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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What is the difference between "topic-based authoring" and "modular authoring"? As I know, there are two well-known authoring approaches: Narrative authoring; Topic-based authoring (see link abo...
I am writing a novel and it goes something like this: In the first half of the novel, the protagonist knows who is doing the killing, but they are trying to make sense of it as in "how are they doi...
I'm thinking of the crawl sequences at the beginning of Star Wars, that just give you the background information straight up, and then start the excitement. I've just been wondering if putting a pr...
Argumentative paragraphs often contain a topic sentence that states the main point, and the main point tends to be supported by multiple arguments that are introduced throughout the paragraph as Fi...
I was wondering what kind of advice do you have to avoid info dumps in fan fiction? Granted this can usually be avoided in fan fiction by sticking to what is known. But when you work with au's or o...
I'm working on a story that revolves around a research team in a remote setting. They would have supplies so they don't have to leave the area they have to research for about a year. So far, I am p...
The more distractions you have in your narrative, the fresher the plot/character twist. They were used in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and the Harry Potter series, to keep the audiences focussed on a differ...
I want to build a team. This team consists of people with diverse powers. Each of them has a different power, and some number of them are spies (one or more, I haven't decided), so they have a dif...
After feedback on character design for my visual novel, my grizzled Noir Detective is drifting into an Old Jazz Musician. There's a reason I post the artwork: what has gone unmentioned in this fe...
I have two main characters. Character A is more prominent than Character B. I've been trying to tease out problems with the story as a whole, and I'm concerned these two characters lack agency. ...
I'm having a very hard time finding a list and examples of stylistic subgenre conventions. To be specific: how genre writing impacts things like sentence length, dialogue, the tone of adjectives, ...
I'm trying to reveal the main character's background without diving into flashbacks or actually setting parts of the story in his past. So on three occasions I have three characters (two B charact...
I'm editing a short story that's been written in the past tense, however at some points I slip up and use a lot of present tense to describe some scenes. Thing is, it's happened often enough that I...
I'm trying to write a story of transformation, in which an extremely introverted and non-confrontational person goes through a traumatic experience, and in the finale takes a stand in defense of th...
Should a setting go into the gritty details of the horrible things that happen to show how awful they are? (Torture, brutal violence, rape, etc)? Or does grimdark work better when its subtle and le...
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...
I've read stuff like these: she sat up. Startled. His face flushed (how does that happen in real life) He felt his neck muscles tense up, his temples started bulging, he started breathing more he...
I am the editor of a small college magazine. In an article that was recently submitted to me, as part of the story, the author named two people who ragged him (harassed him). I have sufficient proo...
I struggle with metaphors. My attempts are either so wild that no-one understands them, so lame that they break down really easily or so normal that they are indistinguishable from cliché. I read ...
I'm writing a book, and while I'm not even close to finishing, I can't help but wonder what the age of my intended audience should be. I've read a lot of advice that says that age of my protagonis...
I have named my fish and dolphin characters in my short story. It transpires that these names are already in use in other stories, for example 'Cornelius Cod'. Would I have to change my characters...
This is unlike the question How to write good erotic scene?, which refers to a sub-plot of a novel in which two characters had sex. There the accepted answer essentially evades any detailed descrip...
I read that it’s approved of to have the protagonist to have deep relationships which I mean as friend-related bonds between people - because it makes the character stand out I’m asking this based...
My Question How can I avoid using I repetitively in a resume/about me, should it be avoided or is it to be expected in that kind of writing? Are there any substitutes that can be used in place of ...
Here is my situation: I am Egyptian, my native language is Arabic but I don't want to write in Arabic I want to write in English. Would a literary agent from an English speaking country agree to w...
I'm a really literal writer. I don't write stuff that makes people "read between the lines." Problem is, people still always read between the lines. This leads to them understanding my writing in a...
Reading books of Dan Brown and that sort (pardon my inability to produce any other relevant examples off the top of my head) gives off the impression to budding writers that novels need to have a m...
Should I explain the consequences of the contributions in the contribution section of a research paper? For instance, what is the best option between these two (if any)? In this paper, we prov...
In other words, if the writing is poor or not good enough but the editor likes the story, then a revision is requested. I'd like to add that part of the reason for asking this question is because ...
The response will either be an evasion (we will come to that later), or it will be . . . Is the above (or similar) parenthetical redundant? (I couldn't find a suitable tag for this question...
I won't edit this question, so you can see how much I use it. The current count is 3 times. I've been told that the solution is to revise, revise, revise, but is there a particular strategy for edi...
WARNING: MULTIPLE TV TROPES LINKS In my three-part series, The Ragnarǫk Cycle I plan having my protagonist and deuteragonist to undergo a character arc. The protagonist, Joseph Norton to put it l...
So, I have not gotten anything published yet, but I have had plans for future novels including the one I am most way done with at the moment. As for the Details: It's going to be a multiverse exist...
So we have a friend, having a milestone birthday, and his wife requested that we provide a gift of words. This friend is about the age of my children, and a creative type person. The trouble is...
I am working on revising a petition because one of my friends said that it needs a lot of revision. For one, they said that it needed clarity, and for another, it needed to be concise. My question...
So, I have a TV show I have been writing and will finish soon enough. I have been working on this for a long time, and have written 9 seasons. The type of show is a sitcom. It is based on my lifes...
I have been accused — shock, horror — of using the dash (the one that indicates a three-quarters pause) too much in my fiction. Thing is — I quite like the effect (the space inserted in sentences b...
I've just read a tutorial about scenic techniques in novel-writing that recommends that a story should have a rhythm of static scenes and dramatic scenes. Here's an excerpt: Dramatic scenes are...
A character in my story is supposed to be falling apart, for many reasons: He's 16 and is killing people, in a gladiatorial setting, of a similar age. He already died (possibly a few times), but ...
The title says it all. I'm unsure whether to go for the realism of the language or the ease of the reader by using English .
So, the problem is that I can't make conflicts based on a misunderstanding that wouldn't resolve in five paragraphs. My chars are too smart for that, I'm too smart for that (and also have all the t...
We all know the spiel: We have an insufferable jerk who is a jerk/annoyance for 95% of his "screen time". In the remaining 5%, he sacrifices himself to save everyone else. The fans dance around a...
Not unsimilar to myself, my protagonist potentially has too many goals. He's isn't a likeable character (which is how I intended him) so to keep reader interest, I would like them to become invest...
I have this young character who grows up to be very strong and powerful but while he was young he was still discovering how strong he was. This incident happened to a friend he's protective of. W...
I want to make a cartoon video describing my personal experience. Is it okay if I used the past tense to introduce the story first and then shift to the present tense to make it sound more realist...
My trilogy features two important characters whose identities I wish to keep hidden. The first is the series' deuteragonist, who is heavily implied to be Jeanne d'Arc (yes, THAT Jeanne d'Arc), who ...
I am writing a short Sci-Fi story centered entirely on the man vs. beast narrative where the protagonist attempts to escape an unstoppable, bloodthirsty creature for roughly 15 pages. From the firs...
When I think of a scene, I often think of little hints or gestures, to express certain things or thought processes. For example a character breaking eye contact, but quickly looking back to not sho...
Could you please let me know the difference between method and algorithm? Can a method be computed into an algorithm? Can an algorithm be based on a method?
