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Nabokov was very discouraged when he translated his Lolita into Russian. And he spent half a year on it. So should I try the translation myself?
Are names of characters copyrighted by authors? For example, the character "Eragon" from the Inheritance Cycle series, or a name that you've generated using an online name generator that you'd like...
It is a common practice for a story for children to have a happy ending. Would it be considered inappropriate and disappointing for the young reader if his hero/heroine will suffer a horrible trage...
Agreed that it all depends on who the narrator's supposed to be, and, frankly, what tone you're trying to bring across to the reader. Two of my favorite opening paragraphs of all time: When a...
Has anyone come across any really good rhyming dictionaries? If so, what makes it worth having/bookmarking? (eg. completeness/ease of use/absence of really sketchy suggestions)
I've got a Flip Dictionary, a Thesaurus, my trusty Strunk&White, and I use the almighty GOOG(le) should I ever be unsure of the definition of a word. What does everyone else use? Is there some ...
If the characters are strong, the name gets molded to the character; if they're weak, it's the other way around. "The World According to Garp" makes a pretty big deal about Garp's name - both the ...
Character jumping can be done gracefully, but it's important to master the concept of one character perspective per scene first. It's tempting to jump around, but you will find that your writing ge...
Well, first off I would try to avoid that if you can, but that's not always possible, so here's one thing that I've found worked for me in the past. I had both characters looking at something and ...
I am writing a novel wherein there are many characters whose thoughts are key to telling it properly. In an earlier draft, I attempted to have any given chapter told from the point of view of exac...
Stranger Than Fiction is a movie that comes to mind.
To me, LitFic is fiction that is not a "page turner" (i.e. a story with only very direct surface themes, that gets you to the next page via suspense, but doesn't make you think about anything outsi...
A response to this question. What short stories, poems or other works of the literary art reflect (directly or indirectly) an author's experience as a writer? What messages do these pieces convey?...
Can you recommend a good reference book about the basics of English writing?
Another writer friend of mine went through NaNoWriMo last year, writing furiously to make her 50,000 words, without naming her characters at all. Naming isn't easy. Sometimes a character will hav...
I find much easier to first imagine the character, see it wading through the planned story-line, get emotionally involved with its (mis)adventures, then I can think a name that matches that stronge...
Most important part is, reducing the story to the core plot. Some say you should only need three pages to summarize your story, some say one page should be enough. But if you can reduce its core to...
I've written a few short stories with friends via email, with each person chipping in a section. It yields some interesting and fun results, but not what you'd call a particularly coherent story. ...
Who is the narrator? Was he a street thug? If he was, then it wouldn't make much sense to have him narrating using the Queen's English. The narrator should talk in their voice, not yours. Don't di...
How should one split up the work between two people? Should one write the even-numbered chapters and the other the odd-numbered? Does each person tell the story from the point of view of a differen...
So Sméagol, Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins do not sound silly? Honestly, don't care too much, if they sound silly or not. First, you can change them, second, I've read some great stories with very sill...
I find it hard to name my characters. Every normal name sounds funny if applied to a product of my fantasy. If I take a common name, I may get the image of someone I know into my head. And that may...
Using dialect or slang can work very well, but it usually doesn't. (Mark Twain is the only example I can think of where it was done well.) Slang is another matter, with some of the same pitfalls. H...
Inspired by a news post about ohlife I set up a small script that sends me an e-mail message each day asking me about my day. I just reply to that message with my daily journal if I have something ...
Is it advisable to use slang and euphemisms as a narrator, in addition to the main characters who use it? Are there arguments for and against it? For example, if I were to write about street thugs...
