Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Can you write a story using inanimate characters? Can you? Of course; you just did. Your characters, I might point out, are not inaminate. They are alive. They have thought, opinion, and agency. They may be made of silicon, but they are not "inanimate." Someone on this board recommended a story told from the viewpoint of a sentient pregnancy test. ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to: descriptive writing The Carnegie Hall method: Practice, practice, practice. You were able to come up with the cooked noodles metaphor, right? So clearly your describing skills are not broken. You just have to work them out. Get a notebook. Moleskine, marbled-cover, stack of pages stapled together, whatever works. Se... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Copying Certain Information From A Official Website A university assignment probably falls under "non-commercial individual use." You aren't making money off the content. Quote it and cite it, don't try to pass it off as your original work, and you should be fine. Quoting and citing is not plagiarism. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is it too cliche to have the villan of my story from a different planet? The quality of any storyline or character is in the execution. Having one characteristic in common with many other stories does not, by definition, make it a cliché. That said, if you're worried about it, why not change it? And if you're going to change it, take some time to study why it's done in t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: In the digital age of Kindle and POD is a book ever finished? My opinion is that once you've published, even on Kindle, it's done. Other than typos or a gross mistake like using the wrong character name by accident, you don't make changes. Your story is your story. If you keep altering it, there's never a final edition. Your readers will never know if they hav... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Formatting used when introducing a term Either italics or quotes are fine to introduce the term; you could even bold the phrase if you're introducing many specialized concepts throughout your work. I wouldn't capitalize it or otherwise format it differently once you've defined it. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What I kind of project can I do for a writer's group to show that I have mastered character development? Mark Baker is exactly right. Your story needs to be about a person (who can be a human, alien, small animal, android, werewolf, sentient car, or Groot). > I needed to develop my characters to give readers something more to be invested in This is your problem. Never mind the exercises and projects ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I break away from imitating published works? I used to do the same thing when I was first starting out. My sense is that it's because you are excited and inspired by The Thing, and you want more of The Thing, so you make more of it by mimicking it. I'm going to come at a solution for you from an odd angle, so hear me out before you dismiss my ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Act 3 totally broken...keep writing? Fix it now. If you realize you made a mistake, go back and fix it now. Not, I stress, because the last 20K would be "wasted," because no writing is wasted, but because it's clearly blocking you and you don't want to write it. Carve off whatever pieces aren't going to fit and put them in a slush fil... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is it possible for an aggressive character to become sensitive? First of all, let's be clear: "aggressive and angry" is not "emotionless." He's either one or the other. Second, "a bad man redeemed by the love of a good woman" can fall very easily into cliché. Try to stay away from the broad strokes of that. If you want someone who's aggressive and angry to calm... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is it a bad idea to write and edit chapter by chapter? The only bad ideas are the ones which stop you from finishing the book. Write and edit if you like. Write halfway and edit. Write the whole thing blindfolded. Write only at night, or only during a full moon. Write in the morning and edit in the evening, or vice-versa. There are no restrictions. If ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I make the final realisation less depressing? You're missing item 4, or 3a: "Here's another Good Thing which will allow us to win!" In your swordfighting example: 1. I can put in the same kind of work they do and become as good as they are! On the news: 1. There may never be a 100% objective news outlet, but I can study and compare, and do ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to work in a piece of information that no MC knows, when writing in 3PLtd? Remember that terms like "third person limited" are not meant to be jails. They are descriptive. If it works for your story to have one (or a handful) of scenes outside your protagonists' viewpoint, go right ahead and do it. No editor will break down your door with an giant eraser to make you change... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Powers with unknown limits vs ones full of rules, limits and reasons? I am in favor of rules and coherence. However, also remember that you do not have to show all your work. Just because you as the writer/creator know how magic/powers work doesn't mean you have to tell readers. Mercedes Lackey has a widely developed magical universe and only once, sort of in passing,... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Using accent marks in Fantasy novels Accents are not decorations. Have a reason for using them beyond "I'm writing a fantasy and they look cool." (The same goes for apostrophes.) In addition to Daniel's very good answer: - An accent may indicate not just spoken vs. silent but a completely different word. See the differences between de... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Caption title for screenshots I would use the case which is in the application, to make it easier for the reader to match apples to apples. You might even add quote marks and other formatting for additional clarity: > Figure 1-1. "New Virtual Machine — Select a name and guest OS Pane" (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I keep the gender of my main character purposely ambiguous? 1) Where's the best place to hide a red fish? In a pond full of other red fish. Since you're writing in a fantasy genre, you have liberty to create an entire society. You're doing all your own worldbuilding. So create a society/race/culture where nobody's gender is ever established. A gender-neutral... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Classical Style vs. Modern Innovation You should only attempt the style of the 17th/18th centuries if you're writing some kind of pastiche or mimicry of a book written then — for example, a Sense and Sensibility and Dragons kind of thing. CE Murphy did a reworking of Pride and Prejudice and added magic to it, using a style similar to Aus... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is my story a rip-off? It's also similar to Harry Potter and Divergent. Just as there was a rash of vampire/paranormal YA fiction after Twilight, there's currently a run on quasi-facist highly and arbitrarily segregated dystopias. Art reacts to life. Mark is right. Don't worry about whether it's been done before. Write yo... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Do you need to have an introduction at the beginning of every book in a series? If your books are not standalone, a "previously on..." intro is probably a good idea. You want just enough information to orient the reader without spoiling or rehashing the previous book(s). Also, if your books are that complex, a list of major characters, their relationships, and other pertinent i... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What English version of the bible should I quote from? Speaking as an American who has limited familiarity with any version, I suggest King James, because that's the one the general American public would hear the most in passing outside a church context. Also, the antiquated diction will immediately clue in your readers that you're quoting something old... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What do you call a narrator who is not unreliable, but is naive? @lew answered this when addressing this question: Is this an example of an unreliable narrator? From this Wikipedia article > The Naïf : a narrator whose perception is immature or limited through their point of view. Examples of naïves include Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Forrest Gump. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Writing differently when following different character POVs - mainly age difference. (3rd Person) yes, and in fact I encourage this. If it's from a child's POV, try to use a child's language, understand and perspective. Don't stress so much about what's "allowed." Do what seems to work for your story. Talk to your beta readers after it's done and polished. Get impressions from your readers befor... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to deal with nameless characters? Your characters may not have names, but they have to have some identifiers. Other examples in fiction: - Star Trek's Borg use designations which specify where each drone (individual) is in the hierarchy of its group, and where that group is attached to. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does a story necessarily need a theme? > I just wanted to write a story about these two friends. So, maybe that is your theme. That friendship is beautiful, rich, enduring; that friends help each other through obstacles, or despite them; that friendship is more powerful than X or Y. It's a perfectly legitimate thing to write about. If y... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I incorporate Vocabulary in my writing that I already know? The Carnegie Hall method: Practice, practice, practice. You know those Word-A-Day calendars? We joke about them, but they're not bad as a starting point. Each day you pick a word you want to start using more often (from the calendar, the dictionary, or list you create). Spend 10 minutes writing it i... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What's better in fiction: to make personal statements or universal statements? It depends on what you want to accomplish with the scene, and the character. Neither one is better writing per se. They do have slightly different tones, and slightly different meanings. "When you love someone" is your first-person narrator speaking in second person to make his/her sentiment univer... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is this an example of an unreliable narrator? An unreliable narrator is one who knows the truth but doesn't reveal it to the reader. It sounds like your story has a narrator who does not, in fact, know the truth. Dr. Watson is sometimes seen as an unreliable narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, because he deliberately hides or shades detail... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I include translations without ruining the flow of the text? In addition to this answer here: What's the best way to show a foreign language in a manuscript? If you have a lot of swapping back and forth between two specific languages, and the characters are always speaking the same given language in any scene (both French, both German, etc.), then you can jus... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Should a reader have enough information to deduce the twist? There are two versions of "the reader can't figure out the ending." One is Sherlock Holmes, and the other is Murder by Death. In the Holmes stories, the reader doesn't necessarily see all the details which Holmes does at the time, but he does explain them all at some point by the end, so the trail o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I end a comedy sketch? Generally speaking, humor comes from the unexpected. You anticipate that A will happen, but B happens instead. Someone says "I want to give up cigarettes and switch to vaping." You expect that the person will put down the cigarette and pick up an e-cigarette, or hookah, or whatever it is. You don't ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to write a manipulative protagonist that the audience can connect with If you want people to sympathize or identify with a character who does awful things, then the people she's doing those things to have to be worse than her. They have to deserve the manipulation and destruction. Think of an anti-hero taking down villains. Dr. House deflating officious bureaucratic Vo... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Too Long for Title/Subtitle? I'm struggling at the moment to think of a novel which does have a subtitle (beyond "A Novel" to differentiate it from a non-fiction work). Look at the NYT Best Books of 2016. Not one novel has a subtitle. Easily 85% of the non-fiction titles do. Does your book need a clarifying subtitle? Might it ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to prevent confusion when writing in two POVs that don't alternate between scenes? Make it clear that it's from Character B's POV. Don't overthink it. It's okay to create a structure and break it for an effect. (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Am I Breaking Too Many Rules? Finish the story. Finish it whether it's one book, two, or five. Writing is practice for writing; editing is practice for editing. No effort is wasted. If you have two or three really good books, then when you present book 1 to an agent you can say "book 2/3 is already finished and edited." This me... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Formatting multiple languages while avoiding italics for native speakers in their POV > So, does the attempt to not italicize for native speakers make sense? Would having it not italicized for native points of view but italicized for non-native be reasonable? I think this is a good rule of thumb. The point of italics is to show the reader that $WORD is unusual for the POV character. ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Where does the "black moment" fall in a novel? I think it's the Snowflake Structure guy who plots out his books as "Three Disasters and an Ending." He likes a four-act structure rather than three (or five as on stage). So you have your initial Event which kicks off the plot. The protagonist decides to go on the adventure, whatever it is, and mak... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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How much work does a (nonfiction) ghostwriter typically do? I just finished the charming short memoir from actor Cary Elwes, As You Wish, about his experiences while filming The Princess Bride. The voice sounds very much like Elwes, but the cover clearly says " with Joe Leyden." Which says to me "ghostwriter." It's reasonably common for someone who's not a w... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Are there any successful precedents of "gentle" fourth-wall-breaking? I don't know if I'd call that fourth-wall breaking as much as meta. Meta subtly acknowledges realities outside the text without explicitly addressing the reader. Tolkien's unnamed narrator using I and you in The Hobbit is "breaking the fourth wall." The trope is that the story is being told to the r... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Can this sentence have the same detail and yet be simple to comprehend? two thoughts: 1) You don't need the while X then Y structure to convey parallel events. Just list them one after another. It's implied that they're simultaneous. 2) Separate your X and Y (the child's birth/crumbling/reassembly and the clouds). The stream of consciousness is a lot to track, the magi... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: How does one write a misanthropic character likeable? You'll find a lot of good answers here: How do you make a story succeed in spite of an unsympathetic main character? On top of that: If your character is a misanthrope out of disappointment, that's your hook. Disappointment means that the person once had hope. So you play on that past hope. Was he ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Creating clues for a mystery subplot Think of your objects first. Sit down and brainstorm a bunch of things. Things which can be hidden reasonably well in a school. Things which might have thematic links to your characters, things which can advance the plot or character development, things which might be funny. You won't use all the th... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: How do I fix a text wall when I already have one? Organize your copy into thoughts. Break when you have a new one. Paragraphs separate lengthy copy into smaller conceptual chunks. Each paragraph is supposed to be a new thought, more or less. When we were taught essay-writing in school, the format was: - First paragraph: introduction (and thesis st... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: How to handle translation of a language in a comic, while preserving a sense that the language is significant? You have two choices that I can see, and which one you use will likely be dependent on the amount of foreign-language copy you have versus the amount of space you have in the panel to display it: 1) Write the foreign language in the speech balloon with asterisks. The asterisks refer to a footnote at... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: What Can Ensure Re-Readability? One aspect which has turned out to be really important to me lately: Stick the landing. By this I mean that the ending of the book has to be satisfying — it has to work with the story as a whole. (That doesn't always mean a happy ending, by the way; Brokeback Mountain is a deeply sad story, but ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Self inserts that have influence from your life There's a difference between using elements of real life to help you shape a character and creating a Mary Sue. Drawing on reality, and autobiography, is fine, as long your characters — all of them — are rounded and realistic, with flaws and strengths. This is more than "a knight in high f... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Is it a bad idea to adopt an 'English' pen name as an Asian American writer to reach a wider audience? I think right now some publishers are looking for diversity, especially small presses. Li Ang Chang might get a little farther than Susan Brown, and probably quite a bit farther than Joe Brown. I also think you have a good point about being a positive representation of an Asian writer, particularly ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Who owns the copy if a copywriter provides copy as a paid service? It all depends on the contract. (Bear in mind that I'm not a lawyer. This is my amateur understanding of U.S. copyright law.) If the client was foolish enough to purchase the text from the writer and not insist on a release, then the writer still owns the copyright to the text. If the writer was w... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: "Quote" within a quote MLA Why would MLA violate standard typesetting rules? In American English, quoted material nested inside double quotes uses single quotes. (In British English it's the reverse: single quotes on the outside, double on the inside.) > In Carolyn Gregoire’s article “What Your 'Life Story' Really Says About ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |
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A: Is there a way to improve my grammar without so much cost? Sorry, there is no magical app or button or program which will fix your grammar. If you want to learn how to write better, in any language, the only solution is to practice, have your mistakes corrected by someone else, and then practice some more. Any computerized solution which fixes your mistakes ... (more) |
— | almost 8 years ago |