Posts by James
Some of the best books I read have a heap of metaphors, awesomely describing the characters' surroundings or the characters themselves. My creativity appears to be limited in metaphors. I want to a...
You cannot have a novel without an antagonist. An antagonist comes in two forms: A physical antagonist: a person with a grudge against your protagonist, who will do whatever it takes to overcome t...
Aim for as few errors as possible. Editors and publishers may overlook the very occasional error, but not if they see five a page. Get your manuscript proofread as much as possible before you send ...
If it works, of course you can do it. It isn't the most common thing that happens in novels, but I've seen it before, although that was in an anime. However, there should be a good reason for kill...
This is more commonly known as 'writer's block', and the solution is simple: Write about something else, on a separate piece of paper (or separate file if you're typing). Write about whatever comes...
Be careful with stereotypes. While us guys will, for whatever reason, go for the hottest-looking girl around, fictional or not, it may offend most female readers, especially if the stereotypes you ...
I have started writing a novel. I've done some character questionnaires for my main characters, and I've outlined the plot. I want to do this planning to keep my story from fizzling out, but I don'...
I have a chapter outline for the novel series I'm writing, and I have a few 'blank' chapters where I don't know what to write in them. I need to do something quickly, because I've started writing t...
My novel technically has two inciting incidents: One in the first chapter, and another five chapters later. The later incident really kicks off the story. What can I do to make sure that everything...
