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No information source is entirely trustworthy. But for purposes of citation, we need to distinguish three kinds of information: evidence, interpretation, and reporting. Evidence is the original d...
I think confusion takes time to portray, and I would do this in dialogue; a kind of argument. He told me he worked at NASA. NASA. He must be kidding. I said, "What? You hated science! Math...
Try to think of that whiny voice you told to shush up ten times a day. Usually, six year olds wouldn't have a good vocabulary, so change the words so that they sound normal, and not that smart. For...
Usually if you're confused, you would most likely do the following: Act weird (He told me he currently worked at NASA. "Huh? Oh y-yeah. T-that's nice. H-how is the um.. The job?) Look confused (D...
If anything kept me awake at night (and some things have) I'd presume it was likely real trouble. Look for groups or websites online that deal with the topics that interest you. If you can't find ...
The only thing you can do is to read and write, but reading will help the most. In order to learn something, you need to keep it in your head. Say you're learning piano. You need to keep learning n...
What I would do, would be to write down every basic event, and then on top write which event in which chapter. So it would be like this: Chapter 1: -Event 1 -Event 2 -Event 3 Chapter 2: -Event 1 ...
If part of your editing is checking continuity, it becomes difficult to search through 20 separate files for previous mentions of "Allen" to see if his hair (or lack of it) has been mentioned befor...
I'd consider a chapter either a "movement" in a story, or a setting in a story (and sometimes it is both). A "movement" is when a character (or more than one) goes from one governing mental state ...
A story should finish what it starts. You control what, exactly, you choose to start. If you're not going to be finishing a murder mystery with a solution, you need to be careful not to set the st...
People are unlikeable when they harm others (emotionally or physically) for their own gain (financially or emotionally; e.g. they may just enjoy hurting people). A psychopath/sociopath harms other...
Tension in a conversation is created by disagreement, rejection of arguments, attitude (hatred, resentment), misunderstanding, confusion, attempts to convince or sway somebody that fall on deaf ear...
I would echo part of Myron's answer. I have a highly trained close combat martial artist in one of my stories. I personally only have a year of martial arts training, but I know enough about it and...
It depends upon the content of the letter. Just "Thanks," alone can sound off key if there is nothing obvious for which thanks to the reader is warranted, or too light-hearted when providing serio...
Another way to improve your article is peer editing. Ask your friend or family to take a look at your article and see if you can improve on anything.
I don't think there is a strong commercial reason. YA with YA protagonists is a commercial audience, but note it is also an audience heavily influenced by parents, that want fantasy for their "comi...
Change the pace throughout the fight Most fight scenes that use hand-to-hand combat, swords, daggers and the like change their pace a few times. For example you could start slow with the opponents...
I wouldn't worry much about style, I strongly disagree with your critic. I wouldn't say there is a "most important component" because there are a few elements that must be there no matter what. T...
I hate the word hook (in this context, it is useful for talking about fishing). It implies some kind of violent capture (fishing again). Who wants to be hooked? Fish? Drug addicts? The problem wi...
First, I would not say a hook has to be in the first 300 words (a normal published page is about 250 words). Anybody that picks up a book with the intent of reading it will give you more credit tha...
A hook is something that catches your reader in the first moments and continues to reel them in at a differing pace throughout your work. That's about it. The first page, if not the first coupl...
Well, to start with, what you are describing is not subtlety. Subtlety is paying attention to the small but significant details of something -- making a subtle point or a subtle distinction. What...
Physical measurements seldom make any difference to the plot, and (IMO) it is an amateur mistake to imagine any character, male or female, with too specific a set of measurements. Breast size, hip...
I think it is some kind of directorial or camera direction, and I don't recognize it as a standard one. If it is what I think it means, you are directing, and wasting a line (which counts as time i...
Keep in mind basic sexual psychology differences between men and women. It depends on the era, and culture. With the caveat that nothing applies to everybody and you can find some 15% of just abou...
