Show, Don't Tell This may very well be the most popular "rule" of writing. It refers to the idea that it's better to "show" an event as a scene, rather than simply "telling&...

Cut Adjectives and Adverbs This "rule" is often stated more forcefully as "remove all adjectives and adverbs," but, like most of these rules, I don't think it should be blindly ...

The list so far (alphabetically): Cut adjectives and adverbs Don't go into great detail describing places or things Give yourself permission to suck Know the end before you begin Miscellaneous Show, ...

Agents Typically, you would begin querying agents. Agents offer a number of benefits: Some will help you polish up your novel further They know the marketplace and have access to editors at ...

Fictionpress is a popular website that allows anyone to upload stories, read those stories, and comment. As the site is wide open, the quality of comments varies wildly, along with the quality of ...

One of the best books you can read on the subject is Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. The book itself is written as a comic, so it can illustrate the techniques it discusses. One of the topics ...

An invented language can be a tool for exposing the traits of a culture. Different languages not only sound different, but they feel different. They shape ideas differently. They are also shaped by ...

Follow the standard plot arc: conflict, rising action, and resolution. This is often used to describe plots across a whole novel, but it is equally applicable to a single scene. Each scene needs a ...

I've recently been reading an anthology of Robert E. Howard stories. He's a pulp author from the 30s who is known largely for his action-packed adventures. In fact, pretty much every one of his ...

I would encourage you to not compare yourself to other authors. I understand you're just trying to get a ballpark estimate, but in this case, the ballpark is gigantic. The figures aren't really ...

It's perfectly reasonable to follow up at this point. I've read numerous agents' and editors' opinions on this, and never have I seen anyone claim you should wait longer than three months (one such ...

The answer to this depends a lot on what you're setting out to achieve. In my experience, clarity is most highly valued in genre writing. Plot is often very important in genre writing. Genre writers ...

In its broadest sense, I would define purple prose as excessive and imprecise description. Adjectives and adverbs often qualify, as Final Draft illustrated, because a weak adjective + noun combo ...

There is significant overlap in genres, and nowhere more so than speculative fiction. There are few hard and fast rules to identifying genre, and one man's Urban Fantasy is another man's Supernatural ...

It is almost always worth editing. Even if it's Murder She Wrote / Star Wars crossover fanfiction that there will never be a market to publish, it's still worth practicing the art of editing. You ...

Have someone else critique the piece. It doesn't have to be in-depth. It could be a significant other or a critique group. Make it clear you want to know what didn't work for them. (You might have ...

Notecards or post-its with chapter or scene summaries are a big help. You can lay them out on the floor or pin them up on the wall to get a visual of your various sub-plots. I know others who create ...

Plenty of writers have little tics like this. You may find a turn of phrase that you just fall in love with, or it may be something that carries over from the way you speak. At various points in my ...

Douglas Adams has numerous examples. "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." "[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says that the best drink in existence is the Pan ...

I would encourage you not to do something you find unethical. The writing will suffer, and it probably won't be worth the rewards to put out a product you regret. I think this article on the subject ...

Some of the best advice I've heard on characterization involves the motivations of your characters. It's easy to create characters that are dead-set on a single goal, but this isn't very realistic. ...

It seems to me that highly non-linear plots are rather different than simultaneous sub-plots, so I think I will address them separately. Simultaneous Plots When I do longer work, I usually have ...

As others have mentioned, various institutions prefer different formats. On a broader scale, a particular style is often favored by specific disciplines or groups. (For example, APA is popular in ...

You might consider approaching local bookstores to do readings and/or signings. These types of events let potential readers meet you, and people who might otherwise pass over your book may decide to ...

I suspect the sort of company you are looking for isn't out there, but I will happily retract my answer if someone can point out an example. I would be interested to find out such a company exists. ...

I can't really comment accurately on your particular examples, but royalties and payments can become quite complicated. For example, there is often an advance against royalties to consider initially. ...

There are three ways to insert an aside mid-sentence like this: Commas: "Laurent and Phil had to go see the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, and warn him..." Em or En Dashes (NOT the same as ...

This article describes an interesting system for coming up with infinite writing prompts through Wikipedia.

I will defer to some of the editorial folks, who may know better, but I believe you'd be okay. If you head on down to the local Kinkos and get your work bound nicely, nobody will ever know. The main ...

One option is to implicitly or explicitly translate the ranks. If your characters are, say, German, and presumably speaking German to one another, but you are writing their dialogue in English, then ...