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Your fun has just started. Look at the first three chapters. Look at the first sentence. Look at the first five pages. Each of these are critical if you want to sell it. Do not even bother with a...
This is one of those questions where everyone is going to have a different opinion, so ultimately the final answer is up to you. We can help you consider options, but you have to make the final cho...
Phil Farrand of The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek called this "being the cabbagehead." Certain information had to be revealed to the audience, but it was information which the characters would rea...
First, I doubt that I would ever seek out a blog related to a "Costume Company." I suspect there might be a few others like me. That being said, what is THEIR take-away? If you are not GIVING the...
The database layout is sufficiently similar across source data formats that we can write a single SQL query to export each output data format. The data structure of the database will allow the use...
NaNoWriMo would never ever work for me, because without the prep work, it's just logorrhea. But if you're trying to use the butt-in-chair time as a motivator, then instead of "when timer dings, sta...
Lauren has some very good advice there, but the one thing I would add would be a timeline. If the stories you already have are tied together in any way, then try to lay them out on a timeline to sh...
Is "the easiest way to earn rewards online at the click of a button" a tag phrase you have to use? It seems a bit awkwardly worded to me. How about "the easiest way to earn rewards online at the ...
In the end it depends on your style. If you are a Douglas Adams you can make every paragraph downright hilarious. Voltaire, on the other hand, wrote satire of the society he lived in, so did Mark T...
Here's where I think you're going wrong. You say: Since there is no tension in the plot (as it is a comedy book), the plot soon loses focus. Why would a comedic novel not require tension? Eve...
I think the key to writing a comedy is in the dialogue. Make sure that the dialogue is real. Read over your character's conversations and if it doesn't sound smooth and like a real conversation the...
Edited based on comments: Given the following function declaration: f_get_vend_code(v_nut_id varchar2) return varchar2; I would write the description as follows: This function takes a nu...
First choose the genre that you intend to write. Find a good example of this genre. (even better than the printed page is a movie or tv show) Pick a scene and transcribe the dialog. It might sou...
There's a number of movies that feature criminals that are either the protagonist or a likeable character in some way. Like John Travolta's cheeseburger-loving assassin in "Pulp Fiction" or Bruce W...
A scriptwriting exercise that always helps make a nice shape out of dialogue. Follow the instructions without reading them all the way through the first time. Just do each step one at a time: 1) T...
Movies and television shows can have ensemble casts; why not books? I've seen this in SF/fantasy books where the ensemble is the members of an adventuring party, the crew of a ship, etc; often the...
The recent Pulitzer winner A Visit from the Goon Squad is another example of a book like that. It is a sweeping look at the lives of inter-related characters over time. Are books like these a tur...
I read a book called The Poison Throne (part of the Moorehawke Trilogy) by Celine Kiernan recently where I felt this was done incredibly well. She would build up the tension by building up the atmo...
When I was first starting out with poetry (and indeed, even to a certain extent today), I liked to begin with structure/meter, choosing a simple, regular structure and improvising an almost non-sen...
Proviso: I am not a lawyer. Here's a good article on Fair Use; it might answer your question. You say you'd like to use many quotes from the same author; if you are writing a critique of the ...
The more work you do yourself, the more money you get to keep. It's a sliding scale. Full-bore old-school publishers do almost all of the work beyond the writing, and they like to keep most of the...
Stephen King, by my understanding, was a discovery writer. I will paraphrase what he wrote in his book On Writing. You create some real, believable characters, put them in a challenging situation...
I have a hunch: The endings are not satisfying. When that's true, there's nothing for the second half of the novel to build toward. If that's true, then perhaps the problem is not structure per se...
I do actually read certain dictionaries and encyclopedias for fun, so I won't be of much help, other than offering another vote for Strunk & White. :) Actually, I feel like you're going about...
it never hurt anyone to get a head start on their next novel. in my opinion, beginning the sequel shows a lot of faith in your first novel. you know it's good and is going to be published. go ah...
