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Q&A Fictionalizing firsthand accounts from history?

In my own novel I have two settings: The (more or less) modern world with some historical backstory but 100% fictional characters. Set in the U.S., the country I live in. Ancient Egypt as based ...

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

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Q&A Show applied preset where the cursor is?

Not yet on Windows - Scrivener 3 (Q2 2019 for Windows) will have this I looked through the documentation that I could find and apparently there is no such feature right now for the windows version...

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

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Q&A Do I need to get people to sign a waiver to include their content in my book?

I agree with El Cadejo, it is always wise to have a contract in place. This covers you legally (and to some degree ethically) if: You have a falling out with one of your subjects who wants to pu...

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

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Q&A How can I start in media res and provide enough back-story to hook people, all in the first chapter?

Give the location of the scenes as the chapter/scene headers. If the present-time scenes are in MC 1's house and the flashbacks are in a local coffeehouse (for example), your readers will be able ...

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

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Q&A Latin names of European places

As it turns out, Wikipedia has your answer: List of Latin place names in Continental Europe, Ireland and Scandinavia List of Roman place names in Britain Wikipedia also has the "external links"...

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

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Q&A How do you prevent whiplash when transitioning between comedy and tragedy?

The problem with a mood whiplash is: one of your characters just experienced something tragic, your readers are with the character in that tragic moment. If you want the readers to experience that ...

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

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Q&A Is it bad to have no gender variety?

Sexism, like racism, is about the larger constructs of power and not about individual feelings towards one category of people. A man can be sexist towards women but a woman can not be sexist towar...

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

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Q&A An LGBT main character, but the book isn't about LGBT issues

All writing has political elements to it, whether you like it or not. Your question is a great demonstration of this. Some people consider LGBTQ people to inherently be (a) extremely rare, and (b)...

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

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Q&A How to describe skin colour, if "white" is not the point of reference?

I like to equate skin tones with food or natural objects. Caramel, chocolate, cream, sand, etc. Eye and hair color work well this way too. There are so many beautiful shades of skin it is a sham...

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

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Q&A What are good guidelines and practices for word emphasis?

To create effective signage or instructions, always start with correct language. I am answering for English language works. There will be some differences in other languages. In your case, you o...

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

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Q&A Storing WorldBuilding Information

Between the brief ordered spreadsheets @Liquid suggests and the detailed but time-consuming wiki you suggest, there is a third way: keep notes of what you need in a semi-organised way that is conve...

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

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Q&A Is using first person in academic/technical essays always bad?

Like with so many other issues of style, it depends on your audience. For a school essay, your audience is your teacher. So write the essay your teacher wants, no matter if it's okay to do it ano...

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

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Q&A What are some techniques used to increase the melodicality of a lyric?

Many lyrics work with a variety of melodies because the underlying structure of the set of melodies is similar. My synagogue just had a "Broadway" bar mitzvah where the young man set our tradition...

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

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Q&A How do I write a MODERN combat/violence scene without being dry?

+1 DPT, +1JBiggs. Remember battles are local and personal. What I mean is that in a fight, there is no big picture, there is your picture, a tight focus, the people around you, the immediate enemy ...

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

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Q&A How do I respectfully write black characters in a 1930s Arizona setting?

Don't avoid entire groups of people because you don't know how to write them. Learn how to write them. It's part of becoming a writer. You must learn how to get inside the heads of people who ar...

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

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Q&A Characters speaking different languages

There are two easy ways to handle this, depending on whether you want the readers to understand what is being said, or not. In truth, whether you want the readers to understand or not is the only i...

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

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Q&A How do I respectfully write black characters in a 1930s Arizona setting?

This is fiction, and a cartoon for kids, no less. And the point is to meet interesting people, I don't think what is "interesting" has to be about racism, oppression, or any social aspect of their ...

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

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Q&A Problems Blending Sci-fi & Traditional Fantasy?

Both Magic and Science provide constraints. I think one problem with mixing magic and science fiction is that science fiction readers prefer some whiff of plausibility in however science is extend...

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

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Q&A Describing paralyzing fear in the first person

Years ago I found myself looking at the arrow that was to strike my face. Today I can still recall the chilling horror of the nearly instantaneous realization that it could go through my eye socket...

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

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Q&A How to search for titles of novels that are or begin with a word or phrase previously used as the title of many nonfictional works?

Easier said than done. I tried Goodreads. The good news is it allows you to search by genre. Not just fiction but also type of fiction, if you want. And by title. But you can not set it to jus...

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

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Q&A Song quote for an 'in memoriam'

Ask the newspaper. They will know this stuff backwards and forwards. If you put the lyrics into a program to hand out at a memorial service or other event, you're good. If you put the lyrics (we...

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

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Q&A How should I describe a light beam coming out from any point in polar coordinates?

You can treat the light beam as a geometrical object, as you have started to do in your explanation. You could go with something of the like "Imagine that every point on the surface of the sheet ...

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

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Q&A Approaches to criticizing short fiction

For me, a short story is a story. It follows the three-act structure, but it requires some inventiveness to compress that into a short space; in some cases to a line or two. I don't care about met...

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

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Q&A What do you call a fact that doesn't match the settings?

I'd go with inconsistency; to be even more specific, I'd say the worldbuilding is not consistent or poor. I second J.G. in saying that you're interested in inconguities at large.

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

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Q&A Do I need to get a pen name?

First of all, congratulations! If your publisher says it's up to you, then they're not seeing any red flags that would make a pen name advisable. Lots of adults write for both children and adul...

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

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