Posts by motosubatsu
Are friendly writing contests a useful exercise? Yes they can be - not everyone is going to find them useful, but in the majority of cases it's more writing practice which is good. My writing ...
As a writer if you want to share your work with people at large you need to develop a very thick skin. The nature and to a certain extent culture of the internet in particular means that people fe...
There's two levels to consider here - setting/story and character. Story Some post-apocalyptic settings have introduced religious organisations in, either pre-apocalyptic holdouts or new cults (e...
It's difficult to answer this definitively since there's information you've been unable to share thus far. So for more of a general "how to approach answering this for yourself" answer - I tend to...
While I couldn't give you statistics on how prevalent it is, certainly it is not especially rare. I can think of a few major, bestselling authors who have done this off the top of me head easily en...
While I get the feeling this might get deemed "opinion based" I've reviewed a few hundred technical CVs in my time (for my sins) so here goes nothing! Personal Use of "I.." or "My role.." type st...
The answer to this lies in (frustratingly) another question: Why does your protagonist consider them "evil"? If you can come up with something plausible and relatable for the answer to this you m...
Yes. Both of the examples you gave (more so the LotR one) "work" in their own right without the need to "get" the reference in order to continue understanding the story. The more likely a reader/...
I don't think this is the right way to go about it. I have to say I'm not a fan of explanatory footnotes in fiction, it's far too much of an immersion breaker. In fact I'd go so far as to say they...
If I understand you correctly you are in A's POV when they have their change of heart, this means you can you can show what's leading them to having this change and make the change consistent with...
Other answers have already covered rather well the benefits you can get from both writing and reading so I won't rehash those but rather to add another - get feedback. Join a local writers group o...
I think in recent years the gap between what is "possible" in a prose vs. film (both cinema and TV) has narrowed significantly - historically the limitations and expense of things like CGI and prac...
I think Amadeus hit on the core of the issue with doing this - "good" ultimately triumphing over "evil" is by far the more popular archetype, and for very good reasons. Setting aside the idea of "...
Firstly don't get too hung up on the genre - it's a very fluid concept that doesn't have to be anywhere near as strict as you are imagining. Write the story and let it be what it is - if after wr...
Hard to say from just the pics but almost certainly it's a gel rollerball pen with a very fine nib, probably ~0.5mm. Looks very much like a Pilot G1 to me.
A metaphor allows you to explain something complex, abstract or unfamliar to the reader in a way that they have a good chance of understanding or relating to. You can also use them to evoke sensory...
Some very good information already in the existing answers so I'll try and avoid repeating it but here are some thoughts on how to position a morally grey character.. The Ends Justify the Means I...
I'm currently working on a short story with a dramatic "twist" ending. I use the quotation marks because, unlike a conventional plot twist aimed at surprising the reader, the intended target of the...
In addition to Matthew Dave's excellent answer.. Whether a character/story is interesting or not is more about the character/story themselves rather than where the inspiration for it comes from. ...
The best way to try and understand how someone might have arrived at different convictions/beliefs from yourself is to go back into their history and see the incremental steps and events that lead ...
Like any similar technique the outcome of using a frame story depends on the quality of the execution. If the frame ties well to the main narrative and the switch in perspective makes sense to the...
Speaking as someone who has struggled with the same thing.. *If you are someone who can effectively channel upset feelings into your writing and you have something on the slate that would benefit ...
As other answers have stated a different POV for prologues is quite a common technique, particularly in SF and Fantasy (George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, David Eddings and Brandon Sanderson have a...
This is more for my own curiosity than anything else but I was wondering if when reading about a character with no specified gender and no description of their looks, does the choice of words us...
To a large extent this is will be dependent upon the taste of the person reading - so you have to work out who your target audience is and how you're trying to make them feel. There's nothing wrong...
