General Q&A about the craft of professional writing, editing, and publishing. Questions about all types of writing are welcome -- fiction, technical documentation, scholarly articles, poetry, scriptwriting, blogs, and more.
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Why is it standard for a book's notes to be placed at the very end of the book—book endnotes—while only a small minority of books place each chapter's notes at the end of each respective chapter—ch...
I'm having problems describing certain parts of a place that I usually visit. Here are some pictures: For instance, I have no idea how I should refer to the wooden platform on the left (so I ju...
I go to a CEGEP, which is basically pre-university in Montreal. In my Introduction to English class, I had a teacher who allowed us to go around the typical essay writing conventions. Conventions l...
The title says it all. I'm talking about a feature-length film here, although I'm sure the techniques are universal.
Due to the growing popularity of POD, many small companies are coming to the market, and makes this business very competitive. However, I hardly see comments on the quality of printing (paper, bind...
I had an article published for 1st rights in a magazine. Can I use an excerpt or all of the article in my own ebook? I now own the copyright and am unsure about the rules of fair use pertaining to ...
As authors, our influences can come from many places. Religion is definitely one of many influences on people's work. I believe a work should be a reflection of its author, yet religion can be real...
I am writing an essay and must use MLA formatting. I can format the MLA formatting for the speech on the works cited page but I do not know how to form my in-text citations. The whole speech is don...
The actual meaning that I want to convey is sort of like a good design covers up the nitty gritty technical aspects of a machine and provides a smooth experience when using it. I want to describe ...
I looked through the questions and didn't see this one so hopefully it's not a duplicate. I often have ideas of stories I want to write and I work on outlines or write down elements and I know what...
This question on finding an agent has an answer linking to this post which really tears into literary agents. I'm not sure if it is justified or not, but it got me thinking about a the alternate r...
I'm writing an academic paper on ethics in robotics. I have a previous paper that I wrote and would like to use material from it. If I use the material from this paper, that I wrote, do I need to...
I tend to burn out developing my stories before they even reach the page, so I'm taking some advice to plan a novel. I didn't quite follow the advice to the letter; I used an idea that had been rol...
Possible Duplicate: Where to publish poems I used to write poems and stories. They were published in local newspapers many times, but I did not get any benefit besides this limited publi...
I'm writing a book in a niche market, and it's my first one. It seems to me that the following things need to happen to publish my book: Finish the book Design cover (a friend is helping) Edit ma...
The following is a standalone passage from a collection meant to deal with topics of psychology, philosophy and self-help. The question is: Is the quirky style helpful in driving home the point, o...
I am new in the working world and I happen to be given a lot of tasks related with creating report. Later on I heard people give me comments that my sentence structure and my word choices are not ...
Possible Duplicate: How to overcome the fact that I can't write? Normally I have good ideas to write, but when I come to writing those on paper it seems I don't have much vocabulary or g...
I notice that a lot of computer and programming books are now licensed under various permutations of the creative commons license. Half of the books published by No Starch Press and Apress (at leas...
I'm pretty good in the writing department as far as prose, it's just that I'll sit down and have no idea what to write. Perhaps it's a creative problem, I just don't know. I cannot figure out any...
I usually write explanatory nonfiction, but now I am interested in something more narrative--think Erik Larson or Rebecca Skloot, for example. I write clearly, and understand basic ideas about narr...
I am applying to school and, after 3-4 weeks of thinking and writing essay iterations, I ended up with the essay below. What are your professional objectives? (300 words) I have one prof...
There was a recent question that caused quite a stir around here, not so much for the question itself, but more the purpose of the question. That aside, there was a valid question being asked, and ...
Possible Duplicate: Is touch typing skill important for being a good writer? I'm curious about the great novelists, like Kerouac, thompson, hemmingway etc. The ones that had access to ty...
Writing a Resume for an internship at a large local CMS company. How does this preamble sound? How can I make it better/follow it up? My name is Korvin Szanto, I'm an 18 year old programmer fro...
By recommended I mean what is the standard for it to be not too long and not too short. I know I should write until I am finished but I want to take practicality into account as well. Mainly when t...
I love to participate in NaNoWriMo, but this year for the first time I'll have a full-time job during November. Is it feasible to write less on weekdays and "make up" for it on the weekend? Should ...
I was reasoning with a friend about why movies/novels often get highly successful while others, despite having an interesting story/topic, don't get much attention. We came to speak about Matrix, P...
I'm rewriting a technical book that will list two authors: the original author and me. Much of the text has been changed and there are some informal parts where reader is addressed in first person:...
This is my first post, so apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place. I've been working as a freelance SEO blog/article writer for almost a year and a half. While I enjoy the job, I am gett...
In my writing style, I make an outline of what I'm going to write, and I have fun in between. I was kidding myself in thinking outlining contrasted with "stream of consciousness" in which thoughts ...
One use for fantasy is wish-fulfillment. With that in mind, why is there a need for realism in creating a character in a fantasy novel?
A few days ago I finished the first draft of my current novel project after a few months of work, finishing at 83,212 words. Now what should I do with it? So obviously I need to edit it. Should I ...
I know this will vary depending on the type of the story and the characters involved, not to mention the location itself. What I am looking for is some kind of guideline for identifying different a...
Someone on another forum asked for advice on a sentence she was writing, so I thought I'd share it here and see what kind of responses we could get. The sentence in question is marked by italics. (...
While I have a few articles published, they were easy fixed rates. Today, however, I've received this email (identifying details removed): We need a writer to put together descriptions of ----...
Given that there are a few jobs where an MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) in creative writing is preferred as a writer or editor, is it possible figure out the ROI (return on investment) of acquiring the...
I would like to find someone who would proof-read a Press Kit of an Mac OS X app in exchange for a license. Do you know any website / service where I could find some English native speaker, ideally...
I'm familiar with the basic rules on inline citation, however, recently I've stumbled onto this problem numerous times so I thought I would ask. When using MLA style inline citations, is it legal ...
I am writing a thesis, and the material of said work naturally splits into two self-consistent volumes. Which front matter (abstract, preface, dedication, synopsis, table of contents, list of table...
I just finished the first draft of my novel, and Im going to put it away for at least a month. The book has a lot of spelling / grammatical errors, as in true Nanowrimo style, I kept typing withou...
What is the web equivalent of formal letters? In this day and age, formal correspondence have all become digital, and it would be helpful to know the proper way. Oh, and please do highlight if the...
I created this question for two reasons: I want to know if it is proper to place a comma after the word and (in bold) below. This sentence is kind of clunky, like many of my sentences, and it hel...
People use computers for many different activities, from reading online newspapers to listening to music. No one can expect that people can use internet to make a revolution. The main ...
Not long ago I wrote a short story about a mathematics graduate student on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The young student is innocent and working to finish a difficult mathematical derivation ...
How to cite an entire paragraph taken from a book? Is it just writing the paragraph as a separate one and adding (Author, Year) in the end? Will it not imply that only the last sentence in the para...
I have been doing Google searches for examples or teleplays to download that may offer insight for sketch comedy writing. Is there a specific format that those in the industry follow or is simply ...
I just finished reading the annotated edition of Lolita, and Nabokov hid references to other works of literature everywhere. Lately I've also been considering ways to work in lyrics and other obliq...
Although I'm pretty confident in my English, I'm not a native English speaker. I need to write a short introduction for a symposium; I'd like to know if you think this paragraph feels like 'natural...
I'm very responsible when I'm writing a tech book or article under contract. I have a deadline, my editor is expecting my work, and I turn it in on time. Sometimes I put it off a bit, but I pride m...
