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 a sentient robot in my novel. Truth to be told, I have many. Sentience is somewhat cheap to achieve, meaning that there are multiple artificial beings that can be considered sentient by our...
A substitution cipher is a method used in cryptography to encrypt the meaning of a text. In the most common form, a substitution cipher changes every letter in the target text with another, making...
In the IT industry, we often write a lot of technical documentation meant for internal use only. Those documents are often stored in an internal wiki and accessed when the need arises. The conten...
Let's take for granted that the 3 acts structure is relevant and exists. This, of course, is an assumption. How the three acts relate with the length of the novel? In a standard book - let's say 5...
Related questions: Should an author have one website or two? As an new author, how important is to have a personal website? Pros and Cons: A blog to get feedback A possible duplicate of, even i...
My novel so far only contains female main characters. There are some male characters, but they are few and far between, and only play minor roles. Obviously it's hard to predict if any book is goi...
I have the habit of using paired adjectives in my writing: The noise from the engine lulled her with its slow and monotonous rythim ... ... the lights on the ceiling filled the room in a s...
I want to give credit to a source without stating their full title again, because the full title is a mouthful. Earlier in the paper, I had quoted them saying: "So-and-so states...[direct quotati...
This is something of a companion question to How does one write from a minority culture? A question on cultural references I have recently had a somewhat unpleasant experience reading Naomi Novik'...
I understand that a prologue is meant to open up a story and introduce characters, themes, and the world to my audience. It is not supposed to be a long length of text. At the same time, I find my ...
I am not sure what you call them exactly. I don't think it's a plot hole, because it's not related to the story itself. Let me give you an example: Let's say your novel is set in Italy, but every...
I've noticed a quirk with the narrator voice of one of the two novels I'm working on. This narrator only describes the beautiful aspects of every character's features. You might think the women are...
A lot of people here aren't professional writers, but write in their own free time or for their own pleasure. It's not uncommon, though, wanting (or dreaming) to make "something more" out of it, wh...
Possibly related: How can I get readers to accept more than 1 "buy" in worldbuilding? Worldbuilding is a tireless art; that's what our brother site Worldbuilding-SE is for, and why as a writer ...
I recently asked about criticism regarding short pieces of fiction. What about longer works like novels? Surely no one can sit down and agonize over individual word choices in a larger work the way...
Here's a piece of writing I came up with: The rolling billows rocked the mighty galleon cradling it madly as if it were but a mere child. There are many seeming contradictions: When we thin...
(For reference, I am not white. I've asked another question about race here). So I'm pretty far into writing my dystopian novel and I was reading over what I had. Something that helps me when I ...
I'm careful with the phrasing of this question as it is dangerously close to be opinion based. Everyone has their preference regarding the amount of description they expect to find in a work of fic...
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 was wondering if "Spear" or "The Spear" could be the name of a planet. But I can't find a single reason to name a planet that way, and even if there were it just sounds horribly stupid. What are ...
In my article a half circle shaped sheet is being rotated on z axis. A light beam is constructed on the surface of the sheet in any time in any point. How should I describe the light beam with its ...
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...
A popular writing theory states that any story worth telling describes the movement from one status quo to another, and that major uncertainties in the inception and conclusion should be avoided. ...
This question is not about syntactical correctness. I do not care about that. The only thing I care about is to be understood properly. That's why I'm asking it here and not ELL. The meaning of se...
I planned out to write a trilogy and the first draft of book one is now completed. I want to know if I should edit this draft before starting on the second book.
Around a decade ago, I had a dream. An actual middle of the night dream. An entire movie played in my head, all I had to do was write it down. I did a fair bit of research on the topic then I sp...
I read a lot of YA fiction, a lot of which happens to take place in schools. Recently, an idea jumped into my head for a YA-ish story and told me that it was going to take place in a school. The i...
Joe is the worst. Nobody likes him, not even the so-called friends he teams up with at school, filling other students with terror. He's sarcastic, nasty, and a bit of a racist, and especially ant...
In one of my novels (it's a middle grade fantasy novel) the chapters average around 2,000 words. But the final climactic chapter is currently almost 7,000 words. I am considering splitting it into ...
Possibly related questions: Should I add racism in my book's world or have my world have no racism? Is accurate human nature required for good writing, even in fantasy scenarios, or with fictiona...
An example of the problem in an aggravated form surrounds the controversy of France changing ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ in official paperwork - where the controversy suggest...
Writing a crying scene makes me accidentally do repetitions like "the tears which were on her face broke down into a slithering stream..." and then putting the word tears again and again. What s...
I've got a 40h, full-time job, as many do. Yet I'd like to become a writer someday, or at least, bring a novel through the first draft. This considered, I'm trying to give myself a daily target of...
I'm working on a novel, that's set in pre-Islamic Persia, in the same general way that The Lord of the Rings is set in Britain. (Meaning, it's set in a world all its own, but there's this source of...
I have recently joined a real-time chat-based roleplay group. Most of the people seem to be sticking to 100 to 250 words when it comes to making their posts, but sometimes I get overly descriptive ...
The world is surrounded by an alternate realm called the spirit world. Humans existed as separate physical entities, but maintain an attachment to the spirit realm due to their connection with god....
I'm kind of confused on how to quote a scene in a comic/graphic novel. I understand that if you are quoting something that a character said, that you would do the usual (Author's Last name, Page ...
So, in my novel, I have a mother-type character that's a little young to be a mom (am planning on having her have a child she's planning on saving). So, I wanted to know your opinions on how far I ...
On the modern day many people complain about how models, actors are damaging to society because people can't identify with them. Males actors or models which are ''too'' muscular are considered ''u...
In my novel, I'm currently writing from a male's perspective and I need a bit of help. It's not an erotic book, but I'm writing a flashback from his teenage years which involves a bosom hug and I t...
See title. I love writing stories, but I usually imagine how they are like in show/movie form, specifically 3d animated ones. I don't feel like I have the skill to write a good book, but I do think...
I often hear that a writer should not write something that is not tightly linked to the plot. "If you can narrate it without it, drop it from your story" - that's what I see. However, is it really...
I've been writing a story, and recently someone came to me and said the characters are very similar to a couple of the ones in Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows, I myself read the series which inspired ...
I am attempting to write a relatively complex SciFi military novel following 3 primary characters. A male and female protagonist, and a male antagonist. So far none of those characters are aware of...
I love writing and write almost every day, and I have multiple pieces that I am working on currently: two books, multiple original characters' background and development, and academic analysis piec...
OK; I'm obsessed with Toonami and their event Trapped in Hyperspace features the computer virus antagonist Swayzak, who I base almost all my computer virus characters on. Swayzak behaves like a on...
A bit of context: Exhibit A) I wrote a poem that had the line "crystalline crystal lines." I googled this phrase, just to see if it was out there, and I saw that it was. I had never read the poe...
So I'm writing a story where the main character is sent to kill the main villain. I have the basic world set out before me, and now I focus on story. I was planning out the main storyline and I hit...
I have a quick question- I'm just a bit confused about the story I'm writing. So earlier today I posted the first chapter of my story, and someone commented that the story "escalated too fast for ...
