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 a person wants to build a tech startup, he or she can increase the odds of success, if they move to a place with lots of like-minded people (e. g. Silicon Valley, Israel, London, Berlin). That w...
I have seen this in visual media, but not really in written media so I am sort of at a loss as to how to proceed. I am writing a first person narrative where the main character is almost constantl...
I will supply you with some character information and some context for my specific project, though I'm thinking my question could be relevant for almost any story. I am writing a story involving ...
In scientific papers (in my case it's usually in computer science) it seems to me that some techniques which help in explaining concepts and technology are not used that much. For example a metaph...
It dawned on me the other day, after struggling through a fight scene, that I am lost when it comes to writing action. I usually write slower, dialogue-heavy scenes, and I have become used to takin...
I am writing a novel and trying to develop a character using the Enneagram of Personality model. Is it acceptable to combine more than one enneagram type for a single character ? I understand that ...
I'm working on some guidelines for localization of a computer program. We recently added descriptions to most of the settings, and most of the labels are user contributed and in many cases awful. ...
The story I'm writing is in English, but it's set in a constructed world with a range of different languages. The general conceit is that anything the viewpoint character (of which there's more tha...
Is it possible to set top and bottom margins to ZERO in Scrivenings mode so that I do not have big spaces between documents? Thanks!
I have a similar question as the one asked in 'How to write montages in prose? (fantasy novel)' however, there has been no answer in this and it is far too general. The question I wish to ask is;...
I am currently writing a story that alternates perspectives between the hero and heroine every other chapter. I have gotten a lot of work done with the heroine's chapters, but I have been trouble w...
Here's an example from my own writing (this is a first draft so there might be errors): Turn for Kazuo's eyeballs. I take them to the table, but I don't eat them immediately. I look at them l...
I've come to the recent conclusion that my writing lacks conflict. This problem is especially hard for me because I don't like conflict in my own personal life, and am the type who doesn't usuall...
I'm working on a prose that depicts a sexual act that I feel readers should be uncomfortable with. I'll spare you the details, but the short version is that the main character is turned on by a vio...
Are alliteration and dissonance considered mutually exclusive? My understanding is that alliteration means repetition of consonant sounds to make text flow more harmoniously, while dissonance means...
How do I create an impossible choice for my protagonist? I want to place him in a painful dilemma, and I'm having trouble making the choice feel truly impossible. For example, I'm writing a scene ...
In the story I'm writing, I want to include a character who is a free radical. At some points she helps the main group and at some points she hinders them. She may even end up joining the main grou...
NOTE: I've heavily rephrased the original question in a last attempt to clarify it. Background to the question While studying Portuguese literature in secondary school, one learns several rhetori...
When writing Fantasy, Historical Novels, or even Science Fiction - language patterns and terms are incredibly different back then (or in the future), then we have now. How can you properly convey...
I'm drafting a resume for a job opportunity & would love recommendations on a formatting issue. My resume has many bullet points and some tables. However, I'm challenged by online job applicati...
I started a book about 2 years ago, got about halfway through, and then got sidetracked. I know this is a typically bad habit of novelists... Fortunately, the book idea that distracted me made it t...
This is my first actual question, so I apologize in advance if I include something that is not suited for the forum, or if this is a duplicate of an existing west - though I DID try to find one tha...
Is there a genre that could be called "Safe Thriller"? It seems that all thriller novels are R rated. A PG rated thriller could still be engaging and serious without gross content. Similar to a "Co...
It is difficult to summarize an entire book only in a single book review, when I want to have the ability of navigating through it later in my life, as a way of revising/going back for the data I t...
It is well known that the postmodern novels often use citations and references to other cultural objects, first of all to the other novels. Sometimes it is necessary to read several of them in orde...
When you make a character that isn't your own race or ethnic background, you have to research things, in order to avoid misrepresentation. But, what must you research about a given ethnic group? H...
When thinking about scenes and story ideas, I can't help but picture something playing out as a movie. It's so much easier to picture someone moving and doing things than to actually describe what ...
I have written a novel that has A) a lot of graphic Male/Female sex and B) a plot involving a mystery that takes place, and is solved, in the Czech Republic. My questions are really about the cat...
I am currently writing three different stories. I didn't start this on purpose, because I knew it would be very difficult to keep up, but I couldn't help it and kept getting different great ideas t...
There are many ways to do a sequel, though for this question I'm only interested in one... The Post Hero's Journey/Apotheosis-Story. Lacking a proper name for this narrative frame work "PHJ" is w...
In this question about creating subtext, Where in the writing process do you work in subtext?, the question of what the word subtext means was raised. This question is to address this issue. Of co...
I have an idea for a novel that is told from two, first person viewpoints. One of these viewpoints would be Character 1's and take place in her past, and the other viewpoint would be Character 2's,...
I know this may not be the best place to ask this, since it's for a game, but the game is very story driven, so I thought it would be reasonable to ask this on the writers stack exchange. The stor...
I don't see any analytical literature about the usefulness of red herrings as a TV trope. What are some reasons to use them? I'm assuming there's more to it than just bored writers trying to amuse ...
When writing in the first person, how do you visually describe details of a specific object, such as words written on a piece of paper? Take this for example: What was his name? That's somethi...
Firstly, I'm sorry if I end up being too vague in my question, but it's really hard for me to express exactly what is the problem. I was watching a video of a walkthrough of a game (Drakengard) an...
I am writing a novel that contains spy elements. Although the plot is based in the near future, it alludes to recent past historical events. Specifically, it discusses the 1985 'Year of the Spy' an...
Background I've planned the chapter I'll write tomorrow. It features a bandit ambush! That's so exciting! Wow! The sickly scent of blood, the glistening blades and powerless enemies. They are noth...
I am writing a persuasive argument in rebuttal of a specific document. I'm tired of the word "distortion," and this time I want to say it with a simile. Please help me find a good simile for this...
I have previously mentioned in other posts that I was a molecular biologist and ICU nurse. Sadly, that means I am bedeviled with a double dose of bad writing habits: academese and medicalese. Just ...
The story I'm currently writing is a framed story where a recurring-depression-suffering writer that lost his wife [killed] in a war tells his life story in a symbolical fantasy world. Throughout t...
I am currently writing a short story in which the story's climax revolves around the protagonist making and carrying out a decision to take action. I have come to realise that the decision I orig...
I am new to the site, so please let me know if I'm not following proper format or etiquette. I am beginning a story (only 4,000 words so far). I am having trouble adding in characters that can be ...
Before I started writing my fantasy story (80,000 words so far) I had a pretty strong outline prepared. Within the structure of my plot, I wrote relatively organically and my characters started to ...
I have written both professionally and on an amateur level for several years. A lot of it basically fell into my lap, and it hasn't been my primary profession for a couple of years now. I have some...
I got couple of good definitions of the traditional Print run. One of the disturbing things mentioned in one of the definitions that many a times 50 percent of them are destroyed. How it was destro...
Background When I first tried writing fantasy - a long long time ago - I wrote a book that was meant to be really serious and intense. However, I wrote it in a way where the characters joked aroun...
I am trying to use more action tags to supplement the 'He said. He asked.' dialog tags. But, now I have read several blogs suggesting although 'said' is invisible and can be sprinkled as liberally ...
I’d like to post some writing on my own website, and not lose sellability. It may be a portion of something that eventually gets sold to a magazine or somesuch. But many times I don’t mind lettin...
