Posts by ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere
I'd be inclined to put a summary at the beginning, similar to an abstract in an academic paper. That way people would see it first, those who were interested could read further, and those who were ...
I agree with others here that if you've been told not to make changes in style, it's likely that the writer's interpretation was that you should leave things like this alone. But you're the proof ...
Simplest answer - give the superconsciousness a character. You've mentioned this could be the deity that created the other gods. If that deity is still around, this could be straightforward - if n...
With four weeks still to go, the emphasis on your thesis has shifted from one of presentation to one of finding out what went wrong. This will lead you to three probable outcomes : 1) You discover...
Even if there's nothing uplifting or redeeming, the protagonist's death will have a positive interpretation - you've thought enough about his life to tell that story. It's not death itself that's a...
It can serve both base and higher instincts. On one level people appreciate a character whose response to provocation is more dynamic than the response they think they would have themselves. This ...
I'm also going to agree with the third suggestion. The idea of a pronunciation guide is a good one, and you could do as others have done and make it part of the dialogue (for example "My name's Sha...
It's a simplistic answer, I know, but the qualification both Orwell and Wodehouse shared was that they were excellent writers. There's a tendency to think of qualifications as pieces of paper issu...
In dialogue and first person narration, I think this sort of thing would be a nice addition (then again, I always hear the phrase "this sort of thing" in Dermot Morgan's voice, so I'm probably not ...
I wouldn't repeat them, but there's nothing wrong with referring to the description to remind the reader (though there's a good chance this is what you meant - apologies if so). If your character ...
For first person narration by one of the characters, the idea that they find nothing special in what they're seeing or doing can be used as effectively as specifically mentioning it to give the rea...
Two good answers already, so I'll concentrate on the word "relevant". If the narrator is relevant (someone who personally participated in the events of the story) but his name is not, there might ...
I'm getting the impression that if you were to ask the narrator now, they would say that Rebecca was not, and had never been, much of a friend. If that's correct, you could try something like : ...
At work we provide three types of technical document, aimed at different kinds of users : The Quick Start Guide. Single laminated sheet, illustrations and basic explanation. The handbook. A5 form...
I'm seeing three big generalizations there : Women want to have a baby Women want to be with a guy Money is important in relationships Any one of those will alienate a significant part of an au...
I'm not sure a fictional character needs a real house. Even if the address is specified, interior and even exterior details can be different. You might find particularly fanatic readers asking awkw...
Since free indirect speech relies on the narrator picking up the dialogue instead of relying on a lot of "John said that he thought that..." or similar, it's going to make it difficult (but not imp...
I usually use the present tense. Future tense works too in the way you've used it, but I would use it sparingly. This might be a "know your audience" answer, and I have more experience in technic...
There's no hard and fast rule, and it depends how many drafts you're thinking of doing before the final version. If this is the only draft, I would aim higher than the limit. If there will be seco...
With lighter stuff the trick is not to play down the importance - someone thought it significant enough to write about it, so thinking of it as fluff could be counterproductive. It could be someth...
If the readers already love him, it will be important to have a plausible reason for why he's not around at the moment (Law shows set in New York seem to have the meme that someone is "in London" -...
I like what you did there. Looking at the painting made it clear in the relevant paragraph that "he" was speaking. I'm a big fan of this approach myself. A whole bunch of "he said", "she said" loo...
You're not crazy - it happens, but this sounds particularly odd. Some likely possibilities : 1) As Dale suggested, the price was misheard - it was either $3.00 per page, or $300 for the lot (which...
Pretty much what Tom said, and you could give the reader enough to pick up on a hint that the plants are affected by infra red radiation by introducing a temporary source. Someone could light a fi...
"See figure x" or "Figure x" is the usual way of doing it, or just "(fig.x)". It's perfectly fine as long as the captions on the figures match the references in the text. If the screenshots are of...
