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It takes place in a secondary world that's not unlike the Napoleonic era - in terms of technology and fashion. Culturally, things are a bit different. Society really wouldn't care that the husband and bodyguard were intimate, but they would wonder if it was still going on and laugh about it...

I have three characters a husband, a wife, and the wife's female bodyguard/ lady's companion. The wife knows that her husband and her bodyguard were and are good friends. She doesn't know that they were lovers in their teenage years. The intimate relationship is over and done with. Does the wife...

Thanks. I read the chapters and picked up What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew from the library. It says what all the things I've seen online say so either they all used the same sources or that's all there is to the visit i.e. the first visit was no more than 15 minutes long and was...

What was the etiquette of the formal call on the days when a lady chose to receive visitors? And what were both the guests and hosts expected to do? Was food served? What was expected of the gentleman of the house? Did he say hello and proceed to stay out of the way or did he sit there and...

What is the proper way to punctuate a sentence where the character corrects himself/herself during a POV? This way?: The Giants had been William's- Billy's favorite football team. This way?: The Giants had been William's... Billy's favorite football team. Or something else?

Accents are odd. Dialects are odder. Where I live it's not uncommon to hear "rinse" pronounced as "rainch" which someone might interpret as "wrench."

Let's toss out chinchilla altogether and go for a mondegreen. Should I write what's actually said or do I write what the POV character believes they heard? A third possibility exists - tossing it out all together. And that's what I usually do in these situations.

When I'm having a chapter from Character A's viewpoint and Character B says something that Character A mishears is it proper to put down what Character A believes he heard? I think it is - I'm using third-person limited so any information received is filtered through the character - but I need a...

My story takes place in a time period that's equivalent to our Age of Revolutions. There has been colonization of other lands and the dominant faiths have taken the local gods of the various people that have been conquered and adopted some as patron saints and others as aspects of their...

Yeah. I noticed a lot of similarities between religions myself. Prayer beads for example are found in quite a few real-world faiths and I incorporated those without it feeling like cultural appropriation. Also the idea of people of great courage, wisdom, and virtue attaining some higher level of...

How do you create a religion that has character and doesn’t feel like a real-world religion with the name changed? I'm trying to avoid the Crystal Dragon Jesus situation as much as possible but it's not really working. I've come up with holy days, prayers, festivals, blasphemies, and minced...

After toying around for a while, I ended up just trimming the list to seven items, adding in the "sold off of a hawker's cart" statement, and having the character dither over what drink to choose. BTW the bacon and oyster omelets are pretty good in the form of a Hangtown fry.

I wrote another version, but I'm not in love with it: "Breakfast proved to be an eclectic and excessive mix of dishes from half the nations of the known world. The polenta with duck sausage, herb-rolled quail’s eggs, and pomegranates would have been enough to satisfy any sensible person. The...

I need a bit of help with fixing this monster. So my character finds that the cook has been rather busy: Breakfast proved to be an overlarge and eclectic mix of dishes from half the nations in the known world: bacon and oyster omelets, flatbread with roasted tomatoes and fried mushrooms...

No song in particular, but I listen to the Cinematic Orchestra when I need inspiration. Their music is - for the most part - wordless so I don't have to worry about lyrics interfering with my train of thought.

I was wondering if it might slow the action down too much. POV 1's chapter ends with the riot going on, but when POV 2 begins the riot hasn't happened yet. The same is true of the other two POVs. I'd thought about slapping them all together into one huge chapter and doing breaks, but that...

I've got a section where all four of my POVs run concurrently during a riot. It's being done the same way as the other chapters in that each POV is a separate chapter. How confusing is this for readers? Or does it depend on the reader? For clarity: A character in POV 1 is threatened by a...

Question. In the case of the use of "said" and nouns, is the order a matter of style or is it a matter of differences between American and British English? Or something else? I.e. this: "I fell down the stairs," Bill said. "I fell down the stairs," said Bill.

If the story and characterization are good then it doesn't matter if it sounds cliched or not. Originality doesn't guarantee a good story. I'd read it. If you want original elements then add them, but don't worry about the premise sounding like something people have seen before. If all the...

Thanks.