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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I'm an aspiring author. Though I am fairly certain of the answer to the question below, I figured I would make sure, or at least collect opinions, since I have not 'been there.' My question is th...
I'm writing a scene where one of the characters is explaining the process of natural selection: “Think of it as a beach full of crab holes of various shapes and sizes, and with little pebbles...
I smiled and gave her a nod. I was beginning to like her more, plus I realized we had some things in common. Like our attempts of suicide. The difference was striking, of course. Kate’s pr...
I am thinking of adding a sub-plot to my story where we have say, Adam and Eve. They do not quite like each other but one thing leads to another and they have sex. After that, Adam wonders if he s...
I am writing a course book series with 4-5 workbooks. Each subsequent chapter is highly dependent on material in previous sections. Few readers using the workbooks will be able to skip sections. A...
I want to write a fictional short story where part 2 is embedded in part 1. Has anyone heard of this or tried this? Any ideas of resources would be greatly appreciated. Edited for Clarity: Imagi...
I'm writing a story in present tense. One sentence is a little tricky for me, and I don't know if I should use past or present tense: Present tense The tree was so massive, that it even withhold...
Are there significant differences between satire and parody? Can you provide examples of the difference? Do you know of a book which is considered satire; one which is considered parody?
I'm writing a story where later on (three or four chapters after) a second main character is introduced. And after that the chapters will alternate between the first MC and this second one. At firs...
I'm trying to write a story in which the sun has essentially gone out and visibility is constantly limited, and sometimes completely gone. Being a very visual person, I'm finding it hard to describ...
I know that money isn't a good reason to write, but I am wondering if writing as a new author is even profitable anymore. What makes a book successful? It seems less that it is the story or prose ...
I just finished "The House of the Seven Gables" by Hawthorne. I was struck by how often he switched tenses. Mostly the narration was in past tense, but then he would switch to present or even fut...
When I submitted a manuscript for a children's book to a publisher, they expressed an interest but wanted me to improve the style and cadence: The syntax and cadence would possibly work well in...
I am writing a book with the particular twist that between chapters it switches the point of view. For example, in the first chapter it is from the main character's point of view, then in the secon...
One of my main writing projects centers around a character rich with vices. Probably chief among them is self-interest, followed by dishonesty. When I say dishonesty, I mean more than lying to get ...
I'm toying with a scenario however it's crucial to the plot that the murder doesn't know they're guilty and has to work with their friends to try and solve the murder. This is probably set in the ...
While this question may be a little nit-picky I realize chapters do help the flow of a book, and, since I'm now plotting a novel, I figured it's a good time to ask. In a non-lineary storyline, I'v...
I proofread technical documents that have been translated from Japanese into English. The translations must be "literal." I cannot, generally, make them more concise. One thing that pops up over...
I'm currently writing some fiction about a lord and I'm struggling with when I should capitalise his title. There are a number of circumstances. When someone is referring to him or about him usin...
I have recently read an article (The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, chapter 7) concerning plot twists, or complications. It discusses the difference between twists and mere situations. The con...
An example is "Miley Cyrus transformation - a marketing approach" I wont use their stuff inside. No copyrighted material, for example, pictures So for my previous example, i would write how mile...
I came across prologues of several novels, and I noticed that they all were different from each other. Some had a short excerpt picked somewhere from the novel, a few included some private notes fr...
I write articles on a website about anime, manga, cosplay, etc. I want to know whether I should italicise the names of anime or not. In some articles, I have to put the name of a certain anime too...
I am writing a series of interconnected metafiction stories revolving around epic fantasy tropes. The basic premise involves gradually building up an epic narrative and then breaking it down, and t...
Example: That's when the thought hit me: I had to find out. I had to solve this mystery. And so, I decided to call off my suicide plan. At least for the time being. (Next chapt...
Background/scene for question: A character witnesses his wife killed before him. While holding her, he begins screaming her name. With each time he utters her name, the world around him shifts as ...
I plan to write a series of books set in the same universe, with a major plot about war, destruction, murder, killing, love, betrayal etc. But I am having problem getting the big view of my univer...
I have often noticed this in many books and movies (mostly mysteries) that information is kept hidden from the reader. Like the character goes to some place and returns but what happens in between ...
The following is from a story I'm writing: "Goodbye Choco," my mother said, to end the prayer, “may your soul rest in peace,” and crossed herself. “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” I said...
I remember hearing about this formula where it showed a graph of what makes a poem good. It had something to do with increasing length to increase enjoyability. I was wondering if anyone remembered...
I just finished a new release. I encountered a passage in the book that doesn't quite make sense. Just a single sentence that is out of place. Grammatically it is fine, but in context it doesn't s...
I have this problem - I generally dislike fantasy worlds and science fiction set up in space or different planets. So I don't want to write about such things. I always loved more grounded stories a...
Is it acceptable for a writer to jump back in time for a whole chapter? I don't mean a flashback, I mean more like, for example, chapter 5 happening in 25/06/2014 and then the next (Chapter 6) ha...
I'm writing an action scene and I'd like for the POV and the readers to realize something at around the same time. Specifically, why another character is physically stuck and unable to escape an ad...
I have an obstacle writing articles that have consistent verb tenses. Generally, I've been told that if I start an article in the past tense, I should keep other verbs in the past tense. But as I r...
Now I'm not sure whether this is something that's an accepted teaching with regards to structuring paragraphs, or just something that is commonly used... I'm talking about paragraphs that are stru...
Okay so I want to write a fiction where a character is learning something, for example a language, such as Japanese. I want to show the entire process of learning the language with all the details ...
Examples: Mary sat in front of the computer and fired up Google. Mary sat in front of the computer and fired up the search engine. Jack started up his old car. Jack started up hi...
First thing you should know: I'm writing the first book in a trilogy and I'm at that beautiful moment where I'm ending it. I know exactly how I want to end it BUT there's one problem. I've been rea...
I'm writing a short film that has the vast majority scenes set in a pub, with the main male character about to approach a woman, and he imagines/projects some of the possibilities of this - it goes...
As I had asked in another part of Stackexchange (didn't know about this part until some comments there) I'm writing manuals (mostly for computer games, but in addition to this also for tabletop gam...
I am editing a novel manuscript for a client of mine. It's a historical fiction set in 1948, so not that long ago. The main character lives in a house above a cafe that I believe is fictional withi...
A story I'm working on features a "slow burn" type romance with a long build-up. The arc begins with (what's mean to be) obvious attraction, and proceeds through a long period in which the female p...
What is the correct dash usage when naming a title? I have an essay with the title: The success factors for successful e-commerce - A Linux-based e-commerce platform from an economic perspecti...
I understand that you should have a new paragraph for a new speaker however what should the indentation be with subsequent speakers like this? I have this case in my writing, each is currently ind...
Could anybody, please, enlighten me as to what "off" means in the following excerpts taken from the script for the TV show "Breaking Bad"? (I've also come across the same use of "off" in other scri...
Before I launch into this, I've perused these threads and they don't quite answer the specific question I have in mind: When to keep the passive voice and when to remove it When *should* I use pa...
I am writing a story that features an illiterate Indian woman. Of course, while there are things only Hindi can satisfactorily express, I was wondering what would be a good way to construct dialogu...
High school level essay to be exact, but I'd like to also know if Spivak pronouns could be used in papers or publications. Should I just eliminate this option all together, never think about it aga...
