Activity for S. Mitchellâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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| Edit | Post #38746 | Initial revision | — | about 5 years ago |
| Edit | Post #38436 | Initial revision | — | about 5 years ago |
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| Edit | Post #13846 | Initial revision | — | about 5 years ago |
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| Answer | — |
A: Is there a way to make editing enjoyable? See editing as a different form of creation: from something not so good you create something brilliant. Frank Cottrell Boyce opened my eyes when he said that being used to writing films he was used to continually editing and re-writing, something that seemed unusual when he came to writing a novel. ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is there a convention about the use of Old English in Hymns? Is it wrong to modernise the words? Different collections of hymns have significantly different editorial policies. Many modern collections will, for example, change 'we are sons' to 'we are children' so that they conform to modern sentiments about sexist language. Not many people disagree with that. One hymn book states in its prefac... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do I start off in web comics? I would recommend going to Webtoons and looking at what is there. On the main site are the featured artists and studying what they do is worthwhile. There are also competitions and a place for beginning writers to publish. One of the characteristics of texts on the site is the use of cliff-hangers t... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Do I have to pay royalties if I include excerpts from other works? If you are using short exerts and acknowledging the source, you don't have to ask permission or pay royalties (pictures are different). A quotation from a poem or a novel at the beginning of a chapter -- quite common -- is fine and you wouldn't pay royalties for it. (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What exactly is the difference between Wordpress.org and Wordpress.com and what should be used for self publishing? One is where you can connect to the millions of sites already created -- .com. The other -- .org -- is where you sign up to create your own site. The two are fundamentally different. If you want to be a blogger, you want the second one. I have done this and created a blog very easily. (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Do hard to pronounce names break immersion? You can criticise me, but if I get a name like the one you have used (I can't easily see how you get to the pronunciation you give), I simplify or skip it. The consequence is that hard-to-say names get forgotten. Trying to work out who is who does break immersion. An alternative, assuming you don't w... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Should I start a new paragraph after a dialogue if the action is being taken by a new person? I would say it is definitely a new paragraph if only to indicate 'he' didn't say 'I thought ...'. I teach that you start a new paragraph when you change speaker, place, time or character. Here the change is character. (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: Where can I find resources about writing "Choose your own adventure"-style books? The original books always used the second person 'you'. (I still have one on my book shelf.) Other variations may use the first person. There are many variations on the theme. For example, some require you to keep track of health, supplies, etc. whereas with others all you do is turn the pages. Some... (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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What tips would you give to someone about to write a stage play? This is a broad and subjective question. However, I think it can be answered with advice such as: Don't include car chases, train accidents or other things that require special effects that can't be created using lights and sound. (more) |
— | almost 7 years ago |
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A: Storyteller/creator vs writer Several years ago we invited a storyteller/author to visit the school to talk about writing and tell some stories. To prepare for his visit, I read a large section of one of his novels to the class of teenagers in the preceding days. On the day, one of the stories he told was the 'same' one as the no... (more) |
— | about 7 years ago |
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A: Common mistakes made by first time fantasy novelists? Advice about adverbs is complex. I will try to explain simply. Adverbs make writing more vibrant and interesting – sometimes. The 'sometimes' comes from the type of adverb. There are different types of adverbs. The basic categories are those that modify: 1. verbs e.g. He ran slowly. 2. adjectives... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does a first novel in a fantasy trilogy have to end with a va-voom? The answer to this is very subjective. Some books lend themselves to being made into a series (whether that is three or more) and some don't. Consider books like 'Mortal Engines' -- everyone, just about, is dead at the end of the first book. The author said that is because after ten years he wanted ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What do you think would make you a better writer - Writing with pen and paper or typing on your PC / Laptop? Even though I can touch type quickly, I have gone back to writing drafts by hand. It is not speed of writing that determines the speed I produce something: it is speed of thought. If I am thinking quickly I can write something like shorthand to get my ideas down. I write by hand because it makes me ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is it better the use the present or the past tense for a novel written in the first person It depends on what you are trying to do. Present tense creates tension because the reader doesn't know what is going to happen -- is the narrator going to live after the bomb explosion, for example? However, past tense can be advantageous if you want the reader to think that the narrator has learned ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Reasons for confusion over tenses in a story I would accept the sentence you have written, usually. It depends on the context. Tenses in English are actually incredibly complex. (I have recently written a simple guide for distinguishing between the past/present/future simple/progressive/perfect/progressive perfect, which, to be perfectly hones... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Intellectual rights for a guest blog submission I agree with what Mark Baker said, but you might want to consider the following. If she said it is your intellectual property, that suggests you still own the copyright and you didn't give it away. However, you can't just copy what is on the website because they have added to what you supplied (font... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Is including a large number of twists a bad thing? No. Simple answer. If it makes sense to the reader and people want to read on, do what you want with the plot. Twists can add a great deal to a novel. If you can keep thinking of them and the reader believes in them, include them. Of course people have different preferences, but does a reader want to... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: What are some ways of adding deeper meanings to writing? You could use symbols and motifs. This sounds very obvious, but like all literary techniques, if done well it works. It could be the use of the colour red. It could be the mention of a poetic work. It could be the constant use of metaphors connected with the sea. Think of the symbols and motifs and t... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How to become a master at creating wordplays? You could try looking at lists of homophones and homonyms. These lists can give you ideas about similar sounding words. However, in the end, you just have to keep practising. Sometimes it does take hours to get a line or a sentence right, whether it contains a pun or not. (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Do I need to make use of paragraphs when writing a novel and if so, how? In a novel it is conventional to start a new paragraph when you change: -- speaker (yes, every time) -- place -- time -- character -- topic You can change the 'meaning' of your text just by where you choose to place a new paragraph. (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How realistic should dialogue and character voices be? Perhaps one way to see it is that you are representing reality, not copying it. In the same way that a painting (even those of the photographic realism school) represents or shows reality rather than tries to provide an exact copy of it, so too with writing. I want my characters to sound like real pe... (more) |
— | almost 9 years ago |
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A: How to make travel stories interesting? Although the following might seem obvious, some of the things I tell my students include: don't use 'then'. If you have written it well one thing follows from another. Secondly, avoid starting sentences in the same way. Particularly avoid starting with 'I' or a similar pronoun. Thirdly, vary the st... (more) |
— | about 9 years ago |
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A: Should you emphasise text within quotation marks? I have seen bold and I have seen inverted commas. I haven't seen combinations. Simply say which you are going to use at the beginning. For example, I just found this in 'Beginning Android Application Development': "Code is presented in two different ways: We use a monofont type with no highlighting ... (more) |
— | about 9 years ago |
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A: What to do with cliched metaphors? Creating original similes and metaphors is incredibly difficult. When teaching students I find that similes are easier than metaphors. It is possible to write similes and then convert them to metaphors. One way to write similes is to think of an object. Think of a characteristic it has in common wit... (more) |
— | over 9 years ago |