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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I am currently in the research phase of writing my first novel that is based on a true historical event. Having obtained a ton of sources in more than three different languages, I have come across ...
I'm currently on the fourth draft of a novel I'm writing, which features two protagonists. One of them, is, in my mind, black. I say, "in my mind" because at no point in the story do I ever explici...
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...
I mean are the most famous authors usually trade-published or are there some self-published others that are very well known?
Edit 3 - Even though this is the third edit I feel it has to be included here at the top. My question as it stands is based on the assumption that reader interest does not exist in plots without co...
Because I enjoy reading Science Fiction, I'm thinking of writing a Sci-Fi novel myself. I'm interested in 'hard' (related to the engineering sciences) science fiction with a military bent (think Th...
So I'm in the very early stages of plot development on a new story. It focuses on a (nonbinary, hence the they/them pronouns) witch named Kem who recently discovered their powers and met some frie...
Basically I’m wondering whether it’s totally weird or if people wouldn’t give much thought to it. I’ll use Zootopia as an example. If the main characters (a fox and a rabbit) were in a relationship...
For a computer game, I'd like to create a frame story. Much like in X-Files, it should provide a setting for the individual levels/quests/substories while leaving lots of room for the individual pa...
I'm writing a novel with many POVs, and this is a very flexible story. It started out with a few POVs who had one plot, and now there is a lot more, having been integrated in between those previous...
Imagine a fantasy hero with a 'time reset' ability like the protagonists of Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow: they can 'rewind time' up to a few hours, resetting their own physical state and the r...
I've noticed that I use a lot of exclamation marks when my characters are talking. They appear a lot in action scenes. Is there any rule of thumb when using exclamation marks?
I have been hired as a Technical Writer at a firm who needed multiple types of writers: A few people were hired to write content for the average website reader interested in our product, such as a...
Shortly after I published my first book, under my own name, somebody released a bunch of erotic fiction using my real name as their pseudonym. It is difficult for me to point people at my books on...
I'm the adviser of a school newspaper that publishes exclusively online now. We have a page dedicated to revisiting the archives of our paper (60 years worth!). I cannot piece together how to prope...
I am currently working on a fiction book and my characters work for a company that in real life has been out of business for 30 years, but in my fiction book there is an alternate scenario and it h...
About 1/3 of the way through my story the main antagonist "wins" and is able to completely remake the world of the story into his notion of an ideal world. The "new" world shares some elements wit...
I'm currently writing a novel with 3-4 character POVs in it - two male, two female. Each have different upbringings, different cultural backgrounds, different professions, different motivators and ...
Are there any software tools available that will help me dissect my meter? I have always been extremely poor at scansion and while my writing doesn't suffer terribly for it, it makes writing strict...
Historically, most occidental cultures (and many other ones) were strongly biased against women. Women were effectively barred from the vast majority of occupations - sometimes actively, and someti...
When I'm stumped for a planet name or an organization name or something, I usually search on Google for a free name generator. But are the names in random generators copyrighted? If I used a gene...
(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...
I'm writing a villanelle as a school project and one of my lines is too short. Can somebody give me tips on how to extend the line?
I'm currently working on a short story with a dramatic "twist" ending. I use the quotation marks because, unlike a conventional plot twist aimed at surprising the reader, the intended target of the...
When building a scene at the beginning of a chapter for instance, before character interactions take place, what are the important elements to consider, and how long should the description be, befo...
I thought about spreading a story across a video game, comic book and novel, but I am not sure if doing this will alienate my readers, because I don't believe people want to spend a ton of money to...
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 ...
I am talking about writing a sequel to a novel that's in the public domain. For example, Wizard of Oz. As far as I know, this is completely legal; however, the issue is how to deal with the fandom ...
I’m currently writing a story and one of my characters is a butterfly. In one of the scenes, she manages to run away from a bunch of hungry lizards and hides into a flower; let’s say a Zinnia. Wh...
I'm writing short stories in a Fantasy world setting I have created — medieval times, magic, dragons, etc. People who are familiar with such a world may not find a problem reading a short story set...
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...
Within narration in past tense, should a statement of a universally true fact be in past tense or in present tense? For example, in the short text: It was late afternoon in Zubrin. The air was ...
Writing fantasy and sci-fi, I grow a sizeable specialised vocabulary per story (names, locations, fantastical things, etc.) I grow tired of the autocorrect grumbling at this vocabulary, and would m...
While writing my book, I have noticed that not a lot of people, that read my draft understand half of the things I'm talking about. So I added a glossary at the end that they could reference via a ...
I am writing a rather dark, grey fantasy story. It is supposed to feature a twist that turns the antagonist's goal to not to be evil at all (just misjudged) and really trivial (despite requiring la...
Should we avoid repeating redundant information after a dialogue and is there a way around this? Sometimes, you feel prompted to write the description of an action that follows a line, but that als...
A personal point of view on the necessity of a new culture in fiction "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away", "Pandora", "Dune", "Middle Earth". All quite different worlds compared to ours, b...
The person in question, though this is yet unknown, is not actually a person. Instead, they are some form of eldritch being of which we cannot comprehend. Though, they seem for all appearances and ...
I have a scenario where my main character, who has considerable training and situational awareness has been captured. He has faith that his people will rescue him when the time is right. He learns...
I struggle with forming full-fledged ideas. I'll come up with a snippet of an idea, have a hard time fleshing the idea out, and then lose interest before the idea becomes an actual story concept. ...
My protagonist uses a lot of extensive vocabulary and is quite verbose. The novel I am writing is a first-person narrative, and my protagonist is the narrator of the novel. An extensive vocabulary...
I would like to make it very clear that I'm very young (just graduated to a teen) and only an amateur writer. I have recently become seriously involved in writing in preparation for my IGCSE Englis...
I'm working on a scene in a high-fantasy setting where the main characters greet each other for the first time. Part of the greeting is also a definition of what each of the characters mean to each...
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 ...
I'm stuck on a POV question in a short story I'm writing. The entire story is written in 3rd Person, but not omniscient - I guess it's either "distant limited" or "deep" (I'm not sure exactly the d...
I'm trying to find a place that not only lists publishers by subject (I know that publishersglobal.com does that) but where I may also find author reviews of the publishers. I am writing a book on ...
There are several professional writers organizations that people I know have suggested I join. The problem is they're rather pricey and I'm not sure what I'll get out of it. Much of what they h...
In many books novels or other forms of fictional writing, the reader is introduced to a so called 'chosen one'. This character or being is of higher power or in general, of different nature than ot...
I am currently working on writing a fantasy novel centered around pre-Columbian America, but I am at the moment unsure as to where in America to focus my story. I am considering either the Lakotans...
A lot of people have been asking for some feedback about their poem/story. In an attempt to help find them a website, I couldn't. I googled feedback for writing however I didn't find any websites w...
