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1500 questions
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14 answers

How to decide whether a story is worth writing?

Sometimes I have inspiration for a story. In random pieces of spare time I daydream more and more details until I am satisfied with the concept and then I don't take it any farther. In my head, the story is finished and I am satisfied. If I have the…
DoubleDouble
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How do I better handle my nameless main character when trying to retain mystery?

I have written a short story, and the main character is referred to as "he" right the way through - the idea being that this character is very guarded and mysterious. My plan was to not reveal the name of the character because that would be too…
Dan Hanly
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How should I introduce my characters?

I'm pretty good at creating compelling characters with decent personalities and motivations. I like the comradery vibe, so they're generally already part of a posse of some sort at the beginning of my stories. However, I can only really think of two…
ArchitectofAges
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Is it so bad to end up with a "done before" plot?

I'm not delusional about the nature of the science fiction novel I'm (very) slowly working on. A brief run down might be as follows: Set 10's of millennia in Human's future but in a neighbouring galaxy Discovery of ancient artifact Artifact turns…
Nick Bedford
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Can Readers Relate to a Book without Humans?

I've been working on a story idea for a few years now, during which I designed a world (fantasy-based) in which it would take place. The thing is that because this is a different planet, I thought it would be cool to create a world without any…
Bullfrog
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9 answers

Time measures in fantasy worlds

I wonder, what could be a good way to provide time measures in a fantasy universe. I don't mean the calendar which is covered in the question: Out of this world... Giving it time?, but measures like hours, quarters and minutes. When it's obvious for…
Darek Wędrychowski
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7 answers

Must every piece of speech get its own paragraph?

I've had a few people read pieces of narrative writing I've done, and they seem to take issue with the fact that I sometimes put a piece of speech inline with the rest of a non-dialogue paragraph, like so: Jill found a box of mints she liked and…
Joe Z.
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avoiding making all your characters sound the same

We surely all have little quirks to our speech. Like my daughter once criticized my writing for using the word "surely" too much. (See, I used it on this post.) So how do you keep all your characters from sounding the same in dialog? That is, how do…
Jay
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7 answers

Alternatives to "he said" in dialogue

I'm working on my first fiction story. And one mechanical thing I struggle with is how to identify the speakers in dialog without constantly saying "Bob said", "Mary said", etc. Any ideas? That is, I hate to write, "I found an important clue," Bob…
Jay
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How do authors incorporate languages they don't speak?

In many, many English-language novels I've come across characters who speak other languages, most often French for whatever reason. In many cases, such as with Ulysses and Lolita, this is a simple matter, because the author was multilingual. He…
temporary_user_name
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Should one use the legal "shall" in requirements documents and specification documents?

At least in the US, "will" has replaced "shall" in most every context, with the notable exception of the "legal shall". Shall is used instead of will in legal documents to indicate a sense of obligation or requirement; e.g. "the defendant shall…
Billy ONeal
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How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?

How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in another language that isn't English? Let's say that in panels 1, 2, and 4 the characters don't talk in English, but the dialogue is still translated into English…
user36239
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2 answers

How can I contact JK Rowling for permission to publish my sequel for the Harry Potter series?

I recently watched the entire Harry Potter series in December 2021. I really loved the Harry Potter world and all the characters. Even after days, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about it and I'm pretty happy about the innovative idea that…
Sam N
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Should cliffhangers be used in every chapter?

This is not a great question but I use a lot of cliffhangers. And I have a habit of making cliffhangers in the end of every chapter that I write just to hook the reader. The question is, is it a good idea? Won't it look monotonous after a while…
Amin Mohamed Ajani
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How do you write about the human condition when you don't understand humanity?

I was talking with some writers, and they were mentioning how writing is fundamentally about "the human condition, our take on it, what we see in our world and experience. All stories, no matter the genre, are people stories. We're always writing…
user2352714
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