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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If I am quoting a question, and the quotation comes at the end of a sentence with a citation, where does the question mark go? I have been told that question marks (and full stops) should come afte...
I have reached a point in my story in which the characters, who are in a sort of gang, will have to turn against each other. The specifics of it are not important; what is, is that capturing the ma...
I have this girl in my story, who is around 12 years old, who is the main character of the story, or one of the main characters. She is captured by the bad guys very often, and I fear this might ge...
Have any of the successfully published writers here found the various best selling "How To" books dangerous, in that they guide aspiring writers into producing cookie cutter works? I'm currently r...
This is probably a repeat of a previous question, but I have a slightly different problem when writing. I don't always want to refer to characters by their names (if I do, then I run into problems ...
Most political humor I see on the internet is usually directed towards persons, and the jokes are relatively easy. However, it's pretty much useless, and temporary, besides, poking at the personal...
I'm writing about a mature girl (15ish). But I'm not sure how she should act other than being polite. The way I think a mature person would act would be someone who doesn't swear, but some mature p...
So, due to a smaller miracle, a scrapped concept, a badly timed Eragon review from Nostalgia Critic and the SAO abridged came together and created a good "filler" episode concept and a character i...
I don't want to use for 'sh*t' and 'f**k' in my work. What else can I use that gives similar meaning?
I have an idea for a novel series that I want to write. I'm into the first one, and I've got a pretty good idea of all that I want to happen in it. I also have some ideas as to events that I want t...
I always want to start writing and maintain my diary, in which I want to write what I am doing daily. But I am confused about what to include, how to start, and where to start. Please guide me or ...
I'd like to write a scene where my character is thinking back and forth between decisions, and I'm not sure what the correct way is. Do I write all of his thoughts in italics, or just every other...
I know it is rather unusual, but I am toying with the idea of a king's daughter joining the army. This daughter is not the usual princessy princess, but she is serious, strong and often cold. If sh...
As a writer, there are many things that can be claimed as expenses if they help you to generate income (or try to generate income). Postage is one, but my question is specifically this: Can you cl...
I have had the thought of writing about a nation with states on another planet. The planet is earth-like and the quantity of some resources is higher than on Earth. There are some differences betw...
During my pregnancy, I'd quit my job as a tutor. However, I wrote articles for my sister, who was working as a Social Media Manager and Content Creator. Now that I want to start applying for jobs, ...
I want to start writing a fantasy reincarnation novel and I want a good beginning but I can't decide. By now I have: Being killed by a friend (doesn't matter the location) Being killed by a frie...
I have created a character who has survived through a massively traumatic event which, for him, lasted about ten years. He had a major hand in this event, though he was forced to do it. (Literally....
If there are two works with the same character name and family type can it be considered a plagiarized work even though the plot is different? One work is about two brothers raised by their father...
I’m writing a scene that is on a phone call. I don't want to hear one person in a voiceover. Instead, I want to cut back and forth between the two people speaking. Do I have to use a new scene h...
I'm in the writing stage of my first book, which is to be the first of three books which are all part of, let's say, Trilogy A. I'm planning on writing two more Trilogies (B and C) which all start...
I wrote a play that I performed this summer, and have done significant re-writes for an upcoming second performance run. In order to help me relearn my lines, I think it would be useful to see whic...
I'm new here. In the past, I've written countless articles for newspapers, and I almost never needed to edit more than a page or two. However, I have agreed to edit an entire (existing) novel for ...
I was told to write an article for a homework assignment. The topic was "How to get good sleep?". I was given the points I had to include, and the word limit was 120-150 words. When I submitted the...
How should you end a business letter? If you are writing a letter to your grandparents, I would use With Love from 'name' However, if you are writing a professional letter to someone impor...
Ideas keep popping into my head while I walk, so I have a tiny memo book to jot down my thoughts. However, there's no room for my writing hand to use all the available space, I write really messily...
If you were to write a story about a kid in high school who has a lot of psychopath/sociopath tendencies and doesn't feel guilt from that. How would you make him unlikeable, then likeable and how w...
It seems like in some stories, you can feel the theme pervading through every element. In other stories, you don't know what you're reading about until the very last line. I'd guess I lean on the ...
Is it ill-advised to have a child protagonist (either first or third POV) in a story that contain a fair share of violence and gore ? I'm worried readers of this kind of story may not relate with ...
I wanted to write something for a long time. But what I think is, in writing the choice of words plays a very significant role. From where I can learn this thing? I think I don't have enough words ...
So from my other question, I was told that under certain circumstances, you could trust Wikipedia. But then after a couple of answers, I started wondering how to figure out which sites have valid i...
I'm a contemporary romance author writing a romance Christmas book. The hero in my story has a six year old girl. There are lots of conversations with the six year old, but when I read my story bac...
I am trying to show the confusion my character feels (first person narrative) but am not sure what techniques to use. I have tried to achieve this using questions that arose through my character's ...
Planning on writing a picture sci-fi book about Utopia. The book will not have a plot (story), sequence or any conclusion. It will have approximately 30 illustrations generally depicting a search f...
I'm starting to wrap up the gestation period of my first book - right now I have a notebook filled with a lot of observations of life and topics I want to deal with in my book. I'm now starting to ...
I'm looking for methods of planning chapters for books. I always saw structures and scripting in the macro level, but never in the micro level.
In my novel my protagonist speaks to a man while being held at gun point. She (protagonist) tried to kill him. He was her boss, was involved in her best friend's death and wants the protagonist dea...
I’m writing a fictional drama/crime/mystery sceenplay. In my script, college kids go missing from a REAL University. I like the realism and academic profile of an actual University, but would th...
An Australian literary agent just knocked me back after reading my debut novel manuscript. He advised me to find an editor and said he'll entertain reading my work again but would like to first see...
I was once told by a former writing partner of mine that publishers require paragraphs in stories to be separated by double spaces to be submitted. Is that tidbit true?
So, I was writing a test story to see if my tools can work together in the way intended. Few paragraphs into the first chapter and there is a problem: Character A is a scaredy-cat, and I based the...
Like many, I’m a huge fan of the HBO series True Detective. I was reading the script for the second episode and I noticed this: INT. STATE CID - NIGHT Hart and Cohle enter the squad room, acknowle...
I just kind of stumbled upon this site but I would love some help from anyone... All my life I have loved to write. As a kid and teenager it was my favorite pastime, and I was always planning for a...
I was told to ask this question here. There’s a saying in writing to “show; don’t tell”. For example instead of saying: “She was angry”, you would write: “Steam started coming out of her ears”, or:...
I’m not sure if this has been answered yet, but I always have people tell me that self publishing might not be safe. What are the dangers of self publishing? Also, a question to the published write...
My question is pretty much summed up in the title. My story includes a lot of narration. Narrating events, narrating character's thoughts. There are several intervals in each chapter where the char...
I'm curious to know because I was thinking that when people say this, I'm thinking they start editing the last chapter of their work to the first, and see if it all makes sense in the end. When I s...
In my script, there is an AI chatbot character - ANNIE - that real characters communicate with via text. ANNIE has animated reactions and has an artificial speaking voice. Would I write ANNIE’S...
I've heard that writers should read the type of stuff they want to write. Usually that implies really good fiction and prose, but I want to write great emails to my colleagues and network. What typ...
Sometimes when I'm reading, I get myself reading automaticaly. This happens in certain books more than in others. I'am reading but I'm not assimilating what is writen, and then I have to read it al...
