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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Good artists copy; great artists steal. This famous Picasso quote often reminds me that the best artworks are rather a mix of many other artworks instead of something completely new. Walt Dis...
I'm planning out an idea for a short story. In the story, slavery didn't abruptly end but instead continued to modern day and beyond. The structure of the story will be similar to The Last Question...
Here is the latest version of this question, except that I believe that I have identified a key issue. Someone who read Chapters 1-3 of one of my novels (and then stopped), asked me, "why is there ...
If the villain of your story is a member of a certain group, how do you keep the story from being offensive to members of that group? For example, one of the villain in my book is a WWII veteran. ...
This question is a followup to my earlier question. Continuing the dialog with my one critic, I wrote back that I believed that certain "foreshadowing" was necessary. Then I added something like, ...
At any given moment I can focus on one activity among many, e. g. improving my craft, finding a publisher, or building a platform for self-publishing. The latter two options only make sense, if...
I have a character who starts as a low servant caste and rises up through society. While plotting, I never bothered to give her more than one name, I guess I was thinking her island/village is smal...
I am about half-way into writing a manuscript of historical fiction depicting mostly fictional European characters in the period between the First and Second World Wars. For purposes of the storyli...
Is it better to push yourself in your writing? To attempt bigger and deeper stories than you've done before? K.M. Weiland says so. But then there's this thread (which is talking about music perform...
Authors need to understand which scenes in their stories to cut in order to help the reader enjoy the story best. Knowing what works for the reader and what does not is a key skill for authors. B...
At the moment I'm trying to write a fantasy novel, and I think it's leaning more towards middle grade rather than children's or young adult fantasy, but I'd like to know if there are any particular...
I'm writing a novel. At 56k words, I've become a little nervous about how I've been building the story. BACKGROUND: I started this book with the introduction of the main character, Jules and a br...
On my research I stumbled upon this question and it matches somehow with my question, that lingers in my head for a long time. In the mentioned question I read the common thinking is: Switching p...
So, I don't know if any of you have heard of Dinotopia by James Gurney, but it's written in a format with large pages, and lots of illustrations: While it is not exclusively a children's book, an...
When I first started thinking about this one particular story I wanted to write, I envisioned the main protagonist as a more "calm", "reactive" type of character. But as I spend more time building ...
I am mulling the idea of writing a novel in which the only dialogue is internal. Has anyone yet published such a novel? I define "dialogue" here as any kind of speech addressed by a fictional pers...
I'm writing a war (sci-fi) novel. The MC dies in the end. It's not as thoroughly depressing as "All Quiet on the Western Front", but Remarque's work is definitely one source of inspiration. Now, p...
In my story, one of the main characters finds out that a loved one (parent, lover, friend, doesn't matter) died. Worse still: they find out about it when they find the severed head of that person. ...
I’m writing a story where a vampire pulls a girl into a room so he can feed off her without anyone knowing. What are the things I should consider when I describe her being pulled into a room by hi...
Is it possible that stormy weather can be related to sadness? The weather could be related to gloom?
So two brothers are having a conversation about one wanting not to be a vampire anymore, and asks him if there is a way he can change to human. How do I make the conversation interesting and wantin...
I'm currently working on a book with two protagonists and switching the perspective between them. They have quite different plotlines, but actually they're the same person. English is not my first ...
Looking back on your career as a writer, what is the most fundamental piece of advice you wish you had known about – or that you had taken to heart – when you set out to become a writer? Before ...
It feels to me like it is up to the author to choose what words will fit more properly. Does it become a paraphrase?
In my fantasy novel, I have a species that is fully hermaphroditic: all individuals have both male and female reproductive organs. Like garden snails. Consequently, they have only one gender. They...
I have a story where the protagonist, who is a warrior meant to be the story's hero, has several unlikable traits. He is proud, kind of cold, has a hatred for the people of the enemy State (without...
For past ten months, my wife and I have been telling bedtime stories of our own making to our older daughter (who recently turned 4). We do it on alternate evenings. The stories have a nearly-const...
Some of my beta comments fall under the category of 'I the reader am frustrated by what I do not know' - and I've gotten this comment in my real life group too. The reader wants information as s...
Many languages are written using Latin letters, but often these seemingly familiar letters aren't pronounced in the way that we are used to. For example, an English speaker might read the name Sio...
I've been working on my pet project a lot over the last six months, and I thought I had most of the kinks worked out- but I think I found a problem with my most important character. The story has ...
I came across such statement here on Writing SE and I don't agree much with it. But what I'd like to know is why would it be "impossible" to make good characters using real people. Searching about...
I am trying to expand the depth of my writing beyond simple storytelling. Although my previous novel was an action/adventure, I realized it has a deeper point than entertainment. Dean Koontz offers...
Inserting a Fish out of water character could be good way to introduce the reader to the world and also great for comic relief, but there were cases in books I've read when the character's naivete ...
Our heroes are (or a government is, for all I care) friends with a (seemingly) benevolent superhuman entity. This Entity is quite powerful and can provide various advancements that are used by the ...
I am writing a military sci-fi novel about an international military force facing aliens. My cast is very diverse: the MC is Yemenite-Israeli, his love interest is German, his room-mates are from G...
So when designing characters an important part of them is flaws and how they overcome them or rise above them. And so I wanted to make a character(one of the main characters, either supporting the ...
My protagonist is a very shitty person that makes bad decisions for the wrong reasons. They do eventually redeem themselves, not because of their own decisions, but because the supporting character...
Background: I know to avoid Deus Ex Machinas - meaning to me a sudden and unexpected solution arriving out of nowhere to save an otherwise unsolvable problem. They are often indicative of a writer ...
When my protagonist is learning to use their magical skill, they must remain in hiding. Because they have not yet mastered their magical skill. My protagonist is bored from being holed up for so ...
A reader of one of my works told me, "It was very interesting, the last two thirds of it anyway." Her fear was that I might lose my readers in the first one-third of the work. The above work was a...
I wonder if when talking about characters (in a book with a third perspective narrator) one can list their personality traits. I realize how that might be taking something away from the story, as I...
Or is there a way to strike a balance between thematic naming and realistic naming? Thematic: When the name relates to the character directly. Example: someone who only wears black clothes has th...
You see this a lot in fantasy fiction, where everyone on the planet (and sometimes beyond) speaks the same language, even though it makes absolutely no logical sense for them to have any knowledge ...
In my writing there are eight groups of people, each with their own language that they speak. Do I put large amounts of writing into their language or english? Do I write it first in theirs, then i...
I have a character in a book I wish to write in the first person; however, one of the main characters who narrate lives in China. He speaks only Cantonese and Mandarin, so it's a problem, but it is...
As I begin to write a narrative (I haven't decided yet how long it should be), and as I develop the plot, I was wondering whether or not I should give the narrator a name. It was one of those rando...
Depending on the weather, the days events, and other factors, I find myself with a different emotion everyday when I write which I'm afraid is making my novel a little bit choppy. For example, one ...
This site has a lot of question on how to write properly and, naturally, many of the answers are on how to do it well in English. Although, obviously, if you can write well in English, you can writ...
I am an Easterner. I have been translating a novel, that is originally written in my native language, into English. During the process, I have also been learning about cultural things, meant to ad...
Writing is writing, but I am not confident enough to take on creating a whole world from scratch. Will writing fanfic or writing in other shared world spaces be beneficial, or will it simply allow...
