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The way to foreshadow something without giving it away is to use it to tell something else. If you tell there is a gun, people think it might be used to shoot someone. If you tell that a person is ...
There is nothing wrong with being black, and there is nothing wrong with saying that someone is black. If your character walks to a bench with an eldery black man sitting on it, write that your cha...
Chekhov's Gun takes many forms... I use Chekhov's Gun CONSTANTLY in my writing too. It has sort of gotten to a point of being excessive, actually. That said, I've learned quite quickly that Chekho...
If it's not important to the plot, setting, or characterization Then don't mention it. Mention relevant details, whether those are age, gender, mean- or friendly-looking, etc. If it does matter t...
In essence, you've got two elements to balance: the fantasy, and the cooking. So let's look at them separately first. Cooking: The recipes need to work. Recipes that mean nothing can be a fun gi...
I know one couple - delightful folks with lovely kids; he is an American from Kentucky who was a chemical physicist. He sold cars in my town and I asked him why the career change. He told me he met...
This is NOT a great or complete answer, just the start of one, as it's been unanswered for a bit. https://www.statista.com/statistics/288746/global-book-market-by-region/ and https://www.statista....
More than one author has struggled with the same problem before. There is a Russian children's story about a dog named 'Shoo' - the dog has been shooed so many times, that by the time it was adopte...
I would agree with Bella Swan - you can just call him 'the boy' unless there are other characters present who would fit that description. The Road manages to get away with this beautifully for an ...
The important word here is "the." All of us use "the" to reference people whose names we don't know. We'd never say "the nameless person." Instead, we talk about "the waiter" or "the bus driver"...
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....
What you may be looking for is an anthology. Anthologies are similar to magazines and, in some cases, may overlap. But they have significant differences and are often done by different types of p...
A number of works of Fantasy have been basically structured as classic mysteries. Randal Garret's "Lord Darcy" series, particularly the novel Too Many Magicians comes to mind. That is a murder mys...
Overdoing it is worse than underdoing it. This isn't a complete answer, but remember that Christians are, before anything else, people. Yes, they might see the world differently, but then again, n...
Write. What. You. Know. This has been said so many times that nobody hears it anymore, but it that is because it is true. You cannot make a story engaging that you don't know in a deep and real w...
"Is there some way to measure whether our own application of rule-breaking is done well?" Yes, that tool is called readers. Give your writing to a number of critical readers and see what they say.
The padlock is easy - have the housemate ride a bike and have them chain it up for security when they go somewhere. In this case you don't even need to mention the padlock - having the roommate be...
Firstly, once a reader completes both the sections, your timeline will automatically become clear. So, since the beginning(Common event) and ending(Minor character meeting MC) of the timeline are w...
Christianity is enormously broad and most Christians know little about it. Christianity is so broad that unless your character is meant to hold a special position within a specific Church that it ...
Interweave the 2 initial stories that happen simultaneously - short chapters, place 1 chapter 1, place 2 chapter 2, place 1 chapter 3, etc... Potentially have an event that winds through the activ...
I'm a white Baptist who is married to a black Baptist, so if you have specific questions about the sort of things we say and do, maybe I can help. :-) What you describe is an example of a problem ...
It seems to me that the sort of faux deus ex machina described in the question is perfectly acceptable. As to whether it works for readers, or is sufficiently foreshadowed, that requires reading th...
Sounds like an interesting premise. I’d probably like that story for my Jewish family; it sounds like you acknowledge some realities of Jewish life in America that a lot of fiction is ambivalent a...
It depends on if you want to be precise or abstract. If you want to be precise, proper notation (abc, 123) is the way to go, but this may lose your readers if they are unfamiliar with the notation...
Growing up in Israel, I am surrounded by Jews. Interacting with Christian acquaintances, and reading literature written by religious Christians, there are a few things I noticed - things that stood...
