Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: How Can I Reliably Find Well Written Novels? Your problem is not merely that you want "novels which are well-done." You want writing styles you feel safe reading because you would feel happy imitating them. You are asking someone else, someone who isn't you, to curate a list of source material for your creative output. There's no way an anonym... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to split up a book into a series? 55K words is a novella; your teacher is wrong there. 80K to 85K is a good book length. If your story will require two books (or however many), finish them all before shopping the first one to an agent. Explain in the cover letter that it's a completed series. Agents may balk at an open-ended cliffha... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can I publish a book under one company when I have published a book under another? As long as you don't have a contract specifying that your next N books must be with Copmany A, there's no reason you can't go with Company B. If you mean that you self-published and want to change the imprint, you can do that too; just talk to your accountant to make sure you aren't garbling things ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do you write 2 or more characters saying almost the same thing in unison I've seen it written on the same line in defiance of the "new speaker, new paragraph" rule: > "And is this your girlfriend?" Mom asked. > "No, I'm not — " "Absolutely not — " we both protested immediately. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Correct spacing for "Smith et al. (2008)" That's an annoying construction to punctuate, I agree. You might try: > Smith and Johnson's article (2013) investigated blah blah > > The article from Smith and Johnson (2013) investigated blah blah > > The paper from Johnson et al. (2013) investigated blah blah Please note the space between al. ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to Explain the Pronunciation of a Conlang Within the Text of the Novel If you don't have a non-native or non-fluent cabbagehead character (and they're awfully useful; I don't know why you're hobbling yourself like that), then another reasonable course of action is to have someone who speaks the language badly and has to be corrected. A child learning how to speak/read o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Script-style conversations in a book Either you're writing a prose piece or you're writing a screenplay. Don't do both. If you're doing some advanced stuff with formatting trying to represent different kinds of media (radio transcripts, chat logs), you might be able to have speaker tags the way you do above, but not ploppped down in th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to sell books without giving up rights to my manuscript That's what a contract does. You, and ideally your agent, negotiate a contract with a publisher. The contract specifies what rights you are allowing the publisher to have in exchange for distribution and printing, and how the exchange of money works. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Capitalize 'it' when referring to a strange being? Capitalizing a pronoun gives it proper noun status or deity status. So writing It means either that the thing's name is literally It, like Stephen King's monster, or you're referring to a god the way the Abrahamic religions refer to Yahweh as Him even in the middle of a sentence. Therefore, if the c... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What is an easy way to create a detailed character profile for a short story? There's no One Correct Way. You can have a list of attributes as if you were creating a D&D character. You can jot down notes so you have guidance for the important parts of your story. You can use one of the email or tumblr questionnaires which circulate from time to time and answer it from the pers... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Using capital letters and full-stop in bullet points This is purely a matter of style. It depends on where the writing is being published and what the content is. House style will usually dictate if you use periods/full stops at the end of bullet points which are not sentences, if you are allowed to use commas or prohibited from using them, if you shou... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Is NaNoWriMo necessarily a good thing? If you are following the daily wordcount rules, NaNoWriMo is explicitly not about quality. It's about committing to getting stuff on paper so you can work with it. So many of us start a novel and never finish it, or never start it at all. Being part of the NaNoWriMo sprint gives you a concrete goal ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Starting In The Middle And Flashing Back It's completely fine. This technqiue is known as in medias res, "in the middle of things." If you've written it correctly, it shouldn't lessen the tension because we should be invested in the character and now we want to know how she got into that mess. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Writing in English, from the viewpoint of a non-English-speaking character, how can I convey a language very similar to the character's own? Two methods I can think of: 1) The character says or thinks what he's understood. > "So you want me to go to the hut in the forest and kill the wizard?" > > He listened as the elders discussed the situation. Do they really want me to go into the Black Forest and take out the sorcerer who's cursed ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I keep my writing from being perceived as "too complicated" If writing long sentences is a habit, you have two options: 1) Break the habit. 2) Write Regency romances, where lengthy and convoluted sentences are preferred. More seriously, it doesn't matter how long or short your sentence is if it's unintelligible — your own word. If your reader can't unders... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: I'm using the same formula for stakes over and over - is this a problem? I think this is a great question, and I commend you on your self-awareness. If you're having trouble conceiving of a drive for your hero on your own, I suggest you go through some of your favorite books — books that you enjoy, books which click, books you re-read — and try to pick apart what the her... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I respond to praise without appearing egotistical? It depends on the commenter. Is this a friend who is just being effusive, or someone who's offering constructive criticism (or praise) with an eye toward getting you published? Roughly speaking, it's the difference between your best friend saying "dude, that presentation was awesome!" and your boss s... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Does a reader care about how realistic a book is? The amount of realism in your book is set up by you as the writer. It's up to the individual reader to decide if this is the reader's particular cup of tea. Some fantasy books are so stiff with clichés (valiant knights, pretty princesses, etc.) that they'll fall over in a brisk wind; some like to su... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Attributing a single source in a blog post I would say you have to attribute the quotes, even if you don't have to cite them flat out. So your first mention would be something like: > This scene was in fact shot in Seville, Spain rather than Morocco (Fire and Lunch, 7/15/06). And then subsequent mentions: > Young Ned's rush into the Tower... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I write a character whom I have no knowledge of? A rival, as opposed to a mere villain or antagonist, is someone who is competing with you for the thing, person, or goal you both want. The only place where Malfoy and Harry directly competed was in Quidditch, where they were both Seekers and were both after the Golden Snitch during games. Beyond th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Subplot with no established POV character present Since your story is in third-person, I think you're fine for that handful of scenes. Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope mysteries are set up like this: 95% of the scenes are from a specific character's POV, whether main or not, and a few scenes here and there are third-person objective. It works fine. ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can I switch from past tense to present tense in an epilogue? This kind of thing is always Your Mileage May Vary, of course, but I think if you're doing it in an epilogue (clearly labeled as such), you can probably get away with it. The main story is done, and this is a separate after-piece. The tense-switching rule is meant to address comprehension. If part o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: In multiple narratives, does time have to be in sync? As long as you clearly mark what the date is so that the reader knows your scenes are not in sync, you're okay in terms of clarity. But you should have a good narrative reason for doing so, and not just "the cliffhanger was exciting." From a reading perspective, I prefer that the scenes not be out o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How hard would it be to find writing jobs with an English degree? Strictly speaking, you don't need an English degree to get writing jobs, nor are you guaranteed any kind of job in writing/editing/publishing if you have said degree. You get hired when you convince someone that you have the skills and/or experience to do the job. Whether you get that experience in o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Investing in the 'wrong' character, is it a problem with the story? It sounds like you're seeing this problem in Hero's Journey stories, which have a pretty standard arc (Hero leaves Home, gains Mentors and Helpers, faces Challenge at Threshold, returns Home with Knowledge) and you aren't as interested in the Hero as you are in the Mentor characters. - If you find t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What Can I Do to Familiarize Myself with my Characters? Write a bunch of short pieces with no particular plot to get used to writing him. Drabbles (100 words), double-drabbles (200), flash (1,000 to 2,000). Your stories should just be little windows into him to practice writing what he'll do. Like: - He's out of milk. He goes to the store to get milk, a... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Which should come first, novel, Comic Book or Screenplay? If you have "a lot" of differences among the three media, then you have three different stories coming from the same kernel of an idea. Write them in whatever order you like — for pleasure, for money, for ease of completion. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to make a mimicking character believable Whatever you decide the reason is for Numbers to take on others' personalities, you have to explain it to the reader in a way which makes sense. - Your character could have Giovannini Mirror Syndrome, exaggerated for the House, MD episode "Mirror Mirror.") If your story is set in modern times, someo... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Shifting Tense and Commas in Writing The problem is not verb tenses. The problem is subject placement. You don't quite have a dangling participle, because there is no other person being discussed who could be shaking his or her head nor is there any non-person being assigned the head-shaking by accident, but the sentence reads awkwardly... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Structuring a sentence with two phrases qualifying the same ending C is the clearest and easiest to read. The commas not only set off the interrupter to highlight it but give the reader a moment to pause and note the two items being discussed (least and most). (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I make sure my audience is aware of subplots? Don't worry about it in your first draft. Wait until your second, possibly your third. Your first draft is to get the story down on paper. Then you let it sit for a month and go back. The second draft is to fix all the glaring errors you pick up in your first review. After a second (fourth, etc.) ro... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Have a tough time figuring out third-person prose I like @Stephen's idea, which I think you should adapt into a series of exercises. Sit in a park or at a café somewhere and people-watch. Try to write down what you see. You can't know what people are thinking; you can only observe. So write that down: She spoke. He laughed. The dog barked. The wait... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Dialogue interruptions — using em dashes (This construction is a pain in the ass to punctuate, so this is a good question to ask.) When your narration is a full sentence, it must be punctuated like a full sentence. With M-dashes: > “She’s a lovely girl, but — ” He lowered his voice. “ — she cannot dance for the life of her.” > > “She’s a... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Will what worked 'back then' work today? (Novels) I think the main difference between yesteryear classics and today's "literature," as you define it distinct from "pulp," is the attention span of the reader. There are exponentially more inputs clamoring for our attention and less leisure time to spend it on. The instant-gratification nature of broa... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What is useful about writing software? This is the definition of "your mileage may vary." Some people work better on paper; you are clearly one of them. I was blocked for years until I found Scrivener, which for whatever reason helped get all my creative juices flowing again. Scrivener clicked with me. Some people work better with abso... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: A written action scene, interrupted? It sounds like what you want is a narrative structure similar to the recent Deadpool film, where the main character frequently breaks the fourth wall, has voiceover narration of ongoing events, flashes backwards and forwards in linear time, and generally metas all over the place. If you establish th... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Should I use contractions in my narrative? I don't understand this fear of using certain kinds of words. Yes, you can use contractions. Yes, you can use adverbs. Yes, you can use "bookisms" (alternatives for said which give additional information, like hissed, muttered, shouted). I'll even allow the occasional split infinitive if the circumlo... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What are the basic elements of a crime investigation story? Motive. Why did the person do it? Helpers and Hinderers. People who assist in or impede the investigation. They can range from the detective's partner to evil minions to muckety-mucks on either side. This is apart from witnesses; these are people who can either bring information (clues, evidence) o... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Highly metaphorical writers The two I can think of off the top of my head are Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently, et al.) > “Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How to write a utopia? I think what's being missed here is the idea that what makes something a "perfect" world is not the same for everyone. If you want an example of a utopia, try The Wizard of Oz and the subsequent 13 original Oz novels by L. Frank Baum. The Wizard of Oz was once called by a reviewer (whom I can't find... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can I use "fuck" as a non-vulgar verb in a fantasy/steampunk world? Doesn't bother me, considering the context, but then I'm known for having a potty mouth. :) As long as your book is pitched to an adult audience, you're fine. (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can a "Translation Notes" section also be used for terms used in my fictional world? I think this is an excellent idea if you have multiple invented terms which your readers might or might not remember. Books which depend heavily on constructed languages sometimes have a glossary in the back; stories with huge casts sometimes have an index or cast list. Maps are de rigueur for fantas... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: A villain that doesn't even know the hero's existence? It sounds great. I think what's throwing you is that you're expecting to get the story from both protagonist and antagonist perspectives. Just focus on the hero. His or her story will have the great arc, the joys and losses, the striving, the ultimate success (and the emotional payoff you're looking ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Events happening in two places in one short story? Not only can this happen, it's frequently assumed that it happens. You can't show two sets of events occurring at the same moment textually (unless you're doing some kind of weird formatting, and the reader can't read them simultaneously anyway), so you write about one set of events and then the othe... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How can I Switch Protagonists Between Books? I've seen it more than once. It can be a bit jarring, but it can also work fine. It depends on the plot and the writer. - Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising pentology: the first book is about three siblings, and then the second book is about another young man entirely in a different country who has n... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What is generally the accepted format style for telepathic communication in the midst of verbal communication? Italic text is the most common format for telepathic communications. > Savil spotted the soldiers filing into the pass and called up to her nephew. Get into position. They're here, she sent. > And the demon? he asked. > I can smell it from halfway up the mountain, Savil confirmed. Sometimes oth... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Plot: is it as central as "fun" or "entertaining"? "they would have gone from children to teens to young adults" is called a Bildungsroman, or a coming of age story. It's a classic and perfectly serviceable plot journey. Your plot is based on each character's development and growth. (I'm not sure how Doctor Who fits into your example other than "goe... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Can You Mix Readers of Fantasy and Sci-Fi? The only caveat I would offer to mixing SF and fantasy is not to scramble the level of technology. We are all steeped in Papa Tolkien's example of fantasy, which is Middle Ages technology and pastoral Merrie Olde England settings. This level of industrial advancement doesn't mix well with Star Trek ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do disclaimers work for fictional books that are loosely modeled on real events? You're essentially talking about historical fiction. Susan Elia MacNeal writes the Maggie Hope mysteries, about a (fictional) woman who is raised in America but then goes to work for the British government during WWII as a spy. MacNeal's disclaimer runs thus: > Mr Churchill's Secretary is a work of... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: How do I kill a protagonist in a first person point of view? If the main character is eventually the enemy in the book (because she's hurting people) and her death would be a good thing for the people around her, then the end of the story would be relief on her part as she's dying or killing herself, because then she can't hurt anyone else. But the main story ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |