Posts by Lauren Ipsum
I'm struggling at the moment to think of a novel which does have a subtitle (beyond "A Novel" to differentiate it from a non-fiction work). Look at the NYT Best Books of 2016. Not one novel has a...
Make it clear that it's from Character B's POV. Don't overthink it. It's okay to create a structure and break it for an effect.
Finish the story. Finish it whether it's one book, two, or five. Writing is practice for writing; editing is practice for editing. No effort is wasted. If you have two or three really good books,...
So, does the attempt to not italicize for native speakers make sense? Would having it not italicized for native points of view but italicized for non-native be reasonable? I think this is a go...
I think it's the Snowflake Structure guy who plots out his books as "Three Disasters and an Ending." He likes a four-act structure rather than three (or five as on stage). So you have your initia...
I just finished the charming short memoir from actor Cary Elwes, As You Wish, about his experiences while filming The Princess Bride. The voice sounds very much like Elwes, but the cover clearly sa...
I don't know if I'd call that fourth-wall breaking as much as meta. Meta subtly acknowledges realities outside the text without explicitly addressing the reader. Tolkien's unnamed narrator using ...
two thoughts: 1) You don't need the while X then Y structure to convey parallel events. Just list them one after another. It's implied that they're simultaneous. 2) Separate your X and Y (the chi...
You'll find a lot of good answers here: How do you make a story succeed in spite of an unsympathetic main character? On top of that: If your character is a misanthrope out of disappointment, that...
Think of your objects first. Sit down and brainstorm a bunch of things. Things which can be hidden reasonably well in a school. Things which might have thematic links to your characters, things wh...
Organize your copy into thoughts. Break when you have a new one. Paragraphs separate lengthy copy into smaller conceptual chunks. Each paragraph is supposed to be a new thought, more or less. Whe...
You have two choices that I can see, and which one you use will likely be dependent on the amount of foreign-language copy you have versus the amount of space you have in the panel to display it: ...
One aspect which has turned out to be really important to me lately: Stick the landing. By this I mean that the ending of the book has to be satisfying — it has to work with the story as a whole. (...
There's a difference between using elements of real life to help you shape a character and creating a Mary Sue. Drawing on reality, and autobiography, is fine, as long your characters — all of them...
I think right now some publishers are looking for diversity, especially small presses. Li Ang Chang might get a little farther than Susan Brown, and probably quite a bit farther than Joe Brown. I...
It all depends on the contract. (Bear in mind that I'm not a lawyer. This is my amateur understanding of U.S. copyright law.) If the client was foolish enough to purchase the text from the writer...
Why would MLA violate standard typesetting rules? In American English, quoted material nested inside double quotes uses single quotes. (In British English it's the reverse: single quotes on the out...
Sorry, there is no magical app or button or program which will fix your grammar. If you want to learn how to write better, in any language, the only solution is to practice, have your mistakes corr...
Further to Mark Baker's excellent answer: If you want your writing to be more colorful, practice observing and recording colorful things. I don't necessary mean literal color, although that's not...
My only objection to It Just Happens is when you overload the suspension of disbelief. You can draw on the power of the ancients for magic? great. You can draw on said power for flight, telekine...
Is this a comedic story or a straightforward/dramatic one? If it's a comedic story, then just run with it, because everything is supposed to be exaggerated. Your characters may not even have to no...
It's a Your Mileage May Vary situation, but I think there are two good rules of thumb: 1) Explain only as much as you need for the story to make sense. This will vary depending on your audience, b...
It's just scene-setting. Your main character gets up in the morning and goes out onto her balcony to enjoy the morning while her caffeine is brewing, and she contemplates all the plants in her gard...
Clothes Smell (cologne/perfume, the scents that may be in clothing or hair) Body language (swagger, creep, stroll, cringing, stride) Attitude (businesslike, flirtatious, bored, scared, tired) Voic...
1) Use the ellispses and emphasis, and tighten up the spaces. This man, this...monster...has done something despicable. There's no typesetting reason to have spaces on both sides of those el...
