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I've been working on a story idea for a few years now, during which I designed a world (fantasy-based) in which it would take place. The thing is that because this is a different planet, I thought ...
Basically, I have about 7 or 8 characters (excluding the antagonist) who each have important roles in the story. My problem is that my characters tend to develop themselves, so to speak. I have no ...
I am writing a romance novel. I have two main characters, Niranjan (male) and Jennifer. POV is Third Person Multiple (above two). I have a scene where they meet first time in a restaurant. While t...
When I first wrote "Gawain's Guilt-Girdle" (14 lines of verse) I introduced it with a short (modernized/translated) quotation from the Middle English work Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I think m...
A lot of writers I admire say: "I didn't know how long the story would be." Me too, I'm the kind of writer who don't know where (and when) the story is going to end. So I'm confused—is it better to...
I am currently working on my first novel so forgive me for making what is probably considered the mistake of a 'novice'. My novel is set in the present, however my antagonist has a history dating b...
First, this question is not quite about writer's block or dealing with self-criticism. I find myself often in the following situation: I want to write a short piece of non-fiction and have plenty ...
My name is Richard Devine and I am currently working on a collaboration with Stephen King, (obviously NOT the original author himself). We currently act under the pseudo name 'KD Novels' (King/Devi...
I find that my students are using a lot of these phrases at the beginning of their sentences: First... First of all... To begin with... All in all... The other reason is that... Above all... At l...
My (A)ntagonist (or antagonizing force) in my novel causes a nuclear disaster in a remote nuclear facility. I've decided on certain circumstantial plot points, such as the post-disaster coping of t...
I wrote a piece of poetry for one of my short stories (the main character, Eri, writes poems). It's the following: Eri, did you feel the earthquake last night? Are you really sure your ap...
We are currently in the process of writing a debut novel. Although we are still in the early stages of writing, we both feel we have the creativity and perseverance to see this through. What we d...
I've asked questions in the past about dialogue and I've read some questions about balancing dialogue with plot, however I have discovered yet another corner case in my writing. In my story Cured, ...
Eri knelt down slowly and thought about her world. The one with the solid ground in which she had stood all her life. Would that surface break apart one day? And when it did, what would happ...
I am teaching some students how to write a 5-paragraph essay. Their writing is coming together, but when it comes to conclusions, they get lost. They have difficulty assembling the ideas for a conc...
In technical documentation, sometimes the tool's automatic hyphenation makes a bad break in the middle of a term, like the name of an environment variable or function. In these cases I would rathe...
After having waited for three months for the first draft of my novel to "cool off," I've finally decided to work on the second one. But now I'm presented with who options: 1) edit the this first d...
I teach a course in remedial academic writing. The students should learn to write at the graduate level. Some of the students are ELLs. They tend to include many extraneous thoughts and ideas in t...
I'm familiar with the 12 step outline process for heroic fantasy novels, but is there an equivalent outline structure for Romance novels? By this I mean novels like those produced by Nicholas Spar...
I had a quick question in regards to using P.S. I just finished writing up a formal follow-up email for an interview. I touched over a lot of information and brought up some new topics. Anyway, I...
I just finished a "long" short story. And I want to include a section where I thanks Writers SE for the writing advice and Scribophile for the critiques and feedback. How is that properly done? Wh...
I've been reading a few questions on this site, and I've seen the terms First, Second or Third Drafts. What does this refer to actually? And could someone give a clear detail of what they are, and ...
Some short story markets (e.g. Daily Science Fiction) request manuscripts in plain text. How do you indicate emphasis in a plain text manuscript?
I am tutoring some students in the very basics of writing a 5-paragraph essay to present an argument, in preparation for more advanced academic writing. I am instructing them to include: An intr...
When critiquing another's writing I find myself making suggestions that are clearly biased toward how I would write the work. This effect seems particularly prevent for poetry, where suggestions ar...
