most recent 30 from writing.stackexchange.com
I have written a Canadian based children's book that has illustrations including a Mountie in full Dress Uniform, a Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey and player, and several Throwbacks to Tim Hortons with their Logo, or for sure trademark name. Is there some publisher that helps with the licencing issues or am I on my own. I have some idea of who needs contacting, but want to make sure my bases are…
Phantom stories Mandrake the Magician Are there plays and movies on Phantom and Mandrake?
I'm debating giving my novel a historical setting (probably either 1700s or 1900s, since there are events in both that tie in very nicely with the plot). The problem is I'm intimidated by the dialogue(/narration) aspect. I have no idea how to write historical speech. Dialogue is a weak point of mine anyway, add in making it feel believable and not forced in a historical context and I'm completely…
I'm in a late stage of my ridiculous sprawling fanfic; I have written complete chapters for all major moments and most of the minor ones, and now I'm filling out the less consequential beats that help get my characters from A to B both physically and emotionally. So my process is character-oriented rather than action-oriented. The unwritten chapters are defined by specific conversations: I know…
When writers seek advise on how to write with voice, rhythm, and flow, they find instruction saying to read their writing aloud, and make edits based on the flaws they detect in their writing. To writers seeking advice on how to achieve lyricism in prose, the same advice is given. But what if a writer wants to produce a certain kind of voice or a certain kind of rhythm, not knowing exactly what it…
I was told in an answer to one of my other questions, that writing, if it is good, immerses the reader, and that immersion requires the writing to be simple. My question is, “How do I tell if my writing is simple enough?”
I've long wanted to write sophisticated sentences, but rarely to write unclearly. Though I've tried many times to write clear ones, I don't know if I've ever truly succeeded. My question is, “How do I write sophisticated sentences without obscurity or ambiguity?”
There's tension between them; they wanted to be friends, and they're supposed to end up together as lovers later. But the person who's supposed to fix the misunderstanding and admit their lie is someone who doesn't know how to communicate their intentions properly, and that's my obstacle.
I am editing my story and I am starting to question the addition of flashbacks. I want to keep them, as they add information about the characters, but I don't know how to edit/format them. I can't just put 'flashback' in italic in the center of a new line and call it a day, I assume. How do I let the readers know they are reading something that happeend in the past, separate from the current…
I feel as though this is more of a logistical question than a writing question, but I'm not sure where else to ask about something like this. If this is an inappropriate forum for this question, if I could be directed to somewhere more appropriate to ask this, that would be great :) Inspired by the early days of Marvel or DC comics, I would like to bring together small artists and writers to share…
I am editing my book, which is a contemporary romance story. It is still far from being finished. However, I would like to start formatting it to the final 'shape' somewhat soon, as to make it closer to the end result. What is the ideal format? What font and size should it be? And how much space between lines? All those types of details. Does it depend on the author or the type of book? Or are…
I have mostly used Word when it comes to writing and editing. I find it easier, especially because it helps always being able to see the word count, the pages, the grammar and mistakes, as well as it is easy to add comments. But I haven't tried a lot of other platforms/apps so I'm not sure if Word is the best option. Besides that and Google Docs, what other options are there? Any recommendations?…
In my novel, two characters are coping with the loss of their relatives (one because her mom died and the other because her dad was kicked out of the house). I feel they share similar notes, albeit with different feelings and journeys (the first is discovering a version of her mom she never knew and the other is searching for her dad while being mad with her mother for kicking him out). Either…
First, I'm going to edit or rewrite the question. New here, I'm sorry. I thought this was going to be more of a reddit type of place, and this was already way too much detail but after a few comments I'm starting to realize I haven't explained this well at all, so I will give a more in depth description of the story. I haven't thought too much about this when I started writing, as with many things…
My setting is a chronological space opera set in the far future. FTL travel/communication, megastructures, and vast interstellar civilizations are commonplace. Despite the advanced tech I want my setting to also feel ancient. While I know settings like Star Wars do achieve something similar I'm wanting a different vibe. Star Wars feels old, gritty, and lived in but I want something that feels more…
I am a new writer currently working on my first novel and I feel completely lost about the publishing side of things. I have finished a rough draft of my manuscript and I am now looking for guidance on the next steps. Can anyone here tell me where and how I can find reputable literary agents who accept submissions from debut authors for free and online? I do not have money to pay for services and…
Most times I asked ChatGPT if a sentence I wrote is good, it says that it is flawed in a number of ways. Should I believe that ChatGPT is correct and edit my sentence, or should I not depend on it? Also, do LLMs actually have adequate ability to discern the quality of writing and provide good criticism?
I wrote my essay myself, then put it into ChatGPT to clean up the wording and grammar and make it read smoother. I didn’t ask it to add new ideas or write anything from scratch, but I did copy a lot of the rewritten sentences because they sounded clearer. Now I’m hearing AI detectors can still flag that as AI written. Is that actually common with revised drafts? Should I tell my professor now, or…
While I own many books on writing, I've come short of learning to write with excellence, not having practiced most of the skills that are taught in them, and having seldom endured through the writing process. These things are due to my poor self-discipline, which is a serious problem for me, and which long has prevented me not only from writing but also from doing computer programming. People have…
For the past couple of years, my wife and I have had a killer mortgage, and I was trying to supplement my income with freelance writing. I wouldn't call it a total failure, there were some successes along the way that I am proud of. But as a reliable income generator, it just wasn't the way to go. I wrote mainly for a platform that published quick little pop-culture pieces. I wrote about Star Trek…
For every assignment of this course I am required to follow Purdue's English Page for Paragraphs , The Elements of Style , write in a consultative register, and keep my full response as a single paragraph consisting of 150-200 words. However, every assignment includes multiple questions and sometimes I feel like by answering them thoroughly I am required to include multiple topic sentences that…
I'm not a web developer, but I'm comfortable enough with HTML that I can write a static website, and keep the blog under https://username.com/blog/ – hosting is free, and the domain name is a negligible sunk cost. I also do not plan to charge for access or write very regularly. What I want is to reach the biggest audience when I do write something. So I'm wondering about the remaining pros and…
I am trying to find a suitable title for a short video series I'm doing. There are two main subjects to this series. Let's say that these are knives and general cutlery , for the sake of this question – these aren't the actual subjects, but they do share a similar relationship between themselves. I'd like the title to suggest the existence of a narrative, or story, without being explicit.…
I write an action movie review blog where a review is published every Monday. How do I publicize my blog to bring more readers my way?
I'm working on a webcomic in which the main character has amnesia from head trauma. She was an experiment and when escaping she hit her head. She has one sentence of dialogue to the other main character saying that "she's in a hurry" before she passes out, and when she wakes up she realizes that she can't remember anything except she had a feeling that there's something important that she needs to…
I am writing a novel and I realized that I did not describe any of my characters, like practically, no reader would be able to place or imagine the character which I feel is not right. That is why I am placing the question to know if it is necessary to describe them.
In my story for a game, one of the main antagonists has Dissocistive Identity Disorder. His alters are already written, but I am asking for some advice on how to properly portrayed a character with such a disorder? For some character description: THERE IS NO "EVIL ALTER"; Pardon me for using all capitals, but this here is what makes my villain greatly different from the typical tropes. Rather than…
For my fantasy story, I was thinking of having the characters say their sexuality, but in a different way. In most stories that do representation right, they show it, but do not directly say it. For my world, they do say labels, but the twist: They only use old, medieval terms that are vague, and leave the audience to figure out the rest. However, I am unsure if this will work well or not. The…
I am writing a script where there are quick flash cuts, where the current present action is then 'captured' in a still photo which is representing a 'highlight' on an Instagram post/story shown for one second, and then it goes back into present action. It's as if someone is going around capturing these highlighted moments. It's meant to be a stylised concept to have this idea of how people on…
I am trying to write a non-fiction book about summarizing core computer science concepts. I plan to self publish this book through the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing program. My target audience includes undergrad freshmen business managers working in a tech industry but have little or no technical knowledge general public interested to learn more about computer science I am curious what is the…
Are there any corporate publishers that still accept neat handwritten manuscripts? What about manuscripts written in beautiful calligraphy and the author wants to capture the form of the writing (as part of the character) as much as the content of the writing?