Posts by Galastel
If you've ever studied a foreign language, you'd know how annoying it is to go check words in a dictionary; it breaks the flow of your reading, breaks the immersion, and sends you off to perform a ...
In the first 10% of my novel, my MC has a boyfriend. MC is accepted into the Space Corps (or he's summoned to fight Troy - the particulars don't really matter), boyfriend is sure he'll wait the req...
If I understand the problem correctly, I think what you want to be doing is vary the subject of your sentences. Look at this example: John walked out of the office. He observed the sky turning...
There is no problem at all with writing morally ambiguous characters, and it's surprisingly easy for readers to sympathise with them. Let us look at some examples: First, a modern example: A Song ...
It's a good idea to decide early on on a naming scheme. That is, do you want names that sound like they belong to a particular time and place? Particular times and places (plural) for various group...
The old-fashioned language alone is enough to provide a hint that the characters are quoting something, and since you mention Paradise Lost, it's clear what they're quoting. Strictly speaking, you...
What you're describing is a trope known as Broken Pedestal (tv tropes link). It describes the painful disillusionment with someone the MC considered a role-model, or otherwise a person to be respec...
You must decide first and foremost how you want your readers to initially treat your MC's belief that he is influenced by an "entity". If you tell the readers right from the start that the entity i...
What is the unifying factor of your book? Is it an anthology of disconnected short stories? Is it an exploration of some theme? If you are exploring a theme, Structure the parts to make a cohesiv...
Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series addresses this issue in an interesting way. The main character, male, single, and in his late twenties in the start of the series, very much notices the looks of ...
'British' is a rather broad definition. What place in Britain? What time period? What class? Cockney sounds very different from Received Pronunciation, someone from Yorkshire would sound very diffe...
The MacGuffin is bound with the plot - it can't be any random thing not related in any way to the plot around it. Consider some examples: The Hobbit: Thorin wants to find the Arkenstone, a partic...
There is no special secret technique to writing. No methodologies that you must follow. No "right way". The best ways to learn about writing are reading and writing. When you read, you are exposed...
First, if English is not your mother tongue, you might find it easier to write the essay first in your mother tongue, and then translate it. That is the stage when you can take care of grammar etc....
There are multiple examples of novels that are little over 40,000 words. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is 46,118 words. Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - 46,333 words. Erich Ma...
Unless your game is for young children who might find reading harder, you want game instructions to appear in text rather than voice-over. The reason for this is that players often change key-bindi...
The question largely depends on whether the game and its particular rules are important to the story or not. Take, for example, Quidditch, from the Harry Potter series. The game constitutes a majo...
You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much. The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing ...
Sometimes when a strange thing happens in a story, for example a knife being found in a weird place, it can seem like a mistake by the writer. By highlighting the strangeness (whether by having the...
Two tropes you might want to look into are Chivalrous Pervert and Lovable Sex Maniac. The Chivalrous Pervert would be thinking about sex a lot. He would be unable to avert his gaze when that would...
"Uneven writing density" is something that happens to me too, in my first draft. Then I go and add material where I've got only a skeleton, trim the excessive fat. One thing I found is, sometimes ...
Nudity can be implied: a dress hitting the floor or a woman shown topless from the back. (Those are TV Tropes links, you've been warned.) If a character walks in on another undressed character (or...
Let's broaden the question. You have two paths down which the plot can proceed. You find both equally appealing. How do you choose? Consider, then, this: Which option offers more character growth...
You know what famous character is not a leader, lacks endurance and strength, is not particularly brave, and has a beardless round face? Bilbo. Or Frodo, for that matter. Or Sam: 'I am sorry,' ...
Your thesis statement should express the main idea of your paper. So if you're discussing problems and solutions, the thesis statement should include both the problems and the solutions. The thesi...
