Posts by Standback
After years of critiquing fiction as a hobby, I feel like I've gained some skill at editing. I'm now wondering how I can try my hand at actually editing fiction. While I've got a decent sense of h...
The crucial question, which will help you figure out how to write this, is: why is this detail important. And that question has two angles: Why is it important to your story? Why is it important ...
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...
Your character can be boring, but your story shouldn't be. Here's the golden ideal: every line of prose and every line of dialogue should serve a purpose. If somebody is saying a lot of boring stu...
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...
The pertinent question here is: what is it you're trying to show? In other words, you need to first understand what the focus and purpose of the planning scene is. Only then do you know what to sh...
"Mom" and "mother" and the other variations are all common enough that alternating between them probably won't be disruptive. On the other hand, they are different, with nuances of formality and a...
There are a few related issues here, which are tightly intertwined: How big is my readership? A small readership usually mean comments are few and limited. There's nobody talking, and there's nob...
The great difficulty here is that there are no absolutes. The same piece could be achingly poetic or achingly dull, depending on whether it's part of a literary drama or a high-octane adventure. T...
FSC 100% means that all the wood in the product comes from FSC-certified forests. FSC Recycled means all the wood or paper in the product comes from reclaimed material. FSC Mix means a...
Well, here are my own suggestions - I hope they're helpful :) Keep a timeline for every character (or small group). Keep track not only of what's going on onstage, but also what's hidden from the...
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...
