Kibble

My main suggestion is that, in a very different world, start with the world as it is normal for the characters. In genres dealing with real-life situations, it is often ...

I don't own too many books about writing, and just returned a lot to the library, so I can't remember authors or publishers. However, some topics I have found useful ...

Hey everyone, Kibble is about to start *gulp* querying. I've read everywhere that personalised queries are best, so the agents now you've done your research and you're not just emailing ...

Thanks. :) Now I can finish off my query letter! I'm so happy! *dances*

I'm just wondering it the phrase "clear ______'s name" is a cliche. I wouldn't mind it in a novel, but I need to use it in a query letter, as ...

I have (yet) another question. Wow, I am so full of questions lately! Anyway, this is fairly simple: straight quotes or curly quotes? My computer defaults to curly, but are ...

Thanks for the links smaur. :) I found a link to the #queryfail day transcript. You can get it in various formats, including PDF. I used PDF and it loaded ...

Thanks Amon360. :) Now I have another question about manuscript formatting. The book I'm reading says not to have the word chapter, just the number and the title. Do they ...

Thanks so much yrclever! That's saved me a lot of time now. :) EDIT: Yet another formatting question. Should I insert three *** asterisks into the breaks between scenes to ...

I'm preparing to seek an agent, and one of the problems I'm having is formatting my manuscript. First, a style question: my manuscript formatting book (aka. most useful thing ever ...

I agree: subplots are good. I read somewhere that you need to have three types of conflict in a story. I think they were called intrapersonal, interpersonal and extrapersonal. Anyway, ...

Okay, this is going to be a diary thing of (hopefully) anything I write, but in particular my efforts with query letters and such. Writing = hard, but easy. Publication ...

With show, don't tell, I also think in first person or dialogue, "telling" can be a powerful way of "showing" something about the character. For example, if the first-person narrator ...

I don't know if anyone's said this before, but I just bookmarked a census site with a list of last names in order of commonness. I usually choose one between ...

I've never heard of this, but Word also has issues with -" eg. "Oh no, it's about to exp-" It's hard to demonstrate here as both opening and closing quotations ...