Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer | — |
A: Alternative to mindmap software I love Scrivener for this kind of thing. You can put each thought onto an individual page, and then drag them around as you see fit. It even has a virtual corkboard screen so you can see many individual notes at a glance. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Using "he/she" instead of "it" for animals I would only use the gendered pronoun if you know the gender of the animal in question. Lions have manes; lionesses don't. A calico or tortiseshell housecat is 99% guaranteed to be female, while an all-orange tabby housecat is 99% guaranteed to be male. Male robins have the bright red breast while fe... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What are the differences between a script and a screenplay? While I am not in the business, I would imagine that the screenplay is the original finished creative work, and the script, sometimes called "the shooting script," is what people use on set or on stage to actually film or perform the thing. So the script is the living, working, occasionally minorly ... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Capitalization of personal event names I would only capitalize "the Assault" in this context if the people involved are imbuing the event with such importance that there can only ever be one assault in their lives. It's THE assault, so they give it proper noun status. Sort of like the conflict which occurred from 1914 to 1918 was origina... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I get rid of the "things" in the following passage? The only one which actually seems repetitious is the third one; the first one is perfect and the second is a deliberate sentence-fragment echo. I literally didn't notice them. for the third: > Or even worse, we end up doing something that may hurt us — or those around us. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is my writing 'disjointed', and if so how can I fix it? To start with, you have too many invented terms without definition all in a row. Hearthsoul, assassin pouches, luck fairy? You also have enough mistakes that I really can't tell if some of these things are typos or more jargon. His enemies tailed? The land drifted? What does that even mean? You "re... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I get myself writing again? Well, if it's fanfic specifically, then something about the source material got your brain going. Go back and rewatch the show, play the game, chat online with other fans, surf tumblr, read other folks' fic. Get back into the headspace of the fandom and see if that re-ignites your creative spark. Al... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Script Writing as it pertains to TV and Radio lines I'd write it in the script. You have to hire someone to read the lines, and it's audible dialogue which the characters and audience have to hear and react to. GREG I've got the tea. Where are the biscuits? JOHN Upper cabinet to the left of the sink, bottom shelf. RADIO ANNOUNCER And now, w... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Should I have an introducing paragraph in every chapter of my description? I think an abstract or quick summary isn't a bad idea at all, especially if your audience is not necessarily familiar with the process or the parts, or if there's a lot of jargon involved. I may not remember the difference between the Widgetizer and Widget Processing, but if you explain "The Widgeti... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Multiple characters without names: how to address You have to identify them somehow. Use adjectives. - The tall man vs. the short man - The older man vs. the younger man - The long-haired man vs. the man with the thistle-down hair - The carpenter vs. the electrician - The French man vs. the German man It may get repetitive to say "her hands rested... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: My first comedy plot draft is very bland - how far can I go on calling this out? Get it on paper, and make sure it's funny to you. Then find beta readers and editors and see if it's funny to others. You can always fix something after it's written, but you can't edit a blank page. Start writing. Figure out the joke too far later. P.S. please reference Martin Freeman, for several... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Writing in between dream sequences Well, what's the character's reaction to his real (waking) life? Is he bored? Impatient? Dazed? Curious? Eager? Anxious? Take us through his reactions rather than his day. > John listened to his patients with half an ear, most of his attention on the clock. Would the day never end? Twice between app... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Character development in a story? You should establish the character early on, but I don't think you can develop anyone all in the beginning. What point is there for the story, then, if the character is done developing? The reader should have some sense of who the person is before the real meat of the tale gets underway. Revealing p... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: I feel my protagonist is too "detached" from the main plot. What should I do? Raise the stakes. Give him some urgent reason for doing something or being there. Take something away from him which he has to find, recover, or fix. Add a ticking clock. - Why is he visiting his half-sister now? Maybe their shared parent is dying? Maybe he's dying? - Why is he going to the mountain... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How similar is too similar? I think it's the "tongues" which caught everyone's eye. That faux high English hearkens back to Tolkien's diction, which makes people recall his version. Change it up. Rearrange the order and add a little hyperbole: > In all the dialects of all the languages of all the cultures of men, elves, dwarv... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Standalone book, followed by series The Rama series by Arthur Clarke would fit that bill. the first book was very hard scifi, basically a history book, and books 2 to 4 were a trilogy about a specific family and their travails. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can the term "Glorified delivery" be used to signify giving birth? The problem is that "glorified" is a sarcastic term. In means "wannabe" or "dressed up attempting to be something else." If you put a big fancy necklace on a dog, it's a "glorified collar." The thing actually is a collar, but you're dressing it up to try to make it more than that. A novel which has... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to highlight a main character among several points of view? Everything is about him. The other characters talk about him, plot about him, worry about him, try to contact him. Everything is about what he's doing or where he's going and with whom. Scenes where he isn't there detail the effect his actions or words had on the other characters. If it's his story... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I broaden my understanding of my characters? Your problem is that your characters aren't rounded. They don't have distinguishable voices because they aren't distinguishable people. Do this as an exercise: Pick your favorite TV show, movie, book. Pick two or three characters from each. Interview them. For example: What's your favorite book... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Why do writers use "said" instead of "asked" when someone asks a question? It's stylistic. You can use either. "Said" isn't wrong. Some writers feel very strongly about "bookisms," which is using words instead of "said" which tend to be more elaborate and give some action to speaking. (hissed, crooned, muttered, sighed, barked, laughed, snarled, grumbled) Personally I'm fi... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I make a person sound sick? 1. Find a recording device. 2. Press record. 3. Hold your nose tightly. 4. Speak your dialogue. Add coughing, wheezing, and other effects as appropriate. 5. Press stop. 6. Press play. 7. Transcribe. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to write a press release announcing my own appointment? Is Y not the media contact for all purposes? If so, then you should write "AcmeCo has appointed Y as its new marketing manager. Y will also serve as AcmeCo's Media Contact. For more information, please reach out to him/her at...." If Y is not the media contact normally, then don't use that wording.... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can I use parenthesis in a conversation Is it correct? Strictly speaking, it's not wrong, but it's really hard to hear someone saying a parenthesis. Is it usual? No. In fact, I can't remember ever seeing it. Is it understandable? I guess, although I would do a massive double take and think that the author was being too bookish. Are ther... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: On the role of "accidents" in "realistic" stories If you're concerned about too many accidents, then try to find a way to add some purpose to some of them. 1) It's doubtful that you can find a way for a comet to land in someone's garden deliberately if you're not writing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But if you need for A to meet up with old fr... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Balancing character levity in a serious narrative Why is it an issue? Don't you know anyone with a black sense of humor? People crack jokes, particularly sarcastic ones, in the darkest of hours. I wouldn't find it problematic, particularly if you've established that the sarcastic character is a wiseass who uses humor to deflect or to ratchet down em... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Are there straightforward instructions for MS WORD 2013 for numbering in different formats, yet maintaining a chronological count? I'm a big fan of cheating (and I hate Word). Make each section a separate document. Start page numbering at whatever number in whatever format you need. If you need to create a TOC, use a working document to calculate it — figure out what your page numbers are by changing the numbering scheme of the... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Perspective and Balance with Multiple Characters George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, aka Game of Thrones, is the biggest current example. Three dozen? perspectives and counting. Introduces a new world with a huge political social conflict. Pretty much the textbook for what you're doing. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Location description Learning to describe starts with learning to observe. If he wants to learn to observe, start with Sherlock Holmes. Once you start observing, then you practice putting your observations into words. Then it just takes practice writing. (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is it okay to mention a person's nationality and accent only once or twice in a story? I can think of at least two ways to demonstrate your character's nationality and accent without having to mention it constantly or write the dialogue crazily: 1) There is a difference between accent and dialect. Accent is more or less the generally recognized version of the language, taught in text... (more) |
— | almost 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Conversation with Multiple Characters Stage business. B takes a drink. C eats something. B lounges back in his chair, looking thoughtful as he listens. C winks at the serving guy. B rolls his eyes at something the protagonist said, and C smacks his arm to make him stop. B plays with a coin, a ring, a belt loop. C starts polishing her kni... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Humor in a fantasy setting You've gotten a good start with the name. Part of humor comes from confounding expectations. So you have this big snarly demon... named Bob. Maybe the damsel in distress is a guy in drag who was just trying to avoid the draft, and couldn't get out of his lie fast enough. Maybe the hero reveals he's ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Multiple Point of View characters in a short story Serve the plot. I actually don't mind having a 10:1 ratio if the one scene packs a real punch. I wouldn't arbitrarily make half your scenes the other POV if it doesn't do anything to advance or improve your story. Don't fix what ain't broken. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Good idea to describe the heist place before the heist begins? Watch the show Leverage. (It's about five criminals who turn Robin Hood, and they spend quite a bit of time breaking into buildings and stealing things.) Watch the entire first season, at least. Take notes on how often you get the layout of the place before it's broken into and how often it's not nec... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to list concepts and tie them in together? Make them a list of sentence fragments. Poetic license. They sound better, and it helps each thought stand distinctly.The run-on is a little exhausting to the ear. > The green pieces of paper folded up in your pocket. The balance in your checking account. Your mortgage. That time you paid for dinner... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is the following extended metaphor/group of metaphors too overwhelming? Oy. Chop, chop, chop. You establish the metaphor of the treasure chest, so you can just declare that A=B without the transitions. > The plastic container was a treasure chest of food. I peeked inside to admire its content. Under the store's lamp, the tiny eggs glistened like pearls. The red, white, ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How explicit can violence and sex be in a YA novel? My sense (as a reader, not someone who's published a YA novel) is that you kind of want to liken it to a PG-13 movie. If it's too graphic for a 13-year-old to be watching in a movie theatre, it's probably too graphic to be published in the YA category. However: 1) as John Smithers points out, that ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is having a specific town for a setting in a young-adult novel a bad thing? I think it's important to figure out why you were bored by the mining community setting. Is it because the character made too much of the details without giving the reader a sense of why they were important? For example, if the reader is following the character through a day in the mines, are the det... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can I plug a loophole in my magic rules without rewriting the whole novel? Why plug it? Have the loophole pointed out or discovered in the epilogue. It can be discovered by the bad guy, or by an innocent who is easily captured/corrupted by the bad guy. Presto: instant sequel! (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Using capital letters for shouting I'd be fine with all caps here. It's emphatic in a different way than italics. To me I hear the volume and force behind the word, not just the intensity. Compare: > His breathing quickened. "Damn it!" > > His breathing quickened. "DAMN it!" The first one could be under his breath — vehement, but ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I get my romance through a two-year breakup? She is audited by the ethics arm of the board which gave her her professional license. He's a former patient. The board tells her to break it off or lose her license. In the intervening two years, she realizes that he is worth losing her license for, or alternately finds another job. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: When to use pronouns, and when to repeat yourself? I think it's pretty much by ear. You have to go with what sounds good. In this case, the writer thought "people" was important enough to repeat. I happen to agree with you that "them" would have been sufficient, but sometimes the repetition works. For example: > government of the people, by the peo... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Writing Across Multiple Genres It will ultimately depend on the quality of the writing, but no, I have no problem with authors crossing genres. JK Rowling wrote a crime novel and... whatever the hell The Casual Vacancy was supposed to be after the Harry Potter series. It doesn't make me think less of her because she's not writing ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Question | — |
When do I explain my created world scenario in a prologue vs. letting it unfold in the story? Let's say I'm creating a unique world for my book. New planet, maybe new species, complex society with complex rules, history, government, and so on. Some of these details are absolutely necessary to understand the plot of the story. There are two ways to give this information to the reader. 1. Pro... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: tools for writing scripts Have you tried Scrivener? I haven't used it for screenwriting, but it looks like it's got a great tool for it. It's not open source, but $45 is fairly cheap. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Can we enable readers to connect to far future humanity, without pretending they wouldn’t be different? I think you're confusing motives and details. You mentioned people from 500 years ago being very different from us. What concerns do we share over the centuries? - Survival basics: food, shelter, clothing. There really wasn't a "middle class" in 1513, but you could argue there was a merchant class,... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: In a thriller, should my famous cities be familiar, or fresh? If you're going to set something in a familiar city, I want all the details to prove you know it. I want it to be like when we watch Elementary or Person of Interest and we're constantly pausing to see what street the show was filmed on because we recognize the bodega on the corner. If you're just s... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Procrastination on a Crucial Scene in my Book You're letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. You know it's a critical scene, and you're scared to screw it up. That's reasonable. The problem is that you're so scared of screwing it up that you can't even let yourself start, because you're afraid of "breaking it." Rationally, of course,... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How do I do literary research on an unresearched topic? I'd lay out the existing journeys in some kind of grid (Excel might actually work for this) and see what commonalities there are, or if some kind of theme appears. Make a list of what defines a Guardian. Some suggestions: - Does this character interact with the Hero? - Does this character intervene... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can I write a tragedy for children? Many of the original Grimm and Andersen fairytales had tragic elements in their endings. The Little Mermaid got legs, but every step felt like walking on broken glass, and she doesn't win the prince; she dissolves into seafoam and bubbles without ever getting her voice back. Cinderella's stepsisters ... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Problem: Scenes that are unavoidable, but boring If you want examples of successful diplomacy, try CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series, which I think is up to 15 books so far. The main character, Bren, is a diplomat between humans and the non-human species who are native to the planet where the humans crash-landed. Positively fascinating. Hard going at t... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |