Search
I hope this explains what's been said as opposed to reiterating it. -ing phrases slow the pace. Subsidiary clauses slow the pace. You're writing action. Don't slow the pace. Modern middle school E...
It's absolutely okay to leave these out. You'll be making the text more concise and the reader will have less work to do. The only time you want to use tags like "I wondered", "I thought", "I worri...
It is not necessary to tag these thoughts in first, second, or third person narration. In third person narration, the unattributed thought or narrative embodiment of the speaker's voice is called f...
Well, let's start... Specifically, this post You just lost us. "This post" often means "an external piece to which I am linking" or "some text which is going to follow shortly," rather than ...
That's not a bad opening. I might change it to "Today we're going to talk about..." to make it more inclusive, but there's nothing wrong with being straightforward. Another version might be "Today ...
General in-text citations like Lauren suggests will almost certainly be sufficient, particularly for a short, informal paper. However, if your paper is longer or a more formal paper (for example, a...
What you might want to do is get the whole thing written as a three-act piece with exposition in the beginning. Set it aside for a month, and then come back and see if the opening is too slow. If i...
A useful tip I read about (The Fire In Fiction, Donald Maass) is to use what he calls microtension to hook the reader. This is where tension is created by conflicted feelings within the characters....
That's a question of definitions that one could debate endlessly. Definitions are invented by people, often indirectly by simply using words with a certain meaning in mind without necessarily spell...
While I don't know of any straight dictionaries that organize words by number of syllables, many rhyming dictionaries will organize rhymes by how many syllables they contain, or by how many syllabl...
I sympathize with the sentiment, but no, you can't use "black humor" and "shop talk" in a book like that. Such comments have to be kept in-house and preferably not written down. We all complain abo...
I would say that yes, it is acceptable. Obviously it's an oversimplification, and the average user of any particular Android app will be approximately as intelligent as the average human being. How...
No, it's not okay. Why not simply give your advice as something to make an app great because its visual appeal and intuitiveness make it easy to use? As someone with some recent experience in an HC...
There's a problem here: Saying something like, "users are stupid," makes you look ignorant. As other have said, the fault isn't always with the user; sometimes, a product is poorly designed. And, ...
I don't think calling users as a general group stupid is appropriate in a development book. It would be appropriate in places where developers or customer-service reps vent to each other and try to...
It's completely your decision, and the decision you make will help contribute to your writing style (which is why some writers are successful and some are not). So, therefore, you're asking for an ...
Please write in whatever style is necessary to get the information across in a memorable way. Please write in a way that makes the reader actually smarter, even if it makes you sound a little sill...
Lauren Ipsum gives a good answer. I'll guess at the purpose of your query and suggest a message along these lines: Dear Dr. X, I recently read your paper, Y, and I was very interested in t...
After you write your first draft, you will see from actual use what terms are dependent on other terms. That will allow you to reorder your definitions and put the ones you need first in front. Yo...
With requirements, shall / shall not. Nothing else. "Shall" is a very specific; it's a keyword I can search for. Must, must not, will, will not: That's for the explanatory text. (And no shalls in t...
Whatever works best for your story. If you can make it work in a real setting and you know or can research the setting well enough to make it work, do that. If your story requires something which...
You can do both. You can start from an existing city (maybe give it a new name) and change the areas which do not fit (GTA comes into mind). If you have already an idea for the setting like "Oh, t...
Your novel should be as long as it needs to be. Not shorter, not longer. Too vague? Well, that's writing ;) Honestly I think we already answered this question, but I can't find it. To summarize ou...
Publishing is a risky business. Publishers lose money on a lot of the titles they publish and new authors are a much greater risk than established ones. The longer a book, the more it costs to prod...
I hope this is helpful. It's something that I discovered during the process of writing my first book. Like you, I love the process of initial creation, and I did that for a while, just setting asid...
