Activity for Cyn
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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A: Would it be believable to defy demographics in a story? The norm is the average range. None of your examples are outside the norm, meaning they're all things people wouldn't think were unusual. You seem to be asking "do I have to write characters who are in the center of the average range?" The answer to that is "no." All of your examples are about age a... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Writing in a Christian voice I'm Jewish. My middle-grade fantasy novel is very Jewish. Most of my characters are either Jews or converts/future converts or people with at least one Jewish grandparent. But some are not. My main character, Ruth age 12, is 100% of Jewish ancestry but has been raised secular. She lives in the Unite... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Describing a chess game in a novel I'm finding your use of "Black" and "White" as character names to be distracting. I realize that it's meant to be more straight-forward to use the chess sides as names, but it throws me off. Give them names, give them genders (different genders is helpful for following things if it otherwise doesn't... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I make a non-linear timeline less confusing? You have three issues to solve: 1. There are two different worlds. 2. The sequential nature of each world's chapters (that there are not gaps where the other world's chapters are). 3. The two timelines run simultaneously (vs one being a flashback or something). I would solve 1 and 2 the same way: w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write cleanly even if my character uses expletive language? I'm also writing middle grade fiction and dealing with the same issue. I have decided to go with your option #3: use a milder alternative. Though in a different way from how you've laid it out. As such, this is a slight frame challenge in that I'm not directly answering "how to use a swear word indir... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I trim my word count and still be proud of what I've written? Sometimes editing to fit a requirement makes you a stronger writer. And sometimes the onerousness of the requirement means you're in the wrong genre. If you said you have a 750 word limit and sometimes you push 1000 words, then we could give you all sorts of advice about how to trim things to make i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What exactly is the difference between Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com and what should be used for self publishing? There is an in-between. Many ISPs have Wordpress as part of the package you purchase from them. I use a great local company who offers both internet access and online accounts separately. The accounts give you domain name services (they'll take care of registration and bill you the $15 or so annual ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to traditionally publish a fantasy-fiction novel serial in our modern era of publishing without the use of zines? What you may be looking for is an anthology. Anthologies are similar to magazines and, in some cases, may overlap. But they have significant differences and are often done by different types of publishers. A magazine: - Comes out on a defined schedule (monthly, quarterly). - Usually more than onc... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I hide Chekhov's Gun? I would hide the basement but not the locked door. A coded padlock on a door inside a house is really weird, and the sort of thing someone would notice and probably comment on. If the MC has a guest, the guest could ask about it and the MC might reply "I don't know. He only opens it when I'm not ar... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Is it necessary to take writing classes and learn formal fiction structure? This is an offshoot from a comment exchange on an unrelated question. What to submit when asked for "sample chapters"? I know a large percentage of traditionally published fiction authors, especially newer ones, have degrees related to writing or similar extensive education. And many people here tal... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What should I call a short book about my life? It's called a memoir. Memoir is a subset of autobiography, which is a subset of biography. A biography is the story of someone's life. Autobiography is when you write your own biography. Memoir is writing about your own life but without the scope of a biography. Your book may span many decades, b... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Including disabled characters without "inspiration porn" Who is your audience? The audience for any kind of porn is not the character. (I'm speaking of the intention of the author, not who might actually end up watching it.) The intended audience for actual pornography, for example, is not 19 year old large-breasted women with insatiable desires. In ins... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What to call a nameless character in a 3rd person narrative? The important word here is "the." All of us use "the" to reference people whose names we don't know. We'd never say "the nameless person." Instead, we talk about "the waiter" or "the bus driver" or "the woman with the red skirt" or "the kid doing cartwheels." When we do this, we assume the person ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: MLA: Indirect Citation without quote C. You need to find the text the author is citing and cite it directly. If the actual statement is as vague as your example (I realize you may simply be using a generic example as a placeholder), you'll want to expand on it as well. It's not enough to state the general result of a study. You need ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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What to submit when asked for "sample chapters"? For a submission (to a grant program, competition, agent, or publisher) that asks for sample chapters, which chapters do you choose? For example, a grant program for unfinished works I'm interested in wants 3 sample chapters. They don't specify which ones. Do you go in order? Include the prolog? Add... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Should we avoid writing fiction about historical events without extensive research? Just don't. You have a good ten thousand years of (semi) recorded history to choose from, in what is now hundreds of countries and multiple continents. There are many places and times you can pick that most people would know nothing about and you can get away with making stuff up. Don't pick an eve... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Showing the transition of language comprehension change This is a followup question to What language shall they sing in? I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English with time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. My big handwave is that there is a magical invisible Universal Translator (a la Doctor Who). In the oth... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using rhythm to evoke emotion Take a dance class. I'm not joking. If you feel the rhythm in your body, you will be better able to evoke it on the page. Going to dance performances is also helpful but you need to understand the feeling first before you can see how the professional do it. It's not just the beat of the music in ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Casually inserting sexual orientation I don't think you need to show anything special at all. Lots of people have multiple love interests (or hookups) over the course of a novel. In some novels, it's entire the premise. If a character's first relationship in the novel was to a tall blond German runner, you wouldn't think your readers w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Mariner Software for writers I'm boring and just use Word and Excel for writing my novel and keeping track of stuff. I've tried a couple others, including Scrivener and Evernote, but never got into it. I like the idea of specialized tools (and use them for genealogy and other things) but don't like to give up control over my con... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: As a new poet, where can I find help from a professional to judge my work? Step one is to get feedback that you're basically on the right track. A lot of people don't feel ready to show their poems to anyone (maybe outside of close friends or family) and need some encouragement first. You're past this step. Step two is a professional editor or reader. Other answers have co... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to choose ideal number of main characters? I have 107 characters. In a single-book, standard length, middle-grade novel. There are a small handful of auxiliary characters too. Obviously, they're not all main characters. I'm not sure how many of those I have because it depends where you put the lines. I have one girl who is the main charact... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Should an author include user-interactive sections in his website? User interaction is a commitment. Moderation , as Galastel discusses, is one important component of it (use software such as Wordpress that emails you all new comments and allows you to set moderation parameters). Remember, your website is your private domain and you do not have to allow "free speec... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Sometimes a banana is just a banana Sometimes authors write in ways to drive future literary critics crazy. Then they laugh. Because everything is potentially a symbol. If you've ever taken a lit-crit class, it's quite an experience. It's not that I can't see symbolism or that I don't want to, it's just that everyone sees something di... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Naming things the POV character doesn't know My middle-grade novel is third person with one primary and one secondary viewpoint character. Sometimes the narrator hovers a bit more, sometimes the narrator is more in the character's head. The narrator primarily describes things the way the character might. For example one character will refer to... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How large should photos on my blog be? I use the "medium" size in Wordpress, which is 500 px width and height proportional as required by the image. This fits across my entire column (depending on the monitor/window size/browser of course). That's a center column of content with menu columns on either side. It's a bit bigger than many ot... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Publishers that drag their feet How do you deal with frustration over a publisher's choices? - All the stories and art for an anthology are in the publisher's hands—camera ready in digital form—and approved (deadline was 4 months ago). - Publisher decides to spend months hyping the book and then they will start a fundraising page... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Finishing up someone else's novel You absolutely can not publish this without permission. It doesn't matter if you make no money off of it. Putting something in the public domain doesn't it make it better (and might make it worse). Your friend was the sole copyright holder (I assume) when he was alive. When he died, the work did no... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What is a good way to foreshadow that magic is actually very advanced technology? Magic vs advanced technology is a common enough question in fiction that your readers will already be primed to wonder. I agree with Amadeus that the reference to "knobs" is, in and of itself, enough to tip the reader off. Magic wands don't have buttons. What you want though is not just the reader t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Knowing when to use pictures over words In food writing, there is a specific sub-genre for works (both short and long) that are photo-heavy, with particularly good-quality photos. Food porn. Where you draw the line depends on your audience. An awful lot of people will buy a book or read a blog about food just for the pictures. There's ev... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Fictional races and fictional racism People will draw parallels between racism in your world and actual racism, because both you and your readers live here and now. It's not just that it can't be helped, it's part of why we write. We interact with the real world because we are the real world. Any style of racism you describe will alrea... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Every character has a name - does this lead to too many named characters? With a few exceptions, every one of my characters has a name, gender, age, and family relationship. A large percentage also have a backstory. I have well over 100 characters. As others have said, you don't need to use all the names. But it's your world, you should know the people in it. Naming char... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Should I write a companion book/blog? As a spinoff to this question: Incorporating research and background: How much is too much? I'm writing a middle-grade fantasy novel with a historical fiction component based in Ancient Egypt. I'm doing enormous amounts of research on both the history and the religious aspects (it's based on the Exo... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Do I need to get a pen name? First of all, congratulations! If your publisher says it's up to you, then they're not seeing any red flags that would make a pen name advisable. Lots of adults write for both children and adults and in different genres. While it can be hard to build a following for every genre, having a pen name wi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Would publishers accept a title which includes the F-word? There are 3573 entries on Goodreads with the word "f\\\" in the title (I only splat it for this site, not for my own sensibility). The titles contain the full word, spelled out. 2744 entries with the word s\\\ in the title. And so on. It's just not an issue with many publishers. It may be for othe... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it okay for the final chapter to be a lot longer than all the other chapters? The chapters in my middle-grade novel are all over the map (408-1712 words). So far it hasn't been a problem, as I end them at natural stopping points, but this may be something I have to fix when the book is done and in a full edit. I would not have a chapter as long as 7000 words though. This is m... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Injecting creativity into a cookbook Full confession: I read cookbooks like novels. The best cookbooks, in my opinion, are those with great descriptions of the recipe that turn it into a story. History of the recipe or the ingredients. This can be family history or history of a country or ethnic group. Where does the recipe come from?... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Should I include an appendix to reference words of an in-universe language for a fantasy novel? The best appendix is one the reader never needs to use. The same thing applies to footnotes. They're there for people who want the exact reference. They shouldn't have material that you need to understand the story (or even the scientific paper). They're bonus features. But yes, include it. People w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I write an annoying character without annoying the reader? You need to get inside her head. Everyone makes sense to themselves. She has reasons for doing things and, you might disagree, but they're valid to her. She has goals and dreams and desires. She has conflicting emotions and strengths and weaknesses. If you show her like you described her here, she i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Incorporating research and background: How much is too much? The amount of research I'm doing for my novel is staggering. To the point where my spouse says I need to write a companion book (or a blog) just talking about the research! Sometimes I research for hours simply to include one line. I live in terror of having my characters eat a food that didn't exis... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Write for an audience or find an audience for your writing? Both. If I get an idea, I'll have a good sense of the target audience. The age group, the genre, etc. But when I'm writing, it might morph. And that's okay. I'll keep writing and let it be what it needs to be, then recategorize it. (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Always sounding idiomatic as a non-native English speaker Beta readers. Find beta readers who are native speakers of English and give them red pens and completed manuscripts (which you've already run though Google and done the best edit you can on them) or the online equivalent. When you've completed the next several rounds of editing, hire an excellent p... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I introduce this character? Use the narrator as a tool to avoid annoying the reader. The narrator controls the flow of information. Have the minions do their thing. Once. Then... > The crowd clapped politely as the ruler walked by. The minions started up again with the "isn't he amazing" bit and the clapping began to fade. T... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Consulting experts - why should they talk to someone who isn't a published writer yet? Guilty. I'm one of the people who told you to do seemingly impossible things. The truth is, sometimes you can't. Shadowing someone at their job or activity is often really really hard, and nobody likes asking for that. But most people are happy to have a visitor. For example, in your military questi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What are the best techniques to show a character panicking as it is seen by the POV character? I would name it once. Have the viewpoint character notice the panic on the other character's face. It can be near the beginning or closer to the middle of the scene. Maybe later. By "scene" I mean the section where the panic is actually happening (which could be late in the actual scene). Then thr... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Making him into a bully (how to show mild violence) Joe is the worst. Nobody likes him, not even the so-called friends he teams up with at school, filling other students with terror. He's sarcastic, nasty, and a bit of a racist, and especially anti-Semitic. Over-all jerk. When some of the other kids plan a boat outing just for the kids with Jewish an... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Self-publishing Nonfiction Help Guides on Amazon? The main benefit is that people see your copyright as legitimate. To be sure, some people take ebooks and copy them and stick them right back on to Amazon under their own name and with all the money going to them. It's not super common, but it does happen. Someone I know, a published cookbook autho... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is It Legal to Use Military Insignias of Defunct Nations? Legal and wise are not the same thing. Legally I believe you're in the clear. There is no trademark on government symbols. But if you use the actual symbols from the USSR, you are writing yourself into a corner. Readers who recognize them will expect that your country is in fact the USSR, even if ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How does one write from a minority culture? A question on cultural references Absolutely. My own book is filled with references to Judaism and to American Jewish culture (the number 18 is one). In lots of those cases, it's explicit, but not always. I would venture to say you already do this yourself. But you may not be aware that some of your references are culturally specifi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Am I Breaking Too Many Rules? You finished your book, congratulations! But almost nobody writes a novel that doesn't require major restructuring, especially not on the first try. If your readers liked it in general, but had issues with the ending and some other things, then your novel is not finished! Yes it's a "novel re-write"... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |