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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Is poetry always a solo endeavor? TV scriptwriting is classically done in a Writer's Room, where the show-runner outlines the main plot/character beats for a season, they and senior writers break ...
Like most kids, I went through the All Poetry Must Rhyme phase. Then a little later in school, rhyme was less essential (especially in English, a less rhyme-compatible language than many other ...
Sometimes in the process of writing dialogue, I wish to insert a joke in the exchange. I could copy an existing joke, or I could come up with one. The latter option seems preferable if I could tie ...
My first question on the site was How do I stop using 'the' to start sentences so much? , One of the answers said: I would suggest reading more English poetry to pick up some techniques. I co...
I was invited to participate in an anthology of essays about a tv show. I chose an episode based on the Wikipedia summary (since it had been so long since I had watched it), but after I watched it...
There are several professional writers organizations that people I know have suggested I join. The problem is they're rather pricey and I'm not sure what I'll get out of it. Much of what they h...
I've started a writing blog (specifically for research and other information about my novel in progress) with Wordpress and am having a very difficult time with categorization. In other blogs I've...
Historically, books and movies didn't always have a specific target age. While some material was just for adults, a lot of what we think of now as being for kids or teens had a more general market...
This is an offshoot from a comment exchange on an unrelated question. What to submit when asked for "sample chapters"? I know a large percentage of traditionally published fiction authors, especi...
I missed my chance to write for About.Com when it was TheMiningCom and now it's DotDash and seems to be under different rules. Suite101 has become Suite.io (blocked from my work, so that's all I k...
For a submission (to a grant program, competition, agent, or publisher) that asks for sample chapters, which chapters do you choose? For example, a grant program for unfinished works I'm intereste...
This is a followup question to What language shall they sing in? I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English with time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. ...
How do you deal with frustration over a publisher's choices? All the stories and art for an anthology are in the publisher's hands—camera ready in digital form—and approved (deadline was 4 months...
For my Pathfinder campaign I write an update each session which I share with my players. The goal for these updates is: Provide a brief recap of the previous session Get people excited for the ne...
The amount of research I'm doing for my novel is staggering. To the point where my spouse says I need to write a companion book (or a blog) just talking about the research! Sometimes I research f...
This is inspired by this question, but taking it in a non-fiction direction: Is there a benefit to publishing non-fiction ebooks on Amazon as opposed to just putting them on your blog? Let's assu...
I am a happy user of an Underwood 5, an old typewriter from the beginning of the XX century. I use it to type letters, short stories, greeting cards, and labels. I am now planning to try and type...
I know Technical Writing is not supposed to have our personalities in it, but when I taught, I sought out educational videos/resources that had a bit of personality in them. Example: The Oatmeal's...
I'm finally starting to get my educational podcast together, which will focus on specific writing/editing topics, in small chunks (so they can be played in a class if the teacher wants to). The go...
How can I describe an unconventionally part-humanoid character, so the reader knows clearly what they look like, while in a world where these people are normal and it's not unusual at all for chara...
I structured my plot, designed the path to the climax, listed my characters and even outlined some scenes. Then halfway through I got stuck: one minor transition scene just did not make sense. The ...
I admit to finding this an insurmountable task. My novel has dozens of characters. My first problem wasn't keeping track of them, but creating them. Modern Day: My 20th century characters were ...
Something that always bothers me in my writing is how often I start sentences with the word "the". A terrible nonsensical example: The dog ran through the rain-swept streets, chasing a ball he...
I just read an article online and thought "this is great, I should forward the link to Phoebe." Phoebe is one of my characters. I've already had characters tell me how they would speak or dress...
I belong to a terrific critique group (writing group) that has dealt with a lot of attrition. We started with 6 people and currently have 4, one who joined after the first month or two. We also h...
My previous question was "Are paragraph spacing used for emphasis?" and that got me thinking even deeper about emphasizing. I'd like to emphasize to create tension and make the reader continue rea...
I am writing a story and I have these 3 sentences that elaborate on the ending of a first page. This way the reader will continue to read my story. My question is, am I allowed to place paragraph ...
A lot of people have been asking for some feedback about their poem/story. In an attempt to help find them a website, I couldn't. I googled feedback for writing however I didn't find any websites w...
I recently wrote an application to get into a different program for high school. Now I feel like I could have done better with being more formal and get my message across that this program is suita...
I stumbled across the question on Writing Beta about "How do you write a stack exchange answer?". The best answer says use headings. What would the headings be for? The main idea/topic of each para...
Free indirect discourse is a writing technique that makes the writing display the character's thoughts whilst still remaining in third-person narrative, with 'he' or 'she' as pronouns. As an exampl...
How should you end a business letter? If you are writing a letter to your grandparents, I would use With Love from 'name' However, if you are writing a professional letter to someone impor...
I'm testreading a novel for somebody I know. It's an adventure novel targeted at teens, with ~60k words. At one point in the first quarter, one of our protagonists comes across some huts. The huts ...
I have written several guest blog posts for a website with a large readership. I didn't ask for payment because the site is set up primarily as a public service in the special interest area. Now ...
How does one go about finding and joining a critique group for nonfiction? I'm writing two different non-fiction books: A collection of pieces written by a relative, collected and edited by me. ...
I have found two ways of formatting a script for a play. Character names go in the middle of the page, on a separate line. Example: http://filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_script_page....
I write occasional guest blog posts for a special interest blog with a very large readership. I don't get paid but that's okay, I have a strong interest in the special interest area, and it's very...
I do my writing in MS Word. I must incorporate some theater-like scenes into a book. In the theater-like scenes, there will be three to five characters speaking lines. Very, very occasionally a ...
In this question about creating subtext, Where in the writing process do you work in subtext?, the question of what the word subtext means was raised. This question is to address this issue. Of co...
I am writing a persuasive argument in rebuttal of a specific document. I'm tired of the word "distortion," and this time I want to say it with a simile. Please help me find a good simile for this...
This question was asked in 2011: Do editors still expect Courier font in book submissions for publication? A couple people said they found a monospace font helpful to have space to insert editing ...
I would like to self-publish a book and sell it through Amazon, and also make it available in a variety of electronic formats. I recently bought a book for $35 as an electronic download from the a...
When my book is ready to give to some volunteer readers/reviewers: Suppose some of the reviewers want a hard copy. What's the best way to prepare the hard copy for them? Is this the same as the ...
I would like to self-publish a book with a binding that allows for the book to stay open if you put it down on a desk. What would be an affordable way of accomplishing this? Perhaps you need to k...
In the book What If?, the author usually write the unit as kilometer, atmosphere, megawatt instead of km, atm, MW. However he does use the symbols in the drawings: In one line both mm and millim...
In the email I'm writing there are three separate points. The last two ones are not so long so that each of them can fit in a single paragraph. However, the first one is needed to be split into two...
I am asking this question because I think we need a precise definition of what Show Don't Tell means if we are to decide if it is good advice or bad, or if it is a valid suggestion for certain pass...
I am writing a personal statement to apply to a grad school. At first, I thought that because the role of this statement is to show an image of me as a person, using the tone I usually use when blo...
