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The way you choose to describe the setting depends entirely on what's at stake for the narrator. You are writing the story; the narrator is telling the story. It's important to understand the disti...
I've seen novels with illustrations. But I wouldn't care too much about it, because I'm sure your publisher will tell you, if he thinks it is a good idea. If you want to self-publish, I would incl...
They do exist, although they are a rarity. You need to ask yourself if the illustrations serve a purpose beyond that of letting you use your artistic skills. Will they distract or add?
Jurassic Park, Flatland, Cryptonomicon, Dead or Alive, and The Last Oracle (at least) all have illustrations in them that do not detract from the story - and in many ways may enhance it.
I don't think you need to worry about "seeming like a kid's book," I think you need to worry about making a professional submission. On two points: Why do you think your novel should have illustr...
Hemingway did it in six. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Your list is pretty good, but it's missing something a bit fundamental. Most reviewers tend to think that they're trying to help someone make up their mind whether or not to buy a book based on th...
Distinguish between a review and a critique. A review is meant for people who haven't read the book, and is largely intended to help them form their opinion of it; a critique is a discussion of th...
The best way to avoid this problem is to understand your characters as deeply as possible, and remember that it is the character who should speak, and not you, the author. The things characters say...
I personally use tricks like making one character speak in riddles, or in short cryptic answers, or even starting with a tick. Mike cleared his throat. "She was wrong! I never said that!" ...
The creation of the universe is where suspension of disbelief is allowed. Violating the rules/laws/physics of an already created world breaks the suspension of disbelief. For example, most of what...
Lack of research will often break the artificial realism. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between insufficient research and the author didn't care. Case in point: The Crystal Singer by ...
In academic writing, following style guides is particularly important for citations and notes. Are you editing to APA style or another style guide? I'd absolutely check that first and do as the s...
How about adding [sic], meaning "intentionally so written," to indicate that you are quoting something which is written "incorrectly"? "3,5 meters [sic]"
If the original paper is in English but uses the German convention for decimals, and you are going to hold to that convention in the quoted material, I would put a footnote by the first use to expl...
I usually use it purposely to add something related to the email, but that I don't want to mix with the rest, likely to let the reader to focus more easily on the part of the email I think it's mor...
I would not include a post script in the body of an email because post means afterwards, so if inserted into the body, it's no longer "post". As one responder previously mentioned, a post script is...
I believe there is no use of PS in emails. If an unrelated sentence needs to be written down, it could simply become seperate paragraph. This somehow reminds me the page flipping animation used wh...
I was watching a movie at the weekend that made me think about this question. I think when something is "solid" and "well constructed" whether this is proper praise or faint praise depends very muc...
Don't use adjectives. Adjectives accomplish nothing. Adjectives are the weakest words we have. Find book reviews you respect, ones that make you think, ones that make you care about the book. Fi...
My reaction to the review was: "There are three good stories, four bad ones, and a bunch of OK ones." I'm not sure how many stories the collection contains, but if only three of the bunch are not...
Not an exercise book, but a reference: A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams. The current edition is about twice the size of the one I picked up in college... maybe I need to upgrade! :)
Any single-sourcing scheme is going to require some up-front setup in exchange for easier generation of multiple formats later. This Wikipedia page provides a starting point for process and tools.
The answer depends a lot on what you have around you and what your needs are; assuming that You don't have extensive needs beyond Latin-1 and Math character sets, or simple use of Unicode charact...
Check out Scrivener. I believe it can generate DocBook-format, though its true strength is in researching/creating a document, not editing formulas.
