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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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 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...
I'm writing up a CV (my secret identity is a mild-mannered software engineer); there's a volunteer project I did (related to my undergrad studies) that I want to describe, and I'm not sure where to...
I'm contemplating writing about a character with good motivations whose actions would be considered evil. In short the story would be about a necromancer killing an entire nation so that he can bri...
I need to revise a screenplay in Final Draft, and I'm finding that the revision features in the program are poor. Are there any ways to introduce revision features in to Final Draft, similar to Tra...
What makes an individual metaphor a good illustration of a complex idea as opposed to a "bad" metaphor that doesn't do the job of painting a picture with alternate words?
My current WiP is a science-fiction piece which is less about characters coping with a particular problem, and more about the process they go through in reaction to the SF-nal catalyst. My story is...
When I'm writing a plotline, it often works out that I know two characters will be meeting each other in a particular scene, and that they will converse. And I oftentimes know the central idea of w...
I have seen various combinations of interjections (or "grunt words", as they are sometimes called) used in fictional dialogue, such as: uh huh (which I take for a yes) uh uh (for no) nuh uh (also ...
I am designing a fiction writing contest for 13 and 14-year old EFL students. The students have very limited experience writing English and writing fiction. I am developing the scoring sheet, on w...
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...
In an academic project report, what phrasing should I use to introduce and explain related work? I have to explain several previous projects; I would like to be clear but also avoid repetition. I ...
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...
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...
Where can I search for words using descriptive sentences? For example, now I'm looking for a word meaning "to purify (by hand) a quantity of grain and take away anything that isn't good grain." Ho...
I'd like to learn the APA style guide, so that, in addition to the fiction and general non-fiction I work on currently, I can start accepting academic editing jobs. However, I know very little abou...
I was re-reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone recently to get a feel for the way J.K. Rowling passes an entire year in a fairly short book that feels content packed, and I noticed somethin...
After releasing my first blogging article I received some less-than-stellar reviews citing that I "managed to write a blog post that hypes up your proposed solution to "hacking" TV...then don't eve...
In my story THE GOSPEL OF THE RETURN OF A CHRIST THAT WANTS ANSWERS I wanted to evoke a sense of the middle ages in a modern book. So I utilized a technique where whenever I referred to a character...
Among a million other ambitions under the general heading of "Writing," I have this fantasy where I write a major series, several books long with a giant cast. But I started thinking. In giant ser...
I'm writing a documentation for an eGovernment project, so the document I'm writing is a scientific document. It contains some big ideas, each having some subideas, with each subidea having a numbe...
I wrote a short story. All the action happens mainly at the beginning of the story. You can see part of the beginning in this question, and the full story here). This is the dialogue and ending (j...
I'm having problems describing certain parts of a place that I usually visit. Here are some pictures: For instance, I have no idea how I should refer to the wooden platform on the left (so I ju...
Should I change "our" to "their" in this quote? If so, how? As stated in their 2011 Annual Report, Siemens’ identity and corporate culture is defined by their vision to be a pioneer, which is base...
This is the first short story where I'm using actual names for the characters. Here is a sample: "Sorry for the question," Jun said. "But why don' you have friends?" Ling glanced at him, t...
A serial comma is used to separate a list of items: For breakfast, we had ham, eggs, and toast. A serial semi-colon is used when items in the list have commas: For breakfast, we had ham, ...
In a previous question, I asked about how to improve the opening of my short novel. The following is the ending: "Can I talk about something that makes me feel strange?" he asked while search...
I understand there's a certain element of stylistic freedom in using quotes, double quotes, or neither. But what are the specific cases when single quotes are generally recommended?
I have a problem where I often proof my own writing and I don't catch all the errors while I am reading through it. I often miss entire words out of sentences or find myself repeating words. I can ...
Disclaimer: I'm not an native English speaker Here is the first part of a short novel I'm writing. For the description I wanted the reader to have an idea of the place first and then let him know...
I'm trying to collect feedback from my colleagues and the deadline is on 10-April-2012, 2.00pm. So in my mail I write: Please email your feedback to me before 2.00pm, 10-April-2012(Tuesday). ...
I want to allude an experience that feels almost like Descartes' idea of "I think, therefore I am". Because the phrase is a proposition, I find it very difficult to fit in the statement in because ...
I go to a CEGEP, which is basically pre-university in Montreal. In my Introduction to English class, I had a teacher who allowed us to go around the typical essay writing conventions. Conventions l...
I am working on a bio for a development conference I am presenting at. My writing style causes my Flesch Reading Ease score to trend high. While I like what I have below I'd like to simplify it a b...
I have the PC Study Bible, which is a collection of resources (Bible versions, commentaries, &c.) bundled together and accessed via a special software program. How do I cite one of the resource...
I currently work for an engineering company as an electrical engineer. A good chunk of my time is spent writing testing reports or instruction documents. Currently my company doesn't have any sort ...
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 ...
I have a moderate level of skills in technical writing (TW) having gone through graduation in engineering. I was wondering what would be the best way to sharpen my knowledge. I am also interested ...
I've looked at some of the largest outsourcing sites. These have huge amounts of software developers, and huge amounts of casual writers. I'm having enormous difficulty finding authors that would...
I believe I understand this and I'm looking for confirmation. Examples: It has become a tugging match with the Weird Man shouting, "I'll take you to a taxi... I'll take you." Ahead, a group is...
The title says it all. I'm talking about a feature-length film here, although I'm sure the techniques are universal.
I've seen this construction quite a bit, although only in the last five years or so. It's a transcription of a way of speaking, where the speaker is emphasizing something by using a verbal full sto...
Due to the growing popularity of POD, many small companies are coming to the market, and makes this business very competitive. However, I hardly see comments on the quality of printing (paper, bind...
I'm writing a novel, and it's written in close third person perspective, very much sitting on the shoulder of one main character and privy to their thoughts. There is another very important charact...
I have a horrific habit I'm finding it very difficult to break. A disturbingly large portion of my sentences consist of the same structure-- two parts separated by "and." I don't know how to break ...
I had an article published for 1st rights in a magazine. Can I use an excerpt or all of the article in my own ebook? I now own the copyright and am unsure about the rules of fair use pertaining to ...
As a part of one assignment, I need to create of a character who is petty. His pettiness causes him (or her) conflicts with other characters around him (or her). I am not quite familiar with this p...
I want to write some reference books containing details about the fictional universe of some popular franchises, such as Tintin, or Star Trek. This would contain short plot summaries (1-paragraph i...
Is it really necessary to place the appendices in a book in the order in which they are referred to, or is it possible to have a "logical" order, i.e. place them in an order which would be chosen w...
