Posts by Lauren Ipsum
I would be fine with either a comma or a semi-colon, although I think I'd prefer the semi-colon. Lists, particularly with sentence fragments, are pretty flexible in terms of content and punctuation...
I will cheerfully use "singular they" if that is a particular person's pronoun, but not as a lazy substitute for "he/she." Rewrite the sentence, either as plural or as second-person. 1) When us...
It's totally fine. It expresses a combination of query and astonishment. There was even an attempt to combine the marks into one, called an interrobang, but it never caught on. Using "?!" is neithe...
There are three rules for conversation: 1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud. This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — ,...
1) This kind of formatting may be something which would have to be done manually by the end typesetter/layout person before publication. You would run everything in numerical sequence regardless of...
The protagonist(s) win/s, the antagonist(s) is/are defeated (even temporarily), and the reader can imagine the protagonists continuing on to other adventures, or with their lives, in some positive ...
I have never heard of McKee's definition of "beat." I have only heard of and use the filmmaking definition. I have always viewed Event as part of your overall plot structure, and Beat as a granul...
If you move out of the child's POV, make it really obvious. Move that scene to its own chapter. Call it "Interlude" or something. Have the non-child POV scene be the only scene in the chapter. If...
Humans don't all look the same, dress the same, speak the same language. Why should $FANTASYRACE? So you have Legolas elves. You should also have Rhea Perlman elves. You should have Lupita Nyong'...
Yes, you're totally fine. If your tense shift happens between paragraphs — that is, the new tense starts a new paragraph — it should be clear what's happening. If this is a first-person narrative a...
In Game of Thrones there were two sets of stakes: the magical Night King, and the mundane power struggle for the Iron Throne. The characters reasonably decided they had to deal with the magical, mo...
I can think of a TV example where the timelines are not synchronous and it was a big part of the surprise at the end of S1. On Westworld, you have human-identical androids (called "hosts") who are...
You cannot randomly change POV in the middle of a paragraph just to get in that one critical snipe at your main character. You can have a scene break (usually two returns, to create white space) ...
My opinion is that once you've published, even on Kindle, it's done. Other than typos or a gross mistake like using the wrong character name by accident, you don't make changes. Your story is you...
Punctuation (and spelling and capitalization) in text messages is different from punctuation in other forms of written communication (emails, memos, standard prose). In particular, punctuation, o...
"Strong and independent" does not have to mean "behaves in a masculine way." Strong can simply be "has healthy self-esteem and doesn't rely on third parties for her self-image." Independent can s...
I found a very elegant reduction of alignments in a Tumblr post: I figured out a simple guide to the alignment chart last night: Lawful: Rules matter more to me than individuals. Chaotic: Indivi...
1) Why doesn't Mr. Id have a POV scene until later in the story? It's your story. Give him an arc. 2) Instead of Porthos, Aramis, and Athos, think of Kirk (ego), Spock (superego), and McCoy (Id). ...
Two examples spring to mind, neither exactly your situation: Christopher Tolkien did work on his father's oeuvre, but that's more curation than editing. He did cobble together The Children of Húri...
The three-act or five-act structure can still exist even if the elements are not shown in order. It's the effect on the audience which is changed. In the case of Memento, you see the end first, an...
Things that are good are things which you liked, and elements which achieved what the writer was going for. Funny bits: anything which makes you laugh (which is clearly supposed to) Nice turns of...
Yes, you can develop secondary characters, and should to the extent your narrative has room. While they are multi-volume arcs, David & Leigh Eddings's Belgariad and Malloreon series are good ...
If it's really short — no more than a few paragraphs — set it off with italics. It should quickly become apparent from context who the first-person-italics character is. If it's pages and pages, ...
You don't ever use apostrophes to form plurals, so that's right out. If the Roman numeral is part of the name, you would add an S: A total of 15 Saturn Vs were built, but only 13 were flown. If ...
Just because The Crunch happens doesn't mean that your protagonists all lose. Yes, the obvious antagonist is The Crunch. But is that all your heroes are fighting? Is that all they're striving for?...
