Posts by DPT
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
ANSWER: Yes, and an easy way to make this work is by accentuating 'other goals.' If the necessity of developing those relationships is clear (at least implicit) as character goals, and if we see ...
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 ...
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...
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...
You can do it either way--a formal scene break or through the use of transitioning language. I stewed hard over this because like you, I had seen scenes defined as a change in location, time, or ...
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 ...
I recently re-read Mistborn in preparation to record a bookclub podcast on the novel. Imagine my surprise to discover a new viewpoint, from a character I had never met, named Walin, in the Pits of...
ANSWER: Best way to pull off an unusual structure is with literary writing, or with developing characters who are compelling on their own. In Lolita, the seminal events are backstory. We open ...
Answer: In a case like this, the formula is to use others--your character's relationships with his own past self and/or with those he cares about, to create stakes. Example: He wants to help othe...
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 ...
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...
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...
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'd suggest asking yourself what it is that precedes the spark of attraction, and how that has differed from one instance to the next, for you. Is/was it a personality trait that attracted you to ...
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 ...
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...
