New answers tagged fiction
0
As far as I'm concerned, "too short" simply doesn't exist. The amount of words in a chapter don't matter, as long as your ability makes up for it.
Author William Faulkner made a novel by the title As I Lay Dying. In this book, there is a chapter which I have memorized. I will now repeat it to you... "My mother is a fish." That's it. The ...
2
The proper description for a creature that moves on two legs is a biped. Bipedaloid does not make sense as the -oid means "like or resembling (but not exactly the same)". Thus a Vulcan is a humaniod because it has features that resemble a human, but are not the same as humans. Vulcans are not "bipedaloids" because they do not have ...
6
Many, many science fiction writers, biologists, and anthropologists have come up with some creative words and terminology for bipedal creatures that aren't strictly humanoid. Maybe one of them will give you some inspiration. (You can check out "List of fictional extraterrestrials" on Wikipedia for inspiration, too!)
(You may also want to ask this ...
4
I wouldn't say that you'd need a pen name at all! 'James Thompson' seems easy to pronounce, easy to remember — an overall good name for writing. To be honest, I would think that 'James Thompson' is a very ordinary and writer-like name.
The only problem is that because 'James Thompson' seems so ordinary, there may be a problem with other authors named such. ...
3
If the reader doesn't recognize the character anymore, it's because he missed a change or development. Which means that unlike what you are thinking, important things did happen in those years. You need to write about those things. Your reader needs to understand how 17 year old friendly Joe became 23 year old grumpy Joe (to pick a random example).
The ...
6
People change as they grow and gain experience. That's part of life, and part of any story that covers a long time span.
You have to bring your character to a point where your readers will expect changes, and imply that those changes are coming - and most importantly, that a long period of change is in the works.
Say your character decides to be an ...
2
I have an idea on how you can write both an entertaining story and rewriting history. My idea, is that before you start the main plot you could have a flashback sort of device. What I am saying is that you could write about struggles and achievements and etc. that your character had in the period between the two ages. You would have to figure out a way to ...
0
Names can be a tricky thing yet having a pen name could protect you from the basic harms. If you decide to do it, then do it. Think about what describes you. And don't worry about others judging your name because so far, nicknames are the worse.
writersrelief.com- Pen Names What You Need to Know About Using a Pseudonym
selfpublishing.com - Pen Name Self ...
1
You could also use normal text set off by "guillemets", which are symbols used in some other languages instead of quotation marks. See the Wikipedia article 'Guillemet'. There are several styles, e.g. with or without extra spaces, with the guillemets pointing inwards » « instead of outwards, « » etc.
It would look like:
"Hi Dave."
« Good ...
0
The third one reads the most natural to me -- except I would move "I spied..." to a new line, because "I" isn't who is speaking in the previous sentence.
As I understand it (I'm still learning this myself, though), there are two things to consider: focus, and chronology.
Chronology
What happened first? Or rather, what did your POV ...
4
Generally speaking, it doesn't matter whether you use British English or American English in a story, so long as you keep it consistent:
If you use "sceptical", you will need to ensure you use British English throughout ("colour", "car park", "realise", etc).
If you use "skeptical", you will need to ensure ...
3
Because you're self-publishing, there is no "house" style.
Let's take a look at your example, "skeptical vs sceptical" on GoogleNgram:
You can see that the American version is much preferred.
Most of the time, it is best to use American or British English rather than Canadian or Australian because they are the most popular.
Other English ...
1
I had this problem for years. In fact, I think all writers do. You can't experience your writing the way other people do, because you bring so much personal context to each word and scene.
I think you're actually asking two separate questions here. In terms of structure, there's a lot of good books that can help you learn how to bring order to your writing. ...
answered Apr 14 at 13:27
Chris Sunami supports Monica
54.4k4 gold badges80 silver badges188 bronze badges
4
There are two sides of writing. First, is the glorious act of creation, thinking up plots, fleshing out characters, and building worlds. Then there is the mundane, blue-color work of making all of those dreams make some kind of sense (also known as revisions).
I think that you are asking about the second and less glamorous part of the job. I will tell you ...
1
I know this question was asked 2 years ago but on the off chance anyone is reading this...
Have Eris feel immense guilt and sorrow and just general intense emotion with regards their killing. Have it haunt her, have her only kill out of blind panic and then feel instant remorse, or have her exhaust every other option before killing a person.
And give her a ...
1
I suggest you always start a new paragraph when you change: speaker; place; time; topic; or character. Consider if the person doing the action is also responsible for the action. If they say it and do it, shouldn't it be in the same paragraph, unless there is a time gap? If the person who says it doesn't do the action, shouldn't it be a separate paragraph?
...
0
I think that there is a misconception in the question that boils down to what you consider tension in a novel. While there are some exceptions out there in the end the main character is going to succeed in their goal and it will be a matter how they get there. In some cases the journey will be easy and others it will be harder but they typically will ...
1
Being Overpowered Is Just Another Character Trait
Simply because their problems don't stem from being unable to overpower someone doesn't mean they stop encountering problems, only that their problems aren't the same as people for whom the ability to overpower their opposition is a limiting factor. Without knowing specifics, the stories you are reading may ...
0
It is similar to how some people enjoy playing games on the easiest mode possible and even if they are fully capable of playing the game on the hardest settings they have no interest in doing so.
Some people do not read stories looking for conflict, tension, or any deep plot. To quote G'Kar from Babylon 5:
"By G'Quan, I can't recall the last time I was ...
1
Typically these superheroes fight their inner demons. Struggles of loyalty, character, loneliness. Depression. Perhaps also a deteriorating relation to the world they are supposed to help. Assume that a super-man has helped the government in good faith only to discover it was corrupt all the time and he was helping essentially the wrong side. Imagine they ...
1
The "Meritocratic" Power Fantasy
These kind of stories are most popular in Korea, Japan and especially China where they play into the extremely competitive "meritocratic" education system where being successful through virtue, hard work, etc. makes the protagonist deserving of even more success.
It is quite close to the American Dream in ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
