Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Is it ok to be autobiographical with a main character? The answer is both, to some degree. Yes, you should always be working harder on your character development. Particularly if you're a beginning writer, you can always work harder on everything, but developed writers have to work at it too. Making all your characters yourself with minor differences i... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How much should I reveal of how the world functions in fiction? This is one of those things you can't always determine on your own. Give your finished story to several people to read and ask them to tell you if they felt like they understood how the world worked or if they needed more information. (and your English is fine. :) ) (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Writing a very complex relationship The simplest answer is that there has to be something which bridges the divide between master and slave and allows them to see and respect one another as equals. Does she show mercy to the slave whom her slave has defeated? Does he disable rather than kill his opponents, or dispatch them quickly and ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is this essay title critical? I think your title is fine as a subtitle or a deck, but it needs something catchier to start with. > I Me Ours: A critical examination of individualism, narcissism and collectivism within Facebook > > E Pluribus Farmville: A critical examination of individualism, narcissism and collectivism within ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to write time duration correctly I would use commas between each component, and use "and" only if the last component is seconds. I learned way back in intermediate school that "and" is only used before fractions (so 10,247 is said "ten thousand, two hundred forty-seven" but 10 7/8 is said "ten and seven-eighths"). I would call secon... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to get over writer's block related to revising? You've got the seeds of your answer in your edit. When you write, you're just dumping. Whatever comes to mind, without structure or discipline, and who among us doesn't love the sound of your own voice? But when you're done, now you have to shape your thoughts into a coherent argument. And for some ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Word Choice: When something negative happens that changes your perspective for the better I would call it the Lemonade Effect. As in, "when life gives you lemons, make..." (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Deciding the setting: real or invented? Whatever works best for your story. If you can make it work in a real setting and you know or can research the setting well enough to make it work, do that. If your story requires something which doesn't exist, is or is not against a particular law, needs a river to be here rather than there, etc. ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How much $ to calculate for an Editor Your best bet is to get some quotes. I realize that sounds like I'm dodging the question, but I'm not. My method, for example, is to work on a manuscript for one hour and use that as gauge to estimate the rest of the work. For some writers, that's 15 pages an hour; for others it's 30. So my quote fo... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is the first draft of a novel usually shorter than the finished work? > And I didn't describe actions, dialogues, and settings with much detail. Should I go back and add the details before starting the second draft? I've seen your writing. The answer is yes. :) (And I mean that in the nicest way. You work very hard. You do need to flesh out your dialogue with descript... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How to represent dependencies in outlines After you write your first draft, you will see from actual use what terms are dependent on other terms. That will allow you to reorder your definitions and put the ones you need first in front. You're allowed to vary from your outline, and you're allowed to revise your outline. If you wrote a paper ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Email to request copy of paper I don't think this is sufficient. It's polite, but why would this person share anything with you just because you asked? I think you need to explain who you are, how you found his work, and what you want to do with his work if he's willing to share it with you. Also, if you end up doing something wh... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is it okay to call the reader's target audience stupid? I sympathize with the sentiment, but no, you can't use "black humor" and "shop talk" in a book like that. Such comments have to be kept in-house and preferably not written down. We all complain about horrible clients and idiots at the DMV and so on, but you shouldn't actually codify that into written... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Avoiding unintended rudeness or accusatory tones in reminder emails Good morning XXX, I wanted to touch base with you about the status of your article for the newsletter. Please advise whether you will be able to send it to me by the end of the week. If it doesn't work with your schedule, that's fine; I just need to know one way or the other for planning purposes. ... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: What is "head popping" and why is it bad? I would find it annoying, or annoyingly convenient, to be switching POVs repeatedly, particularly just for one sentence. I think even when you have an omniscient narrator, you need to stick with one person per scene, or per beat. When you read a story, you are kind of sitting on the shoulder of whoe... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How can I reconcile the exposition of the three act scheme vs. starting out with a bang? What you might want to do is get the whole thing written as a three-act piece with exposition in the beginning. Set it aside for a month, and then come back and see if the opening is too slow. If it is, now you can figure out a way (as Fox Cutter suggested) to add in a prologue or some other in media... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Knowing When To Cite? You should cite it if it's not your idea. The simplest way would be something like: > As Mark Zusak describes it in his novel The Book Thief, Death is he who steals our colors..... You're clearly mentioning the author and the work. If you use Zusak's exact words, quote him; if you're summarizing, m... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How do I start a business-presentation? That's not a bad opening. I might change it to "Today we're going to talk about..." to make it more inclusive, but there's nothing wrong with being straightforward. Another version might be "Today I'd like to talk to you about..." (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Is the following piece of text comprehensible and written in good style? Well, let's start... > Specifically, this post You just lost us. "This post" often means "an external piece to which I am linking" or "some text which is going to follow shortly," rather than "this question you're reading." > is a piece of text submitted for critique and, in addition, explains wha... (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: How do I escape my own experience? The best answer I ever heard was from an English professor: "Write as if you're explaining the text to a slightly stupider classmate." (more) |
— | over 11 years ago |
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A: Deciding whether to use a dialogue tag or an action tag in a dialogue All your constructions are useful in different situations. Keep John Smithers's comment about cause and effect in mind, and vary your tags so that you aren't repeating the same sentence structure constantly. In your examples, I like your action tags better than your dialogue tags only because they'r... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What is the word for the action of selecting an item by a mouse? I think you can use "click" with relative impunity. Even someone on a tablet or smartphone knows that "click" equates to "tap" with a touch interface. If you really feel strongly about it, you can say "Click or tap" or "Click/tap," but ask around to make sure it doesn't sound clunky. I agree that "s... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What's the significance of ancient mythology in literature? Myths and religions are "stories we already know." Adding references to known mythology in a contemporary story both grounds it to reality and connects it to our larger culture. Think about modern myths. If you have an ensemble action piece in a movie or a TV episode, for example, there's often a mo... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Writing a novel which has the same structure and a particular theme in each chapter Actually I find the repeated structure interesting. Clearly something is going on, some kind of external magical force which is creating changes in the "real world." My only advice would be not to be too obvious about how her conversations down the rabbit hole affect the world she returns to, unless... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Are there any specific rules to write Prequels and Sequels so that we don't end up with conflicting situations? Sketch out your entire timeline before you write your story. Have an idea of what happened before and after. Your book takes place in medias res, in the middle of things. If you decide what your entire history is, then you won't develop conflicts in your flashbacks and you won't step on the future, b... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Do flashbacks break up short stories too much? It's all about context. I don't think there's a blanket answer. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is, in a sense, a flashback in the middle of the story, but it works exquisitely. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: IF i want to write an episode to a TV sitcom, how can i send it to the TV network? While I don't work in the TV industry, as I understand it, most shows have their own stable of writers and generally don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. (Some of the Star Trek shows did, but I gathered that was unusual.) At the very least, if you do want to write for a show which does accept outsi... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Tools for exploring and analysing document structure? I'm willing to bet Scrivener can handle a lot of what you're looking for. I will cheerfully admit I haven't even read the documentation (I'm a Mac user... we don'need no steenken manuals) so it's got powerful tools I don't even know much about. You can separate your work into individual documents (s... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Which tense to use when writing a diary? I find these answers interesting because to me, a diary is a place you confess your innermost thoughts, while a journal is something you write in every day to talk about what you did. (note the jour- root, meaning "day") That having been said, if I'm reporting on what I did today, or yesterday, I'd ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Am I correctly referencing chapters which belong to the same book? That's how I'd do it. I'd capitalize it even if I were referring to someone else's book: > For those who are new to programming, I strongly suggest reading through Chapters 3 and 4. For those who are more advanced but need to brush up on databases, I suggest Robert Foo's How I Learned to Stop Worryi... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Is it a bad idea to turn a short story into a full-length novel? Asimov did it with Nightfall as well as Standback's examples. As I've said elsewhere, it's only a "bad idea" if you're padding your story with effluvia. If you think you have more to say, more things can happen to the characters, the characters can be more developed, the setting could be richer, the... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What are the 'header' lines/meta information in a formal letter called? I'd call it "Reference" or "Subject." (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How to separate scenes in a chapter? Once your document is compiled, you can go through and change the # to three returns, which is what's usually used. (The only time I see multiple asterisks is if a scene end happens to fall at the bottom of a page, and the \ is to let the reader know that the next page starts a new scene.) I wouldn'... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Is it typical to add variation to the words used for a character's name to keep it spicy? It's not about "spicy," it's about not being boring. Using "John" in every single dialogue tag can grate on the inner ear. That said, don't overdo it. I would say you should use character names (or he/she) 90% of the time, and the other 10% can be "the detective," "the doctor," "the captain," "the y... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Should cliffhangers be used in every chapter? I would say no. Not for a book. Regardless of how you are defining cliffhanger, I don't think you need an aaiiigh!! moment at the end of every single chapter. A chapter should end for a reason, but that reason doesn't have to be a shock, reversal, discovery, or threat to life/limb/happiness. If you... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How can I develop my ideas? I have sort of a different take: don't narrow it down. Write them all, as short stories. Your premise is the premise of an entire society. All those potential stories are valid. So create them all. Use each little vignette as a different window into how this society functions, how the people relate ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How do you determine if a plot device is too coincidental? If you feel like your plot elements show too much of the author's deus ex machina, then go back and figure out a way to make them more organic. Sometimes this may mean backing up several scenes, or possibly halfway back into the book, to put your pieces in motion. If Sherlock needs to run into Molly... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Some doubts on the use of Italicized words ...it looks rude? I have never heard of italics being called "rude." Your friend is full of it. Both your examples are perfect exactly as they are. The first one is a brief interior monologue, set off by formatting. The second uses italics for emphasis. Single quotes (or single inverted commas) are... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: My first act is lengthy. And I cannot shorten it. Any Suggestions? Quit bean-counting. Finish the novel and then go back and worry about whether the first act works. Methods for structuring a story are guides, not laws. The novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is 850 pages. I remember vividly that the first six hundred were a complete slog, and then suddenly someth... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How do I stick to one story? Write an outline. At the very least write a sketch. So you are writing your story before you write your story. Have an idea of where it starts, what happens, and how it ends. This gives you something to hang your ideas on. Then when you feel like walking away, or you get bored, you can go over your ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Is a 'tutorial format' acceptable for personal notes? "The best way" is whatever works for you. They're your notes. You have to refer to them and learn from them. Take notes in whatever fashion helps you to learn and retain the information. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How to overcome the fact that I can't write long stories? As I've said elsewhere, don't pad your stories with, er, effluvia. If your idea is a short story, leave it short. Not every writer has to write long pieces. I'm reasonably sure Shakespeare didn't write novels. If short stories are your strength, your passion, and your interest, stick with them. Now,... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: What are "industry leading royalties"? "Industry-leading" (please note the hyphen in the compound adjective) means "they lead the industry in this." So they claim they are offering royalties which are among the best in the industry. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: In a "learn to do X" book, should a section review come before the quiz / exercises or after? How big is a Section? What's in it? I ask because if you can break it into sub-sections, you might have a review at the end of each sub-section, and then the quiz at the end of the whole section. If not, I would order it: 1. Review of section 2. Exercises with answers at the end of the section (to ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Is this dialogue and situation intriguing (short story)? You have the guy walk into what appears to be a deserted bar on a deserted street in a deserted city. Then he realizes there's a live woman lying on the stage, not sleeping but lying there sprawled and possibly injured, and she starts talking to him. And all he does is "stare vacantly for a while," ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Why are license agreements, disclaiming letters and others written with capital letters? It's something to do with legal. The lawyers think that screaming gets the point across better. You'd have to ask the legal department which approved the document in question. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: How to leverage social proof? If I'm understanding you correctly, I think what you want are case studies to demonstrate your points. So you put forth one of your arguments — "switching to the individual bucket version reduces problems A, B, and C" — and then you put in a section with an actual real-life example: Case Study: ... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Is the opening of this story intriguing, "dark" and smooth? It's not particularly dark. There's so much unknown that we don't even know if we're supposed to worry. A strip club which is so old it feels like it's populated with antiques isn't particularly dark or scary; it means nobody's there, so there are no threats. It also doesn't imply that everyone disa... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: Ways for main character to influence world following their death Set up your world as a version of The Matrix. When the player-character dies, s/he is removed from "the game," and can now only influence other players second-hand: mysterious text messages, altering the headline on a newspaper just as the "living" character looks at it, turning on a TV remotely, etc... (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |
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A: My cool character is doing nothing for the plot. How do I deal with him? Give him his own story so he's not stealing scenes in someone else's. If he's that awesome, he should be starring in his own book rather than sucking all the oxygen out of this one. (more) |
— | almost 12 years ago |