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I've always been unhappy with how the traditional races are potrayed. Often you'll get more milage out of a few well thought out races (even the classics) than by just throwing random shit at the reader. For instance, if your nonhuman is long lived, what does that actually mean? Two hundred...

In many cases, less is more. The goal is to engage the readers' imaginations, and at some point you obviate that. The point I find most authors struggle (myself included) is describing settings. Settings are incredibly important, but you don't want to spend half your book describing them...

Listening to music keeps the third of my brain not occupied by writing or coding distracted so it doesn't distract the rest of me. If I really need to contemplate, I'm best off lounging on the couch with pen and paper instead of using my computer.

Funny you ask. Inner monologue, inner dialogue (were you imagine somebody replying), vocalization, and conversation are cognitively distinct. Each one is useful and done by normal people. However, for the purposes if narrative, inner thoughts tend to bog down a story and can interrupt a...

Lucy Nicholas Wolfwood Brandon Heat Kenshin

Refreshing. Rereading my story reminds me why I started writing it in the first place. If I don't find a section pleasant to read, then I know I've screwed up. Humbling, when I catch errors I missed on the first three rereads.

Why would you need to study for algebra? Just get a good night's sleep. And Ai-chan, you should really have more respect for your cutlery.

vim. or pen and paper.

Read Dr. Zhivago and War and Peace, then copy a Russian authors habit of refering to the same character by multiple names without segue. Remember, each character gets at least a Christian name, a childhood nickname, an intimate nickname, a middle name, a patrynomic or matrynomic, and a family...

Okay. First, fix your synopsis. Your story's premise is interesting, but the poorly written synopsis will scare away a lot of would be readers. Second, use gendered pronouns correctly. When you are refering to a boy, use, "he". Third, learn to use commas. Fourth, write in complete...

Quit retreading the same old Aristoltian element tropes. I'm bored of them.

Plan the world, discover the characters.

Muse? What's that? Is it tasty? I just write whatever dumb stuff pops into my head during my morning bike rides or my long walks. Plot? Direction? Are those things?

Ha. I'll share with you the same response I got when I asked a woman who had just finished a cross-country bicycle tour about my own plans for one: "Do it." It's trite, but there's no substitute.

I hope chapter size doesn't matter. My writing goal and reading philosophy: keep it on point. If the author's not going to advance the story, I'm going to just skim or skip the chapter, and if I do that to more than one or two chapters, I'll drop the story.

Catharsis.

Novels: Hyperion by Dan Simmons The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey Capitol by Orson Scott Card Anime: Trigun Voices From a Distant Star From the New World Haibane Renmai (watch this one after the following two.) Grave of the Fireflies Elfen Lied Light Novel: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu...

On a more practical level, the limit you should worry about is the soft limit of the readers' interest. As long as you don't delve into crazy long descriptions of how to render whale blubber, or ramble on and on and on and on and on and on with internal monologue, you should be fine. As a...

One of the most fun MMORPGs I've ever played was Adventure Quest 3D. Everybody got the same exp on a kill, even if they only scored one hit on a mob, everybody got a drop with equal chances at the rare stuff (e.g. you're drops might not be the same, but everybody had the same drop chances), and...

Um.. Half the fun of travelling is meeting people and talking with them. Nobody's ever given me a quest, usually they help me out instead, whether it's a meal or a place to stay or company in a canyon or a belay up a climb or a bottle of water in the dessert. I try to share something with...