: Re: Characters with non-standard names My characters' names are always easy-to-read and easy-to-remember because they are common western names (like John or Oscar). However, I am writing a story that

I really think that basically anything goes when it comes to names. I've seen names used to help make a world feel less realistic (two examples I can think of: Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 in which the female lead is named something like 'Soybeans', and Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City, which is full of people with goofy names because... well, I can't say because that would be a spoiler), I've seen names used to make a non-Western story feel more exotic, I've seen Old English names used to make a story feel medieval, you name it, if it's something weird you can do with a name, it's probably been done before.

My only semi-admonition is don't use stupid puns as names for people, but that's more because I don't like stupid puns than anything else (and, well, even there the main character in the aforementioned Chronic City is named Chase Insteadman, which is punny, so I guess even I have my exceptions there).

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: Writing an effective summary for a story I just published my first short story at Amazon. Although many people downloaded it while in its free promotion days, no one has purchased it yet. People

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: Describing common hand gestures While writing stories how do I describe the action of common hand gestures, for instance the "come on" signal. Is there any reference? I found a list of hand

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: Making a female character sound more boyish/masculine There are two characters in the following dialogue. One of them (Yuki) is a tomboy. She has short hair, dresses like a man, and likes girls.

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: "Variation" and "symmetry" in a sentence I always find myself wondering whether to add add "variation" or "symmetry" to a sentence. Most of the time I can't make out my mind. Few examples:

: Re: Characters with non-standard names My characters' names are always easy-to-read and easy-to-remember because they are common western names (like John or Oscar). However, I am writing a story that

More posts by @Smith147

: Writing an effective summary for a story I just published my first short story at Amazon. Although many people downloaded it while in its free promotion days, no one has purchased it yet. People

: Describing common hand gestures While writing stories how do I describe the action of common hand gestures, for instance the "come on" signal. Is there any reference? I found a list of hand

: Making a female character sound more boyish/masculine There are two characters in the following dialogue. One of them (Yuki) is a tomboy. She has short hair, dresses like a man, and likes girls.

: "Variation" and "symmetry" in a sentence I always find myself wondering whether to add add "variation" or "symmetry" to a sentence. Most of the time I can't make out my mind. Few examples:

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