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 in the middle of writing a scene between two characters, a cello player, Lisa and her friend from college, Jack. Lisa has recently lost her sight, and Jack is trying to encourage her back into...
I'm wondering if there's a technical writing term for when an author uses purposefully misspelled words to mimic the sound of the speaker? This has the effect of "forcing" the reader to hear the d...
The consequence of some ideas can be so distant in the future or so foreign to most people that creating a relatable setting or character to exploit them can be hard, I'm being told. In particular...
I noticed writers in the past used a different format, in terms of punctuation, indentation, quotations, spacing, and paragraph length, and the format can be different from author to author and fro...
In my novel I have written this line; At your deepest core the buddha nature is waiting quietly for you. Now Buddha-nature is a complex concept to understand. If the reader is not savvy about...
What's the proper way of indicating that a car has reached its destination during a dialogue? For example, two persons have a conversation, and they reach a destination, is there a standard way to ...
This is really a dumb question but as a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I have watched Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame so many times. One of the most interesting things that popp...
I am writing a five-page essay about a novel my literature class has read. I do not want to post my thesis or any snippets of my essay for fear that a plagiarism checker will flag my paper. My pa...
A person holds a stone object in one hand. They throw it up and down in the air, in that hand, a few times, to judge the weight/feel/impact of the object. Does this particular physical action ha...
Hello masters of geographic eloquence, A rock arch bridges across to a rock formation seen in the screen right of the image/photograph. It's not an independent 'island'. What word(s) best descr...
Right now I'm writing a novel in which I use the changing perspectives of two main characters with limited information each to slowly unveil the whole plot to the reader. Both use the past tense a...
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...
In nearing the completion of a piece of writing, a question has come up. With the APA format for referencing, consider the following example in a single paragraph. .... in the act of breathing ...
I've been reading and writing for a long time. Last year, I was introduced to Haruki Murakami. I don't know if it's case for every writer trying to figure out their voice, but for me, once I read...
Can a child who has been sexually harassed by clowns be said to have 'coulrophobia: the fear of clowns' because of the fear and trauma she is undergoing? I mean to ask if the word 'coulrophobia' c...
So I'm writing a short story based in a WW2 American military base camp stationed in Germany. It's about A Jewish Soviet soldier that, with the help of an American soldier and a series of coinciden...
A character's name starts with a hard G, as in Gary. Another character (dismissively) calls him by his first initial "G", said with a soft G, as in gee whiz. I've been using the letter G, but it'...
So, I have this little story I would like to tell. It's about a girl and how she's forced to take a journey with the man who has just killed her father. I'll skip the details. The point is I'm no...
I am on the hunt for software options that may have gotten drowned out in my google searches by emacs, vim, and wordgrinder to use as a word processor in a Raspbian Terminal environment. The goal ...
In my post-apocalyptic novel, there are two "twists", but they're mostly tied up in each other. The first is that humans have developed different kinds of kineses, like hydrokinesis, telekinesis, ...
TLDR: Tips and Tricks for storyboarding a novel? For someone who can't draw well enough to do the "Draw and describe method" Hello, having read the "Storyboard a Novel?" as well as some sources ...
It feels silly to say, but I've got myself into a bit of a bind of a side project. In a three-act structure (not what everyone uses, but a good reference point) you generally need to set up all ex...
I have to following tools available, looking for other options. Microsoft Word Sublime Text Editor Atom Visual Code I'm a Software Engineer, who is interested in writing. Thanks in advance.
Not sure if this has a name, but I think it's best demonstrated with some examples I've seen: Nadia and her family both considered her thereafter to be without a family, something all of them, ...
I have been looking for a word that rhymes with post with similar meaning to a school. But I go to thesaurus.com, sounding the words on my head for results under "school" and none rhyme. I then tr...
A short story I'm writing involves a stage in which the male protagonist talks to a stranger with the intent of asking them to do a favor for his friend. I want them to start having strong feelings...
I'm writing some short stories that are all connected and are set in the same universe, because I planned to put them together into a novel later. My question is: If I publish those short stories, ...
In my story democracy crumbles in a nation, replaced by a powerful dictatorship. Our world has been invaded by servants of the elder god, Nyalathotep. Governments have been fighting back for years,...
I have in mind a character who is the protagonist's trusted ally throughout the story, but it is revealed at the end that he was the primary antagonist for most of it. This kind of thing has, of c...
In my exploration of story structure, I have encountered some conflicting advice. In some instances, it has been suggested that the midpoint of a story represents the moment that the protagonist s...
When I have some personal problems in relationships or there are worrying issues about life in general and I am really upset about the situation, in order to “solve it”, or efficiently think about ...
I've been working on a story for the last 4 years. It's just a personal project now and I've gone really in depth to clean up any plot holes I can readily see (thanks Cinemasins). I think I love th...
Any book recommendations that teach you how to make sure each character sounds different in dialogue and is recognizable even without dialogue tags? Any book tips to learn more about character deve...
I have 40,000 words of a novel and I am not sure at what point to ask for constructive criticism.
What effect does compounding bring when used in the title of a song, poem, story? Sometimes, you see word that are made of two conjoined words, and you wonder what's the point of it. Does it make a...
How would you write do the dialogues of two characters talking in a chat room? I am seriously wondering about the format. Should it look like regular dialogues, what about emoticons like OWO and ;)...
In a post-apocalyptic novel I'm writing (which is the subject of many questions I've asked on Writing.SE), I recently cut out my entire Chapter 10-11. I was revealing the MC, Eris' finékinesis (de...
I'm writing a story, it's not focused on romance, but that's an important part as well. The point is that I have two characters and I ended up ("accidentally") seeing chemistry between them, they h...
I'm writing a story in first person, but with a third person narrator for the secondary character. I was wondering if there were any books or stories to research how the first person character coul...
Should a comma be used after a dialogue tag and before the word ”as”. For example: ”I don’t like this at all, ” he said, as the door closed behind them. Or ”I don’t like this at all, ” he s...
(For reference, I am queer.) In my post-apocalyptic novel and in the short story from the novel's antagonist's perspective, my MC, Eris' love interest, Caspian, has/had two mothers, Saskia and Ezr...
I would like to use the title of a TV sitcom in the title of my book. How do I find out if this is without legal ramifications?
I began an assignment to write a short story for a Creative Writing submission to a publication and although it was accepted, I found that I struggled with the addition of dialogue to this first-pe...
I often see place or species names shortened in scientific journal articles and would like to know what the correct protocol is. Can I shorten "Gough Island" to just "Gough"? Or "leatherback turtle...
Most advice says to include the editor's name in the cover letter. In researching mastheads, however, I find: Executive Editor, Managing editor, Regional Editors, Senior Editors, etc. (of course if...
Looking for software recommendation. I am hoping someone can help me, I am developing a book for children that covers mental illness and I want it to be flexible based on demographic or personal d...
I had started writing my novel in the first person. Later on, I planned some plot twists along the way. For these plot twists to happen, the protagonist shouldn't be aware of the consequences/int...
How do we handle pauses in a dialogue? Let's say that character A speaks and then after a pause character A speaks again. How should we separate the two moments, should we write two lines of dialo...
I'm writing a non-comedic fantasy novel, and I find myself using onomatopoeic words, like "SLAM!" and "TWISH" (for the shooting of arrows). To my knowledge, onomatopoeic words are almost only used ...
