: Re: Acquiring vocabulary to write fiction I am a non-native speaker, learning the English language, and I am already fairly good in reading and writing technical texts. I also enjoy reading fiction

@Speyer920

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I agree with the above in regards to fiction exposure. However, your vocabulary and grammar seem just fine to me. You don't want to try to impress your readers with fancy vocabulary; it will look forced. Either this site or English Language Learners can help with phraseology on the occasion you need it.

Commercial success requires ingenuity. You need a style of your own, so don't be too concerned over what others are doing specifically. It's more like, "So that's how they accomplished character development!"

In order to make a novel interesting, you will need to work on varying sentence structure and having a good mix of dialogue versus narration. This takes practice, but a huge vocabulary isn't necessary.

There are frequent references made on this site to the Hero's Journey. A review of the basics of the makeup of your protagonist seems a good place to start.

And write! The more you write, the better you'll get. I'll just throw out a number which will of course differ from person to person, but 250,000 words of fiction should get you past the "I wouldn't let my mother read it" stage.

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