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1500 questions
17
votes
3 answers

Do living authors still get paid royalties for their old work?

Do authors still get paid royalties for their old works? For example, If I decided to buy a copy of the "Odessa File" by Frederick Forsyth or "Kane and Abel" by Jeffery Archer, do the authors get paid royalties for them? Another example would be me…
srini
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17
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14 answers

Is touch typing skill important for being a good writer?

Yes, I know - it is important. But my question is: does it influence the speed only? Do "two finger typing" and "peek typing" eat part of writer's attention and destroy creativity? Does the method of typing affect somehow the overall quality of…
rem
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17
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5 answers

English - Acceptable use of parentheses in an author's name

My legal name is Barbara but I have gone by Babs since I was in the 4th grade. I have written a children's book and wanted to list my name as Barbara (Babs) but my editor said that it might not appear very professional. She has never heard or seen…
Babs Benge
17
votes
8 answers

How can one write good dialogue in a story without sounding wooden?

I began an assignment to write a short story for a Creative Writing submission to a publication and although it was accepted, I found that I struggled with the addition of dialogue to this first-person narrative. I began by trying to avoid dialogue…
Thimble
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9 answers

Is it bad to suddenly introduce another element to your fantasy world a good ways into the story?

I'm writing a novel with many POVs, and this is a very flexible story. It started out with a few POVs who had one plot, and now there is a lot more, having been integrated in between those previously existing POVs. But now I'm thinking about adding…
A. Kvåle
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8 answers

I wrote a scene that the majority of my readers loved. How do I get back to that place while writing my new book?

I wrote a scene that I put my heart and soul into. It was received well by most of my readers, but I'm struggling with crafting a new scene for a book I'm currently writing. Here's some comments from my beta readers on the first scene in which I was…
Dawn Kelli
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17
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2 answers

Techniques to disguise authorship of text

As Wikipedia and at least one answer on this site suggest, the name stylometry encompasses certain techniques to determine authorship of text. Although stylometry itself appears to require a certain amount of expertise, I conjecture that an average…
Andrew
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17
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6 answers

How important are good looking people in a novel/story?

I've read many books where the main protagonists are described as good looking people with Greek god looks, plenty of sex appeal, the perfect figure and all that. As a reader, how important would it be to portray your main characters as good…
srini
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17
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6 answers

Should a narrator ever describe things based on a character's view instead of facts?

There is something I find myself doing often while writing, and I don't even know what to call it, but I would like to know if its good practice. It happens when I'm writing from a third-person perspective. It's where the narrator begins to describe…
Levi C. Olson
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6 answers

How can I effectively invent a language?

I want to make a particular language that adapts to the story. And the language has to have x and y and e characteristics for example. Is there a protocol to follow on the process of making a language for the sake of a story? (I don't talk about…
Jose Luis
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17
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5 answers

What should tie a collection of short-stories together?

Short-stories are a nice format to write. If you have been an aspiring writer for at least one year, it's quite probabile that you've got at least three short stories drafted out, sitting in some drawer or some hidden folder on your computer. Let's…
Liquid
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13 answers

Too soon for a plot twist?

In my story, I will have a hero begin a journey. It will be the underdog story as well as good-vs-evil story. Think Frodo vs Sauron for massive oversimplification. Except in my story the hero becomes corrupt. The hero wins. The hero becomes the…
Summer
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17
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6 answers

Naming Characters after Friends/Family

I drafted a book two years ago that I'm now polishing to publish. When I drafted it, for speed's sake, I named one of my primary characters after an old school friend who I'm still in contact with on Facebook. The character's personality isn't him…
GGx
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4 answers

Is it okay to say what the character infers about other characters thoughts as fact in third person limited?

The story is third person limited to Bob's point of view. He is with Alice, and I have the following line. Alice sat up proudly, then shrunk back down, realizing where she was. Compare this to Alice sat up proudly, then shrunk back down,…
rtpax
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9 answers

Is it possible for an author to release a novel every week using dictation technology?

I have heard that authors can do 5000 words an hour with dictation. For a six-hour day writing, that is 30,000 words. Thus it would take less than three days to complete a standard novel manuscript. Since I've also heard that writers produce much…
user394536
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