Activity for Cyn
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: How can a main character learn about a secret event that will take place? The other answers outlined the basic methods and hopefully you've already used one of them in your story. Another possibility is that the protagonist works in an industry that the bad guys require to carry out their plans. - A piano moving company that is asked to move a strange box. The right size... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Any advice on creating fictional locations in real places when writing historical fiction? Creating fictional places within a real world setting not only works in fiction, but it's extremely common. Creating the the fictional space is helpful because it allows you to flesh it out however you wish. You don't have to worry about getting it wrong (though you'll still have to do your research... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Who decides how to classify a novel? Young adult vs adult fiction isn't about the age of the characters (though that usually does vary too), it's about the age of your readers. If you're writing for adults, then write for adults and pitch your work that way to publishers, agents, and potential customers. If you use a traditional publi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: The art of clickbait captions Clickbait isn't like news where you tell someone the headline so they'll click for more information. > Eggplant linked to lower cancer rates. Clickbait is where they have to click just to find out the headline. > This one vegetable stops cancer! There's no nuance in clickbait. Not like medical a... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What weight should be given to writers groups critiques? Every reader's opinion is valuable to a degree, though some carry more weight than others. If several people in your critique group are giving the same feedback, there's probably something to it. If it's just one person, then it depends. A critique group is not like a regular reader (or even a beta ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Are there specific rules about caesura that restrict us where we can place them? Put your pauses wherever you wish but know that they will tell the reader how to read it. Poetry is meant to be read aloud. Or at least imagined so in the mind. Tell your reader how and where to pause. - A comma. - A final punctuating mark (period, exclamation mark, question mark). - A line break. ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Foreign words break spellchecking You need to install a foreign dictionary > Microsoft Word can use multiple custom dictionaries to check the spelling of your documents. A custom dictionary allows you to supplement the main dictionary with additional words, such as names, specialized technical terms, foreign words or alternative spe... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to deceive the MC When the narrator is wrong about something in the book's world, it's called an unreliable narrator. When a narrator has a single point of view (sees through one character's eyes) then it's inevitable that some information is unreliable. Readers understand that. With a 3rd person narrator you're also... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Writing "hahaha" versus describing the laugh Dialogue quotes are for things a character actually says. If your character says "hahaha" then fine. But I've never heard anyone do that. You might get a single "ha!" but that's an exclamation not a laugh. Or someone might say "ha ha" (or even "ha ha ha") sarcastically. Again, not a laugh. If you w... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to tease a romance without a cat and mouse chase? You can't This is not a romance. This is a master having sex with his slave. Or wanting to have sex. But he's going to free the slave! Is he now? But the person is still a slave when this all begins. This is an unequal relationship of exploitation. Is it possible for someone in a subordinate rela... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Referring to a character in 3rd person when they have amnesia Use the name others use for her. It's pretty standard that, if a patient can't be identified, a placeholder name gets assigned. Jane Doe (in the US anyway) is a very common one (John Doe for males). If this continues longer than a few days, the hospital staff (or the people wherever she finds herse... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: POV - 3rd Person Rules and Exceptions? If you want a limited 3rd person narrator, then you need to accept the limitations that come with it. Either find a way to convey (or let go of) the information in your examples, or change the type of narration. In some cases, you might want chapters with alternate POV characters narrating. This ca... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Can one start the second draft when the first lacks a proper ending? The idea of "first drafts" and "second drafts" is a concept from our school years, from when we sometimes had to turn these things in labeled as such. It also comes from the way most writers used to work...handwriting everything then typing out a draft (or paying someone to type a draft). Or it coul... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Seamlessly glueing an archetypal plot to an existing story Think about why you're doing this. Your readers liked everything about your story except they wanted more of the ending. So instead you're giving them more of everything except the ending? I think your attempt is failing because you're trying to do something that isn't true to the book. The way you... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to tell people you write smut/erotica/porn > "I write stories for adults only." or > "I write erotica." It all works. There's enough out there that is NC-17 or even a hard R, or the book/TV/comic equivalent, that people get it if you say your work isn't appropriate for kids. Also, if you don't even know if your work is smut or erotica or... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Naming a book in a language different from where it would be published: is it good? I recently finished reading a novel in translation to English from Russian. The title was in Latin (in the original edition, the title was transliterated to Russian, but the English edition was in English transliteration.). In this case, the authors (a duo) used a Latin phrase because it had meaning... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do I find flaws in a character I'm building? Ask his wife Either you're so much inside his head that you're not seeing him the way others do, or you're an outsider suffering from hero worship. You need to get into other people's heads and see him from different angles. His wife knows (mostly) all his flaws. She may love him anyway, but she'll... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Should I release my novel now... or miss a golden opportunity? Don't try to chase trends. Everyone wants to be the next best thing. The perfectly timed topical hit. If that works out for you, great. But don't try to make it happen. Even if you finished your book next week, it's too late. The topic may have been around for months, but it will be gone by the tim... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Shipping self-published books directly from Amazon to bookstores: bad idea? You may be in breach of contract if you sell your books anywhere but Amazon. I'm not having much luck finding definitely contract information about this but one source states: > As part of the exclusivity agreement, you cannot sell titles listed in Amazon’s KDP Select program on the other marketpla... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Many sexual situations, but no actual sex scenes? Comics have an age rating system similar to videogames, but it's not completely standardized. Marvel and DC, the biggest comics producers, have slightly different systems from each other. And here's yet another system for English language Manga. They're all based mostly on ages but they divide them ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it bad writing or bad story telling if first person narrative contains more information than the narrator knows? A main reason to choose a first person narrator in the first place is to limit the scope of the narrator (and to get deeply into that one character's head). So, no, the narrator should not be privy to information that the character does not know. With two exceptions: 1. If it's information the cha... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is every story set in the future "science fiction"? Books set in the future are Speculative Fiction > Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre encompassing fiction with certain elements that do not exist in the real world, often in the context of supernatural, futuristic or other imaginative themes. This includes, but is not limited to, science ficti... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Can I bring back Planetary Romance as a genre? There are two separate issues here: 1. What do you call your story as you pitch it? 2. How would your story be marketed? Although you tag marketing and use the word, you're asking more about the second question, how to pitch the story, so let's not worry about it. Your publisher will choose an appr... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Are wands in any sort of book going to be too much like Harry Potter? Wands have been a feature of magic for decades and perhaps much much longer. Tinkerbell in Disney's version of Peter Pan (1953) has a short wand that works with a flick of the wrist.  I could come up with 100 more examples if I wan... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: The unknown and unexplained in science fiction How technology works is sometimes in a novel or movie or other work (some authors give you every last detail, like Andy Weir) and sometimes it's just there as a given. While avoiding explanations in visual media is more common than in printed ones, the fact that it happens at all is telling. Take so... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Picking a theme as a discovery writer A theme isn't a "meaningful moral" Or even a regular moral. A theme is the central idea and a moral is a lesson. These can overlap, but they're not the same thing. It's okay to develop your themes (yes, you can have more than one in the same work) as you write. You may not even know them until the... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Page count conversion from single to double-space for submissions Asking for a certain number of pages, along with particular formatting, can seem like a holdover from a pre-computer age. They forgot to update their requirements! And sometimes it is. But another way to look at it is to imagine that the publisher will be printing it out. Many probably do. Others ma... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to write the action of someone reading in a story? An example, please If you format the email as separate from the narration, that will take care of most of the transition between the narrator and the text of the email. Set it aside in its own paragraph and do one or more of the following: indent, italicize, change the font type, change the font size, or place in a box... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: When an imagined world resembles or has similarities with a famous world I say, ignore it. Sort of. I think you're right that the primary characteristics aren't the problem but it's all in how you flesh the race out. If your goal is humanoid aliens with human levels of communication skills and intelligence and a culture that is mutually intelligible (aliens you'd bump in... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do I make a contract with multiple authors Adapted from my answer to Can I self-publish a book on the Kindle store when I'm under 18? Absolutely, whenever you publish something with multiple authors—whether it's a collaboration or a work where a primary author(s) uses someone else's material—you want a written contract. My suggestion in you... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Quoting Yourself You have two choices: 1. Write it up in the same style as the other quotes but don't give an attribution. It is common enough for writers to put something poetic or otherwise different from the main chapter text in the beginning of a chapter. 2. Give a full citation, including the name of the work i... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Can I self-publish a book on the Kindle store when I'm under 18? Amazon allows your parent to publish your book for you > 4.1 Eligibility. You must have an active Program account in order to participate in the Program. You represent that you are at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you reside, whichever is older) and that you are able to form a leg... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it true that a great cover is enough to sell many copies of your book Yes and no. I don't think many people purchase a book because of the cover. The cover will not give you direct sales (maybe a couple...). But imagine that you are looking for a book. Either knowing you want to buy something now or just browsing and seeing if something catches your eye. You're wande... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is my book too weird to be published? Nothing is too weird to be published. Truly, nothing. But plenty of works will not interest any of the publishers that currently exist. Even many works that are totally mainstream don't get published because nobody the author submitted to wants to publish them. Assuming you fix the problem of using ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Licensed out content for book, whose name in copyright notice? In your name. You hold the copyright to everything you create (with the exception of work for hire, as April points out) unless you expressly sell or transfer the copyright to another party or place it in the public domain (or if you are dead and enough time has passed). Say someone reads your cont... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to add individual citations or copyrights to an eBook? I would add a paragraph for each story under the story title, then separated from the story by a line or something like that. Like how many cookbooks do it. Sometimes they explain about the recipe, how they discovered it, how their family used it, etc, before giving the actual recipe. Include the so... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: At what point does an interesting analogy become a distraction? Your question is a bit all over the map but, ultimately, it's about tone. Your silly example would be fine for a first person narrator who loves puns and can never be completely serious. If it's the only time s/he ever said anything like that, it would be very out of place and jarring. If your exam... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to creep the reader out with what seems like a normal person? > Something is very off about this being, and everyone knows it. Except it's not. When someone is very off, people steer clear. The creepy guy who hangs out in front of the supermarket makes his creepiness known by asking out any woman unfortunate enough to engage him in conversation for 5 seconds. ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Can someone publish a story that happened to you? No one can copyright an event The events that happened to your father don't belong to anyone. They just are. Different people will have different knowledge (or beliefs) about various portions of the events, but they are just different versions of something that happened. Yes, the author who publish... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to avoid introduction cliches The best way to avoid overly general openers is to write them. Go ahead, write them all down. Get them out of your system. If you don't, they're gonna be on your brain distracting you. Once you finish your opening paragraph, go back and cut it ruthlessly. That first line is out of there. Maybe the ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How overcome the budget constraint while building a fiction writing career? I'm just sitting here laughing and laughing... My spouse is going through something similar. Comic book series with 4 issues a year (e-comic only) and a book collection every 4 issues (e-book and trade paperback). Have a traditional publisher but not sure if that's helping or not. We have to do al... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to transition from poetry to song-writing? You have answers about the differences between poems and lyrics. I will focus on the how. What techniques can you use to make this transition? I wrote a lot of song lyrics when I was in high school and the best advice I got was to write down lyrics of commercial songs I liked. I'm a lot older than y... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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Comics marketing: focus on issues or collections? Situation: - 5 year comic book series (by my spouse; I do marketing, website, etc) - 4 issues a year (in theory...it's been slower) - Issues are available as e-comic only - Every 4 issues is collected into a book - Books are available as e-books and as trade paperbacks - Traditional (small) publishe... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Opening chapter foreshadowing or not? > Victim and suspect are both unknown and unrelated to my protagonist. It's because of this that the answer is maybe. Sometimes a prologue (not Chapter 1) with unrelated characters helps set the tone of the book. The reader knows in the back of her/his head "this is a crime novel" (or mystery, or d... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: As an author, how can you ensure that your agent/publisher isn’t ripping you off by pocketing your money and giving you false info about sales? How can you be sure your employer is telling the truth when she says there's no money for bonuses this year? Or your local farmer's market farmer who says the early rain messed with the harvest and that's why the squash is twice the price it was last week? How can you be sure that a writer, famous f... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Protagonist's race is hidden - should I reveal it? Yes, you need to mention it. If race, ethnicity, culture are important (hint: they're always important, even if they don't change the story, they're part of who your character is, just like gender and age and education), then you'd want to talk about them for every character. Or at least a few. Ins... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to write Arabic in dialogue for an English piece? Unless your audience is bilingual, you always want to use the transliterated version. When you're dealing with alphabets that are very different (or in some languages, not alphabets at all), not to mention the issue of the direction of the writing, someone who doesn't read it will get nothing from i... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How to name indistinguishable henchmen in a screenplay? If they have lines or specific actions, it's important to give them all names. Why? Because each one will be played by a different actor. Each actor needs to know where s/he is at any given time, what s/he is saying and doing, and so forth. The director needs to know those things as well. The castin... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Can I include diagrams in essays for complex topics? Graphics and artwork get a bad rap in essays and similar length nonfiction because so many authors and editors make stupid decisions. How many stock photos of beautiful young people in posed action shots have you seen adorning articles? Or maybe it's a stock photo of a computer or a kitchen. In your... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do I record information when planning to write a recap of events? Use an outline or old updates as a template Basically, you're taking minutes. What happened, who did it, and the rough order it happened in (with some grouping by category). Taking minutes from scratch is pretty difficult, especially if you're active in the session. So start with a framework. The ... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |