this one for quite a while, but finally I realized that there are two distinct kinds of patience, which I will call anticipatory patience and enduring patience. Anticipatory ...
There's an amazing setpiece scene in the game Uncharted 4 where Nathan Drake is running from an armored vehicle, dodging bullets, leaping from one truckbed to the next, picking off his pursuers, an...
There are three rules for conversation: 1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud. This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — ,...
To add a slight frame challenge to the mix: You appear to have headed off in an awkward direction by wondering if you can take an outline and some reasonably polished directly to an agent. And whi...
Interesting question! Here's what occurs to me as the first principle of distance: From a distance, you can't see the small stuff. At a distance you can see fear of dragons, but you can't see fear...
I don't think it's a good idea; when a reader opens a book they expect to learn some things about the characters in their normal world. If you open with a VR, the reader will assume that IS the nor...
If you are going to refer back to something that a character used earlier in the story, give it some significant characteristic that will help the reader identify it when it comes up again later. T...
My first thought on reading your question is a tangent: I find it distracting that you use the word "small" twice in such a short space. Is it important that the coin and/or the wallet is small? If...
"Dear SE, I don't even know how to express how disappointed I am in you--literally. Because I don't know all the facts. But all the indications I've seen make me fear that the full facts would only...
It depends on what your goal is --an open letter can have many different audiences, and the putative addressee may not be the actual target. With that said, the best structure for a persuasive argu...
I have found that the approach varies, depending on your intent. If you believe that the person will listen to you, then you want a friendly approach. "Dear stack exchange, I have been engaged in...
When you begin a letter with a rant, especially if it is rude or bossy, it is unlikely to be taken on board, by the reader, or get the results you want. The best opener in my view, establishes you...
