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.
So basically I'm writing a story set in a magical world where there are separate covens, each with different mission statements (there is one for those who want to be healers, one for those who wan...
A series I am working on deals with an underlying storyline that progresses through each book. I'm afraid of confusing a reader if they decide to start reading a book somewhere in the middle of the...
Say I want to quote from the bible in something I'm writing (think the famous passage in Pulp Fiction). What bible version should I quote from? I've done some research but only ended up more confu...
While an unreliable narrator is someone who is deceiving the reader (or possibly himself), there are plenty of stories where the narrator is truthfully relaying what happened, but does not fully un...
I'm writing a sci-fi novel with more than one main character. Since I'm not an experienced writer, I still struggle with some basic "rules" within writing that may or may not exist. This issue ...
In the novel I'm planning the human characters that inhabit the world are all clones of each other. Man and woman. They aren't given names when born, instead they are given serial numbers that also...
I'm writing a short story From what I understand, the theme is the message that I want to send across. Akin to Beauty and the Beast's "Don't judge a book by its cover" theme, or "Opposites attract...
I seem to have this problem where I know a lot of words but can't always seem to think them up when I write an article or a story. I know the meaning of most of these words, but when I write, some ...
Here's an example from my own writing: Watching the ceiling fan stir my thoughts, I said, “His favorite thing was to tell me about his day.” Mrs. Saeki gawked at me behind her square gla...
I've been writing a mystery story recently, but I've run into a problem concerning the major plot twist, and was hoping for some guidance from more experienced writers. Here's the scenario: Perso...
A character speaks two languages throughout the whole plot. How to insert the translation of the other language without ruining the layout of the story or text? For example: "Guten tag, Herr X...
If a book is not returnable, has a wholesaler discount of 45% and costs £10.99, does a book store sell this book if a customer comes into a store and wants to order it? In short: Is a book still a...
When building a twist into the ending, should I leak enough information such that astute readers could predict the twist if they stopped and mulled it over or should I withhold key elements to guar...
I have a premise, which I think is funny/clever. I want to write this as a comedy sketch, to be acted out or shot on video. I have three "scenes" which are basically three different re-capitulatio...
I've created a manipulative sort of protagonist, one who enjoys mind games, blackmail, systematically destroying people who've wronged her, that sort of thing. I personally find her very interesti...
I was considering naming my book "Cherry on Top." However, because this may be hard to search for on Google, I was going to add a subtitle. Perhaps make the full title/subtitle "Cherry on Top: Not ...
I'm writing a short story structured like this: Character A's POV * * * Character B's POV * * * Character B's POV * * * Character A's POV * * * Character B's POV * * * Based on the firs...
I've finally committed to writing my first novel. I've been listening to things like Writing Excuses which encourages first time writers to finish their works, but I'm definitely writing an old dar...
Looking at this question, I was trying to figure out how to format a small family of novels and short stories that use a number of languages. My original approach went with the above question's sty...
I'm currently learning about story structure and there's not much consensus on the "black moment" or "all is lost lull" that happens around Act 2. Is this moment of defeat before or after the secon...
I just finished the charming short memoir from actor Cary Elwes, As You Wish, about his experiences while filming The Princess Bride. The voice sounds very much like Elwes, but the cover clearly sa...
The following is a paraphrased snippet of something I wrote, it is a conversation between the protagonist--a nihilist teenage boy--and an alien sociologist who communicates to him via telepathy, so...
While inside the weatherbeaten maternity hut lit by a single candle, out of the dark shadow of its mother's womb, the most unusual child ever seen in the village was delivered; and while the...
Let's say the character has over the years grown to dislike humans because he had many negative experiences with them, and is disappointed in humanity itself. How does one write such a character wi...
I am working on a story in which the characters must solve a mystery. It's a "team-building exercise" at school, in which they must work together. They are graded on how well they work together and...
When I write answers to questions on the stack exchange network my end result is often quite lengthy. While length itself isn't a problem for me, sometimes my answers end up like this. This happens...
I am producing a comic in which a fictional language is frequently spoken. This language (and which characters are able to speak it) is significant to the plot, so it's important that the reader ...
I've come across some answers and questions on this site which have gotten me thinking about re-readability. It isn't something that I think about much, but now that I consider it, I think it could...
I saw this question being asked and it lead me to wonder something.... It seems that self inserting your.... person is not considered good practice or should be kept to a minimal. So my question p...
There is currently a dearth of Asian American writers on U.S. library bookshelves, and those few authors who are Asian Americans tend to write about things associated with Asian culture. Think of A...
I build websites. I've used a copywriter to provide the website copy, the client paid the writer directly. I placed copyright signs on the site for the writer as requested. However, they have now ...
So I have a quote that has double quotation marks inside it. Would I leave those in? Or replace them with single quotes? In Carolyn Gregoire’s article “What Your 'Life Story' Really Says About...
I'm definitely poor at English and I always have grammatical errors. After posting a question about what apps can I use to start writing my stories, I searched in this site if how can I improve my...
I have a tendency to write text that's on the "beige" side. I think it's the engineer in me that tends to write text that's very straightforward and strictly factual. To a certain degree, that's go...
Background So I see a lot of questions on the site like this. They're all about deeply explaining worldbuilding and stuff, doing all of that explaining type of thing. Normally, I just skip that. F...
I have a character who has a tendency towards malapropism but I find that in every sentence she speaks I am re-reading it and finding words to replace. ie. (actual - translation) "Inquisition, ...
Gosh, I really think I'm quite clever sometimes. But what about those situations where the readers (audience) can be told, and they feel completely satiated and entertained by not going into the nu...
What are some good ways to describe the looks of a new character presented in a story? I generally mention eye and hair color, physical build and maybe if they have facial hair or not. But to me it...
Got advised on Worldbuilding’s Sandbox to post here, so here I am. I don’t even know if the word “alien” applies here because to the eyes of the characters, those animals and plants won’t be alien...
When we speak, there are often small pauses between syntactic units such as sentences. In writing, these pauses are signified by punctuation: I can come if you want. (without pause) I can ...
I'm working on a novel that involves folklore/mythological creatures from mainly the Norse and Scandinavian myths, but in the world of the novel, there exists beings from all cultures. I wish to wr...
My school is doing a romance writing competition and there is no cliche allowed. But that is the only way I know how to write romance. I mean, I haven't read a single book that hasn't had a bit of ...
Background I recently noticed in my latest masterpiece novel there is quite a lot of things happening by chance. For example: The main character just happens to pass by an old, frail warrior w...
This question was asked by a member of my critique group at the beginning of the month and I've been stewing over it for a while now. I still don't have any better ideas, so I'm turning to you. How...
Just as I heard from various sources, a plot has to start with what the reader will find through most of it. And that's what I did, the first scene shown is the main event that triggers the story. ...
Capitalization in a text has been something heavily debated in the writing community due to its nature as being preference based, and finding a hard set answer is fairly difficult. However, should ...
So I am still in the primitive stages of creating my own world and story, if I even do it that is. I am still trying to get a feel for where I want to go with it. The biggest issue would be that,...
"By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Goo...
What are some tips you would recommend to immediately attract a reader, or make the story interesting enough to continue reading? I want to know if there are any specific techniques or ways that y...
I'm writing a story about fictional beings who have the power of the four elements. Only very few, very rare people posses the power of all four elements while most only have one. My main character...
