Posts by _X_
Short answer: yes, with measure and forethought. Note #1: unless karma and universal balance is a defining characteristic of your world, previous bad luck does not count. That's just how our world...
There are two issues at play: First person present tense (FP-PT) is a very particular combination. A lot of the descriptions found with third person narrators, or with past tenses, would feel gim...
A simile usually implies more than the mere appearance. In the comparison you link two entities that share some features. Sometimes the common elements are marked explicitly, for instance: her ha...
Only social success imply validation and agreement. It is entirely possible that these are given without verification. A bully may become socially successful when most people in society were not th...
TL;DR: * Fear (or equivalent shock) followed by disgust -> horror * disgust alone -> disgust A significant effort in analyzing the concepts of horror, terror and sublime times back to the ...
This kind of killing is never done with a light heart. While you can easily jump over the act itself, you can show the turmoil and torment that goes through the mind of those that have to execute i...
In paranormal stories you first need to establish normality. Make sure that you note down the elements that you have presented as the cardinal staples of normality. You then need to break them, one...
Two possible approaches. Before you start typing your text. You can set up a list of auto-complete words. From Project -> Project Settings -> autocomplete. After you typed. You can use the ...
Rather than gender diversity, I'd worry whether my characters are interesting enough to my readers. Suspension of disbelief, where well supported, would make anyone enjoy just anything. Do your c...
This is probably a variation on other answers. I often ask family and friends what they would do in the situations in which I put my characters, and why they would do so. I struck a conversation o...
Most definitively! In fact these types of cultural references serve two purposes. On one hand, they are for the reader: if the reader identifies it, it may resonate with the feeling that the refe...
European dictatorships left a profound cultural footprint in the local culture, to the point that a certain vocabulary, a certain manner of writing, and even a certain manner of speaking is evocati...
I wrote some steampunk. In the plot, there were some elements that the reader should take as novelty, and they were presented with great emphasis. Other elements were supposed to be common in the w...
To answer your questions. Some famous poets have paired their poems with their own artwork (e.g. William Blake). Most of the famous poets in textbooks don't (or at least not to the level that th...
I am a happy user of an Underwood 5, an old typewriter from the beginning of the XX century. I use it to type letters, short stories, greeting cards, and labels. I am now planning to try and type...
First, from the description it is clear that these are not three similar characters. In fact, there are two MCs, and another character. The question is "how to make the reader feel that the third c...
If you want to be PC, stick to symptoms of infectious diseases, where the sense of body horror would reinforce prevention and be justified as a mean towards avoiding contagion. As the OP suggests,...
Will they come after you? Very unlikely, but not impossible. It's my reader who bothers criminal organizations, it's not me. My reader is what they don't want. The fact that, in this moment, we...
Use events in your story to provide excuses for describing their look: Naide stretched her neck. Her powerful shoulders were still aching from the long flight. In truth, she could handle twice ...
I structured my plot, designed the path to the climax, listed my characters and even outlined some scenes. Then halfway through I got stuck: one minor transition scene just did not make sense. The ...
If your issue is with the telling of the passing of time, then you could try to show it. This is done by relating events or facts that the reader know would take a certain amount of time to happen...
After you're done reading the sonnets, you can check your newly learned words against this reference of Common Words & Phrases in Shakespeare's World: https://learn.lexiconic.net/shakewords.ht...
Before we even consider redemption, you should consider the credibility of your character. We consider any murderer to be deranged and in need of either correction or assistance. For a non derange...
You could also start writing your story and retro-fit ideology and symbolism. That is how it often works in real life. It took a lot of wars to come up with the idea of uniforms and standards. En...
