Posts by Standback
Once you publish something, it's out beyond your grasp. I strongly recommend against publishing a piece that you feel still has work to be done on. Self-publishing a novel that still needs editin...
If to you the chapter seems good, and it seems to be fulfilling your purpose for it, I would not worry about it now. If it is too short, what that really means one of the following: either you did...
Yes, it constitutes a lie, technically speaking. Yes, it is legal. The use of pseudonyms is an established practice in publishing. There's a wide range of reasons where writing under a pseudonym m...
First person narrative is just a device, and it doesn't necessarily imply that the narrator lives through the story. For example, plenty of horror stories end with something on the lines of: An...
I'm going to spin this around for you. In Jeffrey Schechter's My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, Schechter suggests that a lot of theme is about the protagonist asking a thematic question, e.g., ...
In the context of a formatted manuscript, the "word count" isn't the precise number of words, nor is it directly inferred from the number of pages. What you're actually doing here is finding the n...
When I submit a manuscript, I'm supposed to include a wordcount. I understand that this is not simply the number of words in the document (as calculated by Word or Google Docs wordcount tools), but...
From the Scrivener for Windows documentation (emphasis mine): If you need your work to enter a standard word processor workflow, this will be your go-to method. MultiMarkdown's ODF support is c...
A friend of mine has published a short story in Hebrew, and I'm currently translating it into English, for submission to short fiction magazines. If accepted, will the editing process be any diffe...
A friend of mine has published a short story in Hebrew, and I'm currently translating it into English, for submission to short fiction magazines. Is any information about the original publication ...
I think a good rule of thumb would be: Up-front, in preparation, the story can characterize one or two major challenges the heist will need to overcome. That's enough to whet the reader's appetite...
What you need is a tell. Give Nicene some clear, identifying characteristic. She has purple hair; she doesn't let anybody touch her; she refers to any sort of weapon as a "thingamabob"; whatever. ...
I'm writing a novel which centers around a serial killer and his victims. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding whether it belongs in the horror genre (it's a disturbing, horrific slasher, and a lot...
Mix and match between all the following methods. Research. If you're going to be using a language extensively, then you'll want to have at least an elementary grasp of the words you'll be using. ...
I frequently have ideas for what could be called "optimistic" science-fiction premises - imaginary technological or social changes which I think would create an unusual and interesting setting, and...
In her writing book Plot, Ansen Dibell discusses the technique of mirroring characters - two characters who are alike in many ways, and different in others. This gives you a "compare-and-contrast" ...
Critters, one of my favorite workshopping sites, addresses this question: Is sending through the group considered publication? In a word: No. Editors recognize the utility of critique grou...
There are lots of websites for getting feedback for my writing. But since posting something publicly on the internet can count as "publication," I'm worried that posting my work there might prove a...
From the opening, the style feels distinctly noir-ish to me. Short, choppy sentences; curt tone; detached musings about humanity - I can just imagine a hard-boiled private detective narrating the f...
In general, "First [X] Rights" means "the right to be the first person/entity to do [X]," or "...to publish this piece in format [X]." "First Electronic Rights" means first publication in a digita...
Obviously, both female participation and female representation are important. Female participation is more immediately important, because you're dealing with your actual students, and it's crucia...
I assume your students are interested in self-publishing. Traditional publishing is a whole different ball game. Key Factors To Consider Rights. One of the main draws of self-publishing is that ...
At its strictest, iambic pentameter is just as rigid as you've described. "Poetry" is a dactyl (X-/-/), not an iamb (/-X), hence it shouldn't fit anywhere in an iamb-only sequence. Likewise, by the...
Under the "Product Details" heading, you have several links for updating book information and notifying Amazon of problems. That'd be a good way to try. More directly, there's the Contact Us butto...
I have no experience with screenwriting specifically, but I see no reason why this would be different from the considerations in the fiction market (where "sending chapters" is always the first thr...
