On Research... Books are not there to show how intelligent {the author is}. Books are there to show your soul.http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/10/31/8-writing-tips-from-paulo-coelho/
Pick two people on the same side of a conflict, but give them completely different motivations for fighting on that side.
That which is unspoken defines the relationship.Given examples:
Those things you won’t talk about.http://writerunboxed.com/2013/12/13/things-left-unspoken/
The apology never given.
The explanation never provided.
The promise never followed through on.
The secret never shared.
The unspoken things that affect our relationships can also be those truths we keep from ourselves rather than the other person. We often hate most in others things that we fear in ourselves.
Cultural appropriation takes place when a privileged group takes elements of an oppressed culture and uses them as it sees fit, without regard to their importance in the oppressed culture, often deforming them beyond recognition or distorting reality to the point of making the appropriated cultural practice take the place of the authentic one.
Any... fiction writer, in attempting to present a fleshed out world, will probably several times need to reference something outside the actual story, some past kingdom or mythical animal, some hobby of the lower classes, some religious detail, or a line about, “That time when grandmother got into a drinking contest with a Giant Stoat…” ... making the world a bit more solid.
to sift through an array of possible motivations... The way to do that is not to ask, “What would make one man kill another?” Unless you’re a telepath... Better to ask, “What would make me kill someone?”
when characters {the readers} care about get into a situation where the rules dictate they're going to get killed, that's where they start to get really worried
{the} reader cared about these various character deaths because their deaths left an impact...
{When} something happens to a person... that person... has to decide WHY it happened. That decision is completely critical to how the person ends up feeling--and responding--to the event.
it’s not the crazy twists in your story that I find unrealistic, it’s your characters’ reactions@FakeEditor
Ask yourself “logic questions”... they’re one of the first things pitchees and potential buyers ask. Logic questions are about internal consistency and world cohesion, e.g. “Why is the monster attacking this specific town?”, or “Why does she agree to marry him when she’s shown to be terrified of commitment?”, etc.
When I find myself writing things like "The city was cluttered and cosmopolitan." I know I'm doing it wrong. When I write "A pair of grey dogs dodged between the crushing wagon wheels and the hooves of uneasy horses, navigating the close-packed, dust-aired street with the ease of fish in a river. When the priestess's wailing call to prayer cut through the clatter of cobblestones and the shouting of carters, the men in the street nodded to the north and touched paired fingers to their throats without apparent thought or even awareness." then I feel better.http://orullian.com/writing/danielabraham_interview.html
"Realism" is often not very realistic. The grimmest of realities often kick up moments of acute wonder and beauty. Any one-note depiction is not realistic and it's bad art.http://thesilverkey.blogspot.com/2011/02/realism-does-not-equal-adult-followup.html
