Posts by dmm
"The principle of keeping nouns and verbs as close to each other as possible for the benefit of readers has many benefits" That has 6 prepositions. Replace with: Don't separate subjects a...
The short answer to your general question is "no." If the subsection is titled the same as the section, then either one of them is named incorrectly or else your outline is incorrect. An outline ...
Agree with "cut the Gordian knot" answers recommending you change your lead-in to the quote so you don't have to change the quote. The problem with that solution is that you can't always do it. S...
The writers Margaret Mitchell, John Irving, Graham Greene, Mickey Spillane, Richard Peck, Edgar Allan Poe, J.K. Rowling, and Agatha Christie all famously write/wrote their endings first, according ...
You only have to watch Downton Abbey to realize that the 1920s were a period of rapid social upheaval in the UK. Some people clung to the old ways with a death-grip; others cast aside all conventi...
Unless your hero's enemies are all intensely stupid, he and his companions will be totally unarmed, and will have been carefully searched for anything valuable. Really, unless your goblins are nob...
I just finished "The House of the Seven Gables" by Hawthorne. I was struck by how often he switched tenses. Mostly the narration was in past tense, but then he would switch to present or even fut...
Adding to the answer by @laurenipsum: Her answer applies also to an original that is out of copyright. For example, anybody can make any story they want using the original characters and setting f...
Foreshadowing occurs even in real life. Suppose you know some 10-year-old who is mouthy and disrespectful to adults, including his own parents. You say to yourself, "He'll turn out badly." You'r...
Your main problem/complaint seems to be that your thoughts don't automatically organize themselves. Take comfort. You are normal. Try the following (in order): 1) First, just get ideas down. ...
I beg to differ with you. For lack of a better all-inclusive word, I call all of that "writing." The actual setting-down of the words is just one part of writing. And even once that is done, you...
1) If the ? is for yourself, then use two in row, which would never show up in regular text. That way you can search for them before submitting. 2) If the ? is for the reader, then I'd say never ...
How about Powerpoint (or similar)? Advantage over word-processors is you have "slides" that you can move about. Slides can contain pictures or text. You can label each slide with a large label. ...
Use text-to-speech software. It's available on almost every computer nowadays, for free. The advantage of this is that the computer is stupid and will read whatever you have written, even if it m...
I'm hoping those weren't restaurant reviews! Also, IMHO, your phrase is a nod to Tolkien, a literary allusion. That is not plagiarism, any more than it would be plagiarism to say at the end of ...
Several possibilities: 1) Your (second set of?) questions turned out to be more time-consuming than the responders thought they would be, based on your original contact. So, they don't want to do...
"Love Story" by Erich Segal. (Book and movie) "The Way We Were" (movie only) "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell (book and movie) "Romeo and Juliet" by...really, I could have just led wit...
The web has lots of research trade e-zines, with articles written by and for laymen, that would help you. Then there are magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Also magazines like ...
NOT your personal favorites (subjective)! The best-sellers (objective). Group book series together. Anyone know? Educated guesses are OK, but documented answers are preferred. For example, I'm...
Maybe I don't understand, but (I think) the whole point of a Guardian is that they DON'T change, they DON'T undergo a journey. At least, classically. The hero is the one who changes, who undergoe...
More specifically: Two of my book series' main characters are (temporarily) diplomats. It's unavoidable to the progress of the plot. But diplomacy is inherently slow and boring. So, the general ...
When you're done the outline, send it to me. If it's good, I'll steal it. Haha, just kidding, but seriously don't work for a year on an awesome detailed outline and then show it to just anybody o...
I despise "his or her." It's so bad, it should be unconstitutional. Randomly switching "his" and "her" from sentence to sentence is almost as bad. If you're making a general statement, and you t...
I always thought there was a distinction between POV and narration. You can have 1st-person POV with either 1st-person narration or 3rd-person narration. So I think the discussions here (http://f...
I can get the data for ALL books. But can anyone direct me to regular/ebook purchasing data broken down by genre (specifically sci-fi)?
