Posts by Cyn
The other answers correctly point out that "thalidomide" is a generic drug and is not trademarked. But I'd like to answer the more general question, which is if/how you can refer to a trademark in...
Lack of proofreading has been the bane of writing in many locations over the last few years. Do you remember back when newspapers came to your house and you paid to subscribe? Okay, maybe you don...
Cite it exactly like you would a source for which you have a full name, except the name is "Anonymous." "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." (Anonymous, 2019) If it comes from a published work that has no ...
One at a time. It isn't laziness. That's just a word people throw out when work doesn't get done and in many cases, including yours, it's meaningless. You've done a lot of work, you're just not ...
It is normal to use a hyphen. I see it all the time. For puns/jokes. For academic writing where the purpose is to emphasize etymology (when the crux of the argument requires redefining or reem...
If you look at any group of people, some will have very common names, others well known but less common names, and a few will have unusual names. If your own characters also have a mix, you're fin...
The acceptability of the use of footnotes varies a lot. 6-7 lines would be huge in many works but is nothing when compared to others. If it doesn't belong inside the text, and endnotes aren't a p...
If the set of coffee cups is something you can buy or find (outside of the movie company's website), then, yes, no problem. Use them. If the set is something not currently or formerly made but is...
There are several professional writers organizations that people I know have suggested I join. The problem is they're rather pricey and I'm not sure what I'll get out of it. Much of what they h...
I've started a writing blog (specifically for research and other information about my novel in progress) with Wordpress and am having a very difficult time with categorization. In other blogs I've...
Historically, books and movies didn't always have a specific target age. While some material was just for adults, a lot of what we think of now as being for kids or teens had a more general market...
Whether your novel is in the Romance genre or just a book where romance is the central topic, it's all about how you define your characters and their goals. We the readers need to know what would ...
When it works. It's not something that has a particular formula. Nothing to count. No threshold to pass or avoid passing. Use your critique group or beta-readers or your favorite alpha reader. ...
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. ...
Follow the rules set out on the page you want to copy from. The railway schedule is part of the Bob MacIntosh Collection. Bob has given the DARDPI wiki permission to use his image collection ...
First of all, mazel tov! Your next step is to publish the book. This means that the book is in a final form and either printed on paper with a cover or in an e-book format. It also means you hav...
You might choose to do a series of vignettes. Break the novel down into many short chapters, each one with a different set of characters. You won't be spending much time on any one character but...
Epilogues are very common in a variety of novels, as well as movies (sometimes they're filmed, sometimes they're prose on the screen). My own novel has both a prologue and an epilogue, but I guess...
Galastel did a spin off question based on one of mine. Mortal danger in mid-grade literature. And hers has spurred a new one for me. This is an issue I've been grappling with for a while and I sti...
A real-life case of this (not a self-help book but a cookbook) is the book (and movie) Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Julie Powell's book is about her experienc...
Certainly it's okay to have people (or animals) die in middle-grade fiction. I mean, Bambi (the movie) is rated G and young Bambi sees his mother murdered before his eyes. Ditto with dad in The L...
In my story, 12 year old Ruth has visions from another place and time which lead her to gather a group of kids for a quest. She is told there will be 18 kids, but she can only find 17 with the spe...
Sometimes when someone asks "which should I do first when writing?" the answer is "whichever one you want." For example, I'm writing a historical novel requiring a lot of research. While I'm a re...
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 wh...
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. Gi...
