Posts tagged book
Novice on writing here, except few academic reports. I've got an idea to write a blog about my travel experiences, Although I speak Queen's English, I wish to write this blog for anyone interested...
I’ve managed to write a fantasy book, Lord of the Rings-style. That is, a single story that would almost certainly be published as three separate books with multiple branching plotlines. Or at le...
One of the biggest obstacles I've encountered learning Chinese is the incredibly dull and boring textbooks. Yes, the grammar in them is important, but it's so boring! Typical writing reads like: ...
I am writing a novel with two stories simulatenously running alongside each other. That is, on each page there is a main story, taking the body of the page, and there is a 'side story' which runs a...
In Sabriel by Garth Nix, near the beginning of Chapter Two, there is the following sentence: Anything powerful enough to cross the Wall usually retained enough magic to assume the shape of a soldi...
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...
I legitimately don't know the answer. Background I said something a little silly today, and was told I was incorrect: Writing requires no skill. You basically just have to write down what y...
As a reader, I have found that when I disagree with an author's views or actions, this has influenced me not to buy their books. As an author, I therefore wonder whether readers generally view the...
This might be a stupid question but I am trying to write a small novel, and my structure just doesn't seem right. The text just flows continuously until the end of the chapter (with dialog being ty...
I have almost completed a high fantasy novel that I have spent over 10 years designing the world and everything that works in the story. It is the first of a trilogy and therefore has a main story ...
Many of you have probably read a sequel to a book and have found it to be worse than the original book. I am writing a sequel and would like to know if there is any way to avoid this "sequelitis"....
How joining a writers and a conscript creators (artifical language similar conlang). How put my alphabet into writers book? Many universums like StarWars, Bionicle ,Star Trek etc. have alphabet, l...
My friend and I are writing a book in English in the Electrical Engineering field. At this stage, we need someone to proofread our texts and also to design the layout of the book, so we will need t...
I write non fiction books about computer science and security (Zzz) but with the security bits in particular, do I really need to put a disclaimer saying "hey don't go hack the government" on my eb...
I am working on a piece of fiction and am having some difficulty locking down which perspective/s to utilize. The main issue at hand is that I have 4 characters that will play "lead" roles and dif...
I just finished a "long" short story. And I want to include a section where I thanks Writers SE for the writing advice and Scribophile for the critiques and feedback. How is that properly done? Wh...
I've recently purchased a book from Amazon, and I was curious as to when it was printed. I looked at the copyright page, which looks like this: The biggest year number shown in this page is 19...
I recently finished reading William Strunk's Elements of Style. The book mostly teaches how to write concise paragraphs (e.g. by removing, changing, and rearranging words). So I decided to apply t...
The title says it all. How can I gauge how long my novel would be, if for example I've written 400 single-spaced pages of size 12 Times New Romans in Microsoft Word?
Does anyone know an online library with free books (I mean not "free of charge" but free as a concept) that provides access to e-books published by Creative Commons, Public Domain, etc? (I'm not s...
I am thinking of going down the self publishing path. Now looking at most agents and publishers websites, it seems the expected word count for most novels is around 70-90K. Now these word counts m...
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...
I'm re-releasing a novella of mine as a self-published ebook shortly, and I'm wondering what to do with the traditional "front matter" of the book: copyright information, dedications, acknowledgeme...
My 10 year old niece enjoys writing fiction and writes very well for her age. I would love to encourage her love of writing. Can anyone recommend a good fiction writing book that is accessible to ...
It's not that I have a lot of writer's block, it's the mash-up of stories I'm compiling that all have to fit together in some way. I have outlines and I have a heap of unfinished stories, all going...
I’ve ‘completed’ three novels – a thriller, a coming-of-age story, and a mystery. I’ve had expert readers for all three including Sue Grafton who read two of them. All the expert readers have the s...
Should a writer include author's notes in their book that either express thanks to the reader or provide background information on the book itself? If so, should these be at the front of the book o...
Someone asked this question in another forum, and I thought I'd bounce it around in here to see what kind of responses we get. If you are working on writing a new book, is it better to just write a...
How do I designate the footnotes that are mine inside a quote? I tried "our note", "note ours" and "remark is ours". Which one is the correct one and most commonly used? Or is there some other way...
I was recently asked if I was interested in writing a book for a pretty reputable publisher, which of course I accepted. I am not a writer by trade, I am a software developer with some technical wr...
Considering the "story structure" proposed by Robert McKee; like: A story is a large structure composed by acts which are composed by sequences which are composed by scenes, which are composed by...
I realize this may be a duplicate question. I've seen, for reference [ How long can a first novel be? ] yet I think my situation is a little more specific. I find myself in a similar situation. M...
I am currently working on a novel, and am approximately 45% of the way through (~37,500 words / 100 A5 pages). Working full time, I am unable to finish my story within the next month, and I plan o...
I have been working on a story for several years. The manuscript is now currently longer than 1,000 notebook pages (roughly 615 pages in print by my calculations) and it’s only a third of the way t...
I have been struggling to write a book on my 14 years research. I have used Microsoft Word exclusively, but I have a problem that the book uses lots of pictures, sometimes six per page and this is ...
I have known gaps - voiceover artist, studio time, editing, distribution, but what are the unknown unknowns that I need to consider? Having read previous threads, there are some very wise answers,...
I do soft cover books and laminate the top side, and therein lies the problem. The cover keeps curling up too much. I have tried Ningbo 350gsm which works perfect except that now it's too stiff and...
I wrote a novel and it is Science fiction based novel. Almost every close friend of mine read the novel and none of them gave a negative response. What are the possibilities that I need to assume, ...
I paid an illustrator to do the art for my picture book and I now own the artwork. Am I then allowed to submit to agents as an author/illustrator? How does this work?
My book is about a sleepy Devon village and is a compilation of tales that feature over thirty characters. They weave in and out of each other's stories, in the pub, Post Office and village shop et...
As a spinoff to this question: Incorporating research and background: How much is too much? I'm writing a middle-grade fantasy novel with a historical fiction component based in Ancient Egypt. I'm...
Say I have a book...or a comic series...or a podcast...or another published work. Marketing written or scripted works is perfectly on topic here, and most of the promotional materials are also wri...
i'm writing a book where the protagonist is a musician, it's a novel, and in those books I think of drawing a scene where his passion is listening to him. What's the best way to insert a scene like...
I am posting a new question because the previous one was answered as "Is the child able to read a book this long?" I really wanted to know "Is an adult willing to read this long?" From cursory r...
I've written a 3rd grade level (8-9 years old) children's book that takes about 25 minutes to read out loud. I read it to a 3rd grade class, with a few posters for illustrations, and it actually s...
I am looking for feedback on the idea of including pictures in a fantasy story e-book to be sold on Amazon. The book is not a graphic novel as it has over 60,000 words spread across 15 chapters. Th...
The story takes place in a fictional country I created. There are 6 main characters, 3 girls and 3 boys. They are all "gifted" which are people with special abilities. There are 3 types of gifte...
I've had a few 'great ideas' for books. I'm a big sci-fi fan, especially Michael Crichton. I'm not sure if that's relevant but there it is. I want to write a full length book, not a short story, a...
Some students that I mentor have written a number of short stories that they want to publish now. I am totally new in this area. I did preliminary research which indicates that there are now a nu...
I have a collection of short stories that I'm currently selling in the Amazon Kindle marketplace, and one of the biggest hurdles to actually getting my works read is lack of exposure. My passive p...