Activity for Neil‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: How to handle foreign military ranks? If you only have one or two ranks to explain to the reader : Simply explaining it in the text may be your best option; i.e., exposition may be the lesser of the evils. The clumsiness will be over quickly, and you can then move on with the plot. (If this is particularly difficult, you can always use ... (more)	—	about 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the proper way to write time in a manuscript? On the off chance that this isn't a novel, just be consistent. Some writing (academic, non-fiction, and news, for example) is edited to a style guide, and most style guides will have a preferred way to format times and dates. For fiction, and particularly in dialog, you specifically don't want to co... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Citation in AP style journalism I found this page after searching the web: How to Reference a Book in AP Style. It outlines how to cite sources, but annoyingly enough, doesn't cite the information it gives. I suspect it's from the AP web edition, as my print version doesn't have anything like this. I commented on this article, and ... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Examples for books that don't use (traditional) chapters? David Gerrold has always shied away from numbering chapters; he just puts in a section break and keeps writing. Of particular note are his books When HARLIE Was One, The Man Who Folded Himself and The Flying Sorcerers, his collaboration with Larry Niven; all of these have no numbered or named chapter... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: The polymath's dilemma...? If you're asking yourself this question, you may well have a problem, or... this could be normal writers' insecurity. - Sherlock Holmes, say, was a polymath who was believable because he was an unbearably obnoxious person who loved to show off his genius; James Bond is also a bit of a polymath in in... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: For Fantasy Stories, Should You Include a Map At the Beginning of the Book? A map can be a nice touch, or it can be a hindrance. Are there are particular scenes where a map would let you snip out several paragraphs of tedious explanation? If there are only one or two such scenes, this need might be better served by simply putting a rough map in those places, possibly even in... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Works of literature that are (ostensibly) about the act of writing Art is obsession, and how well (or badly) it's dealt with seems to fascinate artists. Ernest Hemingway was the focus of Dan Simmons's The Crook Factory, a faux-historical novel set mostly in Cuba; and also Joe Haldeman's The Hemingway Hoax, where the eponymous hoax is interrupted by the ghost of Hem... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: What should be in a cover letter for short story submission to a magazine? It depends on the magazine. Many publications have submission guidelines, and you might check those for what anything required in the cover letter. I found an interesting variety of requests with a few minutes of googling. Asimov's Science-Fiction is clear on what they want: > Your cover letter sho... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Should I translate my own writings into a second language I also know well? Your English writing skills could use a little smoothing out, if the question above is representative. However, that will improve in time with practice and the help of a good editor. If you have the ability, it'd be a shame not to use it. (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is discovery or outline writing connected to personality type (e.g. MBTI)? On the test, I'm in the "slight" category on three out of the four axes, which includes the judging - perceiving one that you're concerned with. I tend to work with outlines, but if the story takes me elsewhere, I don't force it. I usually find myself in the wild west when I'm getting near the end of... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: When should I avoid the passive voice? When might I use it? In fiction, I find active voice will usually lead to a more direct connection from the characters and action to the reader. Passive voice can be useful when the writer wants to demonstrate emotional detachment or distance. Re-casting a passive sentence in the active voice can occasionally lead to a c... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to make travel scenes interesting without adding needless plot diversions? If I'm following you, it seems that the travelling itself isn't important, but that the characters have traveled is advancing the plot. You can cut out most of the actual journeying, showing the quest in what the characters do when they stop moving. You can have characters refer to the travelling en... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: When should one *not* present events in chronological order? What's the most important thing that your readers need to know right way? What's the scene that will drag them into your story? The answers to those questions will tell you what should come first. It's certainly possible to write a convoluted, insanely complex story, jumping back and forth in time. ... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: A rhyming dictionary worth bookmarking online or purchasing? Webster's New World Rhyming Dictionary: Clement Wood's Updated This is the rhyming dictionary I turn to first. It's an update to Clement Wood's classic 1943 reference. The phonetic distribution of words took me a while to learn, but it's a great, fast system once you get a feel for it. My only compl... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: A rhyming dictionary worth bookmarking online or purchasing? The Song-Writer's Rhyming Dictionary, by Sammy Cahn Out of print, worth looking for. The introduction alone, an essay by the author about the process of lyric writing, is worth the purchase price. The dictionary itself feels like it was hand=picked, and I suspect it was whittled down from a longer l... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are there some good books about scriptwriting to study? William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, wrote Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell, both of which are essentially memoirs that have insights into how he became a successful screenwriter. (They're also a lot of fun to read... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: Using slang as a narrator - pros and cons Using dialect or slang can work very well, but it usually doesn't. (Mark Twain is the only example I can think of where it was done well.) Slang is another matter, with some of the same pitfalls. Having characters using slang and the narrator not, that might be distracting. I'd suggest writing a chap... (more)	—	over 13 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is Literary Fiction? In the sense you mean, it probably stands for general fiction, i.e. not romances, science-fiction, or mysteries. (Fiction that is "literary".) There's a lot of genre fiction that has excellent character development, but like anything else, the vast majority of anything is usually pretty bad. It may h... (more)	—	over 13 years ago

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