: Re: How to show characters learning something in a non-boring way? Okay so I want to write a fiction where a character is learning something, for example a language, such as Japanese. I want to

If you as the writer find the process of X fascinating, you will be able to translate that to the page in a way which makes it fascinating for the reader.

If you enjoy math, you talk about the satisfying click of numbers as they slide into place, and how there is always a right and a wrong, unlike the slipperiness of philosophy. If you love languages, you show the character uncovering the parallels between French and Italian, and then Italian and Spanish, and suddenly making the leap to Portuguese. If you're into puzzles, you channel Sherlock Holmes. And so on.

The easiest way to get this on paper for your first draft is to transcribe, in a sense, what it was like for you do process X. Never mind the character for the moment; just write down your experience as if you were writing a blog post or a diary entry or a letter.

Once you have the entire lesson/scene on the page, then you can start rewriting it for your character, and adding fictional flourishes and compressing time etc. to make it more readable.

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: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

@Debbie451

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: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

@Debbie451

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: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

@Debbie451

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: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

: Re: How to show characters learning something in a non-boring way? Okay so I want to write a fiction where a character is learning something, for example a language, such as Japanese. I want to

More posts by @Debbie451

: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

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