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I'm not well versed in technical writing. I'm probably not going to be in a position to give anyone feedback for some time, but I would like to know how to approach it when I get there. I would als...
For me, a short story is a story. It follows the three-act structure, but it requires some inventiveness to compress that into a short space; in some cases to a line or two. I don't care about met...
The creation of a good puzzle depends a lot on the specifics of the puzzle and your intended audience and medium of presentation. Let's take Puzzling.SE as an example, as you've used that in your q...
How many elements can you focus on during worldbuilding? From what I've gathered, it's either: Detail almost everything, Tolkien style, even if this delays enormously the publicatio...
I recently asked about criticism regarding short pieces of fiction. What about longer works like novels? Surely no one can sit down and agonize over individual word choices in a larger work the way...
There is an alternative that I see to the proposed answers. You can in fact use the proper names of items. Here's how. The first time the children encounter something they are unfamiliar with, the...
If I'm reading correctly, the crux of your issue is this: Eris is a girl, she forms a romantic attachment to a boy, the reader assumes she's straight. Later, when she forms a romantic attachm...
I wouldn't want a non-reader, I definitely want somebody that likes to read and gets immersed in fiction. But then, I wouldn't really care if they are a genre expert. A good story is a good story...
Research is vital if you want your story to succeed emotionally Imagine that you're writing a story about a horse race. Your protagonist's horse is in second place, just barely behind their arch-...
The other answers talk about how you can approach keeping the name, if you choose to do so. I'll chime in by saying the alternative isn't as bad as it seems. I have used my imagination to come...
I don't think readers are as conservative regarding genre as you make them out to be. Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is one very well known example of fantasy, with no elves, no dragons, and a...
There is no "too soon" or "to late" for a plot twist. It's important how it's executed. They way I would try to lead to this twist is to keep him shown as a good guy. In many stories, "good" guys k...
A while ago, I started writing a short story for a competition. It was supposed to be about four girls in a shared student apartment. The plan was to have everyone conflict with everyone until they...
My approach (which I have taken) would be to abandon that story, think much more about Cindy the Vampire, and write a story in which she is the sole hero, and her anger and explosions end up having...
Introduce the actual plot? You may or may not actually have a problem. You have a character who is inherently more interesting than the others, she will naturally dominate the part of the story fo...
How does one write a story for a story-based videogame. Is it done in the form of a screenplay? Is it written as any normal prose? Is it written as documentation that goes with the other early desi...
Without reading the other answers, my answer is that your premise is fine as long as you set the contract with the reader. The reader is fine with your premise if you do not promise a science-base...
I need to speak at the unveiling of a memorial plaque (this one, incidentally). I have an idea of what I want to say, and how I want to arrange it. My struggle is with the opening. I have spoken ...
First, consider the characteristics of the fantasy element in a world-building sense. Then you have a baseline understanding of what your dragon steak is like. You could do a one to one comparison....
If you can make a good case, you could potentially group the short stories by whatever common thread you want, including author. You can also subgroup them. Some examples: Main point in common: ...
This depends largely on the way existing documentation is written. Normally you have some kind of template that you can use for most documents. This template should illustrate how to cite external ...
Every non-fiction writer should have a blog covering the topics they write about. You are trying to establish yourself as an authority on the subject, an influencer of ideas and opinions, or a cura...
As a long-time blogger, I can say from experience: It's much harder to get any traction with an audience if you don't have a specific topic or theme. But it depends on what your goals for the blog...
My answer is that you should read widely and then write and cite, because you want the foundation you're building upon to be rock solid. The risk of writing first and inserting later (which is a co...
Use the actual text that you gave in the question in your story. You can either use it whole and then let the kids react to the event after the fact or you can break it up and show the kids' react...
