Posts by Standback
It's really important to understand that "diversity" isn't something you should be scoring along a single axis. It would certainly simplify things if you could tally up Diversity Points in your sto...
My top recommendation is this: Identify what the story is attempting to do. Different stories are different creatures. "I'm pretty sure I know how this ends!" can be a harsh indictment for a myst...
Kindall tackled the legal aspect. As for reception/perception considerations, here's the rule of thumb I'd use: If you're using the same word in the same way for the same thing, and your story is ...
This isn't a binary choice. You don't need to view this as a "take it or leave it" decision - this is something you can talk to your editor about. And you don't need to choose between your ending ...
One of the joys in fiction is learning new things. For many readers of historical fiction, learning new details -- even contrary to their own expectation -- is a lot of the fun. So you can definit...
First thing first: Avoiding said-bookisms is a guideline, not a rule. Writers use said-bookisms all the time, precisely for the reasons you note. They're useful. Sometimes, they're the simplest, c...
I highly recommend Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint. It's an excellent book (probably the best book on writing that I've read), and he discusses a lot of important issues in building cha...
I haven't read it myself, but I think this book, The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kitely, sounds like exactly what you're looking for. It's got very nice reviews - both in terms of score, and the actua...
Short answer: online writing workshops can be helpful, if you're careful to chose a good one, and if your level of writing and professionalism is in the same rough vicinity as the course. Additiona...
I haven't done actual editing, but I've done a fair bit of critique and review. I think the issues are pretty much the same. Standard proviso: everybody has their own system. Of writing, of readin...
Orson Scott Card answers your question precisely and eloquently in his excellent Character and Viewpoint, under the heading One Name Per Character. Go, read. For posterity, I'll summarize: Names...
The bigger, and more famous, a city, the more it tends to show up in thrillers. The biggest ones - New York, London, Paris, Tokyo - have been set-pieces in any number of thrillers, and I can assume...
Write a synopsis. Then get feedback on that. Your synopsis should be as brief as possible, conveying only the elements that are absolutely crucial to the story - the elements without which the sto...
The classic solution is to introduce conflict or tension. These naturally intrigue the reader and command his attention. Any conflict, no matter how minor or subtle, is enough to engage the reader'...
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, and the following is just the result of some Google searching. You're allowed to publish basically anything you want; the concern is not whether you will be able to pu...
You'll need to contact the original author and/or their publisher. Either one will direct you to the correct person to deal with - there's no blanket rule over who has which rights, so you'll need ...
A all-questions-welcome resource will, almost inevitably, be less helpful than finding pertinent resources for the specific topics you're asking about. And that'll be a case-by-case process. The g...
It's an excellent idea. Your considerations are quite correct - a first draft can be absolutely terrible; most of its value is in fleshing out general details, structure and plot. It gives you a s...
I AM NOT A LAWYER. As long as it is clearly evident that the piece is fictional, my understanding is that you can basically employ celebrities however you like. Major issues you generally wa...
Frame It Appropriately Here's the issue: There's a pretty firm assumption that, the moment you're following a tight first-person (or third person) narration, you're following around in their head....
I'm afraid I've never seen any statistics on this. As the comments have noted, this is a very difficult estimate to make - there are many different definitions of "getting published" (does self-pub...
This is called a "simultaneous submission," and a well-organized contest should have a clear-cut rule on whether or not they're allowed. If a particular contest doesn't call simultaneous submissio...
Here's the money quote from the script formatting rules that cornbread ninja linked in the comments: Some writers also use ALL CAPS when a sound effect appears in Action. Others capitalize impo...
Your difficulty is that you need an elevator pitch. If you're unfamiliar with the term, an "elevator pitch" is a super-brief description of your book - basically, how you'd pitch it to somebody sh...
GRRM's primary goal with Feast was to fill in crucial details, whereas most of the volumes had the goal of portraying epic plot and conflict. I'd suggest that the structure used in the previous vol...
