For context: https://firefly.fandom.com/wiki/Operative

Answer:

Question:

Two things: * Like Lynn said, sometimes I set it aside for the night and do something else - watch a movie, read a good book, go for a walk, play with the dog. After giving my brain time off, ideas invariably begin to flow back in sooner or later. * I begin with genre. If it's a Thriller, my protag walks into the room and discovers his best friend is dead in the chair. If it's an Action story, the villain attacks the protagonist and threatens their life right out of the gate. Reading up on genre conventions and obligatory scenes can give you a leg up there. https://storygrid.com/action-genre/

Steven Brust plays with POV in his book GOOD GUYS. He gives us both 1st Person (from the Antagonist!) and two different sets of 3rd Person. It's an interesting experiment which worked for me (an admitted Brust fanboy) but not so much for others. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35018915-good-guys

As Brust refers to it, the humans who live there call them Dragaerans, and the Dragaerans refer to themselves as Humans and refer to the humans as Easterners.

You'd think, but they're actually lizards-turned-bipedal humanoids. As far as I know, nothing breathes fire in this world.

Medieval Fantasy is a genre. It is exactly as tired or as fresh as the author makes it. Steven Brust’s Dragaera series is utterly unique and endlessly fascinating. https://www.goodreads.com/series/49760-dragaera

I’m familiar with this author and this quote, and Fantasy story theory has advanced quite a bit since their day. This author is referring to the Milieu story, where a common character is an asset. But there are three other broad kinds of stories, and we write characters differently for those kinds of stories. https://www.writersdigest.com/improve-my-writing/4-story-structures-that-dominate-novels The other three kinds of stories require more from your characters.

Seconded.

Good question! Survey says: 'sentient.' https://coppermind.net/wiki/Nightblood

A week or so ago I had an epiphany about The Great Wand in my novel, which serves as the MacGuffin, the Object of Desire for both the protag and the antag, and I shared this on Twitter. A day or two later, our own @EClayRowe responded with an idea which expanded on my original idea. Which led me to this article which distinguishes between sentience and sapience. https://grammarist.com/usage/sentience-vs-sapience/ Therefore, the Great Wand is a magical implement of great power which is sentient (has the ability to feel things and the ability to perceive things) but not sapient (does not have the ability to think, the capacity for intelligence, the ability to acquire wisdom). Example: a dog is sentient, a human being is sapient.

See also this: https://www.livewritethrive.com/2017/11/02/3-keys-to-writing-effective-action-scenes/

One of the things I discovered about Avengers: Endgame is how savvy the directors were about that epic final action scene. They knew that people can't focus on a melee of action for more than thirty seconds so they made sure that the camera kept moving, kept pulling out little character beats: there's a scene with Spidey and Iron Man, Peter Quill reacquaints himself with Gamorrah (and her knee), Ant-Man and the Wasp try to restart the van... the action feels relentless but the camera keeps moving, finding these little gracenotes, these little character moments for people to shine. Taken separately, they might feel insufficient. Taken together, they're the culmination of a 22 films leading up to this finale. Think about the sequence where the Milennium Falcon is captured by tractor beam and pulled into the Death Star. It's not non-stop action, but the events pull us steadily, and breathlessly, along.

The Titanic is a setting at a specific time in history - I'm curious why you'd need to that setting to tell a story, and what the story would be about. It's a high-profile ship and a well known tragedy. (Knowing the end of the ship gives you an advantage and a disadvantage. Sometimes we can do our best work around sharp restrictions.) For instance, what's worse, having no vision for your life or praying for one and being called to a ministry which, at first, you have no desire to fulfill? I could see a story where a young woman was being called to ministry but turned her back and fled, like Jonah, to run from God's guiding hand. While on the ship she thinks she's going to find happiness among the ship's rich elite, but there's nothing but bitter, egocentric people. She thinks to find belonging among the lower class people, but they know where they're going and the life they hope to find, and she finds no peace there, either. Perhaps she only finds peace when the ship strikes the iceberg and begins to sink, and she repents of her pride and finds her redemption by helping both a commoners and elite women find safety on a lifeboat. As the ship sinks she's curiously at peace knowing that she'll accept the call to ministry as a second shot at life with a good attitude, grateful to still be alive. Something like that. It all depends on what meaning you find in the characters, in the setting, among the tragedy.