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I myself have been criticised on at least one occasion for using too many semicolons in my writing. I hadn't noticed at the time, but I really was overusing them. It's one of the quirks of my writi...
A juvenile, in human terms, typically refers to a post-pubescent child that is too young for adult responsibilities. In our culture such people are aware of adult themes (sexuality, pornography, p...
The overwhelming concern of the child is to be noticed by adults. It is a constant stream of "look at me, daddy", "look at me, mommy", "look at me, grandpa". Kids act out in school, in public, at t...
There are two possibilities, I see, and only one is avoidable. The first is, when I experience this (and I do fairly frequently), it is because I am tired (not fresh to the job in the morning) and ...
Updates are generally at the beginning, but different styles are possible The thing about updates in texts is that there are different ways you can do them and none of them is correct or incorrect...
Call them air quotes. Enclose in single quotes, you can emphasize it with further characterization. "She said she was 'devastated'," Julie said, with air quotes. "Right, right? Because I thought, t...
You're overthinking it Adverbs are, on the surface, not bad. Without them, certain sentences and phrases wouldn't sound right, and we couldn't convey what we wanted to. You're finding this out wi...
No. They are often left off, if the context makes it clear who is talking. If I only have Mike and Nancy in a scene: "I had ice cream at lunch," Mike said. "I thought we agreed we would ha...
I question whether a publisher is going to produce a book using a custom font. The complications of making sure such a book was formatted correctly on all possible digital devices don't seem worth ...
I would tell someone about the story. Tell your partner or friend or your writing group. Just be sure to do it in writing. Or record your voice if you prefer that. Email, text message, handwrit...
I'm going to answer your question by telling you about a nearly identical experience I had. I get myself fired up to write by going to YouTube and searching for 'epic music mix'. There are severa...
If they do not accept reprints, that means they are seeking first publication rights -- they're only looking to buy a story if they can be the first to publish it. The thing is, any sufficiently p...
Brace yourself for some serious realigning of your expectations. 5,000-word stories are their own form, and knowing what you've realistically got space for is crucial to using the form well. A goo...
Your initial instinct is correct; who cares? My advice is to re-read some best selling popular fiction. Stephen King, JK Rowling, Orson Scott Card, Dan Brown, or others you like. But switch off ...
Your MC does not exactly have to have weaknesses, the main thing is that she has problems. She can also have negative emotions. Her problems have to be big enough that she struggles against them ...
Not necessarily It completely depends on your writing style and on how often you are doing this. There is nothing inherently wrong in using the same word twice in a couple of sentences. Sometimes ...
You can use the right word repeatedly in the course of several sentences as long as it is the right word in each case. There was a writing school fashion a while back for using as much vocabulary a...
I think it weakens the prose, unless it is clearly intentional ("he had a big head, big teeth, a big nose, a big attitude.") In your example, "sleek" is not a very precise description, to me. The ...
It will probably distract quite a few people I would certainly be distracted by this and search for the words the author really meant, probably without even realizing that this is intentional. M...
Drawn out, most likely. In special circumstances one chapter could be enough. If you are introducing something like this, it shouldn't be "filler", it should have something to do with the story. I...
Obviously, if the title is "The Neurotypical Tyranny", you are not starting out "neutral". :-) I wouldn't try. My grandson is autistic, and (contrary to most fiction) no superpowers in the mental ...
It might make more sense if you did the same thing, but shorten the chapters so the alternation is faster, event by event. Basically, "here is what Mike saw" then "here is what Nancy saw" for the t...
Does someone need to physically die? No. This is going to depend on how you choose to write the story. Most villains are written in a way that their death is the only way to prevent them fr...
I've read a lot of novels were a very likeable character is introduced just to vanish and reappear at another time. It's pretty normal; after all, you have to tell a story, and in most stories, not...
It can be done. If I were doing this, I'd use a character with some skill set that doesn't apply for most of the book; my break-in specialist, the dragon tamer, the assassin, a pilot, etc. So it m...
