Posts tagged style
I have written my entire novel thus far in past tense. However, I feel like my final chapter/epilogue would work better in present tense. I want to give the reader the sense that everything s/he ha...
In my novel, there is a antagonistic character named Numbers who reacts in a similar manner to those he is talking to, even freakishly so. Because of this he is easily able to become a powerful cha...
For a long time, I have wondered which way of writing the following is correct. (Is more than one correct?) The expected result for integers denotes that a value should be at least a specific va...
In a first person story I am writing, I have many subplots going on, but when I started writing it, I realized that the subplots were not obvious. How can I make it more clear that progress is occu...
Tokein. Jane Austen. Steinbeck. The greats of the past. I often come across people on this site and elsewhere who use the works of these great authors and others as examples and reservoirs of advic...
I was looking for some writers who are famous for their rich in metaphors, poetic style (to study and learn from them). Surprisingly, Google had failed me, locating only one page with a relevant qu...
Disclaimer: I am not intending on doing this. It is just a question I thought was fascinating and might be useful to other writers. Here's the scenario. You're writing a series of novels. After t...
I recently read a novel with a section that went something like this: "I have often wished that I had born into a different family; that I had never studied art at college; that my voice weren't so...
There is no "style guide" of any kind for this report, or any reports in this company. Formal reports aren't too frequent. This is a mostly internal report, though it may end up with a consultation...
I would like to start a chapter with a text message. I believe based on the style guides I've read that you should indent text messages, but how about if they are at the start of a chapter? Usua...
I have adopted the use of italics to denote internal monologue. A reviewer suggested that I italicize a word of spoken dialog to denote emphasis: "What… what in the Sam Hill is that?" I know...
Having thesis statement in the intro; what would you think is it a good practice to have in non-academic writing Thanks
Here's the set up. You're reading a traditional fantasy. Something is attacking the land of the elves. At long last the invaders are discovered, and they are... intelligent rabbits. My idea isn't...
At this point in my story, it's already been revealed that 2 characters share a telepathic link with one another that allows them to communicate to each other with their minds. "Now before we g...
I am wondering whether it's necessary to use commas in the sentences below when addressing or introducing someone: “You look after each other, okay children?" “You look after each other, okay...
So, I'm in the process of writing a Sci-fi novel, and I use a website to upload chapters before I complete it. On the website, I use chapter titles simply because "RE Lavender has just updated Fac...
Puns introduced by authors make a text look witty to a reader. Professional writers skillfully manipulate words and phrases to demonstrate their smartness and, most important, gain the affection of...
I'm writing a story that has a character telling a story in this story, they mention a label from a statue they remember vividly, can I write the label in a separate paragraph. I've noticed other b...
I am writing a story from a 3rd person perspective as the omniscient narrator. When my antagonist is revealed first, people believe him to be a certain person - X, not that any one says that to him...
I have a question regarding sentence openings in English language. When I write most of my sentences start with determiners and pronouns (personal and posessive). This gets repetative quickly. F...
I'm writing a war story, and it's dark. However, I find that every scene turns out to be depressing because of it. Readers will be overwhelmed. Are there ways I can induce hope/shine the light in t...
Generally in fiction writing, you don't italicize company names (even though you would italicize the name of a newspaper). But what do you do if the company name is fictional, especially a name th...
My novel contains emails, titles of news articles, parts of technical journals, and snippets of computer output in addition to regular dialogue and action. Is it common/acceptable to use one font ...
I've seemed to have a problem with getting this right and doubting myself. In regards to writing dialogue, do you follow up with capitalisation after punctuation marks? Can someone tell me which is...
I've seen styles where writers end sentences with commas if it is inside double quotes and styles where writers end sentences with periods. For example: "She's late again." mumbled Jason. ...
Some fiction titles put a small block of text listing relevant setting details like the scene's time, date, and location between chapters' section headings and bodies. Heres an example: Chap...
I have noticed lately, that when I write letters describing things I've done recently, I default too often to sentences that look like "We did such-and-such, which was really great." I notice that ...
I'm writing a multi-faceted essay that will fill multiple pages (I suppose that it could be considered a collage of essays that build on each other to support one larger theme). This is something I...
I'm writing a story, however I just can't seem to form a platonic relationship between my characters. Whenever I am writing my characters (Eric and Abigail), it feels they should just kiss and mak...
I am conflicted about which one is appropriate for a story, or whether it makes a difference at all. A few years ago, god knows where, I've seen speech that was formatted like so: —Hello. - Tom...
I fear that the question sounds vague and confusing, but I can't conjure up the words I need to say exactly what I mean without going into detail. I thought it would be interesting to have two sto...
How do we write something to inspire a person which corrects the mistakes they've made until now, but without making them feel like they're getting mocked from the recipient's perspective? I was...
There's a similar question right now, and I have an issue: How would one write the grade of A in plural? For clarity, my smart device isn't smart enough for italics. I will use bold. In general, I...
e.g. Bold: Click "Setting" then click "Options". Italic: Click "Setting" then click "Options". Or even underline? Or none quotation marks? Click Setting then click Options. Wh...
I am working on a long form fiction item. In this one of the characters will quote the first stanza from a poem. Normally with speech, one opens quotes, adds the text, and closes quotes. However I ...
Why did Grammarly suggest capitalizing the word 'dragon' in this sentence? It says it does not fit the context so needs to be capitalized: Small birds chattered and scooted about in the undergrow...
In some style guides, I see this mention of putting a full-stop after an ellipsis when you are stopping the paused sentence and going onto another new sentence, but when reading several very well-k...
I'm writing an MLA formatted research paper and want to add the following into my paper. "Legislature The Legislative branch is Parliament, comprised of the Head of State and the Legislati...
I was directed to the writers stackexchange from the English/grammar forums. I'm writing a novel in present-tense. If all the actions are in the present-tense, e.g. as the character is experienci...
I'm writing a short story with androids and cybernetically enhanced humans who have access to neural interfaces. Essentially, they open up some kind of computer terminal, but it's via internal sens...
In my novel, there's something that the characters refer to as "darkness". It symbolizes the bad thoughts of depressed/suicidal people. A short silence. I imagined Joel nodding his head in the ...
I have a story with several characters. I've decided that I won't give them names, but refer to them as their titles. For example, the grocer. The cleaner. The officer. Currently I capitalize ...
What if a chapter is incredibly depressive, dark, with intense language. And the next reads almost like a dialogue from a Seth MacFarlane comedy. Or even better, what if the tone switches occur bet...
I'm embarking on writing my first popular science book on a controversial subject. For sure the writing must be rational, coherent with a clear train of thought and littered with references to be c...
Similar to this question, I am slowly coming to realize that my writing is getting choppy. Unlike that question however, my problem does not lie within sentences, or even paragraphs. It lies within...
The most commonly given advice for using direct thoughts seems to be to format them in italics. I am not really satisfied with that, however. I haven't seen this used anywhere (granted, I do not re...
Example from my own writing: He wouldn't have guessed (that) there would be someone with diarrhea in the toilet. Or that the ferry's rail would be half his size. Or that the night would bec...
My story is of a fantasy world where the wars of several species have all been fought, lost, and the protagonist is writing his journal from inside a jail cell. The writing he does can't be erased....
Example: It was located in the East Coast National Scenic Area, also known as China's Last Unspoiled Land. Is that how it should be written? Should I put it in quotes? Should I write it in ...
I am writing my first novel and this the very first confusion I would like to clarify. As I am not a native English speaker, I find it very hard to understand the punctuation scheme in direct speec...
