Posts by Cyn
Stage productions aren't just about the script. In your corpse example, there are several ways to handle it and it depends on the director more than the playwright. The corpses pile up and then ...
I think of Steampunk as being science fiction (with some fantasy elements) based in the Victorian era. The term "punk" might turn off some readers. Simply being unfamiliar with it might be the t...
I would like to followup on this excellent question which outlined differences among works for children, middle-grade, and young-adult. What are some clear differences in theme/story between child...
Formality of address shows more than just the relationship between characters. How one character addresses another does show the level of intimacy between them. But it can also show: Their hist...
Say you wrote a piece that was about something wonderful that had happened to you. A piece that exuded happiness and contentment. Someone—probably the very same person you discuss in your questio...
The line between science fiction and fantasy is often blurred. And that's okay. Genre is often more about marketing than anything else. As a general rule though: SciFi has science and technology...
Yes, it's fine. I would set it off though. Italics might work. Or an indented blockquote style. Or a divider between that line and the rest of the story. You might also make it a fake quote. ...
It's very common to change titles with new editions of a book. Obviously, the title will be translated to a non-English language with this new publisher. When translating, it's common to change...
If you're writing A Series of Unfortunate Events, it works. Because the purpose is to educate the reader (or allow the reader to be the one that says "I know what X means"). If you're writing a s...
Say I have a book...or a comic series...or a podcast...or another published work. Marketing written or scripted works is perfectly on topic here, and most of the promotional materials are also wri...
Your best bet may be a first person narrator. If your narrator is a character anyway, then the limited POV shouldn't be an issue. With 3rd person narration, even if it's from the POV of one speci...
This is a hard one. You really need to go to another country and spend a couple days hanging out on base and seeing how they do things. Obviously, travel is expensive and you may not have other p...
Screenplays have less dialogue than you think! I too used to think that a screenplay was all about the dialogue. But when I researched the medium, I discovered that dialogue is just a part of the...
The most famous ship of all (perhaps the one that started it) is K/S aka Kirk/Spock. Even though both characters have been portrayed as 100% straight. Many other characters have been shipped in...
I appreciate this question as it's something that can definitely be overdone. It seems to be a problem mostly of the plot driving the characters. We need people to do XYZ, so let's have character...
Around a decade ago, I had a dream. An actual middle of the night dream. An entire movie played in my head, all I had to do was write it down. I did a fair bit of research on the topic then I sp...
Don't think of it as moving back to the main section. Instead, create a new subsection. 1.1.3 subsection 3 Or create a section called Conclusion. Better yet, make the part you call the main...
Disabled people fear losing functionality as much as anyone else. Perhaps even more so, because they need to rely on existing functional parts more strongly than others do. What you want to avoid...
I say keep your real name. It's not exactly the same as any other author at the moment and none of the names you mention are unique enough that it would be confusing to use something similar. It'...
If you were describing a human being, you wouldn't say "she had two arms, each the same length and ending just below her hips." That description is assumed for everyone (if it's wrong for an indiv...
What is a draft? I mean that sincerely. And I mean it as a frame challenge. Advice about numbers of drafts and other rules about writing usually comes from pretty old advice that doesn't apply...
There are sites where artists who do book covers list themselves as looking for work. And there are individual websites or social media for various artists. Look around and find someone you like,...
If your inspiration story is in the public domain (which all of Shakespeare is), you have no legal obligation to disclose your source material. Though with Shakespeare, people will of course figur...
Imagine if you set out to write a book based on a true story. You then interviewed your main subject talking about her experiences. That interview was your primary source material. You would be ...
It's fiction. It's probably closest to memoir, which is basically autobiography, a type of non-fiction. But then you say: The exact course of events in the story has never really happened in ...