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I agree with Lauren's answer: A prologue is anything before the main body of a text, and can be whatever the author wants it to be. What matters is that it reads well. However, in my experience, ...
A prologue is pro, before, the logos, word. It's text before the main body of the text. Whether a work needs a prologue is entirely up to the author. There is no right or wrong way to write one. T...
(I am not a lawyer.) If you are writing an unauthorized biography of a celebrity, I imagine that falls under journalism and libel rules. So as long as you could cite every source you used, and you...
Invert the sentence to parse it. The worker first must engage the wedge for separating connector A and connector B. In that sentence, "the wedge for separating" becomes an adjective phrase....
has anyone seen a similar situation which helps shed light on this grey area? I have in front of me two publications: Common LISP: The Language, by Guy Steele (et al.) and published by Digital...
I think you have everything right except the last one, which should be "What did the young lord say?" You're essentially following AP style for titles. Generally, capitalize formal titl...
I decide what should be written next only when I am writing that. This called being a "pants writer" or a "pantser," meaning that you write by the seat of your pants. It's completely valid as ...
It's very hard to guess what precisely your teacher meant, but here's the closest piece of advice that I know: A story's ending should mirror its beginning, because otherwise, you have probably beg...
The APA style recommends the following for citing anything from web sites (which would include any claim you're reporting from one): New child vaccine gets funding boost. (2001). Retrieved Marc...
What paragraphs accomplish Text that isn't split up into paragraphs is often referred to as a "wall of text" and can be very difficult to read. Paragraphs are used for a few reasons: Organization,...
It's not at all cheating. The narrative "camera" can't be in all places at all times or your book will be a thousand pages long and only cover an hour. In fact, part of the joy of a mystery is th...
There is a balance between maintaining point of view, and maintaining suspense, which can crop up whenever your protagonist or your POV (point-of-view) character is planning ahead in any detail. T...
1) Lengthen it. You're not going to have rat-a-tat-tat patter graveside. 2) Take each phrase you feel is clichéd, determine the meaning, and rewrite it in different words. "All we want is for our ...
When I self-published a book some years ago I had the copy shop apply comb bindings for me. At the time this cost about $1/book, but it appears that Stapes and Office Depot now charge closer to $3...
First figure out why you need this character to be insane. What insane act or decision must they make in order to advance your plot? Insanity generally involves a failing model of the world and pe...
Sure, go for it. One of my favorite books has two entire chapters where the name of one of the major characters is misspelled in every single reference. This was fixed in later editions. If it wa...
"Write what you know" is a guideline, not a law, or every book would be an autobiography. If you want to write about other countries, you say you've done a lot of research, which is a great start....
You first described it as "set in the late 1920s", and then later said you were "writing pseudo-historically in an alternate universe". I'm not bringing this up to nit-pick your question but, rath...
If to you the chapter seems good, and it seems to be fulfilling your purpose for it, I would not worry about it now. If it is too short, what that really means one of the following: either you did...
In my experience, chapter length does not matter. Your book may look more 'impressive' or 'official' with long chapters, but are they necessary to the book itself? No. As long as the first chapter ...
For color-to-name converter, a quick Google search gives me this link: http://chir.ag/projects/name-that-color/#C0C0C0 In which you can just pick a color from the color wheel to see its name. ...
I would say that you should definitely include time/date, but as was mentioned above, you should show, not tell. If you have to tell, I would use the chapter header mentioned by Mac Cooper. But act...
Please please please PLEASE use date/time of day references. Please. With chocolate on top. It's way too easy to get lost in the flow of narration and not have a damn clue when we are. Is it morn...
It depends on the kind of story you're trying to tell, and the experience you want the reader to have. I think that in your case, since you are creating characters which are meant to be read as a...
The second option is OK, if you can smooth out the phrasing. What would be more ideal is if you could rephrase to avoid the problem, to avoid lumping the two items together in the first place - fo...
