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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...
+1 Henry's answer. For an alternative approach, rely on the elements of structure; the three act structure specifically, and pace your writing accordingly. Use 30% for the first act. 1500 words. ...
My approach to this, which I stole from other authors, is to not worry about time or space and describe the action of the accident in detail, use as much space as you want. There is an actual real...
Many media from 1920s-1977 copyright law change had DIFFERENT rules for copyright. Post 1977, works were automatically granted copyright upon creation. Before then, works HAD to be registered and...
Leave it in. I am a former professor. In academics "different fields" is ambiguous, and has been used to indicate entire other fields of study: Like perhaps electrical engineering and circuit desi...
All the answers you received are great. From your MC's POV when he first sees someone with seven fingers, you could just say: The Main Character watched the man close the distance between them. Whe...
The simple answer is that you don't. You don't tell the reader anything that is not needed to support the plot of theme of the story. There are a lot of people who enjoy world building as a hobby...
I am now editing for adverbs, as silly as that may sound to some people. :-) I have learned, 'by ear', that the advice to 'avoid adverbs' is actually not bad advice. But I am also learning that cer...
An easy way to get names is to first define a few characteristics about the person you want to name. Are they: humble? fast? strong? reliable? tall? tiny? beautiful? Then enter these words into...
I want to write a religion similar to Christianity but with God represented as feminine. It is meant to highlight the differences between the sexes and emphasise traits associated with women over m...
One thing I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned is the architect-gardener distinction. I get the impression your current writing style is that of the gardener, meaning you see what happens ...
Your basic strategy is the same as that of any magician: misdirection. Drop the clues while the characters, and hopefully the reader, is paying attention to something more interesting. A typical ...
The cause of your problem is difficult to diagnose on the information given, so I'll explore a few possibilities. You'll need to experiment to see what helps you. Do you have access to what you wr...
Generally, trios work because a trio follows an Id-Ego-Superego dynamic. Two better display it, I'll swap out characters for two famous fictional trios: Repsectively, this can be the McCoy(Bones)...
"Use the present tenses when discussing events in literary works" I don't know where you got this from, but it is not true. The default for stories is to tell them in the past tense, or to be more ...
Describe them once, as that character's standard approach, or usual caution, or something similar to that, a specific word or few words that identifies this whole thing that will be repeated often....
How can one establish the nature of a person/group to the reader without relying on actions to 'show' it? For example, if I have a group which is evil, how could I convey that to the reader without...
The best way to show a character is to get in their head. If your writing style permits it you can let us know what they are thinking. What qualities do they consider virtues? what qualities are fl...
Let's talk about butts, because butts are safe, but really this question is for other parts of the anatomy as well. There are 100s of words for butt. They seem to fall into one of a few categories...
It's very important to show users what they should not do and even more important is to explain why they should not do this. Think of a kid: you tell it not to touch the hot surface. ... Guess w...
I've been struggling with this as well, @Keker. I'd ask you this: Would you describe all sections of your manuscript as childish? Are some better and more mature in style than others? This thought...
Is it legitimate (acceptable) to use a 3rd person POV approach with the narration intentionally being a bit wobbly? I'm using an alternating 3rd person POV structure. One character (Let's call he...
The approach I have taken is to be aware of that possibility - of becoming contaminated. I would argue - You want to be contaminated by good style. You want to write your own ideas in your own v...
One of the questions to be asked first is why is the character there? Someone just arriving at a new place for a business chat with the occupant is not going to observe the place the same way an in...
The most obvious, simplest and platform-independent way to achieve your request is to format the blog title entries as: YYYY-MM-DD : title Another alternative is to alter the publication date...
