Posts tagged creative-writing
I am not sure how to best handle this, do we skip over a part of the dialogue? When a person is cut, he can resume, but it's not the same thing for a TV. Anyway, here's an example: The TV blur...
I am wondering if we can use footnotes to describe technologies used in a science-fiction novel instead of describing it by switching from an omniscient POV, that describes everything in a poetic w...
(EDITED TO MAKE IT LESS BROAD AND MORE CLEAR). I recently asked a question about if I really need to include scientific proof for my mostly-non-scientific post-apocalyptic novel, and the best answ...
Is it too distracting to include a major mystery subplot(s) in a fantasy story? I mean a complete subplot or subplots that the character solves. Perhaps the examples below do not qualify as mystery...
In the writing practises guides, it is usually mentioned that use of ellipsis is a bad practice. But I have come across certain usages in professional writing. To give an example; In the novel ...
I know it normally takes several months to get an agent and then a contract. But are there any shortcuts, any particular companies that one can submit to directly and get a much faster evaluation? ...
I am wondering how to do this in a novel. Do you write the song (lyrics) in its entirety in one single spurt, or do you spurt a verse at a time interspersed with descriptions of the surroundings/ac...
As I already mentioned in my previous question, I'm writing a novel with personages both that I created and some already created by others (well, I wrote that when I was younger and now I just digi...
In a short story I am writing, I have this misogynistic character who keeps saying misogynistic stuff, and I thought it would be a bad idea to give him dialogue lines. I was thinking that, because ...
I often have a passage that sounds like this. I don't know why, but I always found these passages a bit odd sounding. A stranger was lying, face into the sands, belly down, on the beach all a...
When I try to do this, the description feels very dry, and I am not sure if it's possible to make it feel less dry while still being impersonal and super objective (because I am using a omniscient ...
For my Pathfinder campaign I write an update each session which I share with my players. The goal for these updates is: Provide a brief recap of the previous session Get people excited for the ne...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count#In_fiction This Wikipedia page tells you under which classification a fictional work falls under depending on its length, so we have 3 I am most interested...
I just had this sentence off my head: A crown of fire spread through the country consuming everything on its way. What I mean by empty metaphor is a metaphor that doesn't really have any me...
At least 40% of the characters in my novel appear for only 2-3 chapters and I don't really have the chance to develop them. Is this too many? How can you determine you have too many characters appe...
I have heard there can be an allegory inside another allegory (mise en abyme), but what about 2 concurrent allegories (at the same time) and how do you insure that people don't get confused by the ...
There are different types of time travel (they have different rules and constraints) throughout literature, so I was wondering if you could list some of them here, and which ones are best for drivi...
I structured my plot, designed the path to the climax, listed my characters and even outlined some scenes. Then halfway through I got stuck: one minor transition scene just did not make sense. The ...
Warning: I have ADHD and this might be a little ramble-y, sorry. I'm completely stumped. I'm trying to get into writing fiction but I feel that I've hit a roadblock. My story is told from the firs...
The majority of stories, movies, shows, comics, and other media I've read or seen have a pretty even split between men and women, and that's fine, I don't have a problem with it. But if I want t...
(TW, depression related stuff?) In my AP Lang class, we've recently started an activity called Visiting Author, where a student does a cold read of a piece they wrote and the others give criticism...
The story is third person limited to Bob's point of view. He is with Alice, and I have the following line. Alice sat up proudly, then shrunk back down, realizing where she was. Compare this t...
I have been cautioned against blending: Traditional fantasy elements Such as magic systems and exotic, less plausible creatures (on a scientific level - magic tends to explain away these beasts...
There is a writing technique where a writer would imagine in her mind's eye where her story should end and will write it 'backwards'. Writing the end and then writing the chapters leading to end, s...
Do you add pauses? Do you add interjection? Which ones? Do you misspell certain words? What are some of the tricks writers use? I don't want to say it in the descriptive passage. I want people to f...
While I tend to agree with the writer & publishing guru, Dean Wesley Smith, that agents are usually a liability and that it is wrong for writers to hand over their royalties to them, I am not s...
I heard that people who appreciate dark humor are more intelligent on average. I also read the following: Willinger and her team said their findings suggested black humour processing is a “c...
I have trouble imagining things. With me everything is blurred, as if I were almost blind. That's why I find it hard to describe things. For example, the protagonists enter a castle. I have a very ...
I don't have the financial resources to hire a scientific consultant to ask him whether my science-fiction plot is realistic, so I was wondering if there were any resource that teach Quantum Mechan...
Something that always bothers me in my writing is how often I start sentences with the word "the". A terrible nonsensical example: The dog ran through the rain-swept streets, chasing a ball he...
I have a story that I wish to write. I like my story and genuinely believe it to be interesting. My issue is that I have never really written anything before. When I have read advice in the past, I...
I am thinking of writing a short story which starts with a character narrating then ends up being narrated by an omniscient character. What are the best ways of making this transition? I can't thin...
So far, I've only written one short story but I wish to write a novella. I'm worried, however, about the enormous work of marketing and contacting agents and publishers. I just want to focus on my ...
Someone told me that it's incorrect or outdated punctuation to put a comma after "said" in dialogue tags such as the following (from an old book we're reprinting): “I shouldn’t wonder if you co...
Not sure if this is a worldbuilding or writing question, but here it goes. In this setting, gods of humanity are beings of absolute order that exist in another plane of existence. They are consta...
In our world, we consider human life to be precious and valuable. It is meant to be preserved, and a deliberate act of taking a life is considered deplorable by society. This is considered normal. ...
(Question about my hacker (hacking??) novel.) Just an FYI, I am a woman. Edward is a cyber spy and works with an organization named Vox Populi to curate and release all data online, especially t...
In several third person (usually limited) stories that I've read, there comes a time when one character shares some of their backstory to one or more other characters. This backstory is always (or...
This story includes a select group of individuals who contain superpowers and the main character is obviously one of those few. I don't want to throw it out there straight away and am trying to hin...
Is it a large seamless novel chopped up into several parts, or is it a collection of independent novels with recurring characters?
I have been working on a poem for some time now. It is divided into various "Parts" and it will be a long one when completed. Due to the very nature of what I am writing, I just let my thoughts a...
Dystopian fiction is a big thing right now, and YA books like The Hunger Games and Divergent are pretty individual and subsequently are bestsellers. But a lot of stuff is also really cheesy and tr...
I am writing a story and I have these 3 sentences that elaborate on the ending of a first page. This way the reader will continue to read my story. My question is, am I allowed to place paragraph ...
Or should I dumb down my writing and pander to what I think most people like to read? (Note: This isn't necessarily about me. It's a general question for many writers facing such a dilemma.) NB: ...
A CEO moves next door to a 3rd year college student who babysits and tutors for a rich family to keep the rent paid in her expensive apartment. It seems strange for a CEO, who probably has a ton of...
As a Uber driver, I did not earn much. Uber cut down the pay to drivers recently, it hurt a lot. I want to write a sign to remind people to pay tips. I want to be a bit creative to remind the rid...
My good guys murder people. They slowly carve runes onto them to help defeat the bad guys. Sure they try to use "society's worst" people for the rituals, but realistically that doesn't always happe...
I am a new-ish author. I've written a lot of books, but they've never been published. Anyway, for this new book I'm about to write the first scene is a flash-forward to the end of the book. I reall...
I have been working on a post-apocalyptic novel for about a year. My female narrator/protagonist, named Eris, was isolated for almost all of her life until meeting a rogue group of survivors and h...
When writing a novel how would one best represent background dialogue from a radio or television that is perhaps only half heard by the characters but still important for the reader? Should I have ...
