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FrameMaker, while being the old industry standard, does not support right-to-left languages. Madcap Flare has been touted for a years on the TECHWR-L forum as an alternative to FrameMaker. I have ...
I would say that the newest, and in my view most promising, trend in in the use of lightweight markup languages, specifically Markdown, reStructuredText, and ASCIIDoc. Both commercial WYSIWYG too...
I use ClickHelp for technical writing. It is a browser-based documentation tool used to create online user manuals, knowledge bases, help files, FAQs, tutorials and publish them instantly in their...
Starting a speculative or fantasy story with a vision is a venerable tradition. As the words "venerable" and "tradition" imply the tricky part is making yours stand out and not seem cliched. The a...
Opening with a dream is a technique that I've seen get a lot of criticism. I think there's a few reasons for it. One, if you're using the dream/vision to immerse your readers in a world, it's ask...
Re this specific piece of writing: like Standback, it didn't grab me either — it's not long enough. I didn't feel like I was being drawn into a setting, or a mystery. It's too brief and the protago...
Buy a tape recorder, or Dragon Dictation (for PC, Mac, or iGadget). If your fingers are too slow, start telling your stories out loud. Let the computer do the typing. Talk until you don't want to t...
I can totally relate to this. I have five published novels, NOW, but it took me years to get around to writing the first one. I went through the same thing you did. I thought I wanted to write, ...
If all your stories started at chapter one and ended in the middle, then try writing the last chapter first. Then the chapter before the last. You also can jump to the first chapter in between. Fro...
I always just write interesting parts (in sequence) and develop them until the whole thing makes sense without the boring parts ;) Or at least I try to...
But if you don't, No. Sequence a only in writing (sometimes you have to go back and revise) option the not writer has is. Hard can be that process. It's the same with sentences and paragraphs...
Theoretically, it's possible as long as you replace the lack of antagonism with an inner conflict in the protagonist.
All fiction must have conflict, but that conflict certainly doesn't have to spring from the existence of a personified antagonist. There's man-against-nature (e.g., any survival story), man-agains...
Isn't there conflict in every story? If there's no conflict, there's no interest for the reader...what a boring story it would be! As far as an antagonist goes, I agree that it could play the part ...
Of course there is narrative fiction without conflict. Example: Adalbert Stifter's novel Der Nachsommer describes the idyllic life and growth from childhood to maturity of a young man during Bied...
You cannot have a novel without an antagonist. An antagonist comes in two forms: A physical antagonist: a person with a grudge against your protagonist, who will do whatever it takes to overcome t...
The answer to any "can I write" question is always "yes." But antagonists do a lot of heavy lifting in a book, they provide a lot of intrinsic interest, and useful narrative conflict. Readers tend...
Definitely - not. (With exception: when it will be common to write "Thriller", "Romance" or "Historical".)
Given your paragraph description, I have to admit to being somewhat unconvinced along a few points. You set up a direct connection between the regime's oppressive control of its citizens and a la...
Unfortunately, I can't think of any stories that follow your strict requirement on excluding anything that "is able to reproduce". The closest I could come is Ray Bradbury's short story, "There W...
If I am understandig well, you want some story without any conscious character. I am afraid there is no other stories of that kind excepting various descriptions of natural or artificial processes ...
Reading through your story makes me think that, in a way, the narrator has to be a character himself. The story doesn't even have to revolve around the narrator for him to count as a character. I'...
That depends on how you want to present yourself to your audience. If you want to appeal to the 4chan crowd or put yourself on a par with, say, the local used-car dealer, by all means stuff your pr...
Robusto makes a good point about knowing your audience. Beyond that, I think caps and exclamation points are used for emphasis and attention. Try to find other ways to accomplish those goals. Spaci...
It depends on what your blog is trying to achieve. I agree with this much of your quote: readers come back most consistently to a blog that is focused, that offers one thing consistently. The reas...
