Posts by Lauren Ipsum
In the BBC Sherlock fandom there are many lively discussions about how a lot of the story takes place in subtext: Person C is a "mirror" for Protagonist A, water symbolizes emotions, drinking tea m...
An unreliable narrator is one who knows the truth but doesn't reveal it to the reader. It sounds like your story has a narrator who does not, in fact, know the truth. Dr. Watson is sometimes seen ...
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 ...
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. (...
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...
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...
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...
Given that you haven't given us a lot of the givens... Not every romance is cliché. There are formulas, to be sure (c.f. Harlequin, Nicholas Sparks, Lifetime), but just because the tropes are hea...
All caps has come to mean shouting. You can have a voice which is harsh but not loud. So no, I wouldn't use all caps to mean something which is difficult to listen to. Describe it as "harsh" and le...
I for one, would love to read a follow up novel about a world ruled by orcs. So let me ask you this: Why not write that book instead? In fact, why not make the orcs the heroes of your story?...
I don't think there can be an answer for this. I don't think you can even have an answer for a given writer. Mercedes Lackey rewrote her first trilogy seventeen times, but now she churns out books ...
Create engaging characters and put them in situations with high stakes. The characters in your first chapter (or prologue) don't even have to be main characters. They don't even have to survive t...
I'll approach this from a different angle than the two great answers already here. Let's assume that yes, your story is too similar to an existing, fairly well-known property. How do you fix that? ...
Your listed themes and goals are at cross-purposes. You have: finding your place in the world living according to your values figuring out what really matters to you questioning assumptions stick...
The extent to which you can do this varies depending on your audience, but generally, I wouldn't do it with a thoroughly unknown word. Tonitrus is an excellent example. Great word, means what you n...
It's a little convenient, but you can get around that a few ways: 1) Hang a lampshade on it. That is, have the characters point out that they found that other MacGuffin at the treasury too, and wh...
Digits tend to be read faster and are less important. Spelling out numbers takes longer to read and are emphasized. So there are two things to consider: 1) How do people think of dates? Do you thi...
Set off your part with some kind of identifier: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. ...
It depends on the context. It can be casual, but it's the correct past tense of "to get." I got sick. I got a book for my birthday. I got there in time. Perfectly correct, if slightly ca...
While I understand that space can be at a premium with these labels, I will always, always come down on the side of clarity. Warning labels frequently get turned into jokes precisely because the or...
Like all rules, only break it if you understand why it works, and you're breaking it deliberately to create an effect. Paragraphs break up the copy into more digestible chunks and make it easier t...
You can talk to real-life veterans and see how they coped with war. One tactic is "gallows humor" or "black humor," which is seeing the humor even in grim moments (common to veterans, law enforceme...
Within reason, if the name itself is not already instantly recognizable (Bart Simpson, Lara Croft, James Bond), you can probably get away with using it. "Trent Steele" may be generic enough. Simi...
Separate your sentence into individual thoughts. • Hatha yoga is a great form to use. • Hatha yoga combines spiritual and physical attributes. • The spiritual and physical attributes could help be...
Write it as data inputs and responses. INPUT: USER 1 enters room RESPOND Y/N? Y OUTPUT_$content: {greeting}; {Salutation: 'Good'} {TOD: 1415, 'afteroon'}; INPUT: USER 1 response {"Good afternoon y...
