Brandon Said:

I'm writing book and I wonder how many words should be in a chapter?

We Answered:

Chapters are better split up not into a certain number of words, but as a kind of complete piece of the bigger puzzle. Starting a new chapter is a great way to convey the passage of time, to change a perspective (going from being a straight narrative, or from one character's point of view, to another character's point of view) or enhance a dramatic moment (the chapter before ends with a kind of cliffhanger, the next chapter continues the ongoing story).

Personally, I like when the chapters aren't extremely long (more than about fifteen to twenty pages), because I tend to read to the end of a chapter I'm on before putting the book down. Overly long chapters often leave me no other choice but to put the book down mid-chapter, and that annoys me.

There's no hard set rule about how long chapters need to be. Authors like Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and (I think) C.S. Lewis wrote EXTREMELY short chapters occasionally, some barely more than a few words. I don't have the book in front of me, but I think the moment when Alice falls down the rabbit hole is an example of one of the short, odd chapters.

If you're writing a book for young readers (about eleven and younger), you probably should keep the chapters pretty short, at about seven pages. For teenagers and adults, it's strictly a matter of preference, but I would use it as a way to organize and shape the story, as opposed to trying to aim for a certain number of words.

Jonathan Said:

Can you give me some skills and tips about writing a book?

We Answered:

I think very few people can write an entire book from start to finish without getting discouraged, or wanting to stop after so many pages.

If you hit a wall, or its just not interesting to you anymore, stop and work on something else for awhile, go back to it when you get inspiration.

Or start from a different point in the book, you don't need to write from beginning to end. Write the most exciting parts to you first, you'll figure out how to connect it all later.

Another thing, think about and write down your character's personalities and looks before starting. Then you can get to know your characters, you know how they'll react to certain situations, etc. Might also give you ideas on how to better use them in the story.

Most of all, never give up! If something isn't working, don't scrap it!! Just come back to it later and improve upon it.

Hope this helps!

Leslie Said:

What are the steps taken for your writing/book to become published?

We Answered:

If you are looking for self-publishing companies to publish your book, I know of a few companies that practically holds court to everything a book needs from getting you your copyright, size preferences, book cover design customization, layout consultation, copyediting and even marketing – at affordable costs.

Most self-publishing companies have programs that costs about $250 to $12999 and is highly dependent on the kind of services that you will be getting which is why it is very significant to carefully map out your book's budget as early as now.

Publishing companies now have all the resources to publish books with the same productivity and efficacy as that of regular black and white books. Considering the fact that most books are in full color, you should choose a publishing company whose book’s are of the highest quality, bar none.

Xlibris Publishing is one of those companies who truly boasts of their book’s top quality as your book is printed on acid-free 50lb library-edition paper. That alone can give your book a longer shelf life and durable pages.

Self-publishing entirely means that you get to retain full control of your book’s production and that it gives you the option to publish your work and claim authority of the photos that you have chosen to be published.

Publishing is synonymous to getting that copyright for protecting your book which is why it is highly important to publish it.

You can get free information sent to your mail here and even try to check the quality of their brochure because it is the same as how they publish books. The cost to publish is also listed in detail and in depth.

Tyler Said:

Sex offender here. I'm writing a book about the horrors of registering. Any ideas for sub-topic?

We Answered:

Sub-topics: How to prepare yourself for registering, how to prepare yourself for concerned parents knocking on your door, the realization that people may not know you're a sex offender.

Marlene Said:

I am searching for a good college essay writing book for adult learning students.?

We Answered:

I understand your dilemma, continue to work hard and you will do fine. I attached a link that may help you. Good luck!

Mark Said:

does writing a book look really good on college resume?

We Answered:

Colleges love people that they see as having potential. All colleges want the best and the brightest, and the people who are good, creative writers are often brilliant. If someone has written a book and gotten it published before they finish high school, yes, most colleges will except them in a heartbeat. It's not just because the student's résumé looks good, but because it makes the college look better if it can boast of educating a published author.

Hope this helps. Answer mine? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…

Andrew Said:

what is the best software for writing book?

We Answered:

The White Smoke software is available as a download and works with any program. You can paste text in and copy it out, or simply compose in the compose window. I tried the online demo, and there are some minor differences from the downloadable product. However, most of the main features are the same.
More Details See: http://white-smoke.net

So, what does it look like? It’s a bit like Word, Google Docs and other word processing programs. It’s got a simple array of formatting buttons across the top for editing style, font and font size, followed by buttons for bold, italics, underline, creating coloured text and a few more. The second row has buttons for alignment, bullets and numbering, and cutting and pasting. A cool feature is that it will paste text from Word or plain text depending on the button you choose.

The top of the window has three tabs on the left (enrichment, dictionary and templates) plus two on the right for information. The templates window allows you to load one of 600 templates in the commercial, literary, medical or legal categories and customise them for your needs. The dictionary is a lookup window and the main window, where you write and edit text, is enrichment. At the bottom of a window is a WhiteSmoke button, as well as undo, redo and demo buttons. The bottom right allows you to select the type of writing you are doing (great for those interested in business and literary, less so for those of us who blog for a living) If you’re writing a speech, dissertation or letter, you’re covered too. On to the main window.

Grammar Checking

You can use WhiteSmoke with any application, since it works with cut and paste, and you can also set it to check as you type. When you paste some text in, and hit one of those two buttons you get some text underlined in different colours. The colour code is blue for enrichment/thesaurus, green for grammar and red for spelling, cleverly following MS Word conventions. Here is where it gets interesting. Click on or hover over an underlined word and you get suggestions for improvement. So, how did WhiteSmoke do? I used it to check three articles I was writing for a client.

It picked up well on spelling errors. I use UK English, so it tried to convert them to US English. It found no grammatical errors - I had to insert a deliberate mistake to test that. That’s a major improvement over Word, which always finds grammatical errors where there are none. For me, the winner was the enrichments popup menu. That’s in two parts. The left suggests adjectives and adverbs you can add to enrich your writing, while the right suggests synonyms. Just click to add your changes. I liked some of the suggestions and can see where this type of software would help people who struggle with writing.

There are several different WhiteSmoke products aimed respectively at general writing, business writing, creative writing, legal writing, medical writing and executive writing, as well as a language translator that offers instant translation into 20 languages. There are also pro versions with additional enhancements (currently on sale for $1 when you buy the main program).

White Smoke is a useful product, especially for people who are new to writing or who have English as a second language. Even experienced writers will find it useful on a day when the words just aren’t flowing the way you want.