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While it's going to vary between readers whether it bothers them or not I have to say I'm firmly in the camp that it can ruin immersion. I'm not too worried about whether I "pronounce" a name "co...
I don't think strange names break immersion; I think names that cannot be sounded out (correctly or not) break immersion. "Hermione" can be sounded out. "J'xyx'brtl" is too hard to sound out, and ...
For symbols to work, they need to be understood. Think of symbols as a language; if you speak the language, and the readers speak the same language, everything's good. If, however, you speak the la...
This is a chart of the stars in the Ursa Major: And here, straight out from Wikipedia, is an explanation of the name "Tania Borealis", given to the star also known as Lambda Ursae Majoris: I...
In human languages, most translations of the Earth are just "the Earth", or "the World", or "the Land". Once in a while, you will find a proper name ("Gaia") of a God, or a reference to a God ("God...
We cannot tell you what to write or help you brainstorming - that's your task as a writer. However, we can try to assist you with how to brainstorm. It is very helpful, looking at a situation, to ...
As far is legal rights are concerned, no, names generated by a generator are not copyrighted, nothing similar. Consider: a random string generator producing random letter combinations of random len...
I find them helpful, but often wrong. I used one that has different ethnic groups to get ideas for names. Always always Google the name that comes up. Some of the "girl names" turned out to be...
I imagine that there is a broader issue with the style of such summaries. I'd suggest reading abstracts from articles on the subject. The journal typically imposes a strict limit on the number of w...
People who call themselves experts aren't usually experts. Those bloggers bragging about how they just put a book on Amazon and it sells like gangbusters? They're leaving out part of the process....
NOTE: I am answering the original question about surprise endings. As a general rule, surprises and twists are welcome. Readers enjoy predicting the outcome and we don't always like to be right. ...
Using semordnilaps is indeed common enough. TV tropes refers to this trope as "Sdrawkcab Name". You can follow the link for multiple examples across media. A particularly known example is 'Alucard'...
You're the writer, you can do whatever you want. It's common to use symbols to refer to people, places, things, and so on. The question you want to ask yourself is, does your reader know what t...
It all depends on your perspective. Yes, some elements of the author's life, personality and way of seeing things make their way into their writing. No, a work of fiction is not a biography of its ...
Yes. If it's done well (which is going to be harder than it looks), it can work. A narrator with opinions isn't so uncommon (The Book Thief is a good example) but characters that talk back, well ...
It's a bit dicey. You'd have to have a good reason for it. If Preston's POV is in the present, but Paola's POV is in the past, is the story happening in Preston's time? Is Paola relating things ...
It's not dissimilar to an employee. If you work for the government or a large entity, you represent them at all times when on the job (and sometimes when off work too). You have a set of beliefs ...
One of the purposes of punctuation is to tell you when to breathe. Imagine that you are an actor, speaking these lines out loud. Not just the dialogue, but the entire story. Will you speak each ...
If this is your first attempt, then you actually you don't need anything special, just behavioural loops. Even one would suffice. Your character will start as fully circling in one loop. As they ...
Persistence. That is the only personality trait that seems essential to a main character. They don't give up; at least not permanently. Their goals may change, they may face the inevitable and eve...
Short answer: J.K. Rowling claims never to have read a fantasy book in her life, and she did just fine. For that matter, J.R.R. Tolkien hadn't read much fantasy either. Long answer: who considers ...
I notice the books you don't like you consider "too long", "too long for something to happen", "too boring"... Despite you saying you like characters, longer books without much happening are likel...
It's impossible to know if you've crossed the line because all we see is a summary. The summary sounds pretty brutal, but it's the execution that matters. Yes, some books are hard to read. So mu...
It would be a bad thing if you hated the genre overall. Or if you looked down on it. I will never understand people who want to write something they distain because they think it's "easy" or wher...
This is a matter of opinion; personally I don't find it sexist. People have genders, and sexual orientations, and they have to mix. We stray into sexism when we pile up too many tropes. In your c...
