Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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A: Use of punctuation within quotes with single words or letters I see no reason why you'd treat the punctuation/quote convention any differently for a single letter than for a paragraph. The interaction of punctuation and quote has to do with white space and clarity of content, not the volume of what comes before those two characters. (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Past tense vs present tense In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a child but has brown eyes in the present of your story, you might say "She used to have green eyes, but now she had brown.... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Can prologues and epilogues change POV from the main text? You are allowed to have the prologue narrated by a different character as long as it is absolutely clear who the narrator is. You do not have to change the whole book. In fact, every chapter can be a different viewpoint narrator; George R.R. Martin does this throughout his Song of Ice and Fire books.... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Chapter titles or numbers? Chapters don't need to have a title. "Chapter NN" is fine. Or you can have only a title — that's generally when the title identifies some kind of shift, like a different time, location, or narrator/POV focus. So you can have > Chapter 1 > > Chapter 6 > > Chapter 47 or Location: > Vulcan, 2265... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: On offering feedback to stories/novels/poetry "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism, at context, at what the writer wanted to achieve, at how it fits into X genre canon, and so on. Editi... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: In modern writing is there a a significant difference between satire and parody? Parody is a mockery of a specific existing thing. Weird Al Yankovic writes parodies — "Beat It" as "Eat It," for example. Saturday Night Live parodies political figures by mimicking their qualities to extremes. Satire mocks general things and overall qualities and stereotypes, by being an exaggerat... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Use past or present tense for lasting fact First of all, "withheld" means "held something back from," as in "she withheld the cookies from her child" or "he withheld the information from Congress." So it doesn't mean "hold up to" a big storm. The word you want is "survive." Second, Alex almost has it right in his second example. You have a f... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Writing a short story with a secret code You could certainly try, but it sounds like the main story would come out gibberish to me. The only example of this which springs to mind is the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott." A character receives a letter which reads: > "The supply of game for London is going steadily u... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How to release a heavy revision to a series without upsetting readers? Short answer: You can't. But you shouldn't worry about it. Good textbooks get updated. They are refreshed and corrected, new material is added, things are changed to reflect reader/student/teacher feedback, and items which are no longer valid are removed. This is a good thing. I'm not saying you ha... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Improving the flow/rhythm of the following comparison It's "whereas." It's a formal and slightly clunky word. Plus you're using the exact same sentence structure twice in a row, but only twice. Once is fine, and three times is an effect, but two looks like a mistake. > Kate’s problem had been physical, but mine had been psychological. She had been moti... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How to write good erotic scene? If the goal of the scene is to show why a person decides what he or she decides, then you only give the detail necessary to demonstrate that. If part of what changes Adam's mind afterwards is the way she looks, you need to focus on her appearance and not the act. ("He watched her face change as he s... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Is the following analogy of natural selection effective and clear? Close. Part of the process of evolution is that it doesn't happen once, but repeatedly over a long period of time, and that "falling through a particular hole" allows something beneficial to happen later on (reproduction and thereby continuance of the species). If the pebble doesn't fall through the... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Series: Is there a disadvantage to the number of books? The number of books in the series is irrelevant. What matters is whether you still have story to tell. JK Rowling planned the Potter series to have seven books; Harry's arc is finished. GRRMartin originally planned for four, but he's got so much to say that he's expanded to at least seven (and eight... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Person who invented "formula" for good poetry (Distillation of the comments:) Are you talking about the famous J. Evans Pritchard quoted in Dead Poets Society? He is apparently a pseudonym for Laurence Perrine, and the text is more or less taken from Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: How to write realistic injury scenes? Seek medical advice. Find a medical or health care professional who will answer your questions. If you can't figure it out from a book, find a doctor, nurse, EMT, etc. who is willing to sit down with you for half an hour. (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: When to be specific and when to let context fill in the holes? My thought is, if you can remove the text (which you've bolded) and it still makes sense — that is, if there is no other reasonable interpretation — you can take it out. Can Cath reasonably cover her nose with her knee? with a bandana? If not, you're fine. (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Is it OK to invent as I write, or should I plan the entire story first? > I decide what should be written next only when I am writing that. This called being a "pants writer" or a "pantser," meaning that you write by the seat of your pants. It's completely valid as a workflow, IF you are then willing to go back to the beginning when you're finished and edit with a firm,... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Story without any character development whatsoever? I am actually adding a second answer based on something @user16583 mentioned. In some long-running comic strips, characters don't age or change. Strips like FoxTrot and Sally Forth occasionally make sly meta-jokes referencing the idea that the kids in the strip have been 10 or 12 for decades. Beetle... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Capitalization with compound nouns starting with a number Per the discussion in the comments: if you're using sentence case, I'd go with 4-terminal (lowercase T) because the 4 is the first character. (I would still flinch to see a sentence which started with "4-terminal" instead of "Four-terminal," but I'm not in technical writing.) (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Story without any character development whatsoever? You can always have a character who doesn't develop; flat Disney villains come to mind. But the flat character is generally in opposition to the hero/ine, who does develop. So the question is, why would you write such a story? What could possibly happen in it? If you have one character, period, and ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Killing the protagonist - should it be done? We've addressed "the protagonist continues to talk after dying, even in first person" here: Ways for main character to influence world following their death 1st person story, but the main character will die in the end and some of the story needs to be told after his death. How to solve this problem... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How to come up with the setting for the fiction novel? "Write what you know" is a guideline, not a law, or every book would be an autobiography. If you want to write about other countries, you say you've done a lot of research, which is a great start. That will keep you from making basic mistakes, like having your characters drive on the incorrect side ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Can I, as a reader, submit a "Bug Report" for a novel? Sure, go for it. One of my favorite books has two entire chapters where the name of one of the major characters is misspelled in every single reference. This was fixed in later editions. If it was intentional, the author may appreciate a chance to explain it. If it was a mistake, the publishing hous... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Hiding information It's not at all cheating. The narrative "camera" can't be in all places at all times or your book will be a thousand pages long and only cover an hour. In fact, part of the joy of a mystery is that the reader doesn't know what Person A did offscreen, and has to work it out. The detective/cop/agent/e... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How to deal with cliche dialogue? 1) Lengthen it. You're not going to have rat-a-tat-tat patter graveside. 2) Take each phrase you feel is clichéd, determine the meaning, and rewrite it in different words. "All we want is for our children to grow healthy and happy" becomes "That's my biggest responsibility and my biggest hope — that... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Software for plot building across multiple books Allow me to introduce you to Scrivener. Scrivener is a word processor which allows you to create unlimited documents within a single project, and organize them into folders. You can have each book project as a folder, and within a book folder have multiple subfolders. You can see all your document... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How to describe a scene involving a shift in the environment due to forbidden magic? Monica is on the right track, but I'd push it more. If he's howling the name of his murdered wife in his grief, he's not aware of anything outside that grief. I would actually not show the husband being aware of the changes while they're happening. Maybe, possibly, flashes of light (which cast diffe... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Should I specify the time/date at the beginning of a scene? Please please please PLEASE use date/time of day references. Please. With chocolate on top. It's way too easy to get lost in the flow of narration and not have a damn clue when we are. Is it morning? Is it night? Shouldn't the moon be out? How can the narrator see the cows jumping off the cliff if i... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Needing to Believe the Story Is Real It depends on the kind of story you're trying to tell, and the experience you want the reader to have. I think that in your case, since you are creating characters which are meant to be read as archetypes rather than rounded people, you're fine with the Doylist (meta) approach. If you do include me... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: What's the ideal usage for italics for names? The rule of thumb about italics vs. quotes is "big things get italics, little things (or pieces of big things) get quotes." If it's the name of a book or magazine, italicize it. If it's the name of an article or blog post, put it in quotes. If it's the name of a movie, italicize it. TV shows have... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Defining a Prologue A prologue is pro, before, the logos, word. It's text before the main body of the text. Whether a work needs a prologue is entirely up to the author. There is no right or wrong way to write one. There is no right or wrong content. It can serve as an introduction, a teaser, a flashback, background ma... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: DIT:Is it legal if a write a book about an artist? (I am not a lawyer.) If you are writing an unauthorized biography of a celebrity, I imagine that falls under journalism and libel rules. So as long as you could cite every source you used, and you did not write anything which is demonstrably false, you would probably be okay. You are describing wha... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: What is the difference between a complication/twist and a situation? I think the confusion around this example is because the problem is going to happen no matter what Ralph does, so his actions won't change anything. He will have to face living alone whether he writes the will or not. Having not read the book, I can only guess that the author is trying to draw a lin... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: What is the correct casing for a character's title? I think you have everything right except the last one, which should be > "What did the young lord say?" You're essentially following AP style for titles. > Generally, capitalize formal titles when they appear before a person’s name, but lowercase titles if they are informal, appear without a perso... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: "ing" words in technical translations from Japanese to English Invert the sentence to parse it. > The worker first must engage the wedge for separating connector A and connector B. In that sentence, "the wedge for separating" becomes an adjective phrase. That means there's a wedge for separating but there's also a wedge for cutting, meaning it's another of the... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Non-Linear Storyline: Dynamic vs. Static chapter sequence Your terminology is fine, and I think either way might work depending on your story. The idea that we're left wondering if a character is alive may be quite deliberate on the author's part. Whether the reader is frustrated or writhing in suspense is, again, dependent on the story. I don't object to... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How could a criminal forget a crime? I believe this is part of the plot of the movie (spoiler below) > Memento although I'm going on the Wikipedia summary, as I've never seen it. I've read at least one sci-fi short story (dystopian future) where criminals went to a black market memory wiper and had their memories erased. The criminal... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Handling an Inauthentic Character If "the humble, virtuous identity is not less or more authentic than the grandiose, power-grabbing one that replaces it," then both those (apparently contradictory) sets of characteristics exist in the same person. You have to figure out how that's possible. Her backstory is critical to that. Did sh... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How should changing the point of view be handled? Label the chapters with the character names. George RR Martin does this at the top of every chapter of his monolith books, since he easily has a dozen POV narrators per book. No muss, no fuss, crystal clear. Roberta Gellis did the same thing in her Fires of Winter, and Patricia Briggs does it in her ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Suggestions for revising style and cadence within a children's book You have a few problems here. One is basic command of grammar. You have run-on sentences, weird dialogue attributes, and just outright incorrect sentence structure. You need a proofreader before anything else. The other, as the publisher pointed out, is that you go back and forth from "artificially ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Examples of Successful Rule-Breaking in Novels I could suggest the Water! trilogy by Gael Baudino, but it's not well-known and I found the experimental format exhausting. Still, Your Mileage May Vary. In the three books (O Greenest Branch, The Dove Looked In, Branch and Crown) she kept switching not merely narrator and POV, but the entire narrat... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Is writing even profitable "Profit" is simply "bringing in more money than you spent to create/achieve X task." If you bake cookies, and the ingredients and stove fuel work out to cost you 15 cents a cookie and you sell them for 25 cents a cookie, you've made 10 cents profit. The real question is whether you can live on thos... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Best blind sequence? Why not just put a blindfold on and walk around your house for a few hours? Take notes into a recorder or a voice note app about what you're feeling, thinking, smelling, hearing, about whether other senses have sharpened, if you're slowing down, etc. Additionally, the children's book Follow My Leade... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Should I change POVs in the following case? As long as you label the chapters with the name of the POV character, you're fine. George RR Martin famously has like a dozen POV characters per 700-page book. At least one that I remember had to take on a new identity, so her POV chapter name changed from A to B. I just finished a Patricia Briggs no... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: When Is a Relationship Too Antagonistic? A classic take on this from the Bard is Much Ado About Nothing (I also recommend this wonderful filmed version, which stays fairly close to the text). Beatrice and Benedick both swear they will never marry, are not interested in relationships, and are certainly not attracted to each other. They preen... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: What are the ethics of using real-world house addresses in historical fiction? I would use a fictional house number. You don't want to end up with the 221B Baker Street problem — so many people over the years thought Sherlock Holmes was real and tried to reach him that the genuine flat is now a Sherlock Holmes museum; nobody can live there. (The BBC had to film their series She... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Sluglines for same location but different periods, real and imagined I do not know if there is a standard way, but I would write it in whatever way makes it crystal clear when the events are taking place. I'd create distinct sluglines for each alternate universe and use them strictly and consistently. Because this is a screenplay (meant to be used as a working docume... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Good tools for writing (game) manuals and sourcebooks This is a job for Scrivener! :) Scrivener is an incredibly flexible writing program. It allows you to sort your thoughts into multiple documents within a project, see two documents at once, create hyperlinks, drop in photos and audio files, and then export as Word or print to PDF. You can view your ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Pros and cons of using real brand/company names? My feeling is that unless the brand name plays a critical part in your story, don't use it. You don't want to risk the wrath of corporate lawyers unless you absolutely must. Why build your entire story around "do you eat the cookie part of the Oreo or the cream?" and then have Nabisco refuse to give ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Is it okay to end a novel with a cliffhanger? Write it the way you feel it should be written. However, I would then finish the entire trilogy before finding an agent and shopping it to publishers or publishing it yourself. That way you can either promise your self-pub readers that the next two books are coming, or let your agent pitch that it's... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |