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Hand it off. Find a good editor or beta reader and get someone else's take on it. Reading someone else's comments and suggestions may be enough to unstick your mental block and allow you to see how...
It depends who will use the word. If it's one character talking or thinking about another, it's a great word, and will help to characterize both characters in one swell foop. It will also trigger m...
To whom is your character speaking? You want your character to use "the correct words" - I'd say the most correct words are the ones that will convey the most meaning to the listener. So if your ...
I can offer no evidence, but speaking as a reader, it would make me more likely to purchase a book if I had read and enjoyed the writer's freebies. Because I've already seen the writer's skill, ...
From my experience, not explicitly. But a technical writer does need to understand what they are writing about in order to communicate it effectively. If you'd like a book on the subject, Technica...
"I'm having trouble portraying religious, devout characters as protagonists or viewpoint characters. When I try, I get the sense that the reader - not sharing the characters' beliefs - will have tr...
Short answer: no. Nevertheless, it's a plus. It is good to have a deep knowledge of the field you write about, so your documents have more weight and insight. I'd choose, given the same writing s...
As with teaching, technical writing can be described as "the art of imparting information without knowledge." You are the advocate for the end user. Your technical skills in this case are simply t...
Interesting predicament, I agree with the answer above that you might face difficulties in realising a justifiably, strict religious character if you don't identify with the religion yourself at al...
I am an experienced technical writer specializing in API documentation. In my experience, in order to be successful a technical writer needs enough technical aptitude to (1) understand the users' ...
No, you don't need to have taken classes or earned a degree in your area. What you really need is an insatiable curiosity. One of the best examples I know of this is Martin Gardner, who for over ...
Scrivener, a program by literature and latte, will help with this. This is just one of the features--it's super-advanced and a complete lifesaver for anyone writing anything. I use it for scripts a...
Bing search for word frequency gets these two promising programs. Not for Word documents, but that's not a huge problem since you can save as text or copy-paste. http://wordfrequencycounter.com/ ...
For an excellent example of a sympathetic and devout character, I'd recommend The Book Of The Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
John Smithers' advice is good, but I'd add a few details (and leave it for longer than three weeks!) Before you put the MS away, make a first pass at your query letter, as well. This is good beca...
For inconsequential changes you can just edit it. For anything substantial ("I meant to say I disagree with..."), I've often seen an explicit notation: "Edited to add: ..." "Edit: ...", or the lik...
Rewrite completely, immediately, and start looking into query letters. I disagree with any idea of "not rewriting" the first draft, or only correcting spelling and grammar errors. Definitely rew...
There are no real rules. From my perspective there are two major keys to doing edits right. Firstly you should remember to be as transparent as possible. Secondly you should pick a method of doin...
For the book I am currently writing, which is not written in docbook directly but is written in a markup that will be translated to DocBook for publishing, I use an XML file to capture metadata for...
Obvious Mary Sues are easy to spot... subtle ones less so. Just as it's very hard to proofread your own work, it's often hard for us to see when we've made a character unrealistic. My suggestion: ...
"One day, nothing significant happened. Everyone got on as normal". What does your character do on that day? If they cannot get through a normal day, doing normal things - which may vary depending ...
Rewriting to avoid "had had" is almost always a good idea. It reads even more terribly than it sounds. The easy way out is to use a contraction: I'd had enough of this nonsense and was ready...
How about: "I was tired enough hearing of this nonsense and was ready to move on" or "I was in no mood to tolerate any more nonsense and felt ready to move on." These could work well. Let me kn...
"This nonsense was enough! It was time to move on."
Normally this kind of statement would appear by itself at the beginning of your material. With a print magazine, there are a couple of options. One option would be to place it as small print in a f...
