Activity for Secespitus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: Hierarchical tags are now available That's an awesome feature and I see quite a few tag families that could profit from being officially recognized as such. Here are some more points that might be relevant to a discussion about this feature: 1. We have some pretty broad tags that might either need quite a few children or might poss... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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A: Telephone Conversations Be sure to keep the time that the other characters keeps listening short or use the time for your character to think or analyze other things in the environment. In reality sometimes phone calls can very well have a few minutes of what I've heard being called "social grunting" here in Germany - sounds... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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A: How do I approach rewriting an entire user guide in an agile environment? A user guide is an important result related to your final product and should be treated as such. If the software that is being detailed is in development you you obviously can't know everything that will happen exactly in advance, but you can treat this like you would treat writing a book: - star... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
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A: Choice of words on writing Having your own "voice" shine through your writing is important in order to make your reader remember you. If you read through your favourite books and favourite blogs you will find that every author has their own quirks. Some words or some phrases they prefer to use, some way to structure their sent... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: How do I get beta readers? Family and friends are not ideal beta readers, not only because they are more interested in preserving their relationship with you personally, but also because they are not necessarily your target group and likely not professionals that know what to look out for. You need people that know what th... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: Punctuation assistance with complicated list of titles during a formal greeting Using a colon in your writing is a difficult choice when it comes to fictional writing. For academic writing it's quite easy to remember. A colon is used before a list and that's about it. You could also use a colon after a full sentence to add something that clarifies that sentence, but that looks v... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: Is it acceptable in academic writing to write "their very self" or "very + [noun]"? Academic writing is supposed to be formal, but there can be big differences between different fields of academic writing. A technical field like Computer Science will often focus on being concise and have strict styles for formatting source code. Fields like Psychology will focus a lot more on the me... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: Is there a "right" way to interpret a novel? If so, how do we make sure our novel is interpreted correctly? Have you ever done a group project in school, university or at your work place? Making sure that everyone is exactly on the same page regarding what you are doing and how you are supposed to do that is nearly impossible once you have a handful of people discussing something. In face-to-face meetings ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: Handwriting speed #Finding tips on writing fast You can find much information on the internet about increasing your handwriting speed, but when searching for such information you should be careful about potential downsides that might not be properly explained. Writing unnaturally does not only feel bad while writin... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: What are the top most important key elements for a computer game story? When thinking about the story of a videogame it is important to first think about how important the story really is to your audience. Sure, a better story will in general be better, but if it's taking too much time or it's feeling strange because you are not a goof story writer it might just distract... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: APA In text citations, with the same first author and one other author with the same surname Both versions are correct and as long as you keep it as short as necessary to distinguish both authors it's fine. For example take a look at some similar examples from "What’s in a Name? Authors With the Same Surname" from APA Style Blog (27.02.2018): >###Same Surname Within a Reference >Refere... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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Alert box when clicking "Delete" on an answer says "Are you sure you want to delete this *question*?" Out of curiosity I clicked the "delete" link on one of my answers and the alert box that pops up asks whether I want to delete this "question", whereas it should ask whether I want to delete this "answer". Or if the text needs to be the same for questions and answers it could instead for example say ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: The excessive use of 'and' If you read closely you can very often identify certain words and phrases that authors prefer to use. Those will be used far more often than in writing from other people that you read. Sometimes it's just a subconscious feeling that tells you who the author is, for example if you are often reading te... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Writing slurred speech To show that somebody is drunk you should add descriptions about what the person is doing and how the environment, especially other people are reacting to it. Staggering through the bar and nearly falling over the other guests, someone needing to support your character to get them outside, the head r... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Ending a line of dialogue with "?!": Allowed or obnoxious? It's acceptable, but should be reserved for rare occasions where it's absolutely necessary to keep the flow of the scene going. Overuse of this type of punctutation would indeed make your writing look childish. As other answers have already outlined it's something that's becoming more common, but is ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How should I document a database schema? While the other answers already mention tools to create graphical presentations of your tables / columns and ways to add short information to that, for example by creating an HTML table with an empty column that you can fill with additional information, it's important to remember what people are look... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Is this kind of description not recommended? This reads completely normal to me and I don't really see anything wrong with it. If "tall" is what identifies the person in this scene it would be normal to use that if the narrator doesn't know the name of the person or wants to emphasize this person being "tall" for whatever reason, such as a sma... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Job description for my employment reference In what context did you work? Those interfaces have probably been in the context of a certain topic. What kind of software did you analyze and optimize? Was it financial software? Something in the game industry? ERP? You have said much about the technology that you have worked with so far, but you ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Alternatives to second-person POV narration in RPG settings If the scene allows for it you should portray feelings other characters or creatures might have when entering a scene. A bar man that is obviously not concerned in the least bit by a brewing fight between patrons, city guards shaking in fear at the sight of the old man slowly walking down the street,... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Is it bad to describe a character long after their introduction? Personally the dissonance whenever I have imagined a character for hours and maybe thought about their stories throughout some days because I can't read a book straight in one go is the biggest problem. It's very irritating because some part of me wants to scratch all that I have thought about throug... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: If I wouldn't want to read the story, is writing it still a good idea? It's often a good idea to note your ideas down the moment you have them and then look at them at a later point. This makes sure that you have an interest in it that lasts long enough to actually get something done and you can change some of the biggest things. Most stories are re-written / edited qui... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to invoke interest in readers for second part of story when first part is not so popular + old? It can't hurt to try. If you have an idea for a story you can do it. For example there may still be some people around that have you "bookmarked" or are "following" you or whatever the system to keep track of authors / stories you are interested in is called where you want to post it. Maybe you are ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How many blank lines before scene headings (and secondary scene headings) using Amazon Storywriter Two blank lines - be consistent! You asked the same question on some other, more specialised, sites, so I am looking through them and some others to consolidate the knowledge here for future readers on Writing.SE or others that may come across your question and want to see whether one of the three s... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Can I bring back Planetary Romance as a genre? What did you think the term was supposed to mean when you first came across it? You only found the term "[e]arlier this year" and you are writing a story in that genre. You are far more knowledgeable about the details of genres close to your story than the average Joe that is supposed to read this. ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write Arabic in dialogue for an English piece? As you are mainly writing in English your target audience is probably from English speaking countries without a lot of knowledge about Arabic. It's not a common language to learn when compared to something like French or Spanish as far as I am aware of. As such you should be careful about using a lan... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I introduce the names of fantasy creatures to the reader? The easiest way is to have someone say the name while looking at the animal and having a frame in your comic where the animal is the center. If you have an animal that plays the role that cats play in our real world for example you could have someone angrily say "Get the damn qutie from our table!" w... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Tiptoe or tiphoof? Adjusting words to better fit fantasy races Doing something like this occasionally can be pretty entertaining, but if be careful when inventing new words: too many new words can make your book hard to read. If the people in your world invented certain words because something "unrealistic" is completely normal there than it's fine if the word ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Stereotypical names The problem about this is that most of the time we want to read something about special people. Sure, we want to be able to sympathize with the character and for example superhero comics have a history of making it look like everyone could be Superman - or Shazam) the 14-year-old-boy-transformed-into... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Using substitution ciphers to generate new alphabets in a novel For most people this would be either annoying or far too simple to be interesting. Many people will know a little bit about substitution ciphers and leet speak. Those are quite often taught in school or used to exchange "secret" messages that teachers / parents / ... aren't supposed to read when pap... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Is it advisable to write a teaser for your blog posts? Many readers will not read everything you are writing. They will skim through everything you present them and will decide which of the things interest them and which do not. The most important way to get readers to decide whether they want to read your blog post is the title. In general it should be ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to collect scattered ideas on various topics in to a blog post/ writing article? You don't necessarily need to focus on one topic. Many blogs are about one specific topic and use that to attract their readers, but there are also other types or blogs that are more focused on you as the author. For example because you have an interested writing style or are good at picking up trend... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How do I mix linear and non-linear "choices" in an interactive novel? It depends on the medium. I just looked through the example you provided in the comment section and it seems to me like the non-choices basically do the same that the normally limited space in a text box would do: they give the reader a couple sentences at most before he has to proceed with the stand... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Would a full service PoD company include a literary agent? It may be a scam When I read your question I was reminded of all those scam questions over at Money.SE - you mention that you contacted the first two of those companies and then the third contacted you? Here are your paragraphs about the third company with an emphasis added by me about everything I ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Mariner Software for writers Looking at the comment section you are worried about a sort of vendor lock-in - having your data in a format that nothing else can work with and getting problems when an update messes up your data or the company goes bancrupt, leaving you with useless files that nobody can decipher, which means a lot... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How can I make the plagiarism detector "Ithenticate" identify "θ-continuous" as a single word? You can't I looked through the web, searching for information about problems with Ithenticate and symbols or greek letter, and I couldn't find any information about how to change the bahviour of Ithenticate in such a way. You should probably just try to reduce the index through other means. To copy ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to do a global find and replace in Ulysses You can't use the global search for a global "search and replace" As this deleted answer states you can find the official documentation here. It doesn't mention this function, only the "Search for Menu Actions" under the point "One Shortcut to Find Them All". The way this is phrased already suggests... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Show applied preset where the cursor is? Not yet on Windows - Scrivener 3 (Q2 2019 for Windows) will have this I looked through the documentation that I could find and apparently there is no such feature right now for the windows version of Scrivener. The developers mentioned this in their blog post Scrivener 3: Doing it with Style(s). I'l... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to include external references when writing internal documentation? This depends largely on the way existing documentation is written. Normally you have some kind of template that you can use for most documents. This template should illustrate how to cite external references. In case it does not show you how to do it you should have a look at other documents or for e... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What should tie a collection of short-stories together? The most common and easy way to identify which stories belong together is the genre as you have already identified. Therefore I won't say anything more on that topic. The next common way is to have the same topic. You are free to choose whatever topic you find interesting here: the standard The Hero... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: When two POV characters meet In the end it's up to you, but I think you haven't explored all of your options so far. You could also alternate between the characters views to show how different the situation feels for both of them. This makes it intense for the reader because they can read both points of view without anything fee... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a puzzle without being too descriptive or vague? The creation of a good puzzle depends a lot on the specifics of the puzzle and your intended audience and medium of presentation. Let's take Puzzling.SE as an example, as you've used that in your question. The folks over at Puzzling.SE wondered something similar as you do and decided to post their cr... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: What should go into a White Paper? From Wikipedia: > A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. Basically to write a "White Paper"... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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In which countries do printed fantasy novels sell the most? I tried to find sales figures about printed fantasy novels and how they compare among different countries, but I couldn't find anything in that regard. I can find generic statistics about how the American market for SF&F is evolving over the past years. Or how the European book market grew in recent... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Do I really need to have a scientific explanation for my premise? Spiderman was bitten by a spider and developed spider-like abilities. Superman is from a different planet and afraid of a glowing rock, even if this human-like creature can shoot lasers from his eyes. The Incredible Hulk is... Hulk... If you are looking for a non-comic example take a look at the Met... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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How much does translating a novel cost? I've read that writers and editors are often paid on a per-word basis. Then I did a search about the cost of translating a literary work into a different language and I've found varying information. For example in this thread on proz.com mentions a price model on a per-word basis, a price model on a ... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: When should we redefine a term that's used in a different way in the book we're writing? Just redefining a word from everyday usage is rarely good. People will always first associate it with their real-life usage. Maybe switch around a few letters to make it a new "fantasy" word. About defining the term and the POV: that's really up to you and the POV you are already using. Some author... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Should the length of the different parts of a novel be distributed equally? There are many ways to structure a literary work. For example in school I learned about the Dramatic Structure according to Freytag. Most books don't fall neatly in such a category though. And there certainly isn't something like a percentage you need to keep track of. I've written here on StackExcha... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: How to write a Stack Exchange Question? Asking a good question is a lot harder than writing a good answer, even if writing a good answer likely requires more research and more experience, which makes them very valuable. So let's have a look at what's important in writing a good question as opposed to an acceptable question. You already men... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: When a story is longer than a book, is it best to wait until the entire story is done before completing the first book in the story? If you already have the outline of the final story and haven't done major rewrites of that for some time you could think about splitting it up. Some details will surely change, but in general for the big things you know what will happen when and you will have already laid out the foundation in the fi... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Avoiding burnout As a software developer and hobby writer / game designer I have encountered this already a few times - with the same temporary solution of reducing the amount of time I sleep. Especially when there are a few very important things in the "normal" day-to-day life that need to be taken care of this beco... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |