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Writing is not real life. It is words on a page arranged to produce an effect, express a truth, or meet any of the many other possible goals of writing. So neither the non-naturalistic eloquence ...
Short answer: break where it makes sense. Some points at which breaks are traditionally made or ways to define breaks include: change of site, the place the action is taking place changes. chang...
I understand you have short and long chapters. How about splitting the longer ones into several smaller chapters? The only rules I can come up with for chapters are: The reader uses them as a "...
Your first step is to decide on the levels of division. What is a first level division, a second level division, etc.? Once you've done that, you need to decide what to call them. You have many opt...
If the idea is to have battles with a medieval feel, then the choice lies on Epitoma rei militaris by P. Vegati Renati (now better known as Vegetius). While Rome produced many excellent military ...
My current work is one where there are no heroes, no villains - just people doing things. I have characters remark that good versus evil is a naive concept. They go on to explain that so called vil...
I'm going to focus on one single point: self-doubt. I suffer from self-doubt a lot, so I have come across a strategy to control it. What if I am really not that good, what if I am simply an acu...
There's nothing wrong with the word erotica. That's exactly how it's categorized in bookstores, where it's publicly displayed and not considered something to be hidden from anyone. [Merriam-Web...
"I write stories for adults only." or "I write erotica." It all works. There's enough out there that is NC-17 or even a hard R, or the book/TV/comic equivalent, that people get it if y...
You cannot randomly change POV in the middle of a paragraph just to get in that one critical snipe at your main character. You can have a scene break (usually two returns, to create white space) ...
Several thoughts to consider: There is no reason to expect an agent's opinion to be a better assessment of your writing than a beta reader's opinion. Agents are business people. They pay their m...
What techniques can I use to ensure my characters talk in a way that's neither too bookish, nor too literal? Read more! Read books written in a plain style, with no purple prose or that rely a...
My first answer perhaps did not set enough context or was too written in shorthand. Let's see if this performs any better. Avoiding cliches when writing gods requires not relying too much on exis...
You may want some of the traditional gods. War is pretty much a universal in human culture, as is love, brotherly love, luck, sexual attraction, in some forms "good" and "evil", death, birth, hunti...
Similarities are not the same as cliches. Various pantheons have a lot of overlap because they draw on universal aspects of humanity. Food. Fire. Home. Love. Children (and childbearing). Pro...
It's often a question of perception. Cultural expectations play a crucial role, because if in the culture the woman must kowtow to a man, then it doesn't matter what she does, if it isn't utter sub...
If you are following the design of classical civilisations and their pantheons, then it's worth considering two things. Firstly, the culture you're creating with inform how Gods with similar roles...
DPT and Sara Costa have provided great points. (Sara beat me by 4 minutes!) Having the characters interact with the setting is a way to make it matter for the scene. Most of the time when I see th...
You can do it in exposition, but in general if I find a conversation that requires exposition or background to proceed, it is a signal that the writer is "rushing to drama". The solution is previou...
I, and all of the others who might answer this question, are flying blind without knowing all of the details. Oh, well, I probably would be confused anyway. I too struggle with the show-rather-tha...
I'm a professional scientist; my point of view might help. The only way I can think of is to approach it analytically. Body language is a language you don't know. There are books on it, some contra...
"Show don't tell" is a general rule which basically means: immerse your readers in your story. It's not meant literally (as others have pointed out) and it doesn't just apply to body language. Fo...
Writing isn't really about showing what character's feel. It's about making the reader feel. You could even have a cold-hearted unfeeling robot (Terminator?), as long as that character makes your ...
You say other's emotions are clear to you when people are giving verbal hints about them - when they're saying "this is fascinating" etc. This is one tool you could use in your writing. You can hi...
A resumé is telling a potential employer what you can do. A CV is you showing a potential employer what you have done. To use an entertainment analogy, if someone were casting for a new part in a ...
