Posts by Cyn
Ask the newspaper. They will know this stuff backwards and forwards. If you put the lyrics into a program to hand out at a memorial service or other event, you're good. If you put the lyrics (we...
I think you have to decide what lines you're willing to cross and which ones you aren't. It's your piece; it belongs to you. Unless you have a contract for Work for Hire or something else saying i...
I would do some research first. But what some might call research, others would call fun reading. So, yeah, you should have a decent grasp on the real world history first. As well as a basic u...
I agree with El Cadejo, it is always wise to have a contract in place. This covers you legally (and to some degree ethically) if: You have a falling out with one of your subjects who wants to pu...
Give the location of the scenes as the chapter/scene headers. If the present-time scenes are in MC 1's house and the flashbacks are in a local coffeehouse (for example), your readers will be able ...
I like to equate skin tones with food or natural objects. Caramel, chocolate, cream, sand, etc. Eye and hair color work well this way too. There are so many beautiful shades of skin it is a sham...
In my own novel I have two settings: The (more or less) modern world with some historical backstory but 100% fictional characters. Set in the U.S., the country I live in. Ancient Egypt as based ...
Like with so many other issues of style, it depends on your audience. For a school essay, your audience is your teacher. So write the essay your teacher wants, no matter if it's okay to do it ano...
To create effective signage or instructions, always start with correct language. I am answering for English language works. There will be some differences in other languages. In your case, you o...
Easier said than done. I tried Goodreads. The good news is it allows you to search by genre. Not just fiction but also type of fiction, if you want. And by title. But you can not set it to jus...
Setup: 18 kids (ages 2-14) from 1995 America time travel to Ancient Egypt just before the Exodus. The MC knew this would happen (or thought she knew) and told people, but no one believed her. Now...
Sexism, like racism, is about the larger constructs of power and not about individual feelings towards one category of people. A man can be sexist towards women but a woman can not be sexist towar...
Don't avoid entire groups of people because you don't know how to write them. Learn how to write them. It's part of becoming a writer. You must learn how to get inside the heads of people who ar...
I suggest you continue to write however the words come out. Because the last thing you want to do is feel like you can't write unless it's perfect (or better). Every day, go through a paragraph o...
Many lyrics work with a variety of melodies because the underlying structure of the set of melodies is similar. My synagogue just had a "Broadway" bar mitzvah where the young man set our tradition...
Like with so many non-mainstream settings or ideas, just present it as normal. Give a minimum of information but allow the reader to figure much of it out. Many works use the troupe of using a na...
If you are in pain, you will have a hard time concentrating, which can make a conversation a bit disjointed. You will pause, catch your breath, maybe close your eyes. You will stumble over words,...
Why do writers add unnecessary commas to sentences just because they're long? While it's true that some writers, maddeningly, do not use sufficient punctuation, it's also the case that some people...
By treating each of your characters as individuals. Gender is an important characteristic, but it's not the only one. If all your female characters speak one way and all your male characters anot...
I admit to finding this an insurmountable task. My novel has dozens of characters. My first problem wasn't keeping track of them, but creating them. Modern Day: My 20th century characters were ...
You're the writer, you can do whatever you want. It's common to use symbols to refer to people, places, things, and so on. The question you want to ask yourself is, does your reader know what t...
NOTE: I am answering the original question about surprise endings. As a general rule, surprises and twists are welcome. Readers enjoy predicting the outcome and we don't always like to be right. ...
People who call themselves experts aren't usually experts. Those bloggers bragging about how they just put a book on Amazon and it sells like gangbusters? They're leaving out part of the process....
I find them helpful, but often wrong. I used one that has different ethnic groups to get ideas for names. Always always Google the name that comes up. Some of the "girl names" turned out to be...
I don't care about pronunciation, because I rarely pronounce even semi-common names correctly. I have trouble with even some of my own characters' names. But then, for me, written language and sp...
