Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Using hyphen points When you have "bullet points," the character you use for the bullet is irrelevant. If you can't mix full sentences and fragments with bullets, you can't mix them with "hyphen points" either. So the same rules apply. • Free shipping on orders over $25 is the same as Free shipping on orders over $2... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to become a productive/accomplished writer? Well, "productive" and "accomplished" are two different goals, so don't lump them together. If you want to be productive, carve out time to write. Period. Sleep less, give up a hobby, write on your commute, write on your lunch break, whatever you need to do. To produce writing, you must write. If b... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: What factors in fiction arouse readers' expectations? (The name for "Textual Weight" is Chekhov's Gun. Briefly, every element in the story must have a purpose, or don't put it in there. There are LOTS of examples and variants on TVTropes, with the standard TVTropes caveat.) Other than your excellent list so far, I'd add plot complications or obstacles.... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Variation in paragraph length Variation in paragraph length can be very useful, the same way variation in sentence length can be useful. As long as the short paragraph works (that is, the short punchy statement has a reason for being there, that the punchiness creates a dramatic or humorous moment or in some way serves the narrat... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Does the country matter in a story if it is set in a real one? Everything in your story should serve your story. The setting, the geography, the era, the culture, the time of day, the weather, the characters, their gender, their names, their descriptions, their language(s), their histories. If you've chosen a familiar setting because your story works best there... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Where can I find information about a contract that allows two authors to use a "shared world"? If you are both publishing independently, then it doesn't much matter. Write up a contract spelling out everything, you both sign two copies, and Bob's your uncle. Examples of "everything": - John Smith (hereafter "Author") is the creator of the SchmoopyWorld setting, environs, and characters (her... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: About the Author description If your qualification is related to your story, then yes. For example, Mercedes Lackey keeps hawks and horses, both of which feature prominently in her stories. So I know that any details about them are reasonably based in fact. If your degree is in underwater basket-weaving and your story is about ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Opening a story with a reference to what someone just said followed by a setting description Yep, works for me. Particularly if this is the literal opening of the story, not just the scene; I like to establish some sort of setting fairly early on. You don't linger too much. You're giving us just enough for us to grasp where she is, and then get back to the dialogue. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Does the following piece have too much dry narration (mundane tasks, moving about)? It's dry because there's not much emotion there. You're telling us a lot, but you're not showing us much. You have two instances of her being "puzzled," but the rest is just a description of her movements. What is she thinking? What is she feeling? Here's an example. You start with this great sensor... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Demo data in screenshots! What are the best practice? Assuming native speakers of American English: For first names: - John - Jack - Mary - Jane For last names: - Doe - Smith - Jones - Johnson Full names: - John Doe is native English shorthand for "generic person." - Richard Roe is native English legal shorthand for "second generic person in the ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: In end user documentation, should screenshots come before or after the text that references them? 1) Put the descriptive text first, then the screenshot immediately afterwards. We read down. > In the Print dialog box, click Export to PDF. > [SCREENSHOT of dialog box] 2) You may or may not need a caption, but you should at least label each screenshot. Fig. 1, Screen B, Ralph, something. That a... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How specific should I be when outlining the plot? Your problem is that you're trying to use one tool for two opposing tasks. - You're using an outline as a guide for writing (what happens next). - You want to use your outline to gauge the size of your work (what has already happened). If you can't gauge the size of your work by reading the actual... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is it correct to use verbs like "sighed" and "laughed" as dialogue tags? I don't have a problem with them (they're called bookisms, I believe) if: 1. You don't overdo it. It's tempting to make every dialogue tag something vivid or extra. Don't. D.W. Smith pointed out in a writing tutorial once that "the word said is invisible." It really is. Be judicious with bookisms. T... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Dream analysis research My feeling is that if your story is set in the real world with real-world technology and does not involve magic or sci-fi tech, you should do some research (Wikipedia does not qualify) to make sure you aren't presenting something completely impossible. You don't have to have a legitimate medical expl... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to better describe "jet-black (pitch-black) darkness"? > The dense pine forest was stained black as pitch (I don't know if you're aware, but "pitch" actually means "pine tar." It's pine sap cooked down until it's thick enough to spread like peanut butter. So if you're talking about a dark pine forest, pitch-black makes the most literal sense.) Go for t... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Time measures in fantasy worlds Mercedes Lackey's Valedmar series has established candles (of a specific although unexplained size) which burn steadily enough to be marked off and used for timekeeping. So "three marks" (that is, however long it takes the candle to melt down three of the marks carved or painted on the side) is three... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How do I organize a paragraph that lists several steps after an introduction? This is fine as written, so long as later in the section you have Second and Third or Last and so forth. I'd make each numbered item a separate paragraph, regardless of length, so it's easier to follow the steps. > A hypothetical solution might be set up like this: first, we can use a table to recor... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: think, I think, I don't think In some of them you can just drop the "I think." You can also use dialect, slang, or regionalisms. > You can do it. > > In my opinion, you can do it. > > You really should take a break. > > You really should get some rest. > > Can you break that? > > Betcha can't break that. > > Not in my book... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Maintaining the consistency of voice and spontaneity throughout a piece You're suffering from impacted arborvision: you have so much pressure on you that you can no longer see the forest for the trees. Get an editor. Ask someone else to look at your work. Let a fresh pair of eyes judge how and where you need to cut or expand. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Placing similes at the beginning and at the end of a sentence In either case, there's something missing — or maybe it's because the sentence is out of context. Just to say someone washed his hands like a surgeon is insufficient; you need more detail. "He scrubbed his hands for over two minutes" or "thoroughly" or "with meticulous care" like a surgeon etc. They... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: What is the term for an accessible character that knows nothing? There is indeed such a term. Phil Farrand of The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek called this "being the cabbagehead." Certain information had to be revealed to the audience, but it was information which the characters would reasonably already know. So the writers picked someone in the room to be the... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to format dialogue with an embedded long monologue You can break up long stretches of dialogue with: - Stage business (describing the person moving around, handling things, getting up and walking, sighing, laughing, eating, etc.) - Reaction shots from the other person - Bits of narrative describing what someone is thinking, either the speaker watchi... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Does writing in a certain mood change how a writer writes? I am reminded of the anecdote about Dustin Hoffman torturing himself for Marathon Man because he was a "Method" actor, so he'd look as tortured as his character. Lawrence Olivier looked at him and said, "My dear boy, that's why they call it acting." Whenever we write, unless we're writing an autobio... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to come up with a good title? Find a key word or phrase and then start searching through Bartleby's and Shakespeare to see if any good quotes come up. Even if they don't, just looking at poetry might shake something loose. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is it strange if a novel starts the first chapter without one of main characters? Nope, works fine. Starting from the POV of a minor character to establish the setting is no problem at all; in fact, that can be an interesting prologue, particularly if you're dealing with a mystery. It's sort of a sideways entrance into the story. As an example, Susan Elia MacNeal has done this wi... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to assure your plot isn't a carbon copy of another story? If you're aware that your work sounds a lot like someone else's, start changing yours until it's not so close. If you have to keep justifying "But it's not Saw!" then you're too close. Change a method, change a time frame, change a motive, change the number of instances. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Background speech with foreground dialogue I think your first example is perfect, making sure that you drop out words from the speaker to indicate the passage of time as your foreground characters are talking "over" the speaker. It makes perfect sense to me as a reader what's occurring. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How can I get my students to better integrate their sources into their writing? Way back in 10th grade, when we were learning how to do research papers on the back of a coal shovel, our teacher had us take all our notes on 3x5 cards. We had to submit them as part of the grade — she actually went around with a bag and we had to toss in our rubber-banded stack of cards. Edit to c... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Visual methods of plot development? You might try OmniGraffle, which is a flowchart generator for Mac. I've only seen it used once or twice so I can't speak to how well it works, but it might fit your bill. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to tell if my story is finished, or needs more? If you didn't create an outline — that is, if you didn't know beforehand how it was going to end — then you're suffering from impeded arborvision (you can't see the forest for the trees). 1) Put it in a drawer and don't read it for a month. Come back with fresher eyes. You'd be amazed what you catch... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Iambic pentameter: how do you use words with 'secondary stressed' syllables? Cheat. Drop some letters/syllables. > > It's true, in po'try, it cannae be changed (Feels like "can" needs another unstressed after it, doesn't it?) (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Overuse of bullet points - Your co-writer is a pain in the tuchus. - I am sorry you have to put up with this annoying quirk of writing. - That being said, I found two references so far: The Oxford Dictionaries: > Bullet points are visually attractive and make it easy for a reader to locate important information. Nevert... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: What is the correct word/term that needs to be before the names of the maker of the project? "Submitted by" might be your best answer. It obfuscates who the originator was (the authors/creators of the original work) and what you and your collaborator did, but the truth is, you are submitting this project (for what? term paper? publication? to a boss?). You can claim that honestly without wor... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Comma between the following clauses in AP Style? I have the 2011 edition of the AP Stylebook, which gives the following as correct examples: > He promised this: The company will make good all the losses. > > There were three considerations: expense, time, and feasibility. Yours seems to fit the first example, so as an independent clause it would... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: 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? There are a few ways to solve this: 1) Switch narrators. Everything is told by your main character until his/her death, at which point some other character finishes the story. 2) Your narrator continues narrating from after death in some supernatural fashion. Your narrator could become a ghost or... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is a glossary needed in a novel? If you have so many unfamiliar or questionable terms that you think the reader will need both original and translation, by all means add a glossary. More information never hurts. As long as it's in the back or front matter so the reader can choose to read it or not (that is, it doesn't interrupt the ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How likely is the "five consecutive word rule" to detect "random," as opposed to intentional plagiarism? If we're genuinely talking just five consecutive words: yes, that could happen by chance. But plagiarism is not just about five words in the middle of a 120-page thesis. It's lifting ideas, plots, characters, paragraphs, pages. See the Opal Mehta mess for an example of what's really plagiarism. (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How is parallel construction viewed in literature? In reverse order: As far as plagiarism, it depends on what you're doing with your take-off. Is it mean to be performed in public? Are you trying to get a recording contract? Does the music of yours sound the same note-for-note as the original? Is the original copyrighted? Do the monetary rights belo... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How should I introduce new and complex technologies or tools? Introduce a cabbagehead character. "Cabbagehead" is a term from Phil Farrand, who wrote the Nitpicker's Guides to various Star Trek series. He points out that particularly in NextGen, it became necessary for one person to abruptly (and temporarily) develop the IQ of a head of cabbage, so that the ot... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Tips for writing sentences like a native speaker If you want to write like a native speaker, you should also be listening. So listen to radio broadcasts, podcasts, and TV shows. (Movies can vary; because they are shorter, they can be narratively compressed, so dialogue is often more focused on moving the plot forward. TV shows have the luxury of ti... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to tell or retell basic character and setting information in a series? If you want to have a series of books which tell an ongoing story, but you want readers to be able to drop in midway, you will of necessity need to recap something in the beginning. How you do it depends on your skill and comfort level. In the Harry Potter books, it was basically just narration in t... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Effective techniques for describing pain Take notes when you're suffering for later use. No really. Get into the habit of carrying something to jot down your thoughts on (phone, tablet, moleskine notebook, marbled notebook, whatever) and when you're feeling something intense, write it down. Describe it. In the moment, write down all the th... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What is the correct way to write a fractional number in a formal letter? > five and a half years No hyphens. Hyphens are for adjective phrases: > It was a five-and-a-half-year journey. You also don't use the hyphen with the fraction. > 51⁄2 years (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: singular or plural for index entries I would say it depends on how the item is discussed in the body of the book. If a Markov chain is something referred to as a single entity, then index it as a single item. If you discuss several of them at once, or generalize (like saying "black holes have thus-and-such properties"), I'd use the plu... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How to include photos in my Scrivener book? As a user of both programs, I would definitely say just put in a placeholder and let your designer import the images. Having them in the Scrivener text isn't going to help. You export them as Word or whatever, and then as a designer I'm going to strip out everything but the raw text so I can style an... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How can I convey dates (with ordering) for events happening under different dating systems, e.g. a Sci-Fi story spread over the galaxy? I can think of a few ways: 1) Cheat. This was how Tolkien did it, so you'd be in good company. He just listed somewhere in the appendices that "Year 5798 by Gondor's calendar = 144 Shire Reckoning" and let the readers do the math. 2) Make the characters work out a solution. If you have characters o... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How can one plan elaborate crimes for fiction without getting into trouble? Not online. - Try a writer's group, where it is absolutely and explicitly clearthat you are discussing this in the service of a story, and where other folks are discussing things just as potentially problematic. - One writer I work with is writing a crime story and actually paid a retired detective ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What constitutes historical fantasy? I would say Mercedes Lackey's Shadow of the Lion and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell would both qualify as "historical fantasy." The latter has relationships, but I wouldn't call them "romance." Actually, Lackey's entire Elemental Masters series could be historical fantasy. Again, th... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How should I format a non fiction book with Scrivener? As much as I adore Scrivener for writing, I wouldn't expect it to output in pristine, publishable format. It's a writing tool, not a layout program or even a word processor. I would necessarily expect to run my final content through a second program to format it for publishing. If you have access to... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What type of writing would this fall under? I'd call it stream-of-consciousness prose. And try magazines which accept short stories. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |