Posts by Jay
"Am I allowed ..." No. If you do this, the Writing Police will come to your house, break down the door, and arrest you. Seriously, what do you mean by "am I allowed"? Who is going to stop you and ...
It's perfectly reasonable to say, "Hey, I think it was interesting the way this character was so calm under pressure, I'd like to use that in a story of my own." But if you write a story with a cha...
You'd have to check with the individual printer. At KDP, cost is based on color vs black & white and number of pages, and that's it. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834340 A 200 pa...
My first inclination would be to write it the same way it's written in school materials. If the course catalog or class schedule says "Algebra 2", that's what I'd write. I'd do something different...
It depends how distinctive the name is. If you have a character named "John", well, there are lots of other fictional characters, and real people, named "John" would not bother me at all. There a...
Reasons that I've heard of: (I'm overlapping other posters here somewhat but I'm trying to be complete.) The author doesn't want family, friends, or business associates to know that he is writing...
I think it's a bad idea. Personally, I have no idea who "Benedict Cumberbatch" is. Maybe I've seen him on TV or in movies and don't remember the name, or maybe I've never seen him. The odds are t...
This is why many people laugh at feminism. Yes, saying that losing one's fertility is a price that some are reluctant to pay implies that fertility has value. Duh. Who in his or her right mind wou...
I haven't read "Blood on the Stars", but I don't think the details of that story matter here, so I'll plunge ahead. Maybe I should distinguish the legal issue of copyright from the artistic issue ...
I don't think I've ever referenced a real brand name in something I've gotten published, the issue just never came up. So I can't speak from experience with a publisher there. But I've read plenty ...
As @MarkBaker said, there are lots of "accidental" rhymes in prose that no one notices. But if you structure your prose to call attention to a rhyme, I think in practice it's not prose any more, it...
When you talk about the "translation", do you mean that you are writing your book in some language other than English and you are translating between English and your native language to ask this qu...
Easy answer: Don't include anachronistic pop culture references. "writing a geeky character who does not make such references is almost unrealistic" Well, maybe, but surely not jarringly so. I'm a ...
There are two issues here. One is whether technical documents should include "creative" language. The other is whether problems with style should be fixed despite looming deadlines. On the second ...
I'd note that there's a difference between using cliches in dialog, and having a plot that is a cliche. But anyway ... There are lots of tried and true plot lines. Anyone who watches a romance sto...
Originality is not a yes/no, true/false thing. There are degrees of originality. There are lots of stories about a boy and girl who meet and fall in love. They are not all rip-offs of "Romeo and J...
First, as others have noted, real people's lives are rarely as event-filled as the lives of fictional characters. For example, Howard Carter became a world-renowned archaeologist when he discovered...
What is your purpose in wanting to do this? If the story is 99% set in the real world, and then you throw in this one paragraph of alternate history, and then the story goes back to the real world...
"I'm having trouble portraying religious, devout characters as protagonists or viewpoint characters. When I try, I get the sense that the reader - not sharing the characters' beliefs - will have tr...
The trick, I think, is to make this revelation in a way that, (a) does not invalidate everything that has happened before, and (b) that does not leave the reader wondering if the "new reality" is a...
A friend of mine once said, "Some stories don't end. They just stop." It is, of course, true that in real life not all crimes are solved, not all hidden treasures are found, not all romances lead ...
We've discussed use of vulgar language in fiction on this forum a number of times, e.g. Swearing - Censor, allude, or include? and Swearing in a book, within a context. Too offensive? To summarize...
In principle, you can have an open-ended story, where you leave the mystery unresolved and present it as, Mr Reader, what do you think the solution is? But in my humble opinion, this is hard to pu...
As I understand it, then: The editor has said that if you don't have your character wear a hoodie, he will not publish your comic book. You have tried to talk him out of this and he won't budge. S...
This is really a matter for personal preference. There's no provably right answer. Personally, for my books, I didn't worry about the index until about the 4th draft. When I was basically happy wi...
- ← Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next →