Recent content by Penpilot

I once wrote a short story from the POV of a giant, mutant, potato that would not stop growing.

Be careful about making big changes before you finish the first draft. What may appear to be a good decision in isolation may later be shown to not be so good when taken within context of the story as a whole. You may find things at the end call back and connect to those first two chapters in a...

Would something like Conan the Barbarian fall into this category? In terms of how you can signal to the reader that this is fantasy, just add an element that's fantastical in some way, but isn't magical. It can be someone telling the myth of how the world was formed. It can be the existence of...

I've read books with two main characters told using 1st. You just have to make it clear at the beginning of each section which character the 1st POV is from. I've also read books where they mix 1st and 3rd. They'll use 1st for their primary POV and then use 3rd for their secondary characters...

I use Scrivener. I used to use Word various free programs (yWriter/ Wikipad) to write and organize all my notes. Scrivener let me do all that in one program. Last I checked Scrivener lets you try it for 30 non-continuous days.

I think if you make us root for your character and empathize with their struggles, you've got most of the work done there. Because any obstacle, even if it seems small on the surface, can be huge if it feels huge for her. If you bring the reader into that moment and make them feel the weight of...

This kind of sounds like it could be something like a road movie, where the character travels from place to place meeting interesting people on their way to a destination. Maybe along the way, each stop she faces one of these emotional issues in some form. It challenges/tests her, and she...

It's very-very late right now, so I hope this makes sense. For me, ideas are like seeds. You plant one and you get at least two back. To me, planting means writing that idea out. As you write, more ideas will sprout from that. Sometimes those ideas relate to the story at hand. Sometimes they...

There's a phrase that gets brought up quite often in writing circles. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone gets inspired. Everyone has ideas. I have file on my computer that has dozens and dozens of story ideas. I'm pretty sure most writers have something similar, whether its a file on a computer...

Be careful here. You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? You're kind of trying to find one word--or a handful of words--that encompass the emotion and visuals created by a thousand words. There are things you can do with visuals that you can't do with prose and vice versa...

Generally, I will only offer critiques in situations like writer's groups. The text will be shorter, and the setting generally puts people in a better mindset to receive what's being said. Even then, it can be tricky sometimes. In terms of being asked by friends, family, or acquaintances, I...

Maybe if you exaggerate the differences in such an over the top way that even if they don't get the joke they'll understand something is going on. For example, That's Phil. That's Mike. That's Mick. Oh and that's Storaya Balenny Moonrise, Daughter of Dusk, Fist of the Fallen Heavens, Destroyer...

Looking at this, I think there's a trip up. If we look at our own world, what's unusual vs. what's normal is all relative. If you look at a list of names Bob, Fred, Sam, Mary and Kimaya. Depending what part of the world you're in, Kimaya maybe the common name or it maybe the uncommon name. Same...

You can't account for every reader's vocabulary. If the word is appropriate for the character or setting, then IMHO, it would be a mistake to dumb it down so to speak. One time in a writing class, someone critiqued one of my stories. And one of the comments was they didn't know what a helm was...

My approach, which applies to how I approach most characters, is don't look at them as a child character. Look at them as a character who happens to be a child. Start with who they are as a character, what their likes and dislikes are. What motivates them? Etc. Then take that and filter it...