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I'm considering working in writing. I'd like to save myself some time in case I'm not up for the job. How do I go about evaluating myself as a professional writer? I was going to ask for a peer ...
Can you guys give a novice writer some advice on how to write good, frightening horror? I'm think more short story than novel, but anything that can give readers the creeps. I want to avoid being t...
I have two characters, Alice and Bob. They have just met and each is trying to deceive the other. But their thought processes and the nature of their deceptions are very different from one anothe...
It is my belief that male and female readers are more or less the same. There are differences in how we view things, but those differences do not stop us from liking the same book or movie. I can s...
This could be a misconception of mine, but I've noticed that the popular fantasy novels of today seem to nearly all have main characters who are children or teenagers. I have a list of some off the...
I guess this is a question about inspiration versus copying. I recently came across a story that really gripped me both with the inspiration for an idea and at the same time a doubt I could ever wr...
Introduction I said a reader in the title. I don't know if I can answer this myself, as I'm not the kind of person who hates on something for not being good. I like virtually everything, and don't...
In the email I'm writing there are three separate points. The last two ones are not so long so that each of them can fit in a single paragraph. However, the first one is needed to be split into two...
This question rather stems from my last question about inspiration vs copying from another authors work. While the suggestions I got there haven't completed resolved my issues and doubts, they have...
Background Alright, so my friends and English teacher recently found out that I've written novels, and asked to read them. So, I gave them out because I have plenty of self-confidence and really e...
Novelists seeking a literary agent's representation are advised to prepare a long list of carefully chosen agents (e.g. genre matches are important), but to only contact a few at a time. The respon...
First of all, let me explain that I am a plotter, and that I am an extreme case. This means that I develop my novels basically down to the scene before I even think of writing a first draft. This i...
People advise to keep description to a minimum, or to make it worthwhile to the audience. I'm talking about description that isn't really necessary/important to the plot but is necessary/important ...
This is from a piece I wrote a couple of years back: The sky seemed like a big, large pool of grey smoke. The weather was cool, moist. A fresh, earthy smell hung on the air. I peered throu...
In a copyright case, documents were released with portions redacted. The redaction was poorly done. Would it be generally considered ethical in most legitimate news organizations for a journalist ...
To provide a little background, I'm writing a novel set in a fantasy world, within which there are multiple languages. I'm applying the rule that any speech the viewpoint character (I'm using subj...
I'm using Scrivener for Windows (latest version). I set out to read my entire novel in Scrivenings mode. However, the text is a bit small for easy reading. I see a Zoom toolbar at the bottom of th...
"I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs," said Stephen King. He went on to explain that they should be used sparingly, not as a crutch to avoid writing a more descriptive sentence. Somet...
I'm well on my way to 50k but I feel like my story has not plot and is quite bad. I read somewhere that NaNo is awful for quality of writing. (How) can I improve the quality of writing during N...
Specifically, I want to know about whether or not it's okay to start at a point that gives a little bit away. In my story, the main character gets captured and that's the point I want to start at a...
English is full of homophones that can cause confusion when speaking, but if the two similar sounding words are spelled differently they can be clarified as soon as they are written down. However, ...
In the book What If?, the author usually write the unit as kilometer, atmosphere, megawatt instead of km, atm, MW. However he does use the symbols in the drawings: In one line both mm and millim...
Let me explain my question: I want to write the prologue of the story with the narrator in first person with the point of view of the protagonist. But the story is already written in a third pers...
I want to ask about a certain style on how to present a character. I know Jack Sparrow is from a movie (and I've only watched the movies too) but I want to integrate in my writing how he was presen...
I'm writing a first person novel and main character has highly controversial views, many of which the majority of people would probably consider immoral. Would a character with controversial attitu...
