Activity for Secespitus
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: How to get my book taken seriously as a teenager? Your readers won't care about your age Sometimes an author will write a little autobiographic blurb that is printed at the end of the book. If you do this and you mention your age in there your readers might realize how old you were when you wrote your book. At least those readers that care about th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should software product release notes be in marketing voice or technical voice? (software documentation) In my opinion Release Notes should be written in a technical style, focused on the technical implications of the most recent changes. This makes them sort of a mix between the two worlds - you want to target decision makers and technical people and tell them what has changed when compared to the olde... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it ok to begin a new chapter with a completely new character/time/setting? Yes, you can start a chapter with a completely new character/time/setting - as long as you show your reader where and when the story currently is As always this depends on what you want to achieve. For example there are books that are written solely from a single person's point of view and each chap... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should important events that happen a long time before the rest of the story be in a prologue or in chapter 1? If there is such a huge time difference and there are no big temporal skips in the rest of the book this would likely be a good prologue. Because of the difference this would feel to the reader like something that is not directly related to the current story, but is important to understand for exampl... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it a bad idea to have multiple bad endings and only one good ending? It depends on your genre - in horror games this can be a very good decision If you are going for a darker themed game, and your description suggests that you are doing this, then having multiple bad endings is fine. I've played quite a few horror games that were created with the RPG Maker (I am not ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Do you have to write in the tone of ordinary speech? This depends on the message you are trying to convey If you are writing fiction you may use archaic speech to make a character unique, or you may have everyone speak that way to show how the society acts. Another option is trying to show the reader that they are in a time that is unlike the one they... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Still struggling with character desire, positive vs. negative, hooking readers Negative feelings resonate in humans more strongly than positive ones - but a positive spin is needed for long term motivation Humans have a tendency to value what they have, and therefore what they might lose, higher than what they may achieve. This is important from an evolutionary point of view, ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to derive a storyline from a beginning? What you need is inspiration - try throwing a coin The problem is that you only have the start - but not the end. Without knowing where you want to go it will be hard to flesh out the middle part where most things happen. One option would be to get a feeling for what your idea for the story is like... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to describe an everyday routine? You would do this by mentioning the things he always has to do, preferrably in a dialogue or in a monologue from the character themselves if there are no others around. > Random Person 1: "Hey, wanna watch a movie together?" > MC: "Sorry, can't. I've got to go to the gym at eight. I do that every ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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How do big creative writing projects with multiple people work, preferably in the videogame industry? I was reading some questions and answers on this site about writing for video games, when I stumbled upon this answer that mentions some things I am not familiar with. > In an ideal world, there would be a lead writer but this is not always the case. and > In such a huge project, the writer ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should the narrator use pseudonyms in writing? The narrator should normally use the real name and be consistent with the usage. Have a look at the question Would it be cheating to change the main character's “name” partway through the story? for an idea of how changing the name midway through the story can be done and discussions about whether t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I write a report analyzing a system's weaknesses and how to address them? In case you are starting from scratch and are free to choose whichever form you like you should have a look at the excellent answer from Monica Cellio. But: in case you are in an established company there is a good chance that you may not have to come up with your own formatting rules. Most com... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Would it be appropriate to end a side story as soon as a character is killed off? This depends on which aspects of the war you want to look at. For your example with the child and the family in general it might be better to take the already explained path: explore the implications of his death by showing what the people who loved him have to go through afterwards. You can show tha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: A mix of the Medieval Age and the 21st century period Clockpunk Most of the following comes from the article: Punkpunk: A Compendium of Literary Punk Genres First of all, appending "punk" at the end is often used to show that the main character or characters belong to a certain niche group and are rebelling against the current society - the defining a... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Would it be cheating to change the main character's "name" partway through the story? As long as the change is obvious that sounds like an interesting take on naming your character. You should think about how the exact change happens - it's probably unnatural if your narrator suddenly completely switches from one name to the author. Old habits die hard. You could for example make it... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: I'm writing a thesis/novel. What should I pay attention to on a possible research trip? Locations that probably haven't changed too much The most useful things to have a look at in a case like yours are the landmarks that probably haven't changed too much, such as: - nearby mountains - lakes - rivers - ... Famous old stuff The next best thing to see would be stuff that is quite old ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to communicate character desire? You are on the right track, but apparently your showing was not explicit enough. A possible problem might be that you have a perfectly fine image of the mother in your mind, but you never communicated it clearly. Have you described the actions of the mother? The choices that made her the kind of per... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What constitutes a 'hook?' A hook is something that catches your reader in the first moments and continues to reel them in at a differing pace throughout your work. That's about it. The first page, if not the first couple of sentences, have to hook your reader into wanting to know more - more about the world, the character, ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I cite/reference multiple lines of cuneiform translations in MLA? I looked it up on this site: owl.english.purdue.edu (emphasis mine) > Long quotations > > For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Where can I find resources about writing "Choose your own adventure"-style books? I have read/played a couple of "Choose your own adventure"-style book and am interested in the process of creating one. Where can I find (preferrably free) online resources, such as How-To-Write or styleguide articles and blogs, about writing a "Choose your own adventure"-style books? The main ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How do I write an action scene? Change the pace throughout the fight Most fight scenes that use hand-to-hand combat, swords, daggers and the like change their pace a few times. For example you could start slow with the opponents watching each other getting ready. Maybe they are in an arena and staring at each other, waiting for th... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is the "what" more important than the "how"? It's the other way around - How you present your story is more important than What you are presenting There are only a couple of different base-stories in existence. I've heard different numbers ranging from 10 to 40, but in essence all stories are basically the same. Try to list all the "save-the-w... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should I use he, she, or it when referring to a bird as a metaphor for my cell phone? If you want to refer to an object with a male or female pronoun because using "it" doesn't feel right, then there is nothing wrong with it - it's your decision as the author and only you can know what feels right. But: you should think carefully about the reason why you want to use a male or female ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: 'modulate for' - an unconventional but tolerated verb-preposition combination? Omit for The problem is that modulate means that something modulates something else. Your sentence reads as if you want to say that the spiritual treatment might change the patient's already healthy body and mind, depending on the mental state of the patient. Therefore you can just use modulate with... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Simultaneous Bilingual Writing No, there is no software that would automate the translation of newly written paragraphs for you This is not something you would normally do. You might think that you are "going in one straight pass" as you wrote in the comments, but in the end you will find something that needs to be edited. Some t... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Any software that allows me to create documents and maps with links to other documents or photos? I am going to refer you to a question on WorldBuilding.SE: What software is available for keeping and organising notes about your world?, specifically the accepted answer: > It sounds like what you really want is an private wiki. You apparently weren't able to find one though, apparently they are pr... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How should formula variables be formatted in narration? How did your teacher in second grade taught you subtraction? Your teacher used words. It's as simple as that. You don't write any formulas in there. If you are bent on making it a little mathematically because that's what your character is about, as indicated by your comments, you can easily do that... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Does it make sense to put a hyperlink into an answer within an interview? The only stylistic problem is that a quote is supposed to be an exact reproduction of something that has been said or written by someone. If you look at academic writing for example it would be unforgivable to add a hyperlink to a quote that wasn't there before without explicitly marking the hyperlin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Where can I find online resources about writing a visual novel? I have read/played quite a few visual novels and am interested in the process of creating one. Where can I find (preferrably free) online resources, such as How-To-Write or styleguide articles and blogs, about writing a visual novel? The main reason for asking specifically about a visual novel ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What´s the best path to writing a blog about technology? In the comments you mentioned that you want to write a blog about differenct technologies, for example about different programming languages, and are having problems with how you want to structure the chapters, that are represented by your blog posts. Here comes the frame challenge: you are not writ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to avoid repetition of phrases and words, and how to ensure work is grammatically sound? Repetition is not inherently bad Yes, using the same word over and over again is not a good thing, but repeating a word every once in a while can be a good thing. You might want to repeat certain words or phrases to emphasize their importance and show how certain characters have a certain style. Thi... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to remove generalizations from a sentence? What you are lacking seems to be a bit of empathy and different points of view in this scenario. You are assuming everyone shares the same opinion about this topic: - Women will have a baby at one point or another - Women will spend their time, and thereby life together, with a man - Women are activ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to increase my readers base for my blog? Nobody can tell whether people will be willing to read your blog There is no way to tell. First of all they have to like Blogs. Not everybody likes the style, some people prefer reading mostly books, some prefer mostly newspaper, some prefer magazines, some prefer blogs, ... Therefore the first thin... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: About the Scope of Sections and Paragraphs The normal thing to do is not to use any Heading-Without-Numbering. If you insist on doing it then everything that follows that heading will belong to the heading because it's a heading. Everything below, until you meet something of equivalent value, meaning another heading, will belong to this one. ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is it redundant to repeat a subject when it's been implied in a college essay? No, it's better to keep it Your goal is to present the information as clearly as possible to your reader and that may require to "repeat" the information in this case. Imagine that your reader doesn't really know what "Association for Computing Machinery at Manoa" is or means and that he basically i... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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Are there tools that can aid an author in writing a branching storyline? I would like to know whether there are any tools that would help an author write a branching storyline. Usecases may for example be: - campaigns for Pen and Paper games - visual novels - Choose Your Own Adventure-style books The common thing is that there are people who will interact with your wo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How does a person go about describing a place/experience that they never personally experienced before, like a circus? Experience it yourself This is one of the things that you should be able to experience yourself. Living the moment will give you so much more information than any book, video, picture, or other description of any kind could ever could. Be careful when writing about things you don't know anything ab... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Introduce new English dialect That's normal and perfectly fine You might want to make other characters or the narrator remark about his accent if it's well-known. For example by adding a line like `Ah, I take it you're from Tarehy? Say, you wouldn't happen to know anything about [important plot device]?` If it's not a well-know... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Can justifying "boobplate" armor in the fantasy genre damage its credibility as a serious setting? Yes, it can and most likely will damage the credibility if you are aiming for a serious setting. "Boobplate armor" as you put it would be highly dangerous and useless. Using it will automatically show every reader that has ever done a tiny bit of research into this topic or had some experience with ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How firmly must I remain in my characters POV? This is perfectly normal. It would be weird if the narrator used "Mama" in your first example. "Jane's mother" might be acceptable, but just using "Aliana" is perfectly fine and clear. About your second example: the narrator can of course "look into the future" or just in the other room and thereby... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Using internal monologue for more than one or two characters As long as the distinction is clear from the inner voice of each character this is perfectly fine. Every character needs to feel different by using different voices, because otherwise it feels like the author just switched out the names. Think about what each character's focus is. Is one of them obs... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Is writing "Bad practice"-notes in tech guides bad style? It's very important to show users what they should not do and even more important is to explain why they should not do this. Think of a kid: you tell it not to touch the hot surface. ... Guess what will happen five minutes later. If you instead told the little kid that it will hurt very bad if the... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How can I get my style to feel more mature? There is no real way to learn writing in a completely different style. The best way is to practice it and read as much as you can from author's whose style you feel is at the right level of maturity. Other than that your personal real-life experience is the one thing that will give you a different po... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Should I add new information to a company blog at the beginning or at the end of the article? Updates are generally at the beginning, but different styles are possible The thing about updates in texts is that there are different ways you can do them and none of them is correct or incorrect. It mostly depends on your companies culture. Are there examples of how someone did it in the past? Is ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How are different writing styles/voices possible? There are many ways to express the same thought - many more than you might realize. Vocabulary The first thing is the difference between active and passive vocabulary, also known as productive and receptive knowledge. You may recognize a word and its meaning when reading it, but you may not use tha... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: How to talk about certain anatomy without sounding vulgar or cowardly? Every person has a style in which he or she talks. If your characters read like people who would use words such as ass than it would be weird if they talked about their posterior. But if your narrator would normally use words such posterior it would be weird to use ass. You can switch between the wo... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: What are good resources to get fantasy names? An easy way to get names is to first define a few characteristics about the person you want to name. Are they: - humble? - fast? - strong? - reliable? - tall? - tiny? - beautiful? Then enter these words into a translation engine of your choice in a handful of languages and look at the result. You w... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Way to reveal big twist in fantasy world With a bang If you want a big plot twist to have a lasting effect so that your readers will remember it for a long time, you should try to seed a few small hints here and there that something will happen in the buildup, but you should try to keep it a secret until your protagonist finds out what it ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Plot twist twist = straight plot twist Yes, you can do this You shouldn't try to use the exact same setup, but draw clear parallels in the buildup of your second twist so that your readers will know that something should happen. But in the final moment, when everyone expects the twist, you should add something that prevents the twist. T... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Does misspelling words for the sake of bad English improve the immersion or distract the reader? It will probably distract quite a few people I would certainly be distracted by this and search for the words the author really meant, probably without even realizing that this is intentional. Most authors will use the grossly misspelled words and similar techniques to show the reader that it's int... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |