Activity for April Salutes Monica C.‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Answer	—	A: Writing dialogues for characters whose first language is not English Is there any chance you can work/volunteer at an ESL tutoring center or writing center, especially at a community college? That's a great way to see which errors people of different languages make. I had a lot of Korean students, and their language lacks articles ("the" "a/an"), so they wouldn't see... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to know you are over-explaining and oversimplifying a subject? A textbook I used to use for technical writing had this on the cover > Nobody wants to read what you write. That sounds discouraging, but often people are looking at technical information to answer a specific question or solve a problem. Even if I'm getting lost in a Wikipedia Hole, it's because I ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Examples & humor in educational podcast I know Technical Writing is not supposed to have our personalities in it, but when I taught, I sought out educational videos/resources that had a bit of personality in them. Example: The Oatmeal's violent demonstrations of the semicolon, "the most feared punctuation on earth." I had an intro-to-acade... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Question	—	Podcast Script - Recurring Elements I'm finally starting to get my educational podcast together, which will focus on specific writing/editing topics, in small chunks (so they can be played in a class if the teacher wants to). The goal is for each episode to be under 6 minutes, as I remember always trying to find the fastest/shortest on... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to make clear what a part-humanoid character looks like when they're quite common in their world? One element is if you characters have a reason to notice these things. In Ward, the protagonist is a bit of a Fashion Police, so she's always commenting on what people are wearing, whether regular people clothes or a super hero/villain costume. Because it's a character trait that makes sense for her ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Clear steps for developing a powerful inner conflict A like the Chipperish Media "How Story Works" way -- instead of binary conflicts, characters are built on Triangles: weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and strengths. The same trait may be any one of these: I may be bad at math, but if I don't care, it's only a weakness, not a vulnerability. If I'm a mana... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to keep romance out of my novel? In the rebooted Jughead comic (in the Archie Comic Universe), Jughead is explicitly Ace. He tries dating someone (they were in a burger costume), but realized, "nope, not me." I really love how direct that was, and I hate how so often ANY friendship in a story = twu wuv, and if people are colleagues ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How can I portray body horror and still be sensitive to people with disabilities? One useful example may be the Worm/Ward series (Especially Ward, though it's still in progress), by Wildbow/JC Macrae. In this world, people often get superpowers due to intense trauma. Superpowers of course means battles, so there's even more chaos. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareF... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Ramifications of using real public people as characters in fiction? One problem I notice with reading paperbacks from the past (whether from BookThing or my mom's trashy-lit shelves when I was a teen) is that they name-drop a LOT, but those names mean/meant nothing to me. The writer dropped the names in often as a shortcut, like "`The secretary had hair like Cheryl ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do I get rid of my excess ideas? Release them as Plot Bunnies! NaNoWriMo has forums for "adopting out" plot bunnies -- see https://www.wikiwrimo.org/wiki/Plot\bunny for more info. Or just create a blog post where you list these ideas, and release them FREE into the world. They're not yours any more -- focus just on the ideas that ... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Are there tools/software for planning your story using nested mindmaps and references to characters? https://archivos.digital/about-archivos/ ARCHIVOS sounds like what you need. (I saw a demo about it at BaltiCon last year, and it's in my pocket as something to explore when I have brain-space for it.) From their about page: > First, ARCHIVOS helps Storytellers document the characters, places, and... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Planning story using layers, compartmentalization, and time Another program you may find useful is Archivos. I saw it demo'd at BaltiCon (a local lit-focused con) last spring. https://archivos.digital/ from their "about" page: > First, ARCHIVOS helps Storytellers document the characters, places, and events of their stories, detailing the basic framework fo... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Does symbolism have only one level of depth? You may be interested in experimental literature -- not everyone is into writing for the sake of Standard Storytelling. I adore 4th-wall breaking theater, such as "Six Characters in Search of an Author." I love meta. Behind-the-scenes tours at Disney are amazing -- you see not the story of the ride,... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is my work fiction or non-fiction? While it sounds like what you're writing is not Creative Nonfiction, this essay about it may help clarify your self-description:https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/what-creative-nonfiction > "Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen, reporting and describing what wasn’t ther... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: College Essay - Thesis and Topic - Hard to differentiate When I taught English 100 (basically a 101) at a local university, this is my Magic Formula for a strong thesis statement: > Although `Commonly accepted theory` , [this paper shows] `what I'm going to argue in this paper`. For example: > Although light therapy appears to help those with seasonal a... (more)	—	about 5 years ago

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