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 am in the midst of writing my second NaNo novel, and I have encountered a problem I didn't anticipate. It is similar to this question, about changing a character's name in the middle of a story, ...
I've just spent the better half of a month writing and perfecting my prologue. It sets the tone for the rest of the story with an event which kickstarts the main narrative of the book. Why should ...
Is a book labelled "romance" expected to a have a happy ending? I've heard advice that "romance" novels are meant to satisfy, well, a desire for romance, and so an ending without a "happily ever ...
A friend of mine has published a short story in Hebrew, and I'm currently translating it into English, for submission to short fiction magazines. Is any information about the original publication ...
A friend of mine has published a short story in Hebrew, and I'm currently translating it into English, for submission to short fiction magazines. If accepted, will the editing process be any diffe...
I'm using Scrivener under Windows to write a text. How am I supposed to generate a document (Word, OpenOffice.org, LaTeX or something else) with a table of contents? I found some tutorials for do...
When I submit a manuscript, I'm supposed to include a wordcount. I understand that this is not simply the number of words in the document (as calculated by Word or Google Docs wordcount tools), but...
I need help with the concept of my story: My protagonists live in a mild dystopia. Think of your own country today ;-) They have the opportunity to kill about 20 persons, which will cause a fundam...
At a writing conference I've managed to snag a 15 minute appointment with a publisher (who published Terry Pratchett, my favourite author). I'm a debut fantasy novelist. She will have received a c...
There are lots of websites for getting feedback for my writing. But since posting something publicly on the internet can count as "publication," I'm worried that posting my work there might prove a...
This is a ~3000-word piece, with deliberately stylized writing. Is the style of this piece successful or gimmicky? Does it read smooth or choppy? He sat on top of the highway. City on a hill. H...
I am writing a memoir about my abusive childhood. Do I need permission from everyone I write about? My abuser is deceased, but my brothers are part of the story and I don't know where one of them ...
In many, many English-language novels I've come across characters who speak other languages, most often French for whatever reason. In many cases, such as with Ulysses and Lolita, this is a simple...
Script readers-- the people who sift and sort the vast piles of scripts submitted to Hollywood -- do they start at the beginning? The reason I ask is that I know 99% of scripts are awful and just ...
Eight of my books are available on Google Books as 100% online, downloadable, but no Creative Commons licensing. Now I am starting to see them show up in bookstores, in versions I didn't have print...
Some students that I mentor have written a number of short stories that they want to publish now. I am totally new in this area. I did preliminary research which indicates that there are now a nu...
We have received an offer from a US-based publisher (new company, good concept, good marketing strategy, good royalties, no fees) to publish a novel in print, eBook, and audio format. We (the auth...
When striving for gender balance in a play: What is more important, balance among the characters or among the actors? (Given that all characters are written as individuals, and not as stereotypes.)...
I am unsure if I adequately understand the concept of first electronic rights. If I post a story on a writers' website for free but also publish it through Amazon, will it affect me?
I'm in the process of translating a book (scientific publication) for private use. If I ever decide to publish it: what is the procedure? Who is the right person to ask for publishing rights and tr...
I read a quote a long time ago, but did not know the origin. I want to use it in a paper I am writing, so I tried researching to find out who is the source of the quote. The quote is "We are the ...
I've just watched one part of Brandon Sanderson's lecture on writing, the section entitled Gardeners & Architects and I realised I'm a Gardener, almost exclusively. This often ends up with me w...
I have written and self published the book 'babymoves' in 2002. It is now in its third edition. I sell it through my website. I have been approached by a Japanese woman, wanting to translate the bo...
I'm thinking of self publishing. Now what all the blogs tell me I have to do is hire a professional editor, who will see any plot / character holes, other story problems etc. (For the moment, I'm n...
I can't find any authoritative citation for this. As an example, I know that the average entrepreneur has to be involved in 12 new businesses before he has a successful enterprise. That is the na...
Are there any tools or online communities that deal with word association? I'm looking for a resource where I could poll for common associations for a particular word. If you do know of such a too...
I'm writing a teen dystopian adventure/thriller/romance novel. I've been thinking about the plot for awhile. I've got an idea I want to develop: a dystopian world where the government has gotten ri...
When writing in the first person, what is a good way to convey that the viewpoint character is lying, without saying so explicitly? My idea is this: "I am writing this as a record of what's be...
I always wondered if going off-topic in a dialogue is a bad or a normal thing. For example, let's say I'm writing a novel where the main theme is love and loss. Is it bad if the characters start t...
My fiancée is a first-time children's book author. What should she expect from her first meeting with the publisher and editors? Any advice? They've already seen some samples of her unpublished ...
I've sent my manuscript to tens of literary agents. Strangely enough, I received no positive response. My question: Can I hire a literary agent? If yes, how much it costs? Are there other ways (e...
For my book I'm planning to self-pub, I aim to hire a copyeditor / proofreader at some point. The question is this: Should I do any proofreading myself, other than using a spell checker? Currently...
So I'm gearing up to write an actual full-length novel and I've decided that the best way to test the mettle of my writing (and make a couple of bucks in the process) is to enter a few writing cont...
First, some background that may help explain the question. I have recently realized that most of my life has been spent pursuing technical-creative hybrid projects. As a professional software dev...
Is the following first-person POV introduction good, or would it be helped by switching the story to third-person limited? The book is very action-centric, involving a good deal of fights and large...
I’m thinking about developing a blog where the main character is fictional and has fictional relationships with well known celebrities and sports figures. Are there any legal ramifications for wri...
I'm currently working on the first draft of a screenplay, and it's not very good right now. It's little things; some parts go too quickly or slowly, other dialogue exchanges need improvement, and...
Sexuality is a large part of who we are as persons and it influences many decisions we make. Sadly, I don't know how to make a romance subplot believable. Are there any good guidelines to creatin...
I've been working for some time on a story about a detective who finds himself alienated, delusional and hopeless while trapped inside a dystopic, postmodern dream. This segment voices some of the ...
I planning to write about the convergence of our real world and the computer reality world. My plan to develop on this idea is to describe this convergence as a "merger" between our real world and ...
By speculative, I mean mostly science fiction, fantasy or intrigue. For example Neal Stephenson's Anathem, which is a 900-page book, goes well past the 200-page mark before the central conflict be...
As an amateur writer who has just finished my first manuscript, I want a qualified, non-biased, and thorough opinion on whether what I've written is any good. I recently heard about a service offe...
If two authors collaborate, and each of them already has an agent - then who handles the collaborative work? Do the authors decide to be jointly represented under one of their two agents? If that'...
When an individual writes a novel, he owns all rights over the manuscript until he starts selling those rights to others. What is the situation when the novel is a collaborative work? How are suc...
A publishing contract is generally a contract between a publisher and an author; a collaboration seems to add an additional party to the agreement. I would like to know what kind of complications t...
I'm in the process of defining the characters for a novel. It is a crime fiction, with a really strong focus on the characters. I hope to construct really rich, complex and clearly defined characte...
Keeping track of details invented for a work of fiction is never simple, often requiring writing bibles and continuity editors. But when two people are working on the same book simultaneously, then...
I'm working on a novel together with my co-author, K. K's come up with this great character - a sassy were-cat name Garlic. Unfortunately, I'm having a really tough time writing for Garlic - K has ...
I have a collection of short stories that I'm currently selling in the Amazon Kindle marketplace, and one of the biggest hurdles to actually getting my works read is lack of exposure. My passive p...
SPOILER ALERT: Questions and answers may contain spoilers for all three books in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Symbolic Conflict as the Climax of Social Conflict I noticed an i...
