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Some gestures are universally understood. For example: He nodded. or The audience burst in applause. Because those gestures are universally understood, giving them description or explan...
There are more things you can do with stakes than escalate ad nauseam. First, you can vary the threat. For example, Buffy jokes more than once about "saving the world again". The difference comes ...
Alice: Do you remember how the villain from a month ago always said how he wanted to kill us? Bob: Hm-mm? Alice: Well, this new villain wants to kill us ... and murder our dog, too! ...
I have 25-30 "main characters," (feel free to quibble over the definition) and more supporting ones, though of course only a few are really central. Two of the main 5 characters I don't even intro...
Professional writers can write pages of exposition without a problem, this is not too much, and 3 times as much would not be too much. As a matter of critique; you are weakening your prose with to...
I would do this the same way you introduce multiple characters: slowly over time and as needed. If you give the reader too much information up front, they will not remember it. It's hard to remem...
There are many ways you can tackle this question. Some considerations would be how close your narration is to the MC, how the MC thinks of themselves, and how you want the reader to think of her. L...
Make sure you start a new chapter or section when you make a switch in either direction, unless it is short. Make it obvious to the reader. In some cases you might want to set aside the page with...
How do I write this so that I get the point across that she's that way, but not making it sound overly lewd or off-putting? Make it funny. Since your viewpoint character is a woman, the best ...
The same way you write about anybody, from personal experience. That experience doesn't have to be your own, but you should go out into the world and meet people with disabilities. Online as a se...
You're in a tricky situation here: there's been so much written about women needing protection, that responding negatively to it is almost a knee-jerk reaction, whether justified or not. One way y...
Don't make it about him. If it works in your story, switch to her point of view. If you need to stick with your main character's point of view, then focus on him describing her actions as a nar...
Let me challenge your premise. You say you're writing alternative history. Usually, alternative history has one point of divergence from real history, and the effects of this divergence are explore...
Yeah, you have to plainly label this as fantasy. Not science-fiction. Because the fantasy elements are ones that would jar the reader if they were expecting reality. And I think it will turn off...
You've pretty much got the 3 choices. Use first person with active voice, use passive voice, or use 3rd person stating "the author" (or "the writer," "the researcher," etc). I will say it depends...
I think we are dealing with a scale of greys here. It's true, as Matthew Dave mentions, that the audience will expect the protagonist trying to resolve at least one of the major conflicts in the st...
I don't think so. It's purely a literary device And an old one, at that. Some classical, widely recognized authors have used it in the past (Manzoni's Promessi Sposi - or The Betrothed comes to m...
This is a form of copywriting (ad writing) and I'd say broadly specialize, but not by label. Mention broad types of products you feel good at writing about. Tech products, household appliances, kit...
Eliminate the FIRST citation, it doesn't make a difference that it is quoted. You have a single sentence, the second [3] is enough for the whole sentence. Further, you do not need to quote the fi...
Write up the lyrics in the usual poetic style (with line breaks and also stanza breaks). Insert in the text by starting a new paragraph then indenting the lyrics on both ends. In a published book...
You do not make it clear whether your struggle is with the formatting of the lyrics (a question which @Cyn answers) or with structuring the scene, a question which I will attempt to tackle. The Lo...
Yikes! Does Amazon allow you to change your name after you've put up a book? You may want to add a middle initial or middle name. People who choose pseudonyms have an ethical responsibility to...
It depends on what the self-revelation is supposed to accomplish. There are multiple turning points in a story. At about the 25% mark, the character needs to leave their "status quo" world and star...
Noticing it is the first step. Your line: “I- I thought I was being polite,” he mumbled. is enough. You don't need to say the prince looked abashed. You are already conveying his uncertainty and...
I agree with the sentiment, stop doubling down; or tripling down: The prince looked abashed. “I- I thought I was being polite,” he mumbled. You have three indicators of the same emotion in th...
