Posts by Amadeus
I suspect you don't have tension; in the sense that the readers are not wondering "what happens next?" Your character may be cold and scared and (loves being alone? That kind of doesn't fit here)...
I believe you have to give the boy a skill that the girl really likes. Obviously it can't be fighting; but a bullied boy can still be highly intelligent, or artistic, or musical, or something mor...
I was a division manager of a public company, at one point in my life (for four years). Not all managers are the same, But for me: Skip the emoji, just tell the truth and ask for a decision. De...
My advice is to ignore the people that advocate writing a book in one month, or two, or three. Even with no other duties, it takes me at least six months to finish my fifth draft of a book, and I ...
There are whole books on characterization; it is difficult to treat in a few hundred words. What makes characters stand out from each other is what makes the people around you unique; their attit...
I am a discovery writer. HERE is my answer to the "How to Open a Novel" Question. However, I do have a formula. Open with a name. In your case the name of your (real) protagonist (the imprisoned ...
Do not publish ANYTHING you know is untrue, or even suspect is untrue. I am a PhD, a research scientist and former college professor. You are just in trouble. You cannot publish conclusions that ...
Perhaps it would help for you to list what your character is not. Try to think of traits she doesn't have. What professional skills does she lack? Is she not a fighter, not a tech, not a magician?...
I would finish the word with two dashes (also called an em-dash, but for traditional submission format, two regular dashes are used to indicate this), no space between the last letter of the half w...
You must comply, resistance is futile. It is precisely because genres are used to sell books that you should be very much aware of what is expected within the genre you write. You need to tell yo...
Chapters have been as short as a single sentence; Stephen King is famous for a single sentence chapter. Other famous authors have written chapters of a single page. In general, a chapter break occ...
I don't think this should preclude a happy ending. From what you write, it looks to me like a girl, that was not even "dating or anything" boy X but was "in love" with him, had sex with another bo...
I think this is a bad idea. I agree that you will be left with a poem, NOT a song, and if that is the case, open with a rhyming poem that reads like a poem and promises the reader something about t...
It is a bad idea in general for a writer to ever use a living person as a reference point. For one, people aren't famous forever, secondly, you risk people not knowing who you are talking about (so...
Reverse order of importance. The order of entry is an opportunity for you to create conflict. To do that, you should list them in the order of reaction by the MC, greatest last, so you can move ...
People Say in Jest What They Mean in Earnest. I am adding a separate answer because I thought of something unrelated to my first. The above is a saying with much truth in it: People often joke abo...
First, homosexual or bisexuality is not necessarily something that enters into her everyday life. A good way to give clues toward that is to devise situations in which she can defend others that ...
In my opinion, the chosen one is made that way, whether they know it or not. IRL, the kings of old were warriors, born with a talent for fighting that was recognized, cultured and taught, if they w...
You are not overusing "it" or "its", the only thing to worry about with pronouns is ambiguous reference; which I don't see in your example. An ambiguous pronoun reference: Normally a pronoun refe...
A character study is a character portrayal, it shows the life and concerns of one (or a few) characters, why they do what they do, so you get to know them. They can be entertaining, immersing the r...
Hang a lantern on it. If possible, I would revise your story to make the MC's transformation secret but brief, in fact you can take a chapter where the rest of the group is trying to find the MC, ...
Tension is caused by reader's wanting to know "what happens next". The MC survives in nearly every novel, in fact the MC dies so infrequently that people don't like those novels. They assume your ...
You're only half right. You seem to have forgotten these people are in business to make money by selling works, so the cover letter does two things for them that have nothing to do with your story ...
Other than an explicit "disclaimer" in an author's note or something, I really don't think you can. If I buy five books set in a dystopian fantasy (I might), I will be disappointed if the sixth boo...
The difference between showing and telling, as it applies to story writing, is whether you create a scene that conveys information, or whether you state the information explicitly. So instead of ar...
