Posts by Cyn
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 moderat...
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 som...
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 gu...
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, especi...
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...
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 ...
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 pic...
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. ...
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 t...
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 spe...
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 h...
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 encour...
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 experien...
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) ...
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...
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 audi...
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...
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...
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 adul...
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...
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...
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. Sh...
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 ...
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 ingredien...
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 f...
