Posts by Lauren Ipsum
The reflection character, as I understand it, is literally someone who reflects the protagonist: someone who echoes parts of the protagonist's character or situation to expose the subtext and make ...
If it's something that big I would blockquote it (as you've done here for your post) and indent it, and then leave off quotes. It's not dialogue, which has specific practices for multiple paragraph...
If the moments of that events are jumbled and chaotic, then write it down that way. crashing sounds oh my god what just is that smoke? people running my heartrate starts to spike the ground is...
The readers only know what you tell them. If you want the reader to realize your narrator isn't telling the truth, the truth must get to the reader around your narrator. Your narrator can be cau...
As others have noted, at absolute minimum you must have someone look over your work for technical mistakes (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary). You must do this even if you self-pub...
"Could" in the first one is just the past tense of "can," as you correctly note. In the second example, you are referring to a possibility in the "farther back" past. "Could Tom's mother have been...
Please note I am describing American English punctuation convention, where the quotes go outside the final punctuation mark. I am aware that British English punctuation is handlded differently. Th...
How do your users read and use the manual? If they use it as a textbook, where 95% of the readers start at the beginning and progress through to the end in linear fashion, then put all the new inf...
Off the top of my head, CJ Cherryh's Morgaine saga (female mage, male assistant), three or four books, no romance. (removing this per @what's comment below) ETA so wow, it turned out to be a lot h...
If it means that much to you, have a pronounciation guide up front — not an appendix, but before the main text. And then just sigh and accept that half your readers aren't going to get it right any...
(This might get good answers on WorldBuilding SE also.) I think you have to decide, from a storytelling viewpoint, how these people communicate. Does each individual have his/her own thoughts but ...
Yes, the narrator can be a secondary character. The beautiful Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is about the warrior Achilles and his life, but told by his lover Patroclus. The Great Gatsby is...
Successful example: Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series. The first book, Rendezvous with Rama, read to me like a history book written 50 years from now. Very hard sci-fi, technical, a bit dry. The next ...
As long as the intervening text doesn't confuse any reference to the second element, you're okay. I wouldn't put the two items too far apart, but your first example is still perfectly clear.
Just because the reader knows the reason for the Bridging Conflict doesn't mean the characters will be able to overcome it. In your example, even if the reader knows all the extra security measure...
I think @jm13fire has the right idea: use accents, and give readers a quick pronunciation guide at the beginning. I would go for a caron over a C, which looks like č, as ç (with a cedilla) is used...
It sounds like you're something of a discovery writer (aka pantser). You wrote lots and lots of material, and now you have to carve away everything which doesn't fit your plot. If you are a discove...
If the technical terms are important for the rest of the plot, you might be able to explain them in the narration as the acts unfold. (A said to B, "I'm hacking the mainframe." A entered a command ...
Three first-person POVs might be too much. It's already a little difficult to switch gears when going from one narrator to another; going entirely from one interior perspective to another, and then...
Besides my comment above about referencing the wrong item, in a more general sense, you can make a metaphor clearer by working backwards from your end result. If your end is "silence is golden," w...
While it's a good idea to vary your descriptions occasionally for variety, in this instance, Siamese is not just a way to refer to the cat, but a way to differentiate this cat from other cats. If...
There are different kinds of writing. Writing for business (formal, industry jargon) is not like writing fiction (establishing a world, creating characters) which is not like writing advertising co...
As long as you make it clear to the reader where you are in time in relation to the previous scene, it's perfectly fine. (David and Leigh Eddings, writers of the Belgariad/Malloreon series, also ...
I think it's generally a good idea to be on the lookout for words you use too much, and swap in something else. You should look for repetitive sentence structure and repetitive phrasing as well. ...
If they're on the Internet, someone has a copy of them. They are free now, and you will never have full control of them again. I won't swear to it, but I think when EL James got her book contract...
