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 have recently picked up several works of fiction and begun to read them. I have found that some are written using past tense while others use the present tense. What is the significance of using...
In many cases, I understand and appreciate what the person is writing (in each sentence), but have little to say in response, even if I really like what the person is saying. So when I have little ...
In my current novel I have a few characters who speak Spanish. The book takes place along the Texico border, so it happens frequently. I know that in more foreign Spanish, or when someone speaks a ...
I am editing my first novel and wherever I find a natural break in the story, I add a few spaces. I want to go back and adjust what types of breaks those are, but how best to represent those spaces...
I recall seeing the word "Ends." placed at the end of documents to indicate that, obviously, nothing else follows. Is this acceptable standard usage? It feels rather archaic (not that that's necess...
I'm planning to have all the titles of my website in lowercase, as shown in the picture: I did it to fit the design of the black circle in the top left (Yeah stupid I know, just a designer's obs...
I'm working on a Wiki article that explains to new developers how our product life-cycle works. Originally, my goal was to completely avoid the word "you" and use a more general description like "...
I have a presentation that will go from August 4th to the 5th. On my title slide I'd like to list the dates in the most concise and simple way possible. What's the best style? I currently have: A...
I'm looking for all-around advice on this essay (I'm a foreign student, and learning English), but primarily, I wanted to ask is whether my essay is well-organized and clear enough. I mean, the fir...
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 am not sure which one is correct: In the beginning of the book or At the beginning of the book As in the sentence: In the beginning of the book Marco describes his early life.
In programming we often use syntax highlight in order to have a better picture of what the role of particular bits of code is (using different colours). I wonder if writers do something similar - ...
I still have to make some grammar and writing corrections but I would like to know if this dialogue Has this has enough suspense to engage the reader (so that he or she wants to read more)? “Excu...
In my story, there are two characters: a schoolgirl and a strange person with a creepy mask who gives her a tour in an art museum at night. Well, actually there is a third character; the boyfriend ...
I always find myself trying to make dialogues perfect. For example, the perfect advice, the perfect punch line, the perfect joke or irony. OR maybe if the characters talk continuously without stopp...
What kinds of things need to be included in a corporate style guide that can't already be found in S&W, AP, Chicago Style, etc?
OK, I know that it depends of what it is written. But I believe that human brain responds to a certain amount of words in different ways. Based on that, how many words (or lines) you think are long...
I'm writing my doctoral dissertation here in the United States, and quoting some text from an English-language paper written in Germany. In Germany, the convention for writing numbers is to use a c...
I have a piccadilly journal that I use for taking notes on self-taught subjects and I have an awkward structure for pagination and page structure: Page numbers only exist on the right hand side...
I want to really understand literary techniques. I want to be able to say "Ah, I see this writer is making use of assonance," or "I think I will use a simile here instead of a metaphor." There are ...
I'm looking for opinions on the effectiveness of this opening scene. It's a vision, not that he knows that at first. He thinks it a dream and won't quite act on it straight away. The vision was giv...
I have about 20 half-finish novels sitting on my computer, in my filing cabinet, or under my bed. The story with each is the same - I start out with a full head of steam and great ideas, but about...
I wrote a small productivity application, Tomate. Since I'm not a native English speaker, I'm afraid the description of the project may not be clear enough for potential users. Can you help me impr...
So can we write the interesting action bits first, then add in the in between stuff, that maybe needed to understand the story or characters, but isnt so exciting by itself? For example the intere...
I have had this thought running through my head and wondered what your thoughts were on it. Can a book, a story I should say, be written without an antagonist or antagonistic theme? I have an ide...
Are there rules about whether or not to put text between section and subsection headings (in scholarly works)? 1 section heading text / no text here? 1.1 subsection heading more ...
Background I am finding it challenging to transform an early draft into a finished product. My biggest challenges are putting the prose in the proper order and using topic sentences and transitio...
After using a Logitech Internet Pro keyboard for the past several years, as well as an Acer OEM keyboard occasionally, I'm seriously thinking about getting a new keyboard. I write upwards of 7,000 ...
Which verb should I use here? He opened the stove and the fire from the stove [engulfed/jumped on/covered/devoured] him. "Help! Help!" - he shouted at once. "I'm on fire!"
Can writing in the third-person limited omniscient POV include internal monologue and character thoughts?
When writing bulleted items, what are the rules for placing periods? Presumably bulleted items that aren't sentences wouldn't require punctuation: Orange Apple Banana But how about sentence bul...
I'm creating some copy describing new web-app features for a number of different audiences (users, managers of sections of the site, owners of sub-sites which use our platform etc.). I'm finding m...
When writing a novel, when should I end a chapter? Note that I'm not talking about chapter word-count (that topic was discussed here). I'm interested to know when should I end my chapters conceptu...
I recently found out about full-screen writing applications like OmniWriter and DarkRoom and I'm interested in using them, but I'm skeptical as to whether or not these are actually useful for impro...
What's a good program or technique for tracking submissions? I need something that'll keep track of who I've submitted to, when, if they've replied, and preferably tell me how long it's been out. A...
I've come across the following conventions: "What’s this for?" asked Jake. Sue replied, "None of your business." He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it looks darned funny sitting here." "It...
So sometimes I get an idea that forms specifically around some aspect of pop culture. They're often song lyrics. If the reader knows the song, they appreciate the symbolism and allegory or whatev...
I'm working on a fictional story set in a fantastical (although coherent) universe. I'm used to seeing invented languages in works like this: Tolkien's languages for The Lord of the Rings, or Paoli...
Do they still make hardware-based word processors? I would like a portable, no-frills dedicated machine for writing. The Neo from Alpha Smart looks close but $150 seems excessive for calculator p...
I'm having trouble portraying religious, devout characters as protagonists or viewpoint characters. When I try, I get the sense that the reader - not sharing the characters' beliefs - will have tro...
Is it worth it for writers to give away free short stories (or entire novels)? I've heard people say that having freebies on your site can boost sales of your books. I'm not talking about giving aw...
I have a longer work that took me a lot of effort to get through, and the moment I finished it, my life went crazy. That was about 6 months ago, and in the intervening time I haven't been able to ...
I don't know how to reword this: Along the way, we see how the faults Jacob made earlier in life are repeated back on him. I know repeated back on him doesn't sound correct, but ...
In a first-person narrative, I’d like to use the following sentence: It took me nearly a decade to write this script, and now I’d pitch it to the top producer in Hollywood. I’m not following ...
I would like to know if I'm doing something wrong (according to writing standards) in the following conversation and how to improve it to help readability, quality and feeling (making it more inter...
I feel my punctuation is all over the place, and the adjectives are not as charming as I think they are. If anyone has watched the beginning of the first Lord of the Rings, where the hobbit is lyin...
I've seen people indent their poems like below: Writing on wall It was just plane writing on wall I must have taken it a serious call She was on and off repeating same thing There wa...
Basically I need some critics regarding the following points: Does this description essay archive its goal (a creepy story with a 'sappy' ending)? How is the 'rhythm' of the story (is there some...
Sometimes when I write a plot I get confused about the motivations of the characters and how events connect as I change elements. Is it a good idea to write a summary first in order to organise th...
Sometimes, I find myself in the dilemma that I come out with a plot that tells exactly what I want to say. But then, I try to modify it in order to make it more original (at least, less similar tha...
