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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In every country, some names are particularly common: 'John' in the UK, 'Juan' in Spain, 'Ivan' in Russia. Those names are common almost to the point of being stereotypical (consider 'John Doe'). ...
I'm writing a story told mostly in first person point of view in present tense where the narrator alternates between two characters from chapter to chapter. I have gotten some critics about this p...
I write my dialog in this format: Joe: Why are you wearing a shoe on your head? Sam: Mind your own damn business! What's annoying here is that it doesn't automatically capitalize the word follow...
In my text, I have a footnote (6 or 7 lines) that is meant to be an extra insight. It does seem, however, to be a bit large for a footnote. On the other hand, if I try to place it inside the text...
All the viewpoint characters in my story are orcs and speak Orcish as their native tongue, but some are bilingual: they use English to talk to humans. Additionally, the main character has a magic p...
I was watching a movie and, in multiple scenes, the characters were using a set of coffee cups that I haven't seen before. I realized my Main Character is the type of person who would have and use ...
I've been struggling for a long time to tell a story. In any medium really. I've read a lot of writing tutorials and read lots of writing sites. I've also read a lot of books on writing. However in...
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...
Which print-on-demand (PoD) services allow creating hardcover books of arbitrary dimensions (e.g., 115 × 157 mm)? I'm looking to print 60 copies.
Most of us who have spent more than a few days reading things and interacting with people on the internet know how difficult it is to convey sarcasm. There is no tone there is only the words on our...
Often enough works of literature, particularly old classics, receive renewed translations. Sometimes, the older translation might contain mistakes. And sometimes, the work being an old classic, the...
"The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry" comes from Robert Burns's To a Mouse. It is a commonly used expression, though the "mice and men" part is often omitted nowadays. In fact, not ever...
If I were to describe Waterloo from Napoleon's point of view, it would be very different from that same battle from the point of view of a soldier, or even a cavalry lieutenant in the front ranks. ...
What makes a battle scene tense and visceral is the immediate danger and the fast-paced action and reaction. For that, the human soldier needs to be on the battlefield, in the action. Here's the p...
I'm in the final polishing stages of a novel and I have two endings that both blow me away and I feel are very, very strong. Obviously, I can only have one ending. The story doesn't lend itself to...
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...
Ok so, I’m kind of new to writing. I wrote a couple of books in my teens but they were just for fun. I’m now starting to write a book I hope to get published. So, my book starts about a year in th...
Following the previous question: Characterizing a sentient robot: sensory data I'm writing a robot character with a particular PoV. In the previous question I wanted to talk about sensory data;...
I have a sentient robot in my novel. Truth to be told, I have many. Sentience is somewhat cheap to achieve, meaning that there are multiple artificial beings that can be considered sentient by our...
Let's take for granted that the 3 acts structure is relevant and exists. This, of course, is an assumption. How the three acts relate with the length of the novel? In a standard book - let's say 5...
Not all stories follow a 3-act structure. As an example, Les Misérables is rather episodic in its nature: first there's the story of Bishop Myriel and how he meets Jean Valjean, then there's Fantin...
A substitution cipher is a method used in cryptography to encrypt the meaning of a text. In the most common form, a substitution cipher changes every letter in the target text with another, making...
(not a duplicate of Character Development - How much is too much? because that one is more about "overreaction" to smaller events.) TL;DR: How much can a character change without becoming unrecogn...
I'm well into the third act of my novel and I'm introducing a new character that will play a part in the ending and an even bigger part in the roughly sketched sequel I have in mind. Now, I'm pre...
The feeling of disgust is often used in horrors, exspecially visual medias (where is arguably easier to shock the audience with great effect). Often horror stories revolve around one scary element...
When I write I always want to deliver a message. Not matter what I'm writing I ultimately have something important (to me,) to say. For that reason I try to be very careful about how I deliver cert...
For some context to my question: The story I'm currently writing takes place on another planet. It is never mentioned whether Earth exists (or had existed), but the characters are all human, have ...
A good well-written three dimensional character requires a lot of work. You need to really show them through their ups and their downs. You have to flesh out their strengths and weaknesses. You hav...
Yes, I know that - in theory - any exercise is a good exercise. Context: Lately I've been running a writing group were multiple creative-writing/reading enthusiasts meet. As a group activity, we'v...
When I'm reading something, I immediately pick up on typos, grammatical errors, misuse of punctuation, and the like, as well as better ways to phrase things. I have no formal education in any sort ...
This is in the idea stage, but I was wondering... In stories involving multiple protagonists (4 or more) that make and end relationships, date each other, etc. during the course of the story, the ...
Definition of simile : a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as (as in cheeks like roses) Similes are nice tools that every narrator has (eve...
I have a character that likes to make humor, puns and jokes. Humor should work here as a character trait; something really peculiar to this particular char. He says a lot of puns because he find ...
The title says it all: what is special in Application Programming Interface documentation compared to general technical writing? What aspects should I take care of?
I have the feeling this is already been asked, but I can't seem to find it. Close the question if it comes out as duplicate. There's an issue with novels with a first-person narrator, or a third p...
I would like to use an old photo/postcard (example 1, example 2) for a non-commercial poster. The poster is for a school assignment. The photo would illustrate a map and text about the history of t...
I'm considering a pen name to use, and I wanted to see if its firstlast.com domain is available, but it wasn't. So, I thought I could change the domain to something like firstlastwrites.com, author...
While not mutually exclusive, the goals of my co protagonists do conflict and I need to keep them balanced. MC1 works for the CIA and is being burned. He needs help from someone so he can find out...
Thalidomide is a tricky one, as I am referring to its disastrous past regarding birth defects; however, Thalidomide is still used as a immunomodulatory drug today - and even though its used under a...
In CVs or on Linkedin profiles there are often spaces dedicated to past experience. In those sections, one is supposed to describe what work he/she did and what skills he/she acquired on previous...
First of all, this is my first time writing more than a short story, and I am quite new to writing in general, so pretty novice. I am currently in the process of outlining the story for a novel I a...
Can someone please tell me what's the pen used here in the below URL called? It looks like a Gel pen, but the text written with it is so sharp: https://www.wikihow.com/Improve-Your-Handwriting
I have written and illustrated a children's book and am looking for advice about where to go with it now. My thoughts are: approach independent bookstores, contact an illustrator's agent, approach ...
I'm working on a story which is focused on the conditions of its world and its society and I want to tell the story of its people as a collective, the problems they create and have together and the...
By definition, an epilogue is an additional chapter after the end of a book. Also, it literally means "additional word". I can imagine a need for an epilogue in a series of novels when there is a ...
Galastel did a spin off question based on one of mine. Mortal danger in mid-grade literature. And hers has spurred a new one for me. This is an issue I've been grappling with for a while and I sti...
Building on the definition of a Paranormal Story (as opposed to Dark Fantasy) described in the answers here: What are most common tropes of a paranormal book and dark fantasy book?. A paranormal ...
I just want to be clear on this before I do any sort of writing with regards to the subject. So I have an idea for a novel that shows a person trying to obtain his objectives using the lessons and...
I have heard many times that you should always keep the sentence length to the minimum as possible, as it makes reading easy, fast and more important understandable to readers. I'm wondering: What...
