Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How can I edit my own, very old work? There are three aspects to consider: - The plot - The characters - The writing If you want to know if the project is worth pursuing at all, read the entire thing from scratch. Furthermore, read it and try to pretend you aren't the author. Now: - Do you like it? Do you like the premise? When you're... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Confusing writing in order to show how character is falling asleep - is it OK? I like this idea, actually. I'd straighten it up just a little: She was tired, like a bug crawling and skipping off and on the height of a wall together with something else that wasn’t exactly the opposite of the sort of idea, sort of laughing but not really meaning it particularly because when it w... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Using Glossary Instead of Footnotes (for translation/transliteration) Provided you mean that footnotes are only for translations (that is, you're not using footnotes for additional information or for source citations), I'd put the glossary of translations at the beginning, and skip the footnotes. The glossary up front will alert the readers that foreign words are comin... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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How does one present spoken dialogue as a secondary language to signed speech? I was starting to leave a comment on this excellent question when I realized I had come up with a second question which was equally intriguing. If you're writing a story where 95% of the communication is signed, and you decide that you're simply going to use quotes to indicate signed speech, with at... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How does one include sign language in a dialogue? Yes, italics is exactly how I'd do it. Dean Koontz did that in Watchers, as I recall. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to summarize prolonged plot So what is the highlight? Is it a character study of lunatics? A farce? A satire of a particular genre? A giddy romp across space and time? A surreal exploration of the absurdities inherent in our classist political system? A synopsis for a cover letter is really your elevator pitch — boil your boo... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to start a book off? If the beginning is blocking you, start writing something else. You have an outline, right? You know roughly what's going to happen when. So pick some point which is easier, and start there. My suggestion is to start near the beginning (If your intro is I. in your outline, start with II., for exampl... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Adding more characters as the story moves forwards Sounds fine to me. George R.R. Martin's been doing it for about five thousand pages so far. ETA: Martin makes the vast array of characters work by starting slow, with one family, and building outwards as the family splits apart and the members travel. Ned Stark goes from Winterfell to King's Landing... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do I appreciate a subject matter expert's expertise? "Thank you so much for generously sharing your time and expertise." With additional superlatives and the word "appreciate" as needed. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to improve my skill at writing a question? I commend you for wanting to improve your writing. :) You can look at how other people have edited your questions and compare the changes. For example, in your question above: > I'm a member of some SE sites, like SO and CSTheory. You need "and" between two items in a list. You need to end a senten... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Attributives in dialogue Sounds fine to me. But then, I don't object to a judicious use of synonyms for "said," either. (grumbled, snarled, sighed, snickered, hinted, etc.) (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: What software can handle both revision control and layout? I don't know if there's one solution. You may have to approach this from a few angles. First off, you do need to train your "typesetters," but in procedure as well as the program. (Someone who can't handle headers and indents is not a typesetter, but a typist.) Second, while I loathe recommending a... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: What did Norman Mailer mean? Roughly speaking, it means if you have to pay alimony, you have to earn money. Writing is not a way to earn money (for most of us). He's suggesting that it's insufficient income for an alimony payment, so a writer would have to take on some other work to earn enough money to make the payment, thus cu... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Using poetry in novels a good option? One of your characters could "write" the poem and recite it to another. You could present the poem as something in a book which a character reads, or establish that your character is a poet who is always composing in her head and tends to think in verse, so the poetry is actually coming from her thou... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do you connect a non sequitur hook to a novel? You can't really insert a hook afterwards. It will feel inserted. The hook needs to be there organically. You've presented a bizarre but intriguing image. In order to use it, you have to build a reason for it. - Is it a literal pineapple, like you can buy at the store, which has through some magical... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Is writing a light read or "chick lit" a good option for an aspiring literary fiction author? If you write something "lightweight," and then something "heavy" or "serious" afterwards, the readers of your "light" book might give the "serious" one a try sooner than someone who never heard of you, because they like your previous work. So you're establishing a built-in audience. Can't see a downs... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Is it okay to attempt to write in the style of another person, and how is that done well? I can appreciate the feeling, since I started out that way myself, but it's not an adult way to write. The short answer is "No, find your own voice." The longer answer, and explanation: You're suffering from Red Shorts Syndrome. What does that mean? Well, let's say you watch a race, and the guy who... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to develop a story for a novel? There are some good answers here. I'm finding the Snowflake method useful as well. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to explain a war scene? How do you explain anything vividly? Observe with all your senses, and add emotions and thoughts. Do the research. I will express hope that you have not personally been in a war scene, so you would have to find some other way of observing, or use your imagination. You could watch combat footage or n... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Is emphasizing a point by underlining still appropriate? No, no, no, hell no, frak no, can I get a no from the peanut gallery? oh, and NO. We are not typing on typewriters any more. We are using computers. Word processors, HTML, CSS. Underlining means a hyperlink. Period. If you want to emphasize something, use bold, italics, indents, all caps, or any com... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: What to do when characters disagree with the plot? "If all else fails, chase your hero up a tree and throw rocks at him." (I don't know the source of the quote, but it's catchy.) Introduce a disaster. Car crash, random passerby collapses, dog gets loose and digs up the yard, kid gets lost and knocks on the door for help. One or both of your characte... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Which words should not be capitalized in Title Case? If you are referring to "title case," where some words are capitalized and some aren't, there is no one standard rule. The AP stylebook says: > - Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters. > - Capitalize an article – the, a, an – or words of few... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to further improve the flow and crispness in the essay? The flow isn't bad. You have some wording issues and one large clarity problem. > A few months before finishing graduate school, I was starting to visualize my graduate life when suddenly a friend told me the latest news: that Lehman Brothers had collapsed . This was terrible, but it only underscore... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Dealing with personal trauma in writing If your issue is that you want to improve your writing when you are not writing about a personal crisis, you need to work on strengthening your imagination. You may be finding it easier to transcribe a trauma because the feelings are in your head, very alive and immediate. That's exhausting, however... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Front-matter or back-matter? For me it would depend on what would get cut. If the preview is "the first chapter," no matter how long, then leave the front matter at the front. If it's "the first ten pages," no matter where the story stops, then you might want to move the colophon and author's comments to the end, so the preview ... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Write about why XX is an intellectual fit for you This is similar to your other question. You must do the homework about the university. Investigate what they are known for. Are they a leader in a particular field? Do the professors publish books which are known outside academic circles? Are the professors themselves notable? Who are some well-know... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: What is this form of poetry called? It's sort of an anti-enjambment. I have no idea if it has a formal name. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Is it ok to begin an essay/report with a quote? I kind of like the idea of starting with #2, but italicized and as its own paragraph — almost like an epigram leading off your essay. In fact, if you can get two or three of these short pithy quotes and set up each on its own line, before you begin your intro, that would be a rather intriguing start.... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Interesting and easier-to-read alternatives to the scientific academic article In our college days, my best friend used to write his reports as diplomatic communiqués from Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan. Fortunately, the teacher was also a Trekkie, and appreciated the humor. YMMV on that one. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to focus a "Final Exam Essay" Without knowing the course material or the checklist, my impulse is to say that you should look for a theme, or something which most or all of the points have in common. What do they all relate to? What ties them all together? Failing that, group the bullets. Maybe three of them are about Freud, fou... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do I keep up with current written English language? If you want to keep up with written English, read newspapers and magazines (preferably weekly, but also monthly). Newspapers, meant to be daily, cover news, politics, opinions, business, human interest, tech, medicine, sports, and entertainment (among many other subjects). New terms can enter from a... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Ideal blog post size and frequency I concur that you should post at least once a day, to keep your audience returning. How long each post should be is dependent on your audience and your content (and your willingness/time to write, of course). Take a look at the vast differences in posting frequency and length at Freethought Blogs. C... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Does this beginning hook the reader? Two things immediately jump out at me: 1) Granted that this is a very short excerpt, there isn't enough info or setting for me to understand where the characters are, in time or in place (not literally — I get that they're in LA, but Adam acts surprised that they're in LA, so why would the character... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Synopsis for a memoir: Which tense/perspective to use? Sounds right to me. The pitch is a letter which you write to the publisher, and since the book is about you, the pitch should be from your perspective. Today, those events happened in the past, but they happened to you. So first person, past tense. When summarizing a memoir for something like Wikipe... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: When is it correct to capitalize terms/phrases in a personal statement? Capitals in English are used for proper nouns. Your two examples have slightly different shades of meaning. - One of my favorite subjects was Computational Geometry. I read that as "One of my favorite subjects was Math 247, the specific course entitled 'Computational Geometry,' taught by Professor ... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Fiction writing book recommendation for a 10-year old I really like The Writer's Journey. It's very accessible and clearly written. (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Avoiding legal issues with plot similarities between my book and a movie in production "Similar plot points" is a little vague. Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl Back are "plot points" which have been used since Gilgamesh was a teenager. (ETA and Boy Meets Boy as well, as Gilgamesh himself proved. And Girl Meets Girl.) The question is whether your specific setting, characte... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Dedicated micro website I think it's a good idea, if for no other reason than people are accustomed to searching online, and you want to make it easy for people to find your work so they can buy it. A WordPress site would be totally fine. If you don't want your own domain (EngineeringStrategies.com, assuming Engineering St... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Portraying life in a current milieu for science fiction that wants to be timeless If you set any part of your story in a place and time which your readers will recognize, that part will eventually be dated. That's simply fact. Look at The Invisible Man or The Time Machine or The First Men in the Moon. Those are all classics of scifi, but the parts set in the "present" feel, clearl... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: What is the name of the genre of stories with multiple realities? An excellent question. Since it's a plot or perspective technique which can be used in any kind of fictional story, I wouldn't call it a "genre." Science fiction, Western, soap opera, comedy, and procedural are genres (with sub-genres like "medical procedural" and "lawyer procedural"). Having more th... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Use of present-tense for memory-related shenanigans in a past-tense story I think you have it written correctly. "I remember Eve" means that at the moment he's speaking, he does in fact remember her. To say "I remembered Eve" means that at some point (in the past) he didn't remember Eve, and then at some point (still in the past, but more recently), he did remember her aga... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do I rewrite the following for a resume? You're focusing on the wrong angle. Think about it this way: why would a potential employer care that you wrote a report? What skill set does it show you have? What does it prove you could do again? So think about the report: - Why did you write the report? For whom? Boss, peers, IT, management, ac... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Writing a Lullaby After it's written, and you're polishing, think about vowel sounds. There should be very few words or lines which end on hard consonants (K, T) because you want the sounds and the lines to flow in a stream. Say your lines aloud in a singsong (never mind a melody) to make sure they can be sung, and y... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How to write English in Merlin (TV Series) style? This is a speech. Uther, whatever his other faults, does give good speech, but so do many modern English speakers. If you want all your characters to speak in speechese — long-winded, complex, winding sentences; occasionally inverted grammar; archaic phrasing; drums and trumpets under every applause... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Unpunctuation: bug or feature? "Streamlined and useful"? Which means punctuation is useless clutter? Ask the legendary guy whose life was saved by Czarina Maria Fyodorovna's misplaced comma. ("Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia" vs "Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.") Having never read any of McCarthy's work, I can ... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do I sign a (formal) email? Do you have the option of turning the signature block off on an individual email? that would solve the redundancy problem. You can also style your sig block so that it's obviously autogenerated (different color, smaller size), and then sign with your first name. I have seen people just sign with "si... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How can I effectively invent a language? How much of this language are you going to use? Single words? Phrases? Sentences? Paragraphs? If it's just a few words or phrases, make up a few, be consistent in their usage, and call it a day. If you're carrying on entire dialogues in this tongue, I would first recommend "Don't overdo it." For th... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: Should a flashback be in past tense or past perfect? It's not strange at all. That's exactly how I would do it. A flashback of two paragraphs can take past perfect. A flashback of several pages can be in the simple past as long as you establish the time shift clearly at the beginning, and use the past perfect in one or two sentences at the beginning. ... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: The opposite sex in first person? It's good that you're thinking about it, because men and women generally do have different voices, different concerns, and different ways of approaching the world and its problems. The key is whether you're paying attention to the characters you've created. Is one sister the peacemaker and the other... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |
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A: How do I re-interest myself in a plot I am working on? If your plot is no longer interesting to you, let it go. It's the most extreme version of Kill Your Darlings. You haven't wasted the time you've spent. Consider it an exercise in plotting and development. Think of how much faster and more organized you'll be with the next one. Mourn the story, kiss... (more) |
— | over 12 years ago |