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1500 questions
12
votes
5 answers

What should my redraft phase entail?

I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing and he's got quite a lot to say about the redraft phase. He explains his working method. Write with the door closed, just for him and create a 1st draft as quickly as possible Put the book in a drawer and…
Liath
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Case study headings

I'm going to be preparing several case studies for my company and I'm pondering what patterns to use for headings—both the case study title and headings within a case study. I'd like the reader to: be motivated to read on get a picture of what the…
Tin Man
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9 answers

Where do I start?

Let’s say I’ve created an outline, have explored my characters properly, and have properly broken down each scene to an appropriate level of detail. I know the story, I know the pacing, and I know where I’m gonna got add conflict and emotion. I’m…
Liath
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12
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4 answers

Antagonist lacks motivation - where do I find it?

My triller has an Antagonist who is classified as a sociopath and narcissist. He becomes infatuated with my MC who is an Ex-Army sergeant making a living in close protection services. He sees that they have both been treated unfairly by the "system"…
Karma
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5 answers

How do I balance work with my love of writing?

I'm a programmer and an aspiring writer. I love writing. Over the past year, I had been working on my first novel. Making the plot, dimensioning the characters, integrating conflicts etc. And when I started writing the novel, Snap! came a financial…
Amin Mohamed Ajani
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12
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6 answers

Any software for video game non-linear story design?

Is there any software for making non-linear story or dialogues? I tried MS Word/Google Docs but that's not good for dialogues. In one complicated dialogue I wrote in Google Drawings, it looks like this (Ignore those ticks; I think it's not final…
Chilli
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12
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8 answers

An engineering student wants to write fiction, where to start?

I'm a computer engineering student, programmer, avid book lover and have a very vivid (some would say "screwed up") mind. I recently thought up an idea for a very cool short/medium story. It's like a less technological version of the matrix with…
nopcorn
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12
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3 answers

Is there a standardized size for Books?

I noticed that my softcover/paperback books are all roughly the same size, but have slight differences. Are there standardized sizes (and are they different between US and Europe, just as US Letter and Din A4 are different?) or does each publisher…
Michael Stum
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12
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5 answers

How do you drop a reader in the middle of nowhere at the beginning of a story?

My story begins with a little girl waking up in a creepy and probably very haunted house in the middle of nowhere. She has no memories of how she got there, what happened or what the place even is, but she does remember who she is. The main goal of…
user23083
12
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4 answers

Can "numbers" be good doc performance metrics? Is there a way to meaningfully interpret the quantitative user data we gather?

I work on developer documentation at a tech startup. As of now, we implement the following feedback mechanisms: We have a thumbs-up/down feedback system on each page of the docs site. If a user clicks thumbs-down, we show a pop-up with more…
newcritter
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3 answers

How to effectively document a product composed of complex microservices?

I have a highly flexible software product consisting of a series of loosely coupled microservices. Each component is effective at a single job, but may be dependent on inputs from other services. It is expected that additional services will be added…
Jason Fox
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4 answers

How can I ensure that my documentation is understandable both for native and non-native speakers?

In short: When writing documentation that will be read both by Anglophones and non-native speakers of English who have various levels of language proficiency, how do I make sure that both these recipient groups find the text comprehensible and easy…
user23425
12
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7 answers

Is there a dialog tag for when someone is saying something in awe?

I'm looking for a dialog tag for when someone is in awe and saying something along the lines of "oooooo!" or "wooooooow!" "Oooooooo!" they ______ed. Does it exist? If so, what is it?
Klara Raškaj
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12
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4 answers

2nd Draft- Fix spelling/grammar or plot first?

I just finished the first draft of my novel, and Im going to put it away for at least a month. The book has a lot of spelling / grammatical errors, as in true Nanowrimo style, I kept typing without fixing anything. When I return, what should I focus…
Shantnu Tiwari
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7 answers

What constitutes a 'hook?'

I intuit that hooks are things that hook. (I'm quite astute in this way.) They can be good prose, relatable characters, rich settings. Books must start with a 'hook.' This is a current truism. The hook is (often) seen as establishing the tone of the…
SFWriter
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