Activity for Cyn
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Using words from another book When writing a book of your own, you absolutely can use other books on the topic as references. And you can quote those other books. In both cases, you want to credit the other book. For quotes you put a citation directly into the text, or put an endnote or footnote and put the citation in there (or... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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What language shall they sing in? I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English. I have time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. None of the kids speak anything but English (aside from a few words). The people they visit mostly speak Canaanite, an ancient form of Hebrew. (There are other languag... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What are the meta considerations when writing a play? Stage productions aren't just about the script. In your corpse example, there are several ways to handle it and it depends on the director more than the playwright. - The corpses pile up and then there is a marker to indicate the end of the act which resets things. The corpses turn back into actor... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Sugar-coating a niche genre I think of Steampunk as being science fiction (with some fantasy elements) based in the Victorian era. The term "punk" might turn off some readers. Simply being unfamiliar with it might be the turn off for others. So better to explain it using terms the reader will understand (by all means market th... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Crossing the line from Middle-Grade to Young-Adult I would like to followup on this excellent question which outlined differences among works for children, middle-grade, and young-adult. What are some clear differences in theme/story between children's, middle grade, and young adult fantasy? I am writing a novel aimed at the niche called "upper midd... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Showing friendship between people of different ranks - maintain formality, or drop it? Formality of address shows more than just the relationship between characters. How one character addresses another does show the level of intimacy between them. But it can also show: - Their history. Ex-lovers or siblings who are no longer close, who are now on very different social levels, might b... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Critique vs nitpicking Say you wrote a piece that was about something wonderful that had happened to you. A piece that exuded happiness and contentment. Someone—probably the very same person you discuss in your question—is going to comment, "How can you be so happy all the time? What is wrong with you? Don't you know peop... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Is time travel science fiction or fantasy? The line between science fiction and fantasy is often blurred. And that's okay. Genre is often more about marketing than anything else. As a general rule though: SciFi has science and technology and fantasy has magic. This excellent question explores the distinction: How to distinguish if a novel is... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using a different POV just for the opening line Yes, it's fine. I would set it off though. Italics might work. Or an indented blockquote style. Or a divider between that line and the rest of the story. You might also make it a fake quote. Like many authors do (with either real or fake quotes) for story or chapter headers. (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Reversing title and subtitle in foreign edition It's very common to change titles with new editions of a book. Obviously, the title will be translated to a non-English language with this new publisher. When translating, it's common to change the order of words as well. Sometimes titles change in different editions for the same language. Harry P... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Protagonist constantly has to have long words explained to her. Will this get tedious? If you're writing A Series of Unfortunate Events, it works. Because the purpose is to educate the reader (or allow the reader to be the one that says "I know what X means"). If you're writing a serious book, it's annoying. In real life, if someone is speaking with someone who doesn't know the vocabu... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Materials to promote my book in person Say I have a book...or a comic series...or a podcast...or another published work. Marketing written or scripted works is perfectly on topic here, and most of the promotional materials are also written materials in themselves. Every author who sells books at a table (at a convention, fair, conference... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader? Your best bet may be a first person narrator. If your narrator is a character anyway, then the limited POV shouldn't be an issue. With 3rd person narration, even if it's from the POV of one specific character, the narrator usually has a voice similar to that of the reader and it can be weird or of... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Finding out about other countries' military day-to-day This is a hard one. You really need to go to another country and spend a couple days hanging out on base and seeing how they do things. Obviously, travel is expensive and you may not have other plans in the near future to go. But, aside from that, this is not something you can just do. It's not like ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Adapting dialogue from a novel into a screenplay Screenplays have less dialogue than you think! I too used to think that a screenplay was all about the dialogue. But when I researched the medium, I discovered that dialogue is just a part of the whole. A very important part, but not as many overall minutes as we might imagine. My favorite screenw... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to keep romance out of my novel? The most famous ship of all (perhaps the one that started it) is K/S aka Kirk/Spock. Even though both characters have been portrayed as 100% straight. Many other characters have been shipped in ways that go against their sexual orientation and/or other partner preferences. Including in cases when th... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I avoid the "chosen hero" feeling? I appreciate this question as it's something that can definitely be overdone. It seems to be a problem mostly of the plot driving the characters. We need people to do XYZ, so let's have characters who can do XYZ. That's okay to a point, but it can feel contrived, which is, I think, your issue with it... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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Why write a book when there's a movie in my head? Around a decade ago, I had a dream. An actual middle of the night dream. An entire movie played in my head, all I had to do was write it down. I did a fair bit of research on the topic then I spent the next 10 years working it out in my head but not writing much of anything down. Last year, I joined... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to move back to main section after finishing a sub-section Don't think of it as moving back to the main section. Instead, create a new subsection. > 1.1.3 subsection 3 Or create a section called Conclusion. Better yet, make the part you call the main section into an introduction. In other words, make everything equal in the hierarchy. It makes it a lot eas... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I portray body horror and still be sensitive to people with disabilities? Disabled people fear losing functionality as much as anyone else. Perhaps even more so, because they need to rely on existing functional parts more strongly than others do. What you want to avoid is putting a value on it. For example, losing a limb is awful and creates huge challenges in performing ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Can using my name as author harm my book sales? I say keep your real name. It's not exactly the same as any other author at the moment and none of the names you mention are unique enough that it would be confusing to use something similar. It's not like your real name is George LL Martin or William Shookspeare. No matter what name you choose, G... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to make clear what a part-humanoid character looks like when they're quite common in their world? If you were describing a human being, you wouldn't say "she had two arms, each the same length and ending just below her hips." That description is assumed for everyone (if it's wrong for an individual, we expect the author to point it out). But her arms could still be strong, muscular, tanned, scar... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is writing three drafts really necessary? What is a draft? I mean that sincerely. And I mean it as a frame challenge. Advice about numbers of drafts and other rules about writing usually comes from pretty old advice that doesn't apply so much anymore. If it ever did. Back when I was in primary school, a draft was what you wrote on a fresh... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Outsourcing people to make a cover There are sites where artists who do book covers list themselves as looking for work. And there are individual websites or social media for various artists. Look around and find someone you like, or at least get a sense of the style you're looking for. No artist can duplicate every style, though some... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to tell readers your story is a re-imagination of a popular story? If your inspiration story is in the public domain (which all of Shakespeare is), you have no legal obligation to disclose your source material. Though with Shakespeare, people will of course figure it out. The musical West Side Story is a well-known retelling of Romeo and Juliet. It was in fact pitc... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What's a word for a person who took a very rough story and made it into a book? Imagine if you set out to write a book based on a true story. You then interviewed your main subject talking about her experiences. That interview was your primary source material. You would be the author of that book. End of story. In this case, you're getting confused because the order is differe... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is my work fiction or non-fiction? It's fiction. It's probably closest to memoir, which is basically autobiography, a type of non-fiction. But then you say: > The exact course of events in the story has never really happened in my personal life, but each piece does come from my personal life. The other characters are based on real ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to make a grieving father less vengeful and see reason? Yes, it is credible. Grief is a horrible thing and losing a child is just about the very worst thing that can ever happen to you. Grief can make you do and say pretty horrible things. The best cure for that is time. But if this man is still hell bent on destruction 8 months later, the grief has mo... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: I am afraid some scenes in my novel are too graphic for some people (Trigger warning: Sexual Assault) Don't give a trigger warning in a book! Unless you're writing an actual nonfiction guide for rape survivors, a warning like that would be not just unnecessary but apt to get you ridiculed. It's simply not done. People who are themselves survivors, or who don't want to read about violence, or kids ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to fill novel if you have just some moments prepared? Writing is like a dance. I love ballet and modern and other dance forms but, way too often, it's all about the tricks. 1. Triple pirouette. 2. Step step. 3. Leap high in the air. 4. Step. 5. Look! my leg is totally over my head! For anyone who understands dance, we know it's really all about the t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write characters who hate when you don't understand it? Perhaps you understand hate, you just call it something else. Anger, distain, avoidance, disappointment, shock...these can all have elements of hate in them. Anger especially. The word "hate" has been used a lot in recent years and has picked up connotations it didn't really have before. Now there ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Do I need to get people to sign a waiver to include their content in my book? I agree with El Cadejo, it is always wise to have a contract in place. This covers you legally (and to some degree ethically) if: - You have a falling out with one of your subjects who wants to pull their work. - A subject doesn't like your interpretation of her/his words and claims you never had pe... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Research on an alternate history novel I would do some research first. But what some might call research, others would call fun reading. So, yeah, you should have a decent grasp on the real world history first. As well as a basic understanding of the technology or politics or cultural issues you want to change. After that, it really de... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to respond to overenthusiastic copy-editing I think you have to decide what lines you're willing to cross and which ones you aren't. It's your piece; it belongs to you. Unless you have a contract for Work for Hire or something else saying it's theirs. I suggest thinking of this as you having only two choices: 1. Allow them to publish a versi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I start in media res and provide enough back-story to hook people, all in the first chapter? Give the location of the scenes as the chapter/scene headers. If the present-time scenes are in MC 1's house and the flashbacks are in a local coffeehouse (for example), your readers will be able to piece together which scenes go where and they'll know that they are different timelines (since they ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to secure my written work from being stolen or copied before publishing? All the other answers are correct: copyright law protects your work even if it's not published and even if you haven't registered it in any way. This is true in the United States, the United Kingdom, and most countries around the world. The chances of a publisher you submit your work to will steal i... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Fictionalizing firsthand accounts from history? In my own novel I have two settings: 1. The (more or less) modern world with some historical backstory but 100% fictional characters. Set in the U.S., the country I live in. 2. Ancient Egypt as based on Biblical accounts (so not really history, but still trying to be true to the source material) usi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to describe skin colour, if "white" is not the point of reference? I like to equate skin tones with food or natural objects. Caramel, chocolate, cream, sand, etc. Eye and hair color work well this way too. There are so many beautiful shades of skin it is a shame to leave it out of descriptions. White people tend to focus on hair and eyes and ignore skin aside from ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is using first person in academic/technical essays always bad? Like with so many other issues of style, it depends on your audience. For a school essay, your audience is your teacher. So write the essay your teacher wants, no matter if it's okay to do it another way elsewhere. If you submit an essay or article for publication, the audience is the publisher, an... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What are good guidelines and practices for word emphasis? To create effective signage or instructions, always start with correct language. I am answering for English language works. There will be some differences in other languages. In your case, you overuse capitals. I also changed "and" to "then" to emphasize the order. Your starting sentence should re... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to search for titles of novels that are or begin with a word or phrase previously used as the title of many nonfictional works? Easier said than done. I tried Goodreads. The good news is it allows you to search by genre. Not just fiction but also type of fiction, if you want. And by title. But you can not set it to just choose the titles that start with the keyword. And you can't alphabetize the results. Then I tried my loc... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How to get my characters' emotions out of the way so I can get on with the plot? Setup: 18 kids (ages 2-14) from 1995 America time travel to Ancient Egypt just before the Exodus. The MC knew this would happen (or thought she knew) and told people, but no one believed her. Now they're stuck there. At this point they're thinking (hoping) a few days, but it will turn out to be abou... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it bad to have no gender variety? Sexism, like racism, is about the larger constructs of power and not about individual feelings towards one category of people. A man can be sexist towards women but a woman can not be sexist towards men (I expect lots of downvotes just for saying this...so be it). Just like, in a place like the Uni... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I respectfully write black characters in a 1930s Arizona setting? Don't avoid entire groups of people because you don't know how to write them. Learn how to write them. It's part of becoming a writer. You must learn how to get inside the heads of people who aren't like you. Do this by getting to know people who are different from you (in a million different ways).... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Are run-on sentences always bad? Run on sentences are sentences without a pause. No place to take a breath. By using what might otherwise be a run on sentence as free verse poetry, you are creating those pauses. You have some commas in there, which always helps, but it's the line breaks that really give you a place to breathe. Com... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Song quote for an 'in memoriam' Ask the newspaper. They will know this stuff backwards and forwards. If you put the lyrics into a program to hand out at a memorial service or other event, you're good. If you put the lyrics (well credited) on your personal blog, and you're only quoting a small percentage, you're almost certainly ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Problems Blending Sci-fi & Traditional Fantasy? A lot of wonderful books combine both science-fiction and fantasy. And why not? If magic can exist in books set in the modern age or in the past, why not in books set in an otherwise realistic future? Why can't mythical creatures go to space? What reason is there to ban ghosts and purveyors of t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What are some techniques used to increase the melodicality of a lyric? Many lyrics work with a variety of melodies because the underlying structure of the set of melodies is similar. My synagogue just had a "Broadway" bar mitzvah where the young man set our traditional prayers (which we do usually sing) to melodies from various Broadway showtunes. Worked great. (This p... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do you prevent whiplash when transitioning between comedy and tragedy? Whiplash is a physical injury caused by your body moving in one direction then very suddenly switching to another. To a degree that can only come from something like a severe car accident. The emotional equivalent of whiplash comes from a lack of transition between heading one direction then turning... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: An LGBT main character, but the book isn't about LGBT issues You can't. I mean, sure, write your book matter of fact. The advice I give out a lot. It works. But it's not just about what you say or don't say in your book, it's about the choices you make. When we've talked about diversity and racism in books we talked about how making a choice to avoid such t... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |