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'm new to the writing world (other than writing a lot as a child). I want to write my story to help empower women in similar situations but it involves writing about my ex. How does one tell their...
I'm writing a report for a piece of University coursework, but I understand that I should avoid referring to myself as "me" or "I". I've seen an example piece in which the author occasionally refer...
For more than three years, I've been writing and re-writing my novel involving immortal characters. Now I'm finally gathering courage to write a query letter and begin searching for agents. My pro...
I’m writing a story about people called century and decade (decade is a ghost) and their kind needs a name. Something to do with time and death, or names and time or anything along those lines.
sorry if this has already been asked. But how are course or class names written in fiction (both prose and screenplay)? For example, if someone has a second-level algebra course on their schedule, ...
In my writing class, huge emphasis was placed on outlining the entire plot. Yet as I write it, things change dramatically, and I end up not following the outline. Is it bad to just go with the flow?
I am the editor of a small news blog. I am trying to train my writers to link to their sources. One writer sends me an article without linked sources, so I ask for the sources. They email back res...
The government of this (fantasy) world is made up of a small group, randomly chosen at birth and representing maybe 0.5% of the population. The group are tutored in their homes with their families ...
In one of my scenes, I introduce "GUEST" at a party. Later, each guest is introduced by name. So if I capitalized GUESTS, do I have to capitalize their name later?
So far in my WIP, which is a “journey” story, the main characters have been struggling against the environment and the fact that they’re displaced and trying to return home. I’ve arrived at a poin...
I’ve posted several questions here recently asking for advice on how to write better. The responses I’ve gotten have been invaluable to me, and I’m becoming re-invigorated about the idea of writin...
I already feel right out of the gate that this is going to be a naive question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. I know that writing horror does not guarantee that you're particularly good at it, a...
In advance: I'm sorry for write so badly in English. I am a Spanish writer. My wife is writing a book about the life of 4 women. This morning she asked me about which genre her novel belongs to. ...
Besides becoming a garbageman, selling dumpster finds and curb furniture on eBay/Craigslist, or selling metal to scrapyards, what are some ways to make under-the-table money off of trash? Legally ...
In this world, witchcraft is practiced openly and is a neccessary function of society. Men cannot use magic directly, but possess much more mana than women. There are some spells that a witch may n...
I got a critique today from someone and they told me I was using a "Deus Ex Machina". I did some poking around on here, and I question if it really is one. I found a link -- and it says within th...
I am writing a short story which includes a farm animal whose legs were not thoroughly tied escaping the farm. The animal should be anthropomorphic, so that it would have its own emotions and thoug...
I'm attempting to use the Snowflake method to try and get around issues I tend to have with writing. I can pump out words, tons of words; not a problem. But, at the end of the day it's a relatively...
If, for example, someone said : "How are you today?", how would you go about "translating" this into sounding like they were talking with a full-mouth? Like, phonetically.
Following APA style - Do I report my results in the dissertation using the variables I'm researching or their operationalizations? For example, which is style is correct: The correlation between...
The main plot follows the MC while travelling through the world trying to rescue his family. While doing this however, he must overcome a lot of difficulties. These are subplots focused on other ch...
I want to write a female detective murder mystery. I have 15 characters; 14 women and 1 man. I want the male to be the secretary for the, Cavalcade Detective Agency. He is well educated, charming, ...
I recently penned a 60k word account of the life of a former pet. He was a rather rude and uncouth tough little dog, and so his language, daily habits and adventures were of course likewise. Howev...
I am writing a novel and I would like to introduce characters from other published works as time travelers. Is this a bad idea or even legal? Copyright infringement comes to mind... Is there a le...
I got really good answers to my last question, so I decided to post a new one:) In my novel, a few humans suddenly find themselves tasked with defending humanity against an imminent alien invasion...
The preface of Introduction to Algorithms mentions that In this, the third edition, we have once again updated the entire book. The changes cover a broad spectrum, including new chapters, revis...
I am working on my upcoming book's blurb. One of my characters is a leader inspired by Hitler. I have mentioned him as "Hitler like leader". But this seems weak in my blurb. What can I write to c...
A vampire has been sleeping under a castle in Austria for centuries. But now the castle became a tourist attraction. It's really annoying. And the taste of the blood of the people on the region did...
My MC is focused on his profession; barely giving his personal life a thought. His last serious romantic relationship with a woman was when he was 22. Time for that later, he believes. Retire at 45...
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...
Okay, so here's my problem: I am trying to write an essay from a prompt that uses the word "describe", but what I'm being asked to describe is not a single person or object, rather it's more broadl...
I am working on a technical book teaching users how to analyse data using geographic information systems. I would like to use data from an open source data portal such as open source fire departmen...
My novel has been through multiple drafts and beta reads, and by and large is in good shape. I've learned how to cure a saggy middle, how to stay in point-of-view, how to keep the protagonist drivi...
Please help me understand various approaches towards developing an essay about issues of society (like women's empowerment, child education, sanitation, Global Warming, etc.). Specifically, I want...
I will be appearing for the SAT with essay next month. However I am confused about one thing- are we allowed to use abbreviations like "we're" (we are) and "it's" (it is) in the essay section? Will...
Take the following short story. Let's imagine that it's an important even that should be reported on. One day, Little Red Riding Hood’s mother said to her, “Take this basket of goodies to yo...
I want to write a male, corporate working, character who is always cheerful and smiling, no matter whatever the situation he is in. As a result, reading his thoughts or motives is almost impossible...
I've experimented with both critique partners and people I know (be they friends, family or colleagues) as unrewarded beta readers. The latter are very slow, sometimes reading slower than I wrote a...
There isn't a theater SE so this seems like the best place to ask, but feel free to suggest a better place. I'm producing a community play with a character who's believed to be dead, but turns out ...
Note: I'm primarily asking this question because while Surtsey, the original asker of the question didn't actually ask a thing (and instead copy-pasted an excerpt of a novel) I believe it's a worth...
Some of the books have written on their covers this: Adapted by [another person's name] Content of such textbooks is more or less same, maybe some new chapters are added. What does 'adapted by'...
I’ve seen it done in Harry Potter I just don’t understand when its okay to do it, like can I say something like “John walked away from the house and was now walking along the road” or not? When is ...
Two questions regarding inference and conclusion. 1: Is it true that Inference can be made from any paragraph, from any line of the text but conclusion is drawn from the entire text? 2: Why often i...
Do you find your first draft is longer or shorter than your completed work? I understand that I will be cutting alot of unnessary words, but I also have a list of things I need to add. I haven't g...
I'm not sure whether or not this is standard practice, but I've been taught that between two different-level headings, there shouldn't be any text. For example, the following would not be permitted...
I have recently grown interested in the idea of writing a litRPG novel where each two days I will publish a chapter describing a single day of the main character and at the end of the day the reade...
I've noticed that my novel is missing a really strong inciting incident and I can't think of anything strong enough to suffice. The only inciting incidents I'm familiar with seeing in nearly every ...
When writing dialogue all the characters sound the same. I'm not sure I even know what giving a character a voice means, but my dialogue sucks so any advice will be greatly appreciated.
I write what happens to me every day as my diary. I don't write them on paper, but I typeset them in a word-processing system (soft diary), so I can simply edit them and add/remove anything at any ...
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 ...
