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Should I be myself and write what I really want, even though it isn't getting much traction? Change what you really want! If writing only for yourself pleases you or is cathartic or menta...
The only way to not be criticized, is to not share. If you must post, put it to a Dropbox or Drive account and then make select content shareable with temp links to select people. Control who can ...
I don't find this story credible. First, why in the world does the kid give up and kill himself after a few weeks on his own? He works at one job for a few weeks, gets fired, and kills himself? Th...
I studied literature at school, and the most important thing I learnt is that the obejctive of a poet is to transmit something, whether an idea or a feeling. To do so, the poet uses a range of tech...
A useful option may also be GoogleDocs, as it's free. I can't give specific examples (Gmail/Gdocs blocked at my current day-job), but I remember some students used it for peer-critique very well. ...
No, absolutely not. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to produce derivative works based on their properties. Thus, using Ender himself as a character in your story without permission from ...
You need to figure out what your story's theme is. And then you need to take Joyce on a journey that forces her to make decisions about that theme. That will define whether she's good or evil withi...
I've heard the term "white paper" used in many situations. I've been asked before to write white papers on different subjects, though I've never successfully completed one. I've read many different...
Can you do it? Sure. Should you do it? Most likely, no. It's not that you can't use footnotes as an explanatory aide. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time does so. It's...
For me, my main characters want a dozen things; but the story is about them pursuing one thing that is important to them for one reason or another. Often this is a semi-existential reason. By "se...
ARCHIVOS might be what you want. (Free account lets you build a world!) It allows you to create scenes, establish relationships between them. Characters (and relationships with them), plus a time...
I watched a presentation called Your First 10k Readers. It explains a marketing course that will build an audience for your book prior to release - even prior to completion. It sounds sensible and ...
You asked: Will I be shooting myself in the foot by doing this? Would it preclude the agent to publisher route for which we tend to hope? There are a few salient points to consider here: ...
So, my story doesn't have a romance subplot until way later in the series, but I think that there are elements of the romance very early on. A little background info: The story is set in a fantas...
Men do wear skirts: kilts, sarongs, hakamas, fustanellas... If your world is culturally diverse, any and all of those might have become common enough. In sci-fi stories in particular, new fashions ...
While the answers thus far are good, and match my advice (just do it), they seem light on the mechanics. For the writing process it is important that you show and highlight unusual features of your...
Successful in the sense that it is the only viable solution. In this world, democracy has failed as an institution, with the various powers unable to come together in unity and oppose the invade...
I grew up in Germany, where we were required to write in fountain pen from second grade on (fourth grade for math). I do dip-pen calligraphy and various kinds of ink-based artwork, as well as writi...
I will disagree with the advice you received. The vast majority of self-published fiction earns nothing, or at best some friend and family sympathy purchases. The case is even worse for un-markete...
If you want to get published, the latter style is not acceptable. Follow the standard convention. Just Google for "Formatting Dialogue", look for sources related to written fiction (as opposed to ...
No drawbacks, except for quoting trademarks, and for setting expectations. Quoting trademarked sentences may be bad "I'm lovin' it." may have the drawback of a fast-food chain sending the...
Starting from a blank page is always hard, so don’t beat yourself up. But there are tools that will help you get started: The first I would recommend is Scapple by Literature and Latte. Scapple ...
Anthologies are often different from other publishing. It is common for small publishers or even individuals to put together a call for an anthology to include any short work: comics, artwork, poe...
I don't know if it exists in your country, but as a graduate student in the USA, I once researched 3 years worth of newspaper headlines in four "national" papers (e.g. The New York Times), and I fo...
I am a discovery writer, I have been for many years, and I complete stories. Scrap your outline. Most discovery writers (including me) have struggled with what you are talking about; finding the ...
