Posts by Standback
Your considerations are spot-on. Very nice question. You should definitely be familiar with your genre. If you know enough to place your work within a specific genre, then it had better fit there ...
I'm not familiar with markets that specialize in flash fiction, though these may exist. However, if you feel you've got a worthwhile, marketable story, I think most venues are happy to consider fla...
On bolding: Assume that on a casual browse, the reader's eye will always leap first to headers, and to words in bold. They'll help him understand the structure of your piece, and the most important...
"Realistic Fiction" isn't a single genre. You've got literary fiction, thrillers, mysteries, romances, and more. Each has its own target audience, some wider than others. Moreover, bestseller list...
Writing, of course. If you want to write fiction, then writing fiction. Anything else might be helpful, but it's not practicing the actual thing you want to be getting good at. Reading might give ...
Heavy-handed is the opposite of subtle. Even by its dictionary definition, it can take two forms: It can mean being clumsy - imagine trying to do delicate work when your hands are very heavy. It ...
You needn't make that decision until you get an agent. You're quite right to identify this as a thorny situation, with strong considerations in both directions (and maybe additional options beside...
Google Docs is an extremely helpful tool for Beta reading, and is used by several writers of my acquaintance. It allows commenting on individual selections of text, so it's easy to comment on a p...
As in many such cases, the answer is to do your research. Speak with people who are gay, and ask them the questions you need. "How did your understanding that you're gay form?" "Was there anything...
Amazon's content guidelines are notoriously nonspecific. Offensive Content What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect. I assume there are multiple reasons for this: ...
Vanity presses make money from authors, not from selling copies, so there's at least a decent chance you've kept or can get back your copyright. Unfortunately, if you didn't study your contract to ...
You almost certainly can. At very least, if this is a project that appeals to you, then you can try, and see how it goes. There have been stories and novels written in second-person future tense, ...
Fantasy and science fiction books have a major additional task that other genres can avoid if they wish: worldbuilding. A story of any genre can devote a lot of attention to description and detail...
You have understood correctly. From the Purdue Online Writing Lab: In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is done by using what is known as parenthetical citation. This met...
It's important to understand what NaNoWriMo can and can't do. In a way, NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, and not at all about quality. That's really important, because quantity is something a lot ...
There are few jobs that require only writing skills. Most jobs will want effective writing for some specific purpose, which requires specialization. Journalism Technical writing. Translation. (In...
Short, simple, straightforward words like "I" and "you" don't really interrupt reading flow with moderate repetition; they're clear and unobtrusive. The only thing to do right at the start is get ...
This is less of a story structure and more of a trope. (You can have very different story structures leading up to that final revelation.) Also, I don't know how many story structures actually have...
There's a good essay by Malinda Lo on the process. One of many, I'm sure, but that's the first good one I found on a cursory browse. I'd like to point out that knowing the general process is proba...
I believe in creating dialogue touchstones: find each major character a couple of lines that they would say, that no other character would say. Some of these might be catchphrases, or might sound...
I think you're in a bit of a bind here. I think you'll have an easy time getting "does this work for you?" feedback, which is crucial. However, I think you'll find it very difficult to find constru...
It's an unsubtle cheat. (That doesn't necessarily mean it's not good. Bear with me.) The author wants to get across that Really Important Things are Happening. He wants to hook you with the begin...
Finish them anyway. You get good by writing; plotting alone isn't enough. And yeah, your first novel or two will probably be unpublishable. That's fine - those will be your practice novels. If you...
4AM at a psychiatric clinic packs a fair punch as an opening. Nothing interesting should be happening there and then, but if something did, it would probably be awfully interesting! The improbable...
A few examples: Pedaling uphill is like swimming against the current; downhill gives you the brief instant of going over the waterfall. Uphill is like a sweaty, physical manifestation of how I fe...
