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Activity for Reed‭

Type On... Excerpt Status Date
Edit Post #19682 Initial revision almost 5 years ago
Edit Post #19510 Initial revision almost 5 years ago
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Edit Post #6890 Initial revision almost 5 years ago
Answer A: Alternative to Strunk & White?
- At the base there are "formating" guides, the driest of them all, like the Associated Press Style, Chicago Manual of Style, MLA handbook.... - S&W is sometimes listed under the former category, but it is more a writing philosophy, a stylistic statement. Yes, it can be tedious in parts, but it is w...
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almost 8 years ago
Answer A: Expressing large numbers in dialogue?
i feel that in a dialogue nobody will say "The year is 24356," maybe they will say "it's 56", "we are in 56" also such a large number for readers that are not used to it, makes almost no sense, it is just a random number, that's why most writers use something like "year 1405, new galatic era" But i...
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almost 8 years ago
Answer A: Writing technique resources
At first this seemed a superficial Q, but when you think about it, why not? In many arts, like painting, there are clear technical manuals. This is in no way limited to “crafts”. Obviously the artist interprets and applies the method, or goes against it, in his own personal way. Why should writing b...
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about 8 years ago
Answer A: Very long sentences: personal style or just bad writing?
I am not a native speaker and I have trouble with long sentences. A long sentence is tiring to the eye and requires more concentration. Long is bad; you need to come up for air. Sometimes, a longer sentence may be needed to break the pattern of medium and short sentences, but even then a long sente...
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about 8 years ago
Answer A: Words in author's native language?
For French words, at least, it is mostly a pretentious way to show the author is cultured, thought funnily enough their "French" is often incorrect, though it will pass mustard for most readers. For other languages, there are words or concepts that are not easily translated like the German gestalt, ...
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about 8 years ago
Answer A: How do I express that a culture has a different standard of beauty?
Skinny=beautiful is a recent western concept, most cultures still see fat as healthy, beautiful, lively, or desirable and skinny women as diseased, ugly, barren, and close to death. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A good illustration of Fat as ugly or sexy is in the Soldier Son Trilogy by Robi...
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about 8 years ago
Answer A: How to find the balance between research and the obvious
It seems to me to mostly depend on your target audience. - Scientists of this field will want full throttle facts, - General scientific types will expect to be convinced by strong backable data - Interested non-scientists may relate more to argument that make sense and are logical rather than spec...
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over 9 years ago
Question First person, when is close, too close?
I am considering using the first person for a story I am developing. One of the main benefits of using the first person is the closeness with the reader it generates. However, I am not sure that this closeness is desired in my particular case. My protagonist thinks he is going crazy, at the end he r...
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over 9 years ago
Question How to format multiple inner voices, differentiating the text from dialogue? and omnipresent inner voice
For the occasional use of inner voice, Italics are usually recommended. However I have a protagonist who is speaking with himself all the time, and Italics use quickly becomes tiring and distracting. I saw that in that case, like in Donaldson’s chronicles of Thomas Covenant, no italics are used, th...
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over 9 years ago
Question Why do heroes need to have a physical mark?
It seems that a lot of authors want their heroes to be marked in a special way. It is not enough that these protagonists are going to be heroes, no; they seem to require having a mark that makes them special be it golden eyes, a red streak of hair, a lightning shaped scar... I mean it is quite sill...
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almost 10 years ago