Posts by Lauren Ipsum
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 Amer...
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...
Both ages as separate interviews, since his answers will be different and you will have to handle his responses differently. In the second interview, he can even look back and say "Yeah, I remember...
I think "selected literary pieces or passages" is your linchpin here. Let's take that college mainstay, the Norton Anthology (this one is American Literature). This is a book which contains quote...
Yes, you can ask for feedback at any and all of those stages. The feedback which is helpful at any stage is "This works and here's why" and "This doesn't work and here's why." The "here's why" is...
First of all, your protagonist almost must change, or there's not much point to your book. If s/he does not at some point stop running and pull him/herself together, your reader will feel like the ...
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...
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...
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...
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 w...
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 ...
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 Formerl...
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 ...
There are two main ways to structure a series: each book is essentially a stand-alone with a continuing story as part of the plot (Harry Potter), or each book is a critical part of the whole and th...
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...
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, someo...
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 mi...
"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 ...
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 ...
There's no difference — As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs. No italic, no bold, no apostrophe.
Get a video recorder and a few friends. Explain to your friends what the scene is about, and what you want to have happen. (Eliot and Alec walk into a bar and order a drink. They start talking abo...
Since "break your scene into beats" was from my comment, let me see if I can add anything to the discussion here: You originally wrote "I divide my story into scenes, and put those scenes into cha...
1) Stop fixing everything at once. Write your first round to get it on paper. On your second round, pick one thing to fix: sharpen your rhymes, for example. Next round, work on the meter. Let...
An analogue: I had a friend in college who was a choreographer. She had recently presented a piece to rave reviews, and was amused that one of the moments which got the most positive attention was...
If your essay is analytical (and I'm struggling to think of any other reason you'd write an essay about The Great Gatsby) then I'd put it in the present tense. Gatsby loves Daisy, but Daisy is ma...
