Posts by 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 (...
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...
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...
As a quick thought, many species lay eggs and are not birds. Personally, I would find a second feature from a non-bird egg-laying species (or a sporulating species, or an asexual species) and plant...
I think the answer will vary on your specific situation. There are many 'in-betweens,' between not hiring an editor and hiring an editor. If you do hire an editor, that editor needs to be a good ...
Question: Grammar mistakes. Low-level vocabulary. Are there any other tricks I can use? Answer: Yes. A. We can trust the reader. A very occasional grammar mistake goes a long way to get the ...
I'm reading the question with an eye toward language rather than to the actual intent or ultimate purpose of the declaration you're considering, Becky. In other words, my answer has nothing to do w...
I believe Tor has open novella submission windows. Not 100% certain, but that's who I'd check first.
"Better" is subjective. Reading popular authors will show you that adverbs are OK--and sometimes quite good--to use. For example, it would be difficult to rephrase something like They rarely spoke ...
Yes, there is an established definition for each genre. Here is a list: https://resources.writersonlineworkshops.com/resources/definitions-of-fiction-categories-and-genres/ To your larger quest...
We gabbed about this today in writers' club. One problem with the exercise is you can fit many suppositions, any manner of supposition, to a piece of expression (a novel). (Rose colored glasses and...
I don't disagree with the existing answers. The other answer (your additional tools) is to put the dark theme into the title, or cover art, or book blurb. We tend to think the document on our comp...
These are great answers. I'd just add (as a sub-answer) that a brown couch is sort of like a happy smile. The adjective doesn't add much of value. It implies nothing much about the couch, or the sm...
