Posts by Thomas Myron
I'm getting close to writing my first novel (plotter here - I develop the book first), but I do not yet have names for my main characters. I found this question, which helped me in that area, but n...
Let me open by saying that I wasn't entirely sure how to ask this question and stay on topic. This is my best attempt. I do believe this question will help other writers. As an author, I want to ...
Any word with quotation marks around it which is not a direction quotation implies the word is false or the statement is not wholly true. If it's freezing outside and I go out, I might say that I...
I believe writing in the first person gets the reader closer to the character. As far as I know, this is generally accepted as true. That's not all there is to character development, certainly, but...
The first thing you should do is look at the answer to this question. Then realize that this is not an issue, but something that you can use greatly to your advantage. However, you still have the p...
In novels which contain a constructed language (conlang), there are areas where the rules of pronunciation can be specified. These areas have the disadvantage of either being before the story and r...
Not infrequently is a double negative, and is therefore technically grammatically incorrect. Not is obviously the first negative. The prefix in- is considered to be negative, as it means not. The s...
I'm a plotter. I develop and plan my novels and characters well before I write them. When it comes to character development, I make sure that my characters (or at least the central ones) are people...
First of all, let me explain that I am a plotter, and that I am an extreme case. This means that I develop my novels basically down to the scene before I even think of writing a first draft. This i...
This could be a misconception of mine, but I've noticed that the popular fantasy novels of today seem to nearly all have main characters who are children or teenagers. I have a list of some off the...
It is my belief that male and female readers are more or less the same. There are differences in how we view things, but those differences do not stop us from liking the same book or movie. I can s...
In my current novel, my main character has a rival for whom he has a deep personal hatred. Think Harry Potter and Malfoy, but with something solid at the beginning. I'm attempting to come up with a...
Your best bet in this scenario will simply be to prevent the reader from forming any false impressions. You can do this by correcting him immediately after the word. She saw another girl, abou...
Background I'm a plotter, meaning that I develop my novel before I start writing it. You could say that I'm almost an extreme variety of plotter, as I narrow my outline down to the scene before ev...
I'm a plotter, meaning that I develop and plan my novels before I ever start writing them. In my case, this is almost something of an extreme, as I develop every part of the novel carefully and the...
Yes, I have to admit it. I don't like horror movies because (shocker) I find them scary. Unlike other people in my house, I do not like being scared. Especially right before I go to bed. I dislike ...
Tokein. Jane Austen. Steinbeck. The greats of the past. I often come across people on this site and elsewhere who use the works of these great authors and others as examples and reservoirs of advic...
This is called your setting Setting is a very real part of any book, and especially of fantasy novels, as they take place in an unfamiliar setting, and therefore require more explanation. Setting ...
I am currently occupied with the all-too-familiar pursuit of banging my head against a brick wall. In this case, I am attempting to make my novel original. Here's why: I've been developing the th...
Disclaimer: I am not intending on doing this. It is just a question I thought was fascinating and might be useful to other writers. Here's the scenario. You're writing a series of novels. After t...
I recently asked a question which cited a book by Orson Scott Card, How to Write Fantasy & Science-Fiction. Orson Scott Card is the author of Ender's Game, as well as many other sci-fi and fant...
In his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card mentions the differences between fantasy and sci-fi readers, and even says that an author should stick to only one genre, as t...
Your trouble in finding a word is that it does not exist. You will need to use adjectives and other descriptions to properly describe it. My first piece of advice would be to find a good example ...
Here's the set up. You're reading a traditional fantasy. Something is attacking the land of the elves. At long last the invaders are discovered, and they are... intelligent rabbits. My idea isn't...
It depends on the story. Is the scenery important to the events of the novel? Does it actually have an effect on things? Does it change the outcome? If so, then yes, you need to describe it. Howe...
