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1500 questions
13
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8 answers

How is simplicity better than precision and clarity in prose?

Many recommend the Hemingway app, which pushes simplicity and the lowest possible reading level. Where I live, an illiterate person is defined as any person who reads below a grade nine level. The Hemingway app would have us writing for the…
Rasdashan
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How to create a consistent feel for character names in a fantasy setting?

Recently while doing some world-building for a role-playing game with a friend we were seriously struggling with naming character consistently. By consistently I mean make the names feel as though the belonged to the same culture or race. We had a…
linksassin
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4 answers

Is elaborating the opposite case in brackets acceptable and clear?

Is Sentence A an acceptable and clear way of shortening Sentence B? Sentence A: A firm outperforms (underperforms) the industry when expression (1) results in a positive (negative) value. Sentence B: A firm outperforms the industry when…
Bento
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4 answers

Is wanting to ask what to write an indication that you need to change your story?

Many writers eventually come to a point in their writing where they don't know what to write. They have a certain status or state of affairs that the narration has reached and another state that they need to get to in order to continue their story…
user37583
13
votes
7 answers

Does the reader need to like the PoV character?

I have the feeling this is already been asked, but I can't seem to find it. Close the question if it comes out as duplicate. There's an issue with novels with a first-person narrator, or a third person limited narrator that doesn't switch point of…
Liquid
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13
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6 answers

Injecting creativity into a cookbook

I'm a chef. I'm also a writer. It's inevitable that I would want to write a cookbook. In fact I've probably started a dozen that I just never got around to finishing. Partly because I'm not sure how to. Before I even get to my question I think it…
Summer
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1 answer

How to respond to overenthusiastic copy-editing

I was approached by a science magazine to write a long-form critical essay, and I gave them a 6000-word piece with extensive endnotes. After two months of being with the editorial team it comes back with the style altered to sound like generic…
David Roberts
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5 answers

How to juggle work and NaNoWriMo?

I love to participate in NaNoWriMo, but this year for the first time I'll have a full-time job during November. Is it feasible to write less on weekdays and "make up" for it on the weekend? Should I try to squish in extra time during my lunch break,…
Yamikuronue
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13
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15 answers

Story that's too depressing?

(Warning, mention of sexual abuse!!) In the near future where humans have polluted and radiated the Earth so much that animals and plants have been going extinct at alarming rates and humans themselves are becoming genetically mutated and developing…
user34214
13
votes
4 answers

British / American language mishmash

English is not my mother tongue. I am completely fluent in English though, and I write my fiction in English. Here's the problem: I live in neither the UK nor the US (nor any other English-speaking country), so I am exposed to both in equal measure…
Galastel supports GoFundMonica
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5 answers

How best to avoid the appearance of stereotype?

I am seriously considering adding a character based on a man I know. This man is very irksome, rather pretentious and refers to himself in the third person. He is flamboyant, opinionated and one thing that is very important to him is his sexual…
Rasdashan
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4 answers

Writing as a hobby, where do you learn the basics and go further?

Sorry if I use the wrong terms or make a wrong assumption. I consider myself a beginner, and I know that I still have to learn a lot in the field. I write as a hobby. I do it when I have the time, after work or during free weeks. Even though it is…
Sasugasm
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13
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8 answers

What to call a main character who changes names?

I'd like to write a story, in the third-person perspective, centering on a character who changes her name several times in the course of the story. She uses her birth name for the first couple of chapters, then perform an "identity switcheroo" with…
RedRenard
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13
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9 answers

Is my story pacing too fast?

I have a quick question- I'm just a bit confused about the story I'm writing. So earlier today I posted the first chapter of my story, and someone commented that the story "escalated too fast for me to comprehend". Naturally, I went back and read…
ScarletRain
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5 answers

Deus Ex Machina -- How to identify?

I got a critique today from someone and they told me I was using a "Deus Ex Machina". I did some poking around on here, and I question if it really is one. I found a link -- and it says within the first 20-25% I can get away with it. But does that…
Sierra
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