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Yes, you're totally fine. If your tense shift happens between paragraphs — that is, the new tense starts a new paragraph — it should be clear what's happening. If this is a first-person narrative a...
This is the same problem that experts always have when trying to explain their field to the general public. My advice is: don't be such a purist. I develop software for a living. Computer systems...
Realism is just a style --you're trying to give readers the feel and the flavor of this character, not give them an exact transcription of what his actual thoughts would be. That gives you several...
Your MC reminds of of Roland Deschain from Steven King's Dark Tower series. He was born in a world that had it's faults but which was generally stable and peaceful. Then the world "moved on" desp...
Have you considered telling both stories at the same time? Alternate chapters between the old and the new world. How the two worlds are related to each other can be left open in the beginning and ...
I have frequently made use of a systematic approach to story writing and structuring that can be scaled reasonably well against a few writing styles. I've found that applying the concept has made t...
You should definitely tell the story you want to tell, and not some backstory that leads up to it. You are not starting your story at the point that would make sense if you were writing a comprehen...
Love Galastel's answer. There's an anecdote out there about some writer or other asking an audience for five items that could not possibly be worked into a good story, with the challenge that he ...
The superficial problem is whether the readers will care about this character, but the deeper problem is YOU don't care about him. You even describe him as "it" --there's no emotional investment h...
Yes, you should cite it, particularly if the data you downloaded might be wrong. But either way, the data is the product of their work and you shouldn't take any implied credit for it. You should ...
I'd leave it G. The letter G is pronounced the way you want it to be pronounced, so it's clear. If your test readers find it confusing (which I doubt they will), you could use some exposition the f...
Depending on the style you're aiming for, just use the single letter. For example, in Franz Kafka's novel The Trial (Der Prozess), the protagonist's name is Josef K. Throughout the novel, he is si...
A friend of mine is actually called Ge, but internationally she is known as 'G'. If you are not happy with just a single letter to indicate this character, you can go for a two letter 'name' that e...
You could try changing the font and see how that feels, like as a cursive G, or try using bold, italic or other denotation. If one doesn't feel good about something that they write, that's a good i...
Give him another love. Does he have a girlfriend back in Russia? A fiancée? A wife? In any case, this is one of the aspects of his life that he struggles with (will he ever see her again? Does...
I am not aware of a "common practice" - writers are fickle beasts who tend to disregard rules. But there's nothing that says the progression of your story needs to be "linear unless marked otherwis...
Why don't you make a large age difference between the soldier and the nurse? Like, a big age difference. Otherwise, what if the nurse just isn't into your soldier? What if he chews too loudly and ...
I will answer this question quoting Neil Gaiman. Here is his complete answer to the question "where do you get your ideas?". A particularly relevant excerpt: You get ideas from daydreaming. You...
You could give the nurse a face that is well within the feminine range of faces, but reminds the soldier of a man that he knows very well. At one of my assignments in the military there was a fema...
What is your book about, really? Not "a Devon village". Is it about relationships? Is it about the skeletons in people's closets? Is it about the tiny day-to-day bits of kindness people do for each...
After successfully using disposable fountain pens for nearly two years, I switch to a dip pen. When you consume a pen a week, the main reason was a question of costs and pollution. A dip pen has t...
... an entire species in a fictional setting as outright evil - no matter how one treats them, they reward kindness with treachery and violence. This premise seems incomplete to me, and unnece...
Remember the proverb "Everyone is the hero in his own story." They might be evil from your point of view, but you need to make sure that their actions are guided by reason, even if it might be mis...
While some Degenerated humans retain enough humanity to even be sympathetic characters, with their "king" being a polite, idealistic and moralistic individual who wants to rid eradicate every fo...
You have finished most of your novella, but need two more chapters If you are struggling when you are about to end the book, you should give yourself a pat on the back, and also give yourself more...
