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Q&A Is it posssible to find a literary agent if I'm Egyptian but write in English?

I see no reason why not; agents have no bias against foreign writers, they want good stories. You seem to have a command of English, and you obviously have Internet access. The technical details ...

posted 7y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How many characters are too many?

I'm going to point out that the named casts in Peter F Hamilton's works often top the 30 character mark. Having said that those works are huge, don't commit to more characterisation work than you c...

posted 7y ago by Ash‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Where can I find information on how different genres are conventionally written?

I think the term you're looking for is NARRATIVE VOICE, sometimes called Narrative POV but that oversimplifies it. The narrative voice sets the tone and pace for the story, but also signals how we...

posted 7y ago by wetcircuit‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How do relationships build the main character or plot

I heard an ingenious little explanation for why characters always seem to have either a best friend or many strong friends around them. This applies primarily to movies or TV shows but also to book...

posted 7y ago by robertcday‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to write a good sex scene specifically for erotica?

In my opinion, erotic writing is more about frustration than fulfillment, even in an explicit context. Once you give the reader exactly what they want, you've spent your load, so to speak. So you...

posted 7y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to make sure that my reader has not forgotten an incident or character which was described earlier and referenced much later in the writing?

You don't have to rely solely on your readers memory - you can rely on your characters memory. Just have your characters or narrator repeat the most important parts and show how the former little...

posted 7y ago by Secespitus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A What ages should I market my book towards?

In my personal experience, the advice you have been given is correct. I had your exact problem and was told by two editors that my story was too dark/complex for children and my protagonists too y...

posted 7y ago by GGx - Reinstate Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How much agency should main characters have in the plot?

Whoever is telling the story should have the most agency. If Character A is the narrator, then everything should be written in terms of Character A's point of view. After all, people can't read min...

posted 7y ago by Double U‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to Write a Good Metaphor

Zoom out. Zoom in. A metaphor claims that one thing is another thing. For that to work, the salient feature you are describing about one thing must be THE most important feature shared and exagge...

posted 7y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How to Write a Good Metaphor

It's a brilliant answer from Amadeus (as always). I'd like to add a technique for when you cannot find a metaphor/simile that hasn't already been overused: distracting with detail. For example, sa...

posted 7y ago by GGx - Reinstate Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How many characters are too many?

As a reader, I very much dislike large casts of characters, I lose patience and the ability to tell them apart quite quickly. However, a lot of it depends on how they are deployed. If your main c...

posted 7y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel?

Perhaps this character "wants" to be someone quite different than you are trying to make her be. It sounds like she's making a mystery of herself. Perhaps this means she isn't who she claims to b...

posted 6y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Should I end my story with a happy or sad ending?

Personally I would prefer the open end. In romance, there are no happy or sad endings. Let's take the scene: ... but one ends up "cheating" ... So: One person was cheating on the other, even...

posted 6y ago by Pawana‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is it bad if I sidetrack to a backstory that’s not really necessary but is interesting?

I think that you already know you have to cut it. I know you are emotionaly attached to it but, if it doesn't move the plot forward and if it doesn't help establish character,... well, as you said,...

posted 6y ago by Ælis‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is it bad if I sidetrack to a backstory that’s not really necessary but is interesting?

The recommendation to remove something that's good in its own right, but doesn't belong in the broader context of a work, is usually phrased as "kill your darlings". While this is now a literary jo...

posted 6y ago by J.G.‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How can I make the plagiarism detector "Ithenticate" identify "θ-continuous" as a single word?

You can't I looked through the web, searching for information about problems with Ithenticate and symbols or greek letter, and I couldn't find any information about how to change the bahviour of I...

posted 6y ago by Secespitus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is genre ever relevant to the writing process?

You seem to be looking at picking a genre as signing up to follow a very tight straight-jacket on your writing. I don't believe that's what genre is at all. Rather, genre is a very loose set of rel...

posted 6y ago by Kevin‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Is genre ever relevant to the writing process?

In addition to the other answers, consider that specific genres may have additional requirements which will impact your storytelling. Not because of tropes, but by their very definition. An obvio...

posted 6y ago by Dan Smolinske‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A How overcome the budget constraint while building a fiction writing career?

Write for a large market segment. Write better than most of the other works out there. "Better" here means that you must write exactly what your readers want. In this sense Shades of Grey is a pe...

posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel?

I've never done character charts. When I want to get to know a character better I put them in a bunch of scenes. They're in a conversation with their boss while they have a stone in their shoe. The...

posted 6y ago by Ken Mohnkern‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A 'The Chosen One' paradox

It's not really a paradox, the chosen one is seen as the chosen one because they succeed where others cannot, but they can only succeed because they are already the chosen one to begin with. To put...

posted 6y ago by Ash‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A What should I do if I can't properly formulate the personality of one of my characters in my novel?

Write from their POV This is basically the same solution as everyone else has provided, and can actually be combined with most of them. Pick a scene - be it an out of world interview, or a scene ...

posted 6y ago by Arcanist Lupus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A I'm looking for advice on character development

The Quick Route to Distinction The Fatal Flaw This is some part of the personality/self that is out of control of the main character, or at least if it's going to be fixed it's going to take an e...

posted 6y ago by Kirk‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Druid girl learns necromancy

It doesn't make sense that something can be 50% eaten AND fleshless; if all that is left is bones, it is 100% eaten. It sounds like the girl is using the tool of necromancy to further her love of ...

posted 6y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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Q&A Colours of ultraviolet

You can make up a completely alien analogy to viewing colors. Like describing the colors by their frequency using musical notation. There are studies in chromophonics that correlate sounds with co...

posted 6y ago by Mindwin‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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