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 working on the finishing touches of a story that has as part of the plot a possibly-supernatural mystery. I'm feeling rather nervous about the whole thing though because said mystery isn't the ...
I see a pattern among my readers, specifically where they tend to stop reading - it is about 2/3 through the story, during "Act 2." A few readers push through to the end and say they are glad they ...
Usually, at the end of a crime, thriller, horror, fantasy, science fiction, or other action genre novel, the identity of the antagonist is uncovered and the riddle that drives the plot is resolved:...
A lot of current science-fiction and fantasy magazines have online submission systems, accepting Word documents. And where I remember, way-back-when, submission guidelines noting that (printed) man...
Every writer knows the rule: Avoid clichés like the plague! Wait I can't say that, it is a cliché. Let me try again, I hate to beat a dead horse but... No that won't work either. If you have ever ...
All of reality exists inside the cosmic womb of the goddess. People, planets, animals, etc, were all created when she bled into the universe, birthing life to all things. The faith honors this even...
I'm advising a translation project, translating some short stories from a foreign language to English. What I'm advising about isn't the translations themselves -- but seeing the translated stories...
I want to submit fiction to magazines. Some of them say they do not accept reprints. What exactly do they mean by this? Does it just mean my fiction should not have been officially published, or sh...
I've signed up for a short story contest where the word limit is 5000 words. In show-don't tell, one invariably uses more words showing than telling. I'm worried about the word limit: What if I use...
I have a story I'm writing which envisions some sequels. However, although the timeline and world are the same, such sequels are so different from each other that I feel I'm causing too many deep p...
I have a prologue I'm working on right now, however, I want to add an introduction as well. What I mean is that I want to write about why and how I created the story (an introduction), but I want s...
I'm concerned about what Amazon will allow since their guidelines are so vague, or in the case of what I am writing, a gray area. In the stories I'm writing, human beings are transformed into sent...
I've been writing a One Piece fan fiction to improve my writing. I foolishly decided to write it in first person and now I kinda want to change it to third person - but I'm already 97 pages into t...
Once upon a time I published a book via what you could call a vanity publisher. I paid money for the full process including book design etc. The ISBN is in their name. I was delighted by the high s...
Remember that story I mentioned in my previous question? Yeah, well one of the characters in it is gay (one of the main characters). But the problem is... They don't KNOW that they're gay until the...
I'm looking for a job that involves writing and pays well. What should I look for?
"I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs," said Stephen King. He went on to explain that they should be used sparingly, not as a crutch to avoid writing a more descriptive sentence. Somet...
I need to write a background research paper on a science fair experiment, but it needs to be formatted in MLA. I looked up some examples of a MLA essay and research paper but there seems to be some...
For example the book Eragon by Paolini, and Magic Kingdom by Terry Brooks. These both have lots of description. To me that means lots of showing and less telling. Other books don't seem to have ...
I am surprised by the vehemence of many writers' objection to said-bookisms -- the practice of using a verb other than "said" or "asked" in order to convey dialog. Writers are told you can't hiss a...
I am trying to establish the acidity of paper produced with the FSC labels and any help regarding this would be greatly appreciated. I am interested in figuring out the lifetime and decay of this p...
Can you provide list of specific items you use to evaluate whether or not a piece of fiction is good or bad? For example, if you really had to explain why a piece of fiction were terrible what cri...
I have written for years on my site about cycle touring, adventure, and gear reviews, but I'm aware that I may have put off my audience by starting off writing about these things, then losing my fo...
This may seem like a duplicate of Changing the way one addresses a character in a dialogue to create variation, but it the answers there did not apply. My question is: When writing in the first pe...
In my screenplay, I feature a CEO of an advertising agency who is "pot shaped," shy, tongue-tied and a few other characteristics that make you wonder how he ever became an advertising executive, ne...
In a narrative I'm writing, the characters have to plan an escape from a facility. The thing is, they'll be doing the actual escape in the chapter following them planning. I know usually the right ...
After years of critiquing fiction as a hobby, I feel like I've gained some skill at editing. I'm now wondering how I can try my hand at actually editing fiction. While I've got a decent sense of h...
So much of communication is nonverbal - facial expressions, body language. Often, it's entirely clear what somebody is thinking and conveying even if they aren't saying a word. How can I portray t...
I am writing a book, in which the protagonists are two teenagers. They fell in love and it is time they were alone and had sex. As long as the book is destined for teenagers from 15-19, I would l...
In my story, my characters have to go on a journey, plus it's medieval. (So original right?) Anywho, they've already been captured by road robbers once and escaped. Also, they've stumbled upon a to...
I'm 50,000 words into my first book. Based on my plot and roadmap, that's about 25% of the way into it, so about 200k. I have roughly 110 pages in a good place, as I've already re-drafted three or...
I write mainly short stories and poetry, and am unsure of what social media platform will garner more attention to this type of writing. Is there a tried and true social media that will get me more...
Context introduction In my story the protagonist is both curious and fearful. He wants to know what is in a forest but is too afraid to go inside. He is also distracted by his basic needs for food ...
Perhaps the "classic" example is Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Early in her journey through the land of Oz, she acquires the slippers that she needs to take her back to Kansas. But she doesn't reali...
I've had two recent ideas for short stories that I feel would be best written as epistolary pieces where the main character is basically giving a monologue. I know that there will be a lot of 'I's ...
I have wanted to write a novel for the past three years. I have read books on writing and taken online courses. Some of that material recommended not using an outline to write a book, and some re...
When I write a chat dialogue in a novel, how should I format it? Since it is not direct speech, it obviously needs no quotation marks, but should I use italics, repeat the names, or how else is cha...
I've come across the term "heavy handed" before, and it seems to be one of the more egregious mistakes that one can make while writing - at least that's the impression I get from critics. What doe...
For my story I'm writing, some of the characters speak a different language from the protagonists. Should I actually create a ConLang (constructed language) for them and use it in dialog OR should...
I write a mathematical research monograph. It has a section named "Partially ordered categories". The first subsection (with the most basic properties of partially ordered categories) of this sect...
Lately I've been thinking about trying to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where the idea (at least I think it is) to write an entire novel in one month. Is this even possib...
I am writing an article which deals with some of the problems of the city. Since I have a word limit, is it necessary that I have to include the solutions of the problems too? Is it advisable? Or c...
I received the following in unsolicited email: Hello, My name is ___________. I saw that you have written _________. My question for you is: may I promote the book at the Los Angeles Times...
In the 'About the Author' section of Cuckoo's calling, it says that Robert Galbraith spent several years in the military etc etc. But now that we all know who Robert Galbraith is...does this not co...
I've just started writing my first proper novel, I've written short stories and started to write before, but never really had the motivation, but now I have a new, interesting storyline to write ab...
This is a bit complicated to explain. Here's an example: She had green eyes and extremely curly hair. It looked like a cluster of ferns in a mountain forest. OK, that was an awful metaphor,...
When I was in school, my English teacher told me that a short story's beginning should mirror its ending, or at least the conclusion should in some way parallel the starting point of the story; but...
This may seem like blasphemy to a lot of you, but can I become a good writer without doing incredible amounts of reading? I never read for fun growing up (thank you, videogames) and have just recen...
I am working on my first novel which is a collaboration with a friend. We both have no experience and no contacts within the industry, so we are realistic about the prospects for the first novel an...
I've asked questions in the past about dialogue and I've read some questions about balancing dialogue with plot, however I have discovered yet another corner case in my writing. In my story Cured, ...
