DPT‭

It's said that writers improve through writing. Maybe true, but I've discovered the first draft of any new piece I write is still really, really bad. The characters are flat, the descriptions lac...

6 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by What?‭

First: Allow re-asking of old questions. I've always felt it was odd to say "that question has already been asked--search the archives instead of asking it again." If someone has a question, they l...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

Your protagonist's description reminds me of Violet Baudelaire in the opening chapters of A Series of Unfortunate Events. She was an inventor, and she was well drawn. Which is to say, she had ea...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

Hello. Another angle to consider is that personal growth is easier to realistically portray through a series of try-fail cycles. There are multiple fails in Act II, and multiple successes. These ...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by ArtOfCode‭

I'll offer more rambling thoughts, today being two years down the road from my previous answer. I still participate in the critique groups I belonged to two years ago, and I still find them valuab...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭

As an aside: There are proper and improper usages of the word 'and.' If the word's being used solely to lengthen sentences, there might be a problem. The purpose of the word 'and' is to connect p...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

Hello. One. I entered some basic info on my profile, including my personal website which I'm glad to see we can have, here. However, clicking the link that resulted, led to a 'page does not exist...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by ArtOfCode‭

I'll also answer the question. There's a common human experience of waiting til the last minute to tackle a job. Students are notorious for waiting until the last minute to turn in term papers, b...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭

I struggle with this on an ongoing basis, though less than in the past. First of all, I notice that experienced authors using just a couple descriptors around the time of character introduction (...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭

It is good to have specific details that mean something to the viewpoint character. She listened to the music of LILLAHI birds, and it made her calm, perhaps because lillahi birds used to sing o...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

The following is my understanding and some of my experience. I believe Amazon uses something called an ASIN, not an ISBN. Self-publishing on Amazon does not give you an ISBN, but an ASIN. That k...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

Without looking at the other answers, I'd say it depends on audience. Some people are happy with formulaic. Write what they want, regardless of it being a formula, and they are happy to buy it and ...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

I'd love if world-building included was fair game for possible questions, on this site, both to draw from the obvious expertise from contributors, to run with the idea of being 'not SE,', and also ...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭

The new viewpoint must feel organic, that's all. A year ago I would have said you need to establish the viewpoint rules of your novel up front, but now I believe otherwise, based on re-reading Mis...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  edited 5y ago by DPT‭

The cover is important, the blurb is important, the reviews are important, the story structure is important. The first page is important. One of the best exercises I ever did was to bring home tw...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭