Posts by Dale Hartley Emery
Focus on the character's reactions in that moment, given his intention and state of mind as he enters that environment. Different characters would likely attend to different details, and would rea...
See if you can add a twist. One time Harlan Ellison wrote: She looked like a million bucks. Realizing what a horrible cliche that was, he changed it: She looked like a million bucks, tax ...
The choice of "mom" or "mother" or some other word helps to characterize the narrator. They differ in formality, and perhaps other attributes. This offers an interesting opportunity: Your characte...
Use the main character's own viewpoint as a guide. They will have a reaction to the name, and to being given the new name. They will make meaning of it. They will attach some significance to it. T...
The interest, I think, will be in the context around the game: What's at stake for her? What makes this game so important to her? What makes it so important now? Who is her opponent? What's at st...
A 100,000 word manuscript in standard format would be 400 pages long. At $300/page, the cost for this editor would be $120,000. Yuh. That's high. I'm guessing that your friend heard the editor's...
People who are way more successful than I am tell me this: Once you've published approximately ten books, your sales go way up. The reason is that you now have ten ways for people to discover you....
I highly recommend The Copyright Handbook by NOLO Press. It is very readable, and structured so that you can get either a quick overview or a more thorough understanding, depending on your needs.
Most of the time, it's important that the outcome — good or bad — follow from the main character's actions. If the outcome is determined by chance or randomness or coincidence, it's less likely to ...
A key feature of written fiction is that we're not limited to two senses (sight and sound) the way film is. We writers can give the reader access to three additional senses, plus the internal exper...
I can see several possibilities here: Don't worry about it. Perhaps your "overuse" of these words is simply part of your style. Or perhaps it isn't overuse at all. Ask a few good readers to read ...
Pick three or four third person scenes that you like from other writers. Type about 500 words of each into your word processor, using whatever format you normally use for manuscripts. As you type ...
I don't know a lot of writers who write out of order. But Kristine Kathryn Rusch does, and her writing is awesome wins lots of awards in multiple genres. You will likely need some skill at gluing ...
I think there are two questions here. The first (the OSC one) is about the helpfulness of a given writer's advice on writing fiction. The second (the Paolini one), if I understand it right, is abou...
It depends who will use the word. If it's one character talking or thinking about another, it's a great word, and will help to characterize both characters in one swell foop. It will also trigger m...
Lots of writers start writing with no idea where it will go, much less how it will end. Dean Wesley Smith has a book about that, called Writing Into the Dark. On the other hand, I once heard Richa...
Editors often reject stories for reasons that have nothing to do with the “quality” of the story (whatever that might mean). A few weeks ago I watched seven editors select stories for anthologies....
In general (and in your question and example) it makes the text feel friendlier and more conversational. In some contexts, a more conversational tone can make your ideas less persuasive. Whether i...
Placeholders. (I'm explicitly focusing on my own reaction on this first point, because what I'm saying is very much a matter of personal taste.) I shudder at the idea of leaving placeholders in a m...
Partly it depends on whose idea of quality you want to enforce. If you want to enforce your own personal idea of quality, you will have to involve yourself personally in selecting writers and stori...
A different bullet to consider biting: Remove all of the headings. That gives the conclusion equal standing with the other parts. Now all that's left (hah!) is to mark the transitions.
These two examples make the scene more specific in a particular way: By adding modifiers. In these cases: By adding adverbial phrases. Your temptation to add the modifiers is telling you somethin...
Usually a prologue is outside the main flow of the story in some way: Tease with an out-of-sequence scene. The prologue might tease us by previewing a pivotal scene that will occur later in the m...
If your change solves a problem that previously had no solution, there are likely people who have a stake in preserving the problem. If your change solves a problem better than some previous solut...
There are few guides specifically for novels, but there are numerous books about story structure for screenwriters: The Anatomy of Story by John Truby. This is my favorite of the bunch. He descri...
