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"Conflict" should be present throughout the book on every page, in this sense: the reader wants to know what is about to happen next. Not for the entire book, but they want to read the next three m...
The other answers to this thread say not to sweat it and just write a beginning to get off the ground. I'm a heavy plotter myself, so I wouldn't be comfortable taking that advice. Instead, once I h...
This feels like a classic example of telling rather than showing. Think about it. In both of your examples, the narrator is telling things to the reader. There's no real story going on there; it's...
There are many styles of story-telling. Consider, for example, the start of the Lord of the Rings: Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, e...
I disagree with the premise -- Mostly I disagree. I think this is a matter of opinion. I think like the use of a pet word, using the dash can be overdone, but the error is in using it to the point...
I'm generally much more messy with my editing than @Fayth85, (I mean, I do not have a procedure, an order of editing things - I just take care of whatever doesn't feel right,) and I do quite a bit ...
The most famous example of what you're describing is Sherlock Holmes, told of course from Dr. Watson's POV. Watson never becomes the protagonist of the story - the focus is always on Holmes, Watson...
I know we don't like link-only answers, but pitching and finding agents in the film industry is far more than can be told in an answer on this forum. I highly recommend you look into the courses o...
While a 100% certain answer would require comparing fonts until an exact match is found, I believe the font Calibri is very close to what you are looking for. It is not the exact font, as the g's a...
I think you're holding magazines to a very high bar here! F&SF and Clarkesworld are pretty amazing, but there are so many reasons for submissions to get replies more slowly than that -- and wha...
I would chalk this up to common human nature, and F&SF and Clarkesworld as uncommon expertise and/or resources. On the common side, without being pejorative, what is not punished (financially...
How can I write a male-dominated culture without implicitly supporting it? As I often say here in Writing, it is important for nearly all of what you write to have consequences, some effect on...
While there are injustices in every society, and the rich and strong oppress the poor and weak in every society (including our own), current ideas about what is biased or unfair treatment can't be ...
Historically, occidental cultures were not as biased against women as you might think. Look, for example, at this source on trial by combat between men and women. It suggests that at least some wom...
Speaking as a professor, I have frequently been a judge (one of five for my field) for our annual poster contest (all sciences) in which students produce a poster describing their research, suitabl...
This is really the number one advice I can give anybody entering creative competitions: Learn how the competition works. Every competition has rules. Wordcount; formatting; themes. Some of them...
TL;DR: Your story will inevitably be compared to Harry Potter purely because of how iconic and influential it is within the "magical school" genre, but I definitely wouldn't say it's too similar. ...
There is a very simple rule here: don't describe emotions; create them. You are creating an experience for the reader. If you describe emotions, you are creating a clinical experience, one that is ...
You can manage four goals, but they must be useful to the plot. So your overall arc is "growing up", selfish kid to mature adult, along with "coming of age" (sexual maturity). The examples you ha...
I don't think it is fair. Writing the thoughts of several characters in a single scene is generally called "third person omniscient", writing the thoughts of ONE person only is "third person limite...
Watch much less TV and read far more books. TV/Movie storytelling is different from book storytelling. If you are thinking in terms of facial expressions, your storytelling apparatus is running in ...
I am a fan of questioning your givens. You don't want to kill anyone? Fine. But what plot point is served by having your characters physically injured? Does it remove them from the action? Have ...
Given Joan of Arc and Loki on the stage, your setting is modern-day magical, you have a 600+ year old woman and a God. The reader will consider it a rip-off, a bait-and-switch if you don't reveal t...
Similes are like the Reddit 50/50 challenge: you either get something very good, or your eyes will melt off. This is an example of the second variety. ;) Several things need to be true of a s...
It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know that ain't so. --Mark Twain. I think the best way to defeat a mastermind is to plant a seed and do it early; no matter how smart som...
