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I run a critiquing group once a month and I've had several of my members say they aren't sure how to tell when their work is ready for critique. I'll be covering this in a workshop tomorrow night, ...
At first glance, the question may be subjective, but let me provide a specific example: A story I'm self-editing takes place in a present-day small Virginia town. At present, the town is being ha...
I was taught around the age of 10 to always avoid the word "got". I was told that it's always possible to rephrase a sentence so as to not use it. I followed this advice fairly unthinkingly, but no...
I want to talk about a fiction book I'm working on but can't find what to call the intro. A 'foreword' is generally written by someone other than the author, and I read that an 'introduction' is us...
A relative (who is no longer living) wrote a number of autobiographical pieces which I would like to publish in a book. I would like to include four or five chapters written by myself, that would s...
I would like to self-publish a book and sell it through Amazon, and also make it available in a variety of electronic formats. I recently bought a book for $35 as an electronic download from the a...
This question was asked in 2011: Do editors still expect Courier font in book submissions for publication? A couple people said they found a monospace font helpful to have space to insert editing ...
I've always felt that my writing is very sequential. It's a chain of events. This happens, then this happens, then this happens, and so on. Not to say that the events are boring, but I just always ...
I've recently been researching and discussing characters and character roles, mostly off the back of feedback on a romance story that described the "love interest" (if that is the correct literary ...
I got an idea for a short story recently following a traumatized boy who has developed antisocial tendencies and lack of empathy, and ends up in a psych ward. I want this protagonist to have a me...
For example the scene takes place in the future and the year is 24,356. Would it be written as: "The year is 24356," said Bob OR "The year is twenty-four thousand, three hundred and fifty...
I am trying to use more action tags to supplement the 'He said. He asked.' dialog tags. But, now I have read several blogs suggesting although 'said' is invisible and can be sprinkled as liberally ...
This is a constant struggling point of mine. Most of my settings take place in fictional worlds often inspired by various parts of human history. For instance, one of my stories is located in an A...
My story is bilingual Spanish and English, revolving around an emperor and his lover. My main character is royalty and it is fitting for him to have a long name, but he transitions from one title...
Background When I first tried writing fantasy - a long long time ago - I wrote a book that was meant to be really serious and intense. However, I wrote it in a way where the characters joked aroun...
I got couple of good definitions of the traditional Print run. One of the disturbing things mentioned in one of the definitions that many a times 50 percent of them are destroyed. How it was destro...
Worldbuilding chat has pointed me to this stack because it's less about defining the technology and more about how to express these definitions in a relatable and realistic way. A pretty frequen...
Say, I mention the following equation in a novel/short story: (Direct Cost / (100 - Desired Profit)) * 100 How should I format that in narration? In capital letters? Italics? First variab...
I have written both professionally and on an amateur level for several years. A lot of it basically fell into my lap, and it hasn't been my primary profession for a couple of years now. I have some...
Before I started writing my fantasy story (80,000 words so far) I had a pretty strong outline prepared. Within the structure of my plot, I wrote relatively organically and my characters started to ...
I am new to the site, so please let me know if I'm not following proper format or etiquette. I am beginning a story (only 4,000 words so far). I am having trouble adding in characters that can be ...
The story I'm currently writing is a framed story where a recurring-depression-suffering writer that lost his wife [killed] in a war tells his life story in a symbolical fantasy world. Throughout t...
My brain is probably just broken, but it has a question. It tends to invent odd scenarios that become quite interesting. It also knows that the story will only be interesting to others if it has ...
In a comment to an answer of mine Mark Baker has suggested that the common, dichotomous view of writers as either "plotters" or "pantsers" or something of both might not be complete and that there ...
Background I've had this question for a really long time. A lot of my work seems quite 'floaty' and 'old style' because I describe things in a very metaphorical and surreal way. For example: H...
