Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Is my serial-killer novel horror or crime? I'm of the same mind as SF. Is the protagonist the killer or the good guys? If it's a crime novel, tone down the blood spatter and have more in the precinct. Lengthen the scenes where the detectives throw theories back and forth; set up more red herrings to be chased down; show us how the footwork w... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: How do I evaluate an unwritten plot/story? Find a good beta reader or a good editor. I ran into this problem myself: I had a plot which was solid and detailed but left room for expansion, I had characters I absolutely loved, I spent months in world-building, wrote 125+ pages, and then showed it to a few trusted, intelligent people to get som... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Is it bad to have sentences that are too long? Too long. Let's add some commas and trim the redundancies: > > As players move around the board, they buy, rent, and sell properties from and to each other, with each player trying to maximize his or her own wealth. Not only does "zero-sum" actually mean "everyone must lose in order for one player... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Should I italicise when the protagonist quote other character's words? I think italics would be perfect. It makes total sense that the protagonist is recalling what someone else said — it's sort of an in-line flashback. Otherwise, how are you going to indicate that it's remembered dialogue? Quote marks make it look like An-Mei is there, speaking, when she's not, and a l... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: When mentioning two people in a sentence, what's the proper way to use a pronoun to reference the first? Change something else in the sentence. > > A fighter is someone who fights for the pleasure of spectators, against his or her own safety. > > > > A fighter is someone who fights for the pleasure of the audience, against his or her own safety. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Using quotes for sarcastic text Yes, you can absolutely use quotes to indicate sarcasm (or irony). If the sarcasm is in dialogue, you can write it exactly as in Hobbes's example. If you want to have the additional stage business of the speaker making air quotes, you can do that too, but most readers will understand what the sarcas... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Where to put counter-examples within a 5-paragraph essay? It depends on what the "point" of the essay is, and how it's set up in the intro/thesis. If the goal of the essay is to argue "dogs make great pets," then there shouldn't be a counter-argument at all. If the goal is to present both sides of a point, then the intro needs to say that, and I would sug... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: How to indicate emphasis in plain text manuscripts Either underscores or asterisks around the words, I would think. All-caps run the risk of being printed in all-caps. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: What are First Drafts, Second Drafts, etc.? A "draft" is one complete pass-through of writing a piece (an article, blog post, short story, novella, novel, etc.). Your "first draft" is generally considered the first time you commit the entire thing to paper (or pixels), from beginning to end. After that, you can measure subsequent drafts or r... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: How to format and where to place the "thanks" section for websites in a book? At the end, after the story is finished, in a section called "Author's notes." You can list your thanks, your sources, and any other comments you want to make. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Should I edit the first draft until I'm totally satisfied or should I leave that to the third draft? This is a Your Mileage May Vary question; there is no one right answer. My suggestion would be to go through the draft once more, fix what you think needs fixing, and then find a beta reader and/or an editor for the next round. You need input from outside your own head. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: What steps to follow in thinking through the writing of a conclusion? Different schools have different methods (for example, some insist that the last line of the introduction must be the thesis statement), but I learned that a "conclusion" is essentially reiterating the essay. So they summarize each paragraph in one or two sentences, and that's the conclusion. From t... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: How can I avoid word repetition in the following paragraph? "touching the earth." A native speaker would use that phrasing. "Earth" in this context has the double meaning of literal soil and "the earth," the planet. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Do publishers take the time to look at works from writers who have no qualifications or experience in the industry? My suggestion would be to find an agent. The agent will have the experience, knowledge, and connections which you don't, and may be able to steer you towards publishing houses which are more generous. Also, the agent may give you feedback on your work to improve its chances of publication. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Usage of commas in poetry You need the comma because you are addressing the person. "Did you feel the earthquake last night?" is a complete sentence. Adding "Eri" is a kind of one-word clause. You need the comma to separate the clauses. (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Create and using a custom version of a part of an existing mythology Do you think actual myths in the real world each sprang out of nothing? Everyone copied everyone else. Go read The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campell, or at least The Power of Myth since Campbell is pretty dense. You will very quickly see that most myths nicked from previous mythologies, a... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Should I use present or past tense when the narrator talks about an universal/most-often-true statement? Present tense in some different formatting (I like italics) if those are Eri's thoughts presented as interior dialogue. Past tense if that's her thought in narration. As presented above, you have her thoughts in interior dialogue, so I'd italicize them and leave them in present tense. For compariso... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: Antagonist motivation help Started a nuclear disaster, potential for otherworldly elements — I'd say he's a fanatic trying to bring about the end of the world so that aliens will swoop down and rescue him. No seriously. The guy doesn't have to be sane. The chain of logic can make perfect sense in his own head (sort of a cross... (more) |
— | about 11 years ago |
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A: What are these extra phrases added to the beginning of sentences called? I would see these as transitions, bits which help move the reader smoothly from one thought (spread over one or several paragraphs) to the next. I think presenting it that way will give your students a clear reason whether to use this literary tool: - Am I introducing a new thought? - Am I wrapping... (more) |
— | about 11 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? I'd go with "Edited by." You are not the author (the originator). You took existing work and edited it to make it readable. I think "edited" makes your relationship to the work clear. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to convey that the POV character *does not understand* what's said in dialogue? Depends on a few factors: 1) Is the narrative's point of view from the person who doesn't understand, the person who does, or omniscient? CJ Cherryh writes books where the humans are the outsiders in non-human societies. Until the human catches up with the non-human language, the human sounds like ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is repetition justified in the following piece? Nope, it's fine. The repetition and sentence structure give it a dreamy feel, which I think is exactly what you want for that moment. "The" is fairly invisible here. (P.S. You had "Eri kissed his dad," and I think it's one of your other characters who is transgender, not this one.) (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Collaborating with Stephen King, but not the original The simplest solution is for Stephen King to alter his byline somehow — to Steve King, or Stephen [X.] King (whatever his middle initial is), or Stefan King, or his childhood nickname Steverino Polpettino King, or a pen name like Charles Dickens. Failing that, a large captioned photo on the back cov... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Pulling an idea through in spite of the need to correct details Use placeholders. If you have an idea of what you want a phrase to accomplish but you aren't there yet, just jot it down in brackets so you know what to do when you come back to polish. ("TK" is slang for "to come," and here it means "I will come back and finish this.") > The script for "Plato's Ste... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Punctuating Thoughts I would find this very confusing (I'm in the U.S.). I would expect thoughts to be in italics, not in quotes. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Real, serious and based on personal experience idea, but no previous practice. Where to begin? Just write. Seriously. Just write. Stop worrying about whether it sucks (it probably will). Write it. Get it out. Because then you can go back and fix it. You can't edit a blank page. But you can take lousy text and make it better. > Study materials from the time I wish my story to be set in? If i... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Should this introductory quotation be translated, untranslated, or dropped? The best translations I've seen (Dante's Commedia, Beowulf) have the original and the translation together. That way you can read what the sense of the text is, but if you want, you have the original for check (or so you can translate it yourself if you can). If the quoted verse improves yours, by a... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Techniques for creating a bridge between protagonists from different generations If you're moving between timelines — one set of events happens in 1940 and one set happens in 1990 — the simplest way is to have one timeline per chapter and put the year (or detailed date) at the top of the chapter, either as a headline or a dateline in italics. If you're doing the same thing insid... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Third Person Multiple POV in a single scene, how to refer each other if one character does not know the name of other character and vice versa If the POV is Jennifer's, we are getting her perspective, as if we're riding on her shoulder. Whether we get her thoughts is up to you, but if this is from Jennifer's eyes, then no, we cannot know his name until he gives it to her. So you have to describe him the way she sees him: an Indian man, a s... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How detailed should I be when writing a character bio? Before starting your story, write as much as you need to feel comfortable with the character. That could be pages and pages, or only a paragraph. (For example, the Harry Potter trio were asked to write up something in the voice of their characters. Radcliffe did a page, Watson did 20, and Grint did n... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Does my poem convey the character of the (fictional) author well? You're getting there. Push it farther. I think your first and last stanzas/poems have the right idea. Be rougher. Be angrier. Don't worry about grammar. Show more images, and have them more raw: fire consuming, water draining, a tornado blowing things away, an sinkhole devouring buildings, lava flowi... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Can Readers Relate to a Book without Humans? Absolutely. CJ Cherryh's stock-in-trade is advanced sophisticated nonhuman species, and showing how humans flail around when meeting them. Foreigner (15 books and counting) Human among atevi The Faded Sun trilogy Human among mri The Chanur Saga Human among kif And those are just the ones I've rea... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Should blog posts be reformatted to past tense after an event? One of my business clients has a similar issue, although not with blog posts. They leave the information in present tense and do not change it after the fact. This sometimes means that they are posting an interview in August which reads "On July 1, the following will happen..." because the interview ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Writer's Notebook To add on to Psicofrenia's excellent answer: Simply put, a writer writes. All the time. If you're not at your desk, you're still writing in your head. The notebook gives you somewhere to put your thoughts for later perusal. So if you're sitting at a subway station waiting for the train on the way to... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Shift in tense and starting a historical account with the present tense Which one you use I think depends on when "today's" perspective became popular. If "today" is recent: > The colonists dump the tea into Boston Harbor to protest George III's hated tax. This incident has since become the inspiration for the name of the neoconservative movement of the early 2010s. v... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is muteness appearing without explicit reason acceptable? The issue is that you have your character losing the ability to speak as a young adult. There has to be some kind of trauma (physical or emotional) for that to happen. The neurological pathways for language are formed starting in infancy (they really get going around 9-10 months) and continue for sev... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Level of description in a story Treat details like Chekhov's Gun. They should only be there if they serve a purpose. If the purpose is to create atmosphere, explain the setting to the reader for the first time, place a macguffin on a shelf (JK Rowling did this in Order of the Phoenix when she casually listed a large ugly locket as... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Figuring out when a book was printed The FSC (the tree logo on the left) was established in 1993, and the Mix label was developed in 1994 2004 , so that physical copy had to have been printed some time after that. It has a website (greenpenguin.co.uk), so you could research when the website was launched. Could be 2003. Beyond that, ye... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: When to use semicolons and when to use em dashes? You can use an em dash when the phrase on either side is not necessarily a full sentence. Semi-colons must join two full sentences. > I turned and saw him — filthy, battered, exhausted, but unquestionably alive. > > I turned and saw him — he was filthy, battered, exhausted — but I couldn't reach h... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: At what point can a story be considered "erotic"? I'd say it's erotic if: 1) the sex is a major part of the action (not necessarily the plot) AND 2) the text is explicit enough that if it were a movie, minors couldn't see it. So something which has a lot of sexual contact but the "camera" always cuts away before the deed starts wouldn't be eroti... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: First person pov with more than one main chars I've read at least one book which successfully did this; the author just titled each chapter "Bruno" and "Melusine," depending on whose perspective it was. The timeline was mostly chronological, although there was some overlap so we see how one felt about the other's actions. It worked perfectly fine... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How can I dig conflict out of an optimistic SF-nal premise? Conflict is fairly simple: 1. Someone wants something. 2. S/He/They cannot get it. 3. What does s/he/they do about it? So your optimistic TECH can be the solution to the problem, rather than the problem itself. Basic ideas which could be solved with Happy TECH: - Fish out of water: an alien from ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Does it sound more natural to use the character's way of speaking while describing his/her inner thoughts? You can only do this if the entire section is narrated this way. If you are doing the entire chapter/scene/section etc. from the five-year-old's perspective, it will work. What you cannot do is have two paragraphs in this style and then, without a scene break, switch back to a normal, adult narrative... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Attributing quotes to fictional characters I'd write it as: > "With all these new personalities floating around, it's a shame we can't find one for you." — Holodoc to Tuvok, "Infinite Regress," Star Trek: Voyager I'd find it weird to have the character name in quotes. They look like scare quotes or "this is fake" quotes. You italicize the n... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Swearing - Censor, allude, or include? I think you need to consider the context. Is the swearing important or decorative? "James swore under his breath" is not the important part of that scene; the important part is that he can't find the USB stick. But Anthony snarling, "I've had enough of your bullshit" actually is the point of that li... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Should a piece of fiction be made of 100% concise writing? There are almost no rules which have "no exceptions." (Which ones are the "no exceptions" is an exercise left to the student.) Your writing tends to be flowy and lyrical. Tightening it up does add some motion and spark to it. I wouldn't tighten everything, because sometimes you want "flowy and lyric... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Why do authors start a paragraph in an indirect way? Yes, the paragraph is explicitly comparing Drew Houston to Steve Jobs, in both dress and demeanor. It's an artistic way of dropping in the information. It varies sentence structure, and sometimes you can't get that description into the paragraph another way and have it read smoothly. Describing how... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Who is the perfect rival to the right-person-wrong-time character in a love triangle? You already have a rival: Time. Or Circumstance, or whatever your plot complication is which keeps the lovers apart because it's the Wrong Time. Isn't it even more tragic/angsty/yearning that there's no third person keeping the two apart, just the adult recognition that the couple simply can't work ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is there an alternative to the common genre-system for classifying books? Unfortunately I think what you're looking for is too subjective to be of mass applicability. You suggest that books could be classified according to the "underlying purpose, moral, or message." That's ridiculously vague and wide open to interpretation. Every reader is going to have a different sens... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Referring to people in a book Refer to people the way you think of them. If you think of him as "Alan," refer to him as Alan. If you think of your Japanese friend Goto Sumiko (where Goto is her last name) as "Goto," then use that. Alternately, if Goto Sumiko goes by "Goto" but you always called her "Sumi Quatro" because you both... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |