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I'll side with your editor. Why do you need two jolly characters, or two stern characters? I wouldn't worry about mannerisms, I am more interested in purpose, intent, attitude and conflict. I thi...
The principles you must rely on are plausibility and connectedness. For example, in the space of 30 minutes I can have ten bad things happen to somebody, if they are connected to each other. A wa...
An acknowledgement page in novels usually appears in the end, rather than the beginning as you would see in scientific writings. There's one in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, t...
You mean, what if you're a resident of country A, writing about a citizen of country B travelling in country C? Go ahead, enjoy yourself. Jules Verne, for example, had never visited the places he ...
There are several potential issues that could affect the length of your story. How you tell it Let me start with an example, from Jim Butcher's Storm Front (the first of the Dresden Files novels)...
their own distinct personalities and motives for villainy. Would this be a good way to write a Complete Monster? It's a start. But there are only a few motives that really apply to a CM. Power...
It also depends who the audience is -- if by "academic text" you mean textbook or supplement to educational materials, then questions may be great! Often in PlainLanguage, they advice question-hea...
I don't have the major swing you have, from brilliant to horrible; but I understand the sentiment from earlier writing. I suggest three things. 1) Treat yourself like a child, or at least like a ...
They have different sets of talents, different world views, different ways of handling crises. Yet despite all that sets them apart, they're the best of friends. Why are they the best of frie...
This is called the multi-paragraph quotation rule; see here: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/96608/why-does-the-multi-paragraph-quotation-rule-exist Also read the top accepted answer ...
I'm going to do something I swore I never would: I'm not going to answer the question. This is because I don't think you really need to get the reader to care for the dead character. Instead of ans...
Watch Thor: Ragnarok and pay attention to Jeff Goldbum's Grandmaster. I think he's the kind of archetype you're looking for. You want someone who is not actively malicious, but so self-involved as ...
In Jane Austen's novels, for example, it happens more than once that characters learn about an event second-hand: Darling, I've just heard that... Or It is only the desire to be useful th...
I think this is a matter of opinion; successful stories have been written that break all kinds of writing conventions. For my part, in particular for a beginning writer, I'd recommend sticking to...
Self-Defense, or Suicide. One way to do this is to make the hero killing the villain a matter of self-defense. Trap the villain, the hero would do the moral thing and take him alive, put him in a ...
Change one of your givens. Either change the plot to fit the character or change the character to fit the plot. It depends on which one is more important to you.
I'd say the way to make the villain sympathetic is to make him human. Someone who errs, someone who regrets things he's done, someone who isn't always up to his own standards. Look for example at K...
There are many possibilities of teams, in terms of number and group dynamics. You might want to look at TV Tropes: Power Trio, Four-Man Band and Five-Man Band for some fairly standard builds. Note,...
You approach a story with a message the same way you approach a story without one: To make it compelling you need a good plot, good twists, and a hero the audience is hoping will succeed despite th...
I am a professor and PhD that has been coding over 40 years. I'll restrict this comment to documenting code, which is different enough to warrant its own answer from a professional: I "grew up" (my...
Have a conversation first. Explain herself to her confidant, make it clear she IS a shapeshifter, and willing to prove it, until the person she is talking to demands a demonstration. Then provide ...
A compromise might be that you have a long and complicated name, but also have a common short abbreviation of that, which normally is used. For example, using your name: The city had the almost...
How do you start writing? You sit down and write. No matter how trite, no matter how derivative - you write. You give it your honest best effort. Then, the next day, you give what you've written an...
Past Commercial Success. Those ideas are called "tropes" or clichés; you can google for those; many TV tropes used. Steinbeck may have been the original author of that particular big-dumb, little...
Change the story more (as you have already begun; sidekick isn't always invulnerable). Give the sidekick damage points that he can't recover for some turns after a battle: This becomes a part of st...
