Posts by Lauren Ipsum
If you're not telling a humorous story, and your protagonists come across something which looks like it should be funny but ends up being deadly, then you have a Killer Rabbit situation. Bear wit...
1) You're trying to write your final polished draft on your first shot. It won't happen. Focus on one goal at a time. First determine your substance. Then organize it. Then write it. Never mind how...
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, fla...
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 si...
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 1...
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...
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.
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 i...
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 grea...
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. A...
"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 ...
Sherlock Holmes is famous for deducing answers to puzzles from observation. He was widely and deeply read, although he also deliberately forgot information which he felt wasn't important. He was a ...
Option 1 will probably be easiest. Create a Part or Section break and give it a name: Part II, Rivendell, The War. You indicate the passage of time with some kind of identifying text at the beginni...
The last line or lines should have some reason for being there. They can: be suspenseful ("What are you doing here?") be funny ("Tinkerty-tonk," I said, and I meant it to sting.) close a scene (S...
It's a diary. It can be arbitrary. It can be long or short, meandering or brisk, organized or all over the place. Do whatever serves your story and your character. The only guidance you might nee...
The kinds of poetry: blank verse, free verse, structured (limericks/sonnets/haiku etc.) Rhyme and meter: when they matter, when they don't, when to violate, when Mr. Pritchard should be told to su...
I write blog posts in the present tense even if I'm writing about something which happened in the past, because it's funnier to be "present" as the gag is unfolding. I prefer novels in the past te...
The plural of anecdote is not data... but speaking from my own experience, sci-fi and fantasy are just about all I read. So it doesn't matter how popular the Girl Who Kicked the Dragon Fire Tattoo ...
The term "card" is fungible. Your card can be a 36x48 poster or seventeen pages in Scrivener or an entire notebook of thoughts. It could be a character quiz, a playlist, a drawing, a list of favori...
If you have that many important points, make them a bulleted list instead of making them bold. They will stand out without being overwhelming. Blockquote is used to quote a big block of text, as o...
Write something amazing. Make sure an editor looks over it for mistakes. If it's really good, nobody will care if you're a second-grade dropout or have a Ph.D. in teaching underwater basket-weaving...
Generally speaking, ask the person or people to whom you are submitting how s/he/they want the document formatted. Barring that, I have seen the first line indented and subsequent paragraphs not i...
I like a mix of dialog tags and action tags. You should definitely break up paragraphs of speech with stage business and action tags. Dean Wesley Smith had an advice piece for writers which I ran...
If you're easy distracted by shiny things (or Twitter, your RSS feed, Facebook page, chat window, weather updates, email, or desktop photo) then having a program which blocks them all out may help ...
