Posts by April Salutes Monica C.
This might help with the identifying-meter educational part of it: https://prosody.lib.virginia.edu/ It’s an interactive on-line tutorial that can train you to scan traditionally metered Englis...
I missed my chance to write for About.Com when it was TheMiningCom and now it's DotDash and seems to be under different rules. Suite101 has become Suite.io (blocked from my work, so that's all I k...
This is from an agent's page at https://www.mariavicente.com/blog/manuscript-formatting-submitting-sample-pages Consider the strength of your first chapter. Too often writers will submit pages ...
The "contract" is the expectations you set. In an academic paper, it's normally the introduction leading up to the thesis. In a work of fiction, it's the first few pages (novel) or paragraphs (sh...
Did you take screenshots of it being down? Does the site have an errors log? Is there a site you checked those days to make sure it wasn't just you? (https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ and https://d...
Who is your audience? What languages do they know? If it's an international contest, are there language guidelines? If it says English Only, then be at least 99% English! Are you planning on a fe...
I'm not suggesting migrating the question, and of course this is several years old. But I've noticed in the RPGs.StackExchange they often discuss balancing humor and action, and that may be anothe...
Metaphors help me think. I may not know how to do XYZ, but if everything is related to (for example) baking, then I understand it a lot more.
I wrote a pretty long answer here, which I think applies: Should we avoid writing fiction about historical events without extensive research? In short - Look at other theories of history, and th...
If you don't want to research the history directly, you may want to look into the historiography -- how the history of something is studied/understood. Often that is why we supermoderns laugh at...
I think of Tobias from Arrested Development. I think enough people have a variety of Tobias examples that it may not immediately link to the other guy. If that is a worry, think about what par...
I say don't censor your "discovery" -- include the names of everyone -- they may come back in later, or you may want to explore their story in a specific vignette. (I'm thinking of Neil Gaiman's Sa...
A useful option may also be GoogleDocs, as it's free. I can't give specific examples (Gmail/Gdocs blocked at my current day-job), but I remember some students used it for peer-critique very well. ...
An important thing is to not overcorrect in the other direction with "said bookisms" lists of verbs that can be used instead of "said", like "exclaimed", "emoted", "sighed", "rumbled", "hissed...
This is inspired by this question, but taking it in a non-fiction direction: Is there a benefit to publishing non-fiction ebooks on Amazon as opposed to just putting them on your blog? Let's assu...
Amadeus's answer is great if your goal is story-driven-story. IF however, you're working with something more experimental, I think the nested allegories can work, just like a musical leitmotif for...
If the POVs seem balanced (rotating one per chapter or in some other predictable pattern), then it's not breaking any rule. For length -- the projected draft is 225k -- maybe the actual draft wo...
In the 1990s, I was really hoping that the Z or X pronouns (zie & zir, xie & xir) would win for the non-gender-focused option - they follow the he/she pronunciation style, which indicates s...
I don't know games, but comic books play with 4th wall breaking a lot -- it's part of what makes Deadpool & She-Hulk so powerful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She-Hulk#Breaking_the_fourth_wall...
It also depends who the audience is -- if by "academic text" you mean textbook or supplement to educational materials, then questions may be great! Often in PlainLanguage, they advice question-hea...
One of my favorite "constraints" is that the audience is more willing to accept things. If it's a film/video/tv, they expect some realism. If it's a play, instead of needing to go On Location, a ...
Second Edit -- to try to expand the scope BEYOND W.SE and to cover any CreativeCommons work, not just here. Deleted part about the badges. -- Edit -- to clarify it's not quite a BLOG, more a portf...
Many media from 1920s-1977 copyright law change had DIFFERENT rules for copyright. Post 1977, works were automatically granted copyright upon creation. Before then, works HAD to be registered and...
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...
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 an...
