Activity for Lauren Ipsum
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Can an essay have a preface? If you're not submitting this as part of any assignment or for publication in a standardized format, where there are rules about content and structure, I say go for it. Foreword, dedication, acknowledgments, preface, interstitial matter, footnotes, afterword, index, glossary, colophon, reader survey ... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How to create a surreal/fantasy - feeling in a real world? The term you are looking for is magical realism. This is when supernatural elements (magic, djinns, wishes, fae, dragons, elves, talking gargoyles, people with wings, meddling gods, spells, demons, and so forth) exist alongside what we consider the "real world," and everyone considers it normal. If ... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: What makes a plot twist believable/unbelievable? @gravity\train has it correct in the comment above: > a plot twist is unbelievable if it comes from absolutely nowhere. A plot development, twist, and/or character action is unbelievable if it seems arbitrary. If there is no evidence, no foreshadowing, no hints, no clues, absolutely nothing a reade... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How to introduce a fake name or alias for the sake of making a story clearer If you add commas to your first example, it will carry the weight of the parens without needing the larger pause and extra words. The quote marks and the generic wording of ThisCo make it clear you're using placeholders. > My friend, "Chuck," who worked for a vendor, "ThisCo," decided he'd had enoug... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How to write a good prison scene > It's important to the character development that he is isolated for an extended period of time, antagonized by others and also made to feel powerless. If your character is stuck in one spot, antagonized by his enemies, and isolated from his allies, that sounds like quite a bit to go on. - He can'... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Struggling to define a character without giving him viewpoint status If George R.R. Martin can have something like 47 POV characters per book, including one who is only in the prologue and then gets killed by a crow dropping a statue of a lion eating a dragon on his head, you can have a POV character for only two scenes. Go for it. (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: What should I do after I finish writing my novel? Put it in a drawer for a month or three. Pull it out, re-read it, mark up problems, and fix them. Then hand it off to an editor. Implement those edits. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. At that point you'll need to decide if you want to publish it. If so, you can either self-publish or hire an age... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Trying to avoid being cliché Depending on the tone of your book, you can make that work for you by making subsequent text sarcastic, funny, meta, or the intro to a flashback. > I had destroyed the earth. Okay, it was just a bit of dirt in a test tube. And I didn't really destroy it; I just washed it down the drain. Fine, I was ... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Formatting a Story Teller's Dialog I can think of a few options: - Indent the story-within-a-story and treat dialogue normally (just double quotes). - Put your Aesop section in italics, the story-within-a-story in book, and treat all dialogue normally. - Use some kind of scene break formatting (extra returns, a dingbat, a string of \... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Writing a Platonic Relationship A few things to consider: - If you're eager to write the "good stuff" where your characters are kissing, go ahead and write it out of sequence. Get it out of your system. Now you can go back and create the "building up to it" part. - Your characters can acknowledge that they are attracted to one ano... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Is it a good idea to start each chapter with a snippet from a fictional book? As long as "a few words" is less than 50, sure, go for it. It's additional interstitial information which can be useful to the reader, or can at least add background and flavor. More than two paragraphs about the Merovingian boll weevil will probably annoy people, so keep it brief. If you need more ... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: High Tech Audience It sounds like "high tech" is the ideal audience. You don't have to dumb it down or use analogies. Your explanation can be, like, two sentences. Look up the definition in a few places and rewrite it in your own words. (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: When a character tells a long story, is it always an info dump? An infodump is when the author has to get a whole bunch of important information to the reader, but it's not integral to the plot at that moment. If Character 2 is ranting and finally getting something off his chest, it's not an infodump. It is the plot. It's the culmination of the plot. To keep it... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Describe a main character Your narrator compares herself to others. > I met Sandy at the coffee shop. I towered over her by a full head. Cheap and simple: Your narrator looks at himself in a mirror. > In the bathroom, I ran a hand through my hair. Still black, just like my dad's, although thinner. He went gray early — not... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: How do I write a fitting ending for an anti-hero? Determine what sins he needs to be punished for, and set up mirrors. - If it's murder: someone important to him should die. - If it's toppling a government and he sets up a new one: his new government falls apart because the people are now revolting againsthim. - If he destroys a secret society beca... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Redouble, double, or double again? "Redouble" is almost always used in the idiom to redouble one's effort, meaning to increase the effort one is exerting. "Double again" has the very specific meaning of This was increased by 100% of the original, to make 200%, and will now be increased by 100% of that, making it 400% of the original.... (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Realistically Writing newly-deaf characters There's no substitute for research. Either find a deaf group in your area or contact a national group, or possibly Gaulladet University, and start talking to people. (more) |
— | about 8 years ago |
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A: Gerund Overkill If you're concerned that you're using too many, then after you're done your first draft, go back and search for any -ing words. Replace them at least half the time. So: > I couldn’t help thinking to myself, who is this woman on the phone? And if it’s not Burns’ mother then why does she want to speak... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Tips for Coming Up with a Good Portmanteau (Name Smush) Here are some of the qualities I came up with: Flow. The two words have to flow together smoothly. Brangelina is an easy combination of Brad and Angelina. It helps when the two words share letters or sounds. Syllables. Swapping out the same number of syllables keeps the rhythm of the original word.... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What do I do with the length of my book and how to split it in two if needed Find an editor and ask that person to help you find a spot to split it. This absolutely can be done; David Eddings's Belgariad series was originally planned to be three books and his publisher had him split it into five. I think it's book 4 which just abruptly ends at a dramatic moment (the group of... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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Tips for Coming Up with a Good Portmanteau (Name Smush) In advance of the recent blizzard which struck the East Coast of the U.S., many media outlets were trying to coin a catchy name to describe the event (mainly to hashtag it on social media, let’s be honest). What struck me was that no one name really caught on — people were using repeats from previou... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Sequels and avoiding sequelitis Have a new story to tell. If you haven't planned out your overall story as a series from the beginning (that is, you deliberately set it up to be three, five, seven, etc. books), and you're just writing an additional story with the same characters, then make sure you have a reason to write somethin... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Need guidance on my writing method There are plotters, and discovery writers. You sound like a plotter. There's nothing wrong with that. Take the time you need to outline your story so you feel comfortable with it, and additionally accept that things will change as you go. There are many different methods to creating a plot, and none... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What is the formal way to write a reference in English? As a typesetter, I would put the number after the period, no space, and then superscript it: > this is a sentence taken from someone.[2] I feel like this is the most visually pleasing, since the footnote is snugged up to the period, doesn't leave ugly white space under it, and is smaller so it does... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: If you publish something, do people have to cite you by your surname? Poet e e cummings and singer k.d. lang are both referenced in all lowercase letters. Singer Prince famously went by an unpronounceable symbol for a few years (which many wrote as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, or TAFKAP). Many artists go by one name: singers Adele, Cher, Madonna; cartoonist Her... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: The difference between two speech formats The dash may be European formatting, but it's not standard in English-speaking countries. Some information on the dialogue dash here: Using dashes in writing dialogue However, if your readers are in America, the U.K., or Australia (at minimum), you should stay with quote marks. Americans use double ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How realistic should dialogue and character voices be? Strike a balance. Your character who speaks in dialect uses different vocabulary, word order, grammar than the person who speaks in the Received Standard version of the language. - Non-Dialect American English: "Can I come see you tomorrow?" - British English: "Shall I knock you up?" - Brooklynese: ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How linear should I be in writing my story? If you are a discovery writer, this is part of your process. Just get it all on the page and keep writing; you'll finish when you finish. However, it is then part of the first draft that you must go back and sort it out from beginning to end and make sure it's a coherent whole. Writing "the good par... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Are Novellas marketable? A novella may do better as a self-pub or a e-book than a trade paperback. Or you could write a few novellas and combine them into one larger format, like Stephen King did with Different Seasons. No way to tell until it's written and edited and you start shopping it around to agents, who will give you... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What is the best approach to balancing reading and writing for improving my writing skill? What's your goal? If your goal is to write, and reading what you "should" be doing made you stop writing, then stop reading that shit. Avoid whatever is an obstacle to your goal. That doesn't mean you can't learn the craft of writing, or study techniques or develop methods or use tools. But if you ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Where to draw the line between fantasy and reality in a story? If you're doing essentially the same thing as 90% of your genre (flying people achieve great heights immediately, people with superpowers never have issues with getting fuel for those powers, someone can be knocked unconscious for hours but be okay) because the "realistic" details are not the purpose... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How to write a story that spans decades Skip the peaceful period. If there's no conflict, there's nothing to write about. Go to "Part II" of your book. Open with the characters having a party to celebrate two decades of peace. In the middle of the celebratory dinner, the bad guy drops a piano on the king, and the war is back on. (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: When should my amnesiac protagonist regain memory? "What the protagonist doesn't know" is an obstacle. Each obstacle should be overcome in order to advance the plot. You may have to plot out your entire story and work backwards, seeing where each obstacle should be removed for maximum effect. Heroes Reborn just did this in its recent 10-episode run... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Can anyone think of books that contain two separate stories or two very different perspectives on the same story being told together? 1) A similar but not exact iteration of this is the Water! trilogy by Gael Baudino. It's not well-known and I found the experimental format exhausting. Still, Your Mileage May Vary. In the three books (O Greenest Branch, The Dove Looked In, Branch and Crown) there were three alternating narrative st... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How to give written advice in a way that is encouraging, not overbearing > "which corrects the mistakes they've made until now" There's your problem. You're viewing this person as a fix-it project, as a series of mistakes to be corrected. You might want to think about this person as making a series of choices based on priorities. If you want this person to change his or... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Plural of the scholastic grade A There's no difference — As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs. No italic, no bold, no apostrophe. (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Help describing dogs' physical appearance and movement I call this a "grains of rice" problem. It's from a question over on Graphic Design SE, How do I draw rice grains in Photoshop?, but the idea is the same. If you want to draw grains of rice, you have to observe grains of rice. In design terms, you can photograph or scan some actual rice and then tra... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Switching to fiction software Re compatibility: Scrivener allows you to export in many formats; the company makes a point of not holding you hostage to proprietary software. One of my favorite features of Scrivener is the organizing. You can have multiple text documents, nested in layers of folders, and you can have a split scre... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How many errata are too many? If the errors make the book unusable — for example, switching "row" and "column" makes what you're reading unworkable — I'd look for a way to contact the publisher and inform it about the errors. Then find another book to use as a backup or cross-reference. If they're just spelling mistakes or the w... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: In English non-fiction, should I try to place the important parts at the beginning of the sentence? I would say it's dependent on context. There are times when you cannot "bury the lede," to borrow a term from journalism (and that is the correct spelling), and there are times when it's okay to put certain items later in the sentence for the sake of readability. For your example 2, you could arrang... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Building empathy with a character and interest in a story Two suggestions: 1) The reader knows that the killer is after Pete the Protagonist, right? So the killer is stalking Pete, in increasingly tense scenarios. Each time the killer gets closer but doesn't kill Pete... yet. This leaves the reader screaming "He's in the net aisle!" because we don't know w... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How to make travel stories interesting? > I don't want to embellish, and it would go against my ethics to stray into creative writing in a non-fiction account I think you're off-base here. Memoirs (which is what you're writing) are not transcripts of history. Yes, they are recitations of actual facts and events which occurred to the write... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How do I find flaws in a character I'm building? Overbearing pride. He's done a lot. He's seen a lot. He has a lot of experience. He's very accomplished, and he thinks anyone would benefit from learning from him. The "nostalgia" and "being overlooked" you mentioned are the keys. He loved being helpful, loved being the strong protector, loved bein... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Should you emphasise text within quotation marks? Underlines are only for links; don't use them in copy for anything else (outside certain legal contexts). Either use bold/italic or quotes, but not both. It's redundant. Which one you choose will depend on what's easiest to read. If you have many of these steps and commands, I would go with a bold o... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: How do I work through writer's block? There are two kinds of writers: plotters and discovery writers. Discovery writers sit down and just type, literally "discovering" what happens as they go, and then must go back and impose a structure on the text at the end. Plotters outline and come up with the entire structure beforehand, and writ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Should I write something I don't care about first? 1) Mercedes Lackey famously rewrote her first trilogy seventeen times before it was published. You will not ruin your idea by writing it. 2) Even if you get your "first million terrible words" out of the way first, almost every first draft of every novel needs work. Your novel will still need editin... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: When is passive voice acceptable? But it's not passive voice, not really. You've just elided the subject because it's the subject of multiple clauses. Let's say your original sentence is: > Born in a land without justice, sodden with the blood and tears of earlier generations, he lived a typical brutal peasant's life. If you inver... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Doubts about editing? I suggest you keep going. What you're doing right now isn't editing; it's nervous grooming. You want what you have on the page to be "perfect" so much that it's stopping you from writing anything else. Write the rest of the book. Put it aside for a few weeks so you can come back to it with fresh eye... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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When does satire (parody) become plagiarism? Stephen Fry wrote a novel called The Stars’ Tennis Balls, and claimed that only afterwards did he realize he’d rewritten The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry’s novel is set in modern-day England; Dumas’s is in 1840s France and Italy. I haven’t read either to say what else is similar or different. My ques... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: Can I write a Hero's Journey without them leaving an Ordinary World? (Monomyth template) Can you have the Ordinary World in flashbacks? Absolutely. It can be a place or a state of being which used to exist and now doesn't, and the goal of the journey can be to restore it. We do need to get enough feel for the Ordinary World to know why the Hero wants it restored, so that we feel that alo... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |