Posts by Lauren Ipsum
Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee sort of did this with the Rama series. The first novel reads startlingly like a history book from the future and focuses on the military and government people who fi...
I would always use "that was," because to my ear, "that's" always implies "that is," and your sentence is in the past tense.
This is a stylistic choice. I would never use a comma or semicolon at the end of a list item. I would use a period/full stop only if the item is a full sentence. To wit: Star Trek is known for ...
The middle one is fine, and the third one is okay. The first feels a little dodgy because you're veering close to a dangling participle, where you have a phrase which doesn't have a clear subject. ...
Exposure to a chemical (or radiation, or some other toxin). All the suspects are in a particular area, or do a particular task, but only the murderer gets exposed to the MacGuffinium. The suspect...
The first one is correct, because it's a two-word clause modifying cloud. The second one would need some kind of verb in the last sentence, and the modifier is perilously close to dangling regardle...
We aren't lawyers, and I don't think there's a single hard and fast rule for this. Rights can vary depending on geography, time, and author preference. There are works which are now in the publi...
You're mixing up the terms. There is the protagonist, and there is the narrator. Narration has perspective. The narrator is the voice in which the book is told. If the story is told using "he/s...
In addition to "Work with reputable proofreaders and designers," as Standback correctly notes, you can also add a non-disclosure agreement to your contract. The language might state that the conten...
All caps is for shouting. Small caps could be used as a stylistic device at the beginning of a chapter to look nice, but beyond that I'm struggling to think of where they'd be appropriate. Maybe ...
Let's see, in order: It discourages using contractions, even though they make writing more concise. I'll confess never understood this one. I do use contractions in formal writing. They're in...
Your best bet is to break down the source into broad mythical elements and rebuild your story from that. Harry's tale is both a coming-of-age and a Hero's Journey, and you don't get much more arc...
Third-person (he/she, rather than first-person, which is I) omniscient (all-knowing) means that the narration has access to everyone's thoughts. Whatever character is the focus of the scene is th...
In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a child but has bro...
I think all your original examples sound fine. Go with your inner ear and let your beta/editor add or remove commas for the sake of grammar. As Bobn points out, the commas indicate pauses, and all ...
Add a little stage direction. "We read the letter." She had the grace to look a little shamefaced. "Apologies. Standard procedure." He nodded, even if his heart hurt a little to think the cops ...
I would see the double entendre. As an editor, I would change it to something else. Assemble or install, probably. "Install" to me means "Start with all the pieces, put it together, test to make ...
I might use an M-dash for the whale example, because it's startling. For the gold watch, that's more of a thoughtful pause, so it would take an ellipsis. Also related on this site: Using dashes i...
I think you can vary the structure depending on the story. By way of example, mystery writer Jennifer Moss splits her descriptions: of her three novels and one short story, two start with the dete...
It depends on what kind of writer you are. NaNoWriMo doesn't have anything to do with it. Some people are "pants" or "discovery" writers. Whether they write the whole thing in a month or a year or...
Names generally have spaces between the initials because they are representing two names, but that's a matter of personal preference. k.d. lang uses periods but not spaces or capitals. e e cummings...
There's nothing wrong with the sentence. It's a little flowery, but if that's your style, as long as the reader understands what you intend, it's fine. Your friends may have different tastes in pro...
Sounds like Scrivener might work nicely for you. You write your pieces in text, you can add graphics, you can view your pieces either in a list or as graphics which you can tag, and you can organiz...
If you really think someone is going to use your book as a how-to, then write a preface which is a single large, comprehensive disclaimer. Put all the "don't do this at home" copy there, and if it'...
I see no reason why you'd treat the punctuation/quote convention any differently for a single letter than for a paragraph. The interaction of punctuation and quote has to do with white space and cl...
