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Do acknowledgements have to come after the table of contents? I am preparing a non-fiction book for self publication via Amazon, Print on Demand, and other online services. Currently, my book has the following sections: Title page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Table of contents Main body Bibliography However, some online resources, like this page , seem to indicate that acknowledgements should come after the table of contents. For various reasons, I'd like to keep the acknowledgements ahead of the table of contents. Is there some reason the acknowledgements necessarily must precede the table of contents, or can I go my own way with it? <Q> Doing a quick survey on a few books, I have seen that there is no consensus. <S> I have books (non-fiction, technical books) that have Acknowledgements before and after the Contents page. <S> However, I did see a larger number inclined towards including the Acknowledgment page after the Contents page even though there are books which have it before the Contents. <S> I do not see any obvious advantage or disadvantage of either of the methods. <S> When writing a thesis one usually has a style guide as to where to include which part of the thesis and hence it is not a question in that case. <S> As per books, I would say that it is based on the publishing house and the style guide that they would like to follow. <S> Usually a particular publishing house will have a fixed standard style which they apply to all of their books (for example, Blackwell Science usually has a fixed font style and overall design). <S> Hence, I would say that you can go ahead and do it the way you would prefer it. <S> ---Edit--- <S> Getting It Published <S> : A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) talks about the front matter of the books. <S> However, at no point have they clearly mention explicitly mention anything about the arrangement of the front matter. <S> The Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing have Acknowledgements after the TOC. <S> However, they do not mention anything about the order. <S> The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing: <S> Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote and Sell Your Own Book does not mention anything about the ordering of the various content of the front matter but has Acknowledgements before the TOC. <S> These and others seem to highlight that the order is more about the style guide selected rather than a matter of strict consistency. <S> Given the heterogeneity, one might as well go ahead and do it the way they want it to be done. <A> Though this will really also depends on your preference and/or your publisher's/editor's preference. <S> Some non-technical or fiction books even have their acknowledgements at the end of the book. <A> It makes better sense to put the acknowledgements before the table of contents because you are usually acknowledging people for their help and support in what amounts to the whole book . <S> It make sense to put it before the TOC, so also the dedication.
| Most of the books I've read and checked have Acknowledgements before the Table of Contents.
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When should I use italics in scientific writing? I noticed that proper nouns, such as names of theorems or techniques are often set in italics in scientific writing but not always. Are there rules about it, for example each proper noun should be set in italic the first time it occurs? A contrived example There are many different methods for adding two numbers: Very Simple Addition (VSA) works by calculating a+b . Unnecessary Complicated Addition (UCA) works by calculating -(-a-b) . VSA is the method used by everyone but the British who use UCA because of tradition along with their foot-inch based measurement system. <Q> The Style Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2009, pp. <S> 104-106) is very clear on the use of italics. <S> Note especially the bold section (bold emphasis mine): Use italics for titles of books, periodicals, films <S> exception: <S> italic words in the title (reverse italicization) <S> genera, species, and varietes introduction of a new technical term (after a term has been used once, do not italicize it) <S> a letter, word, or phrase cited as a linguistic example ("words such as big and little ") words that could be misread ("the small group", meaning a designation, not group size) <S> letters used as statistical symbols or algebraic variables some test scores and scales periodical volume numbers in reference lists anchors of scale ("health ratings ranged from 1 ( poor ) to 5 ( excellent ) <S> ") <S> Do not use italics for foreign phrases and abbreviations common in English <S> chemical terms <S> trigonometric terms <S> nonstatistial subscripts to statistical symbols or mathematical expressions Greek letters mere emphasis. <S> (Italics are acceptable if emphasis might otherwise be lost; in general, however, use syntax to provide emphasis.) <S> Incorrect: <S> it is important to bear in mind that this process is <S> not proposed as a stage theory of developments. <S> letters used as abbreviations <S> I've been writing both in APA and MLA style, and I have never needed to emphasize words. <S> Scientific discourse is encouraged to be neutral and self-constrained, and there are other, semantic, means to direct the reader's attention. <A> Italics are a common way to emphasize words. <S> As such, it's best to use italics sparingly. <S> A text where every proper noun is italicized gets very annoying to read; it'd be like listening to a commercial. <S> If you're writing for a specific publication, check their style guide. <A> For that reason, I do not use italics (or bold) for emphasis. <S> Generally, I use bold to highlight terms that I think the reader won't know. <S> I only use italics when my style guide calls for them. <S> I generally ignore Chicago, MLA, and so forth for rules regarding distinctive treatment, unless my own style guide doesn't say anything. <S> Even then, I discuss the style rules I use with the other people on my team before I put them into force. <S> Remember that concise, clear, and consistent documentation is our goal. <S> Correct style is subservient to that goal. <S> Other technical writers may question your choice, but readers won't be conscious of it.
| Italics are used to emphasize words in general writing, but in technical writing you may have to use them for other forms of distinctive treatment.
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Whether to describe personality of a character or let the readers deduce it based on the actions I am facing this situation where description of the personality of a character is quite important. Is it good to describe the personality traits or shall I let the readers deduce it based on the action. Is this description worth, compared to the amount of content it would take? <Q> Well, if you don't have time or space in your story to show some aspect of a character's personality, why bother with it? <S> Does it matter if your character refuses to shop at Walmart because of their abusive business practices if the story is about how he hates strawberries? <S> If the characteristic is that important to the story, then yes, you need to spend the time and content showing us. <S> The other problem is that you may run into what's called an "informed characteristic," which is when the writer tells us that the character is X (for example, brave and daring), and the other characters treat him like he's brave and daring, but we only see the character being nervous and risk-averse. <A> Picture a few people that you have formed opinions of.....friends, family, coworkers, celebrities, strangers. <S> Reflect on how you formed those opinions. <S> Most likely they came from your own experiences interacting with and observing these people, and maybe from hearing other people characterize them. <S> Almost certainly little to none of your opinions are based on how these people describe themselves. <S> Now picture how you want your reader to view your character. <S> Act accordingly. <S> Use your own psychology as a sounding board for your writing. <A> I have described the personalities of characters upfront before, but I also left that manuscript to die, so yeah. <S> Hope this helped!
| If you want to, you can have another character describe one or two traits, but I would let their actions (and if it's first person, their thoughts) describe the rest.
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what is the best way to make money on the side as a beginning author? I am a new author and as I am writing my novels, I need a little revenue.Are there sites that would pay for articles being written?Any suggestions would be great! <Q> I advise against writing as a side job for a writer. <S> To write your novels (or whatever) you need a special kind of creativity and mental energy. <S> You only have a limited amount of this, before it runs out each day. <S> Most writers notice that after a certain time writing the quality of their ideas and writing deteriorates. <S> What they need is to take a break and replenish their creativity and mental writing energy by not-writing. <S> If you earn money writing, you'll have less creativity and mental energy left for your essential writing: <S> that of your novel. <S> I once tried to write a novel while studying, but researching, structuring, developing and writing my seminar papers took away all the creativity and mental energy that I had. <S> I had lots of time, but I wrote not a single word for my novel in a whole year. <S> But taking off a month from my studies for NaNoWriMo, I wrote a 50.000 words first draft in ten days. <S> If you don't mind taking forever to finish your novel while wasting your creativity on writing stuff you don't care about, then that's no problem, but since you probably want to make a living as a writer of novels, you might want to find a non-writing side job, like @dmm recommends in his answer, and focus your whole writing energy on writing what you want to write. <S> What I would do is: deliver the mail, bake fries at Mac D., do lawn mowing and gardening. <S> The best side job for a writer, in my opinion, is mentally effortless, relatively stressfree, and physically invigorating. <S> I've been driving taxi (during the day, chauffeuring old people to the doctor and such), delivering parcels, and working as a gardener's help. <S> Great jobs to be creative alongside. <S> Think "student job". <S> And I recommend that you find a job that leaves you time to write whenever you have your most creative time. <S> Most people find that they are the most creative and mentally fresh before lunch. <S> So find a job that starts after lunch. <S> Others love to write at night. <S> So find a job in the morning or afternoon (however long you need to sleep), relax a bit or do sports, then write in the evening. <S> Or whatever suits you. <S> Just don't give your best time away for your moneymaking. <S> Scedule your money job at your most useless time. <A> 1) Try to find something that requires lots of time but little hands-on time, like house-sitting, pet-sitting, old-people-sitting, and infant-sitting. <S> (But NOT child-sitting!) <S> Or night watchman. <S> The pay will be lousy (minimum wage or less), but you'll have lots of free time doing it, so you can do it a lot. <S> You can work 12 hours a day at jobs like that, without giving up much writing time. <S> 2) <S> It is impossible to answer your question about sites that pay for articles, without knowing your other talents. <S> Many magazine/e-zine articles would require the author to have some bona fides in fashion, science, technology, food/dining, crafting, travel, etc. <S> 3) <S> If you are good at science, there are companies that pay people to take journal submissions written in poor English and turn them into journal submissions written in good English. <S> 4) NOBODY is going to pay an unknown freelancer to <S> write an article for them. <S> They MIGHT pay for an already-written article. <A> There's elance.com and odesk.com . <S> They're online freelancing, and there's sections for writers to pick up jobs like copywriting, article writing, translating, etc. <S> However, you have to be aware of a couple things. <S> First, companies are often unrealistic about what they expect and what your work is worth. <S> You may get paid in pennies. <S> Second, writers are often unrealistic about what they expect and what their work is worth. <S> You shouldn't expect to buy a mansion any time soon. <S> But it's definitely an option and worth checking out. <S> I've heard of creative types in LA taking up driving for car services like Uber or Lyft as a day job. <S> It doesn't give you time to write on the job, of course, but hours are flexible and it doesn't require an excess of mental energy. <S> That's what you want in a day job when you're just starting out: something that won't drain you or take up all your time. <A>
| on guru.com there is always a bunch of people paying (not very much) for ghost writing, this is a way to sharpen your writing skills and make a little money on the side.
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If not in the prologue/intro, where would a hook be? For many stories I have seen, written or otherwise, a fight or some intimate moment is used to hook the reader. It is done A LOT, if not every time. Does a hook have to be in the beginning? Are hooks even needed? <Q> Hooks can be: <S> book cover blurb book or story title <S> author name <S> editor publisher <S> reviews advertising film adaptation or <S> movie right sales <S> All these can signify to the reader that the story or book is worth reading. <S> A new Stephen King novel will sell no matter its first sentence. <S> I have numerous books (and music records) that I only bought because I loved the cover. <S> I do trust some publishers or editors to select quality books and buy books published in certain series without thinking. <S> If the blurb contains angels, dead children or other things that put me off, I don't buy the book. <S> I did not want to buy Divergent when I read its beginning in the book store, but now that it was made into a movie, I bought it and will read it. <S> And so on. <S> The more quality signals accompany a text, the less gripping can the story beginning be. <A> You should open your story by creating a question in the reader’s mind that can only be answered by reading onward. <S> Conflict is a popular way to start, because it raises the question “who’s gonna win?” <S> But the conflict doesn’t have to involve fistfights and explosions. <S> In the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice , the narrative question is “who is going to marry this fantastically wealthy single man who just moved into the neighborhood?” <S> That’s <S> a perfectly effective hook (especially for Austen’s original audience—think of P&P as the Regency-England precursor to The Hunger Games ). <S> And if you open with a good hook, but then switch to twenty pages of boring exposition that has nothing to do with it, you will lose the reader in spite of the hook. <A> Books of the last, say, 75 years are set in what's called in medias res, in the middle of things. <S> The story starts where the plot starts, more or less. <S> But back in, for example, Victorian novels, it was much more common to give the entire life story of the protagonist. <S> The really exciting part of Jane Eyre is when she goes to be a governess for Mr. Rochester and all the events which happen as part of that, but the book starts when Jane is a child. <S> So technically speaking, no, you don't need a "hook" per se, and you don't need to put it in the beginning. <S> But if you don't, your book will feel old-fashioned. <S> That may be a feature rather than a bug, if you're doing it deliberately.
| A hook in the first sentence or paragraph is most necessary for new books by unknown authors. And if you do open with a violent conflict, but the reader doesn’t give a damn who wins or loses, it’s a bad hook.
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3 short stories that can be turned into a novel. Should I pick the one with best reviews? I wrote 3 short stories a long time ago, and I realized there's still room to expand them. Recently I made the decision to write a novel with the purpose of starting a writing career. So my plan is to pick one of the stories and turn it into a novel (I have a tight schedule right now so I want to focus on only one). All of them got good reviews (from people that I know and from writing communities like this one ). But the one that got the best reviews was the one called Sushi Break. Which is a story about a girl who travels 3 hours every weekend to see her boyfriend (the boyfriend is doing an internship and doesn't have time visit her). Things are OK for a moment, but after some days the boyfriend starts cancelling the meetings at the last minute (usually with some lame excuse). However, the girl keeps traveling to the city to eat in a sushi place she fell in love with. In this place, she meets all kind of strange but friendly characters who help her reflect on her relationship. Here is the story for those who are interested. I think people liked this story because (unlike my other ones) it's quite straight forward, it has a nice imagery, and it doesn't have the kind of magical realism that I usually add to my stories. They also said that the protagonist has a "strong" voice and they can really identify with her. Should I pick this story because is the one that is more likely to succeed (by succeeding I mean selling a good number of copies)? Or should I choose one that is closer to "my style" instead? <Q> Should you pick a story to expand on based on which one people reviewed the best? <S> No you absolutely should not. <S> What matters when picking a story to expand upon is not the reviews it's received <S> but how well you can expand it. <S> You should look at each story and ask yourself several questions; Where can I go with this? <S> How can the characters develop further? <S> Will a larger story still work well as a cohesive whole? <S> Because surprisingly often they won't. <S> Many stories work well in shorter form because they are short stories and thus nicely contained without any distractions from the point, they're straight forward. <S> I've seen many writers fall into the trap of thinking that their story needs to be longer than it really does and they wind up added events and scenes that don't actually contribute to the plot or character development in any way. <S> Remember write for yourself first and worry about if anyone likes it after. <A> The Sushi story is nice, well worth telling. <S> But before you jump into a novelization you need to do some serious study of punctuation, the use of commas particularly. <A> I haven't read either of your stories, so all I know is the short summary of the Sushi story and that the others contain magical realism. <S> I don't know about your home country. <S> Magical realism seems to be popular in Latin America. <S> But from your other questions and comments I gleaned that you want to write in English and (thus) publish to an English speaking audience. <S> From what I know about successful English language publications, and especially books with teenage protagonists (i.e. Young Adult fiction), magical realism is not a part of any of the books that I know. <S> There is some (adult) fantasy that has it (e.g. some aspects of the work of Patricia McKillip), but it is generally rare and not something that can be found in bestsellers. <S> What (teen) <S> readers love is a realistic, contemporary love story with protagonists they can identify with. <S> Your Sushi plot sounds like a book Sarah Dessen might write, and I am convinced that, like her books, it will be an instant bestseller (if you write it well). <S> I would write the Sushi book, because to me it appears most compatible with reader taste.
| If Sushi Break is a story you feel you can run with and take it much further then it would be an excellent choice but if you're only considering it because of how well it did forget about it.
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Must protagonists be flawed for satisfying character evolution? Many screenwriting theories hold that the protagonist should be flawed at the story's beginning and overcome this flaw by its end. Now, there are stories where the protagonist is thrown out of a seemingly normal, happy and functional life only by the intervention of the antagonist. Think of all the tales of killed or abducted wives and children. Does the protagonist of such a story need or usually have a "flaw" beyond the desperation, hate, or guilt caused by the antagonist? <Q> You're at a serious risk of running into a "Mary Sue" issue if your protagonist lacks flaws. <S> For example, take "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad, a "a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel". <S> It's a book-within-book thing, with like 90% of the content being verbatim contents of the inner book: "Lord of the Swastika", by Adolf Hitler, a renowned Sci-Fi writer, winner of the Hugo award . <S> The protagonist of "Lord of the Swastika" is perfect in all respects. <S> Feric Jaggar is a proud, young, strong and genetically pure male with blonde hair and blue eyes. <S> He reinforces the lacking strength of the falling bastion of genetically pure humanity and begins conquest against countless mutant hordes, unstoppable and unchallenged. <S> Only thanks to "Preface" and "Afterword" what would be really just a total purple prose takes on some perspective, placing the book within a world where IIWW never took place, where deep flaws of character of the writer (Hitler) are reflected as special strengths and preferences of the protagonist, and the whole thing becomes a strong satire and a social commentary instead of just author's wet dream. <S> Note, your example: the protagonist is thrown out of a seemingly normal, happy and functional life only by the intervention of the antagonist. <S> This is the flaw. <S> Lulled into comfortable, calm life; weak; incompetent as a fighter, and lacking courage. <S> A hen-pecked puppy becomes a war dog. <S> Or opposite, the flaws become the strengths. <S> Or even more opposite, a character appearing flawless in the beginning begins to exhibit increasingly more flaws as the story progresses. <S> Without difficulty there is no sense of reward, no sense of risk or danger. <S> Perfect protagonists are boring. <A> People have flaws. <S> If a character is portrayed as flawless then that character comes off as having somewhat less substance than otherwise. <S> The abduction or murder of a relative is not a character, it is an event. <S> The character comes through in the way the protagonist reacts to the event. <S> In "Taken" Liam Neeson's character is pretty bullet proof during the main part of the action but the film takes care to acknowledge (at least in passing) that Neeson's character is, in normal reality, deeply dysfunctional. <S> In the Jason Statham thriller Hummingbird the character study angle of a fairly thin revenge plot <S> is extrapolated to the point where the genre of the thriller becomes de-focused. <S> The movie is more interested in putting together the character of a man who would exact revenge for the death of someone close to them in the manner he chooses to do so rather than concentrating on the mechanics of the act itself. <S> EDIT: <S> And to push the revenge trope even further the very new "Blue Ruin" presents a man getting revenge with the entire hook being that he is the least likely candidate for vengeful retribution you could probably think of. <S> At one point someone tells him he's "weak" <S> and he doesn't reply at all, just stands there looking mopey. <S> This either signals the guy is not very self-aware (because he goes through a hell of a lot in the course of the movie), or that he can't deal with verbal confrontation, or that he is, at some level, deceptive in the way he presents himself. <S> All of these are flaws and the movie seeks to make the protagonist complex and problematic in order to deepen what is, like the former examples, a fairly bland revenge narrative. <A> I would say that characters need not have flaws, in the sense that they have negative character traits or are unsuccessful at life or unable to face and complete the story task, but rather that the story induces them to change and grow even further. <S> Characters must be "flawed" at story onset only in relation to who they become at its end. <A> Building on @what's answer (to his own question ;-) ), I'd say that the question is falsely assuming the protagonist will improve . <S> Much more interesting is the case where the protagonist changes due to new circumstances, and the readers/viewers/gameplayers are left wondering to themselves if that was a good change. <S> For instance, a gentle person becomes a killer. <S> Or even, a hardened killer becomes a committed pacifist. <S> Or how about a double change (having nothing to do with killing), like in "Flowers for Algernon" ?
| It's dubious that you can create a truly interesting story with the protagonist being absolutely perfect, unless you think it as some kind of satire, where that perfection is actually a flaw. Without flaws there is no difficulty in resolving the conflict.
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Writing dialogue for a non-English speaker in English? I am writing a story that features an illiterate Indian woman. Of course, while there are things only Hindi can satisfactorily express, I was wondering what would be a good way to construct dialogues for someone like that- an illiterate woman in her forties, world weary. (Just finished reading the Mayor of Casterbridge. Not sure if I could pick up much from there though.) <Q> Your best bet is research. <S> Find a "Little India" community, wander around, and listen. <S> Sit at a corner coffeeshop for a few days. <S> Walk through the retail area. <S> Don't stalk people, but pay attention to who is speaking and what they're saying. <S> You may get just a lot of Hindi, but if you're in an English-speaking city, you're bound to find someone speaking in broken English. <A> Lauren's answer is the best way I can think of to go about it, but if for whatever reason you can't or don't want to do as she suggested: A person who isn't a fully competent speaker of any language, like English, will normally carry over idiosyncrasies from "their" language. <S> The main example I can give is that home-language speakers of Afrikaans, which uses only one word ("is", pronounced like the "iss" in "hiss") for both "is" and "are", very often use "is" and "are" inappropriately; some, because of the similarity between the English "is" and the Afrikaans "is", barely use "are" at all. <S> Another common slip-up I see with Afrikaans speakers is grammar, specifically word order. <S> People tend to instinctively use the sentence structure used in their mother tongue, rather than that in the new language. <S> Unfortunately, I don't know anything whatsoever about Hindi, but I get the impression from what you wrote that you do know the language, at least to some degree. <S> Although I wouldn't recommend using them as-is in dialogue, word-for-word direct translations of Hindi sentences would be a good way to find these idiosyncrasies. <S> One last note about word choice: The difference between a technically correct word and a situationally correct word is one of the last things someone learning a language grasps. <S> Using not-quite-right words can be a good way to convey that someone doesn't speak a language well, while still making what they're saying fully comprehensible to your reader. <S> The first example that comes to mind is that while "He was driving very quick " conveys the same idea as "He was driving very fast ," only one seems correct to an English speaker; not so to someone new to the language, who only knows the broad meaning of the words. <A> What's more important? <S> Her inability to speak in English? <S> or her story that will be narrated?And even if you began writing disjointed sentences as an attempt to show that she is not a native English speaker, are you absolutely sure that the readers will keep on reading it?Disjointed, grammatically wrong sentences are fine in dialogues. <S> But only when you use them sparingly. <S> They are used as a tag to say 'this guy is not a native English speaker' or 'this girl comes from a not so elite social environment of the English classes'... <S> or you get the drill. <S> Perfect example, the character of Eliza in G.B Shaw's Pygmalion who had a cocknea accent with a not so good grammar. <S> And this is London we're talking about. <S> G.B Shaw was so (obsessed is the right word?) <S> with phonetics that there are some instances where he wrote Eliza's dialogues in cocknea English accent and then provided the proper worded dialogues in brackets for those who couldn't get it the first time. <S> Pygmnalion was a play. <S> Yours isn't. <S> And this is not Edwardian London. <S> My point is, what matters is your story and your characters. <S> When the characters are developed fine, they seem real, they'll start speaking. <S> Again, don't worry about the way your dialogues will appear. <S> Worry about the story. <S> Those hints will be enough in the beginning because when the reader will be half-way through the story, they won't be concerned with the way she speaks. <S> They will be concerned of what's supposed to happen next.
| Look at the sentence structure and anything peculiar to the language, and use those as starting points.
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Best Tool to Create User Guides We are planning to create a user guide for internal use only. It's 150-page document in Word for a self-developed SW tool. The user guide will require constant update. No translation is needed. We would like to have - an easy-to-use interface for the tool- easy to update- good functionality on change history control, better to have change history detailed to each functionality of the software. Do you have a recommendation on the tool? <Q> For internal documentation I've found wikis to be quite useful. <S> A wiki has several useful features for this task: built-in change-tracking doc can be structured as several pages (e.g. one per major section) for easier management; individual pages can then be edited without any need to merge changes into a master document some (most?) <S> wiki platforms detect impending edit conflicts; if someone else has the page open for edit you'll find out (so no messy merges later) can be accessed by anybody with a browser, on any device (try reading a Word doc or PDF on your phone...) if your wiki keeps a "recent changes" page, work is visible and thus more likely to receive additional helpful edits or comments (more collaboration) <S> It does have some disadvantages -- you have to run a server, and printing isn't very practical. <S> If you ever decided to publish the documentation to a wider audience you'd need to port it to something. <S> But, that said, you could probably script most of that. <A> However, a tool doesn't organize itself. <S> The best wiki sites are heavily edited from every level from copy to development. <A> Would GoogleDocs work? <S> We used them extensively at my prior workplace (a university), as everyone had a google account that was the campus email account, and it has good version tracking. <S> Like any shared document, usually you need someone somewhat in charge who will care if parts aren't updated and they should be, and to make sure the ToC/index is current. <S> Alas, at my current workplace, Gmail and GDocs aren't allowed. <S> Nor is much innovation in general, so we don't have always-updating multi-user documents (at least in the departments I've interacted with.)
| In the past, I've used a wiki for this type of work.
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Is it a bad writing practice to end a paragraph with question? I'm not sure where I picked up this habit. Here are two examples: I pictured An-Mei’s slim fingers running across their smooth surface, her hand, and then the body connected to it. But try as I might, I couldn’t recall her face. All I saw were scattered facial features that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t put together; they were like jigsaw pieces that slipped from my hands the moment I grabbed them. Was time capable of erasing such memories? The trail turned into a sharp curve, a mountain of fens blocking what lay ahead. I circled around it. She was short and relatively thin. Her hair was cut at the forehead with two long strands hanging limply above her shoulders. She was wearing a red knit cap, a white cotton sweater, and a plaid skirt that reached just below her knees. On top of all that, she had a thick leather jacket. Comfortable clothes. Not the kind you’d bring to a hiking trip, though. What was she doing standing there? Following her line of vision, I realized she was staring at a huge ancient tree. I guess my intention was to use the question to connect the paragraph to the next one (or to give the paragraph a summary/ending). Does this feel amateurish? If so, what should I be doing instead? <Q> I've certainly never heard of it being wrong to end paragraphs with questions, and it doesn't seem wrong to my eye. <S> In fact, I don't think it's even a question of grammar; it seems to be more of a stylistic choice. <S> If that's your writing style, go for it. <S> It works well in the extracts you included, and in general I'd say it's a good way to create a more "personal" narrative style with a first-person narrator. <S> Like all elements of writing style, you should just be wary of overdoing it; ending every paragraph with a question would bug me quite a lot after a while. <A> When you have a question like that in narration, you are essentially narrating the protagonist's thoughts. <S> If you put quotes around them, or italicized them, and made them present tense, they would be dialogue. <S> As long as you keep that in mind (and don't overuse the technique, as Watercleave correctly notes), it's perfectly fine to do. <A> Totally fine in prose writing. <S> Where it gets iffy is in formal writings like cover letters and scholarly essays. <S> You really need a license to do so in these occasions or else it is kind of seen as lazy. <S> But as far as your case in concerned, completely acceptable. <A> You are the proctor though. <S> You are essentially giving birth to what never existed before. <S> I have to say honestly I loved your writing. <S> The flow; the eb. <S> It reads fast like a dreamer's anticipation. <S> You can feel the unfolding of the story upon a page when you end with a question mark. <S> It creates a pause. <S> Although many do not partake in doing so; who is to say that your way may not be the new way. <S> Perhaps the world has something to learn from you. <S> You did it quite well. <S> Flow wasn't comprised <S> it's velocity <S> was simply fine tuned up.
| I say when you feel the desire to end with a question mark do so.
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Craft group exercises or chapters in critique groups? I am an aspiring writer who feels blocked in terms of writing a novel because I am lacking knowledge of craft. I have taken two continuing education type writing courses in the past five years: ED2GO's "Write Like A Pro" and University Wisconsin-Madison continuing studies' "How To Write Compelling Fiction". I have also read Larry Brook's "Story Engineering" and "Story Physics". As an aside, this has served to confuse me, because each source divides plot somewhat differently (such as 3 parts, 4 parts, and 5 parts -- and some with sub parts). I want to develop characters, outline a plot, and write the first chapter of a novel so that I can submit it to a critique group. But in the meantime I have found several books in the Writer's Digest's "Write Great Fiction" series: (1) "Plot & Structure" by by James Scott Bell shows you how to develop a believable and engaging plot that keeps readers enchanted from beginning to end. (2) "Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint" by Nancy Kress delivers proven methods for creating characters readers will believe in with scenes that deliver emotional impact. (3) "Dialogue" by Gloria Kempton offers advice on writing dialogue that sizzles regardless of genre, ways to fix common problems and more. (4) "Description & Setting" by Ron Rozelle helps you master the important, but often-overlooked subject of your story's setting and how it's described. (5) Revision & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell gives you tips on how to successfully develop first drafts into a final draft as well as techniques that improve your chance of publication. Another interesting book, among others, is Laurel Yourke's Take Your Characters To Dinner" about characterization. All of the above books have exercises, and it would be neat to have them critiqued, but I think maybe critique groups are looking more for book chapters. I am not sure at this point what philosophy to have: try to have perfect knowledge upfront (at the expense of doing exercises as opposed to writing longer pieces), or writing a chapter (even if it is badly written), and submit it to a critique group to learn how to improve that way. If I were to go the craft book route, who would be available to critique the exercises? Sincerely,Craig <Q> Get out of your own head. <S> Write. <S> Just write. <S> Stop worrying about whether it's perfect. <S> Stop worrying about which book to follow. <S> You've got a list taller than the coffee table and they can contradict each other. <S> Just write. <S> Get something on paper. <S> If you're really flailing around, pick your first book about plotting, follow some of the advice there, and put your plot together. <S> Just write. <S> You cannot edit, improve, or critique a blank page. <S> You need actual text to work with. <S> Just write. <S> Once you have a novel written, never mind the first chapter, <S> then you can go back and worry about setting, description, characters, a critique group, etc. <S> etc. <S> But until then... just write. <A> The biggest mistake that aspiring writers make is believing that writing islike cooking and that those how-to-write books contain the recipes for a successful novel: take 200 g three act structure, mix it with 1 protagonist and 1 antagonist, add a spoonful of stakes, and you got a bestseller. <S> But a novel is not an object built from parts following a blueprint. <S> A novel is the result, almost a byproduct, of an activity : <S> something you do , and either do well, or don't do well. <S> In that, writing is like drawing or making music. <S> What you have to learn is not the ingredients to the novel, but how to write . <S> When you start to think about writing as a skill similar to swimming or riding a bike, you're on the right track. <S> Of course watching other people swim will give you a basic idea of what the essential idea of swimming is, but beyond that nothing will teach you to swim but getting in the water and practicing the moves. <S> Writing is the same. <S> Great first novels get written by writing ten awful novels first. <S> If you want to learn to write novels, write a novel. <S> And when you're done, analyze your mistakes and do better next time. <A> Although Lauren and what have pretty much covered it, I also want to add - read . <S> I don't mean craft books, either. <S> I mean, read what you want to write. <S> Hell, read what you don't want to write, so you know what to avoid. <S> Read a lot, and read widely. <S> Writing is so subjective, and you'll find that there are many authors who break the rules - yet you still love their work with a fiery passion. <S> Don't simply read, either. <S> When you get to the end, pull it apart. <S> What did you like? <S> How did the author make it work? <S> It could be something as simple as the cadence of their sentences or the perfection of their metaphors. <S> Perhaps it's how they structured the plot so everything came together in the end. <S> Analyse how they pulled it off, what kind of methods they used. <S> Then think about what didn't you like, and why? <S> Perhaps there was nothing, which is cool. <S> But there'll be other books where certain elements grate at you, and you find yourself jerked out of the story or rolling your eyes at things. <S> What is it that didn't work for you? <S> Was it the flat characters or dialogue? <S> The lack of world-building? <S> The awkward sentences? <S> In the end, you should be writing things you personally want to read, things you enjoy. <S> All the writing craft books, while providing a fantastic foundation, can't give the the answer to that. <S> You need to read a lot to know what you like and what you don't. <S> What styles you like, perhaps even what genres. <S> And that will come across in your own writing as you find your own voice and structures. <S> And as everyone else has said, don't stop writing. <S> Keep writing, keep churning out pieces even if you think they're crap. <S> After all, sometimes you need to burn through all the crap before you get to the gold. <S> You'll only improve from it, and slowly learn to find your voice.
| Read, and read a lot.
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Switching from past to present tense to increase narrative speed? In German, traditionally narrative texts are written in the past tense. When the pace of the action picks up, the narrator can increase immediacy and urgency by switching into the present tense. Is such a tense shift acceptable in English also? Example: Last friday, I went to ... On my way home, it was around three, I sat waiting for the bus, when suddenly a car pulls up in front of the bus stop and three thugs jump out and start shooting at me. I throw myself to the floor ... <Q> No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. <S> If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another universe where they perceive time differently, you might be able to get away with it, but in English prose, if you're not literally going somewhere fantastical, your story is pretty much in one tense for the entire piece. <A> I respectfully disagree with the prior respondents. <S> I don't see why shifts in tense are inappropriate English if used with discipline. <S> It's no different, to my mind, than a temporary shift in point of view. <S> It's just a device. <S> What's important is that the writer not sloppily mix past and present tense. <A> This has an effect of slowing the pacing down for those scenes written in the past, giving the reader an easy transition between things past and things present. <S> This style of writing can be seen heavily in The Hunger Games. <S> For this same reason switching tenses from past to present, can indicate that the past was the narrator's retrospect. <S> For instance your passage could be interpreted as follows: <S> "I was thinking about what I did last Friday when all of a sudden a car rolled up and 2 gunmen jumped out." <A> This is extremely rare and very difficult to execute smoothly. <S> While switching into present tense when the action picks up is usually fine, it's very difficult to create a smooth transition in the opposite direction - action ends, and you want to switch back to past tense - it's hard not to make it sound awkward. <S> What is common, is use of ("timeless") noun phrases for quick passages. <S> The door swung open and he strode in. <S> A swift punch to his jaw, a kick to his groin, elbow into exposed neck, then landing with my weight on his back, handcuffs snapping on his wrists forcefully drawn behind his back, and I stood up, smoothing out my suit. <S> He gave out a long, pained groan. <S> That way the transition in both directions is smooth and we create the sense of rapid, hectic sequence of actions. <A> Changing tenses can work as an exclamation mark . <S> Particularly in denoting a mental process. <S> In other words, using past tense and switching to present tense for action scenes is something I wouldn't do - it's just too extensive, and it loses its meaning. <S> Examples of what I mean by "exclamation mark" <S> (I'm just making these up, they're not from any book). <S> Notice the mental process (flashback and inner thoughts respectively) 1) <S> Switch from past perfect <S> to past tense to indicate the passage into a flashback <S> Michael felt worried as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. <S> Something was peculiarly familiar about those scars, he'd seen them before. <S> Perhaps when he'd gone on that trip, the previous summer. <S> He'd gone to the lake and had met John in the cabin. <S> The scents were amazing, the trees emitted this amazing aroma that... 2) Switch from past to present to indicate inner thoughts <S> "What on earth are you mumbling about?" asked Nick. <S> "I told you, and I have nothing more to say", Mark said. <S> His lips quivered, and his facial muscles twitched, as if he was suddenly nervous. <S> Leave me alone... <S> I've got nothing more to say "Come on, man", Nick insisted. <A> I think that it might work if you switched tense at a large break in the story, such as a chapter. <S> This would especially work well if you were switching the POV character. <S> A friend in my writing class is doing this, where there is a girl and a horse trying to find each other, and whenever the chapter is told from the horse's POV, it's in first person present tense, but when the chapter is from the girls POV, it is third person past tense. <S> It seems to be working quite nicely.
| However, a common place where I've seen transition between present and past tense is when the story is primarily written in the present tense and then, when characters think about things past, the tense will switch. No this is not appropriate in English.
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Can a plagiarist sue one who plagiarized them? I sometimes write rather vicious satirical pieces that heavily reference (arguably - but possibly beyond the point of plagiarism; definitely the same setting, the same characters, strong references to events) the works upon which the satire is written. Expectably, authors, or their fans, aren't entirely happy about that, and try to shut me down one way or another. Yes, the safe haven of Fair Use for Satire applies. Yes, I'd win a lawsuit if it ever came to that, but I definitely try to first argue, to a point where the other party won't start a lawsuit, or where DMCA or moderator action could get my publication removed; prove to them that their actions would be unlawful. But getting just this through some thick skulls is difficult. So, let us for a moment forget the Fair Use clause, and have a look at one other vector of defense: Thing is, these pieces I write about are usually fanfiction. Based upon a setting, characters, and events that belong to a popular franchise, with trademarked characters, popular following and a big corporate entity with an army of lawyers ready to C&D anyone who tries to commercialize on their success. In effect, anyone waving their copyrights to their fanfic in front of my face gets slapped with "Could you show me your copy of license from [Bigcorp ltd.] that grants you the right to pursue the copyright on my use of their characters and setting?" It works very efficiently actually; I never had anyone follow up on their threats after that. Still, I'd like to know - does it work like that, or am I merely throwing a bluff in their face? Summing up: Entity A possesses some franchise. Entity B creates a derivative work of franchise A, which is possibly infringing upon its trademarks/copyrights (although A doesn't pursue that, leaving the infringement alone.) Now, entity C creates a derivative work based on work of B to a degree that could be considered infringing, had B's work been fully original. (never mind infringing upon A; they remain 'inert'). Now, can B legally demand C to remove their content, due to the potential infringement, or does B's own infringement void any further claims to derived content? <Q> I am not a lawyer. <S> This is based on my understanding of U.S. copyright laws. <S> Any part of B's story which is unique to B is, I believe, the property of <S> B. So if B is writing an X-Files fanfic about Mulder, Scully, and an original character who is a female agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and C writes a parody-bordering-on-plagiarism about Mulder, Scully, and Jack St. Georgina, then B probably has legs to go after C if the story, "Wyverns of the Heart," significantly lifts text from B's work. <S> If C's story is merely parody, then it falls under the same Fair Use rules as any other parody. <S> I believe that since the original character is an invention of B, B actually does have the copyright to that character, and B does have the copyright to the original story, plot, and text. <S> So there might be grounds for a plagiarism claim. <S> Since B's work is "transformative" of A's copyrighted work, I think B would be hard-pressed to find a lawyer willing to take the case on. <S> But the possibility exists. <S> You are probably right in that you can't be sued. <S> However, I do wonder why you're expending so much energy trolling these people. <A> The reason your method works is that most people who make legally questionable threats are trying to scare you with their own fears. <S> When you shine a light on something that scares them, they back off. <S> This does not make your counter threat any more valid than theirs. <S> It also does not work on people who are knowledgeable or not afraid of suit, except when the only way to counter your threat are with facts that also counter theirs. <A> Adding to the answer by @laurenipsum: Her answer applies also to an original that is out of copyright. <S> For example, anybody can make any story they want using the original characters and setting from Les Miserables, since that is out of copyright. <S> The writers of Les Miz can't sue you for that (well, not successfully). <S> But, if you use characters original to Les Miz, that's a different story. <S> (See what I did there?) <S> The new characters in Les Miz belong to the writers of Les Miz, even though Les Miz is a total knock-off of Victor Hugo's book. <A> I'm also not a lawyer, and neither am I in the U.S. <S> but I'll try a swing at this... <S> The author is expected to only claim copyright on their original contributions; any other claim would be void. <S> Only the separable, original parts can be copyrighted. <S> See the Copyright Office Compendium section 313.6[B] <S> ( Unlawful Use of Preexisting Material in a Derivative Work, a Compilation, or a Collective Work ): <S> The Office may register a derivative work, a compilation, or a collective work that contains preexisting copyrightable material, provided that the author’s contribution to that work can be separated from the preexisting material. <S> That means (at least for the U.S.) <S> what you're telling your victims isn't correct. <S> They can register at least parts of their stories which give them right to sue you if you infringe, and you can't bring BigCorp into the fight at all. <S> You could threaten to tittle-tattle, but BigCorp may look at the situation and sue you first, since yours is a more aggravated infringement of the original work. <S> According to the Wikipedia page ... <S> [parody] "is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works ". <S> That commentary function provides some justification for use of the older work. <S> See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, <S> Inc. Based on your later description it doesn't sound like you are offering much commentary, just taking the parts you like and replacing the parts you don't. <S> Your opponent's lawyer could argue that's just plagiarism and vandalism, not parody. <S> Furthermore, it sounds like your 'parody' is aimed at the Fanfic authors, but you may be infringing the copyright of BigCorp in order to do it. <S> If that's the case, you have no Fair Use defence at all should Big Corp chose to sue you.
| Even your Fair Use defence could crumble if your work falls short of parody, which it sounds like it might. The author of a derivative work (fanfic) certainly can register their copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office.
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Jumping between points in time in narrative Is it acceptable for a writer to jump back in time for a whole chapter? I don't mean a flashback, I mean more like, for example, chapter 5 happening in 25/06/2014 and then the next (Chapter 6) happening in 24/06/2014? I would be using this to explain how certain thing came to pass, example, army 1 is fighting army 2 and currently losing, and then all of the sudden army 3 arrives and saves the day, but noone knows how or why army 3 arrived, so in the next chapter I go back in time to explain how army 3 got there. And sometimes I would go even further back, example, chapter 7 being in 26/06/2014 and then chapter 8 in 12/09/1932, because something happened in 1932 that is now going to affect events in 2014 heavily. Would this be an acceptable thing to do? And if the books kept jumping in time every chapter (of course stating the date at the beggining) Would it still be acceptable? <Q> Nonlinear narratives are a particular favorite of mine. <S> But if you have a good reason to present things to the reader out of order, it can be a very powerful way to set up a book. <S> You'll have to do some work to make sure the reader is oriented. <S> Putting a date at the beginning of a chapter is a start, but lots of clues in the story itself would also help. <S> Nonlinear techniques allow you to present information to the reader exactly when they need it. <S> They also let you start a story in the most interesting part of the tale, and pace it however you want. <S> One of my favorite movies is Pulp Fiction , and that film succeeds in great part to its use of these devices. <S> We get a great view of the characters due to the order in which we encounter them. <S> The film goes so far as to have a character die, then we see him again (but we know he's doomed). <S> Yet it's never confusing, because the story is very clear. <S> The script is available online, you may want to spend some time reading it. <S> (It's also a hell of a page-turner.) <A> Jumping around in time is the sort of narrative technique that you need a very compelling reason to include. <S> It requires more work of the reader and so it also needs to provide commensurate reward. <S> Assuming you're writing a story that's more or less plot-driven, that means you're not including literary devices solely for their own aesthetic value. <S> Which means time-skips should only be used to control the flow of information. <S> An example: in chapter one you follow events in a besieged city, and in chapter two you switch to showing events leading up to the siege, but from the point of view of the attacking army, camped some miles away. <S> This will usually help with clarity and make it easier for readers to follow. <S> Of course, the bottom line is, you can use any device you want as often as you want. <S> The real question is, is the benefit worth the expense? <A> I like that and do that in my writings. <S> But many people say it is not good to break the chronology of a story, it would disturb the flow. <S> I am currently writing a fantasy novel and would like to start it directly from the part action is made, and then, in the next chapter, tell how things happened. <S> I think what you're willing to do is flashback. <S> This can also create confusion. <S> Check this link for managing flashbacks: http://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm . <S> The answer to your question is—yes, it is acceptable. <S> But think before doing. <S> Try to avoid them as much as you can. <S> Hope this helps! <A> As long as you very clearly indicate the date at the beginning of each chapter, so the reader isn't lost, sure, go for it.
| Yes, it's possible to do this, but it can be tricky to set things up so they're not confusing to the reader. It's also advisable, although not strictly necessary, to restrict the switches to different groups of characters in different locations.
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Is this title suitable for a chapter section? Suppose I am writing a chapter about some deep technical subject (say, for instance, "boolean variables"). This theme is riddled with idiosyncrasies and misunderstandings, so I would like to present the most confusing topics and to straighten them out. My question is: is the following section title suitable for a technical book? "The Ins and Outs of Boolean Variables" I am sure I have come across this expression many times, but as a nonnative speaker I really don't have a feel for how formal or adequate it sounds. Also, if this title is not adequate, what alternatives could be used in this case? Edit: The actual topic in this chapter is not really boolean variables; this was intended as an example. But the suggestions here are so good that I'm tempted to use them if the text touches upon that particular subject in the future. Thanks, <Q> It's not that it's unsuitable, but the word play of "Ins and Outs" isn't very well matched with the subject of "Boolean Variables. <S> " <S> I'd be tempted to do something like; <S> "If This_Chapter == About_Boolean_Variables {Read}" ;) <A> An informal, jokey title is perfectly appropriate. <S> This is especially true if, as I surmise, you're writing a progrmming manual of some sort. <S> Computer science is a pretty informal field, after all. <S> It's almost expected. <A> Depends on how formal or informal the technical writing is and whether the target audience is beginner's or advanced. <S> A more specific and accurate chapter would be ideal. <S> " <S> Ins and Outs" is too vague. <A> Im tempted with <S> The true and false of Boolean Variables... <S> There is nothing ! <S> true about this. <S> When you can't tell your true from your not-so-falseThe universal ! <S> false!
| The title isn't very eye-catching, but it's a common enough turn of phrase and there's nothing wrong with it, as such. "Ins and Outs" sounds like it's more about GPIO pins.
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What are some strategies for surprising the reader? I'm writing an action scene and I'd like for the POV and the readers to realize something at around the same time. Specifically, why another character is physically stuck and unable to escape an advancing danger. If the readers figure out that it's the POV's fault before the POV does, they might wonder why the POV is so stupid, or blind, or whatever, even though I'm going to great lengths to show the character as being clever. If, on the other hand, the POV realizes something that the readers couldn't've foreseen, it will look like the author hasn't done his job setting the scene and placing hints. So, ideally, the reader and the POV would figure it out at the same time. The problem is that I as the author know the surprise, so I can't pretend to figure it out. I know there are authors out there who are really good at surprising the reader with things the reader should've already figured out. Are there strategies for achieving this? <Q> Mystery writers are masters of this. <S> One trick is to insert the relevant detail in the middle of a long list. <S> Readers tend to skim long lists. <S> They read the first item and the second, and then skim to the last. <S> So you can hide the clue in plain sight by writing it as the fourth item in a list of six or seven. <S> Veteran mystery readers are onto this trick. <S> But mostly you can get away with it. <S> In general, study a few mysteries. <S> Notice the moments where the sleuth has that nagging feeling of having missed some important detail. <S> Later, when the sleuth remembers the detail, go back and find where it first appeared in the text. <S> Notice how the writer disguised the significance of the detail, and how the viewpoint character noticed the detail but overlooked its importance. <A> When Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, readers were probably surprised along with Elizabeth to discover that Mr. Darcy was actually a much better man than George Wickham <S> (Jane Austen did prepare the ground for this by allowing Wickham to show that he was a bit inconsistent in ways that Elizabeth only noticed later). <S> However, now that the boy-meets-girl-they-hate-each-other-oh-look-they-are-in-love trope has become so universal, readers will assume that the heroine is going to fall for the first apparently rude but handsome fellow with whom she exchanges witty banter. <S> So, as one method of surprising readers, do something that goes against genre tropes. <S> Maybe the handsome man who banters with the heroine turns out to be kind of a boring fellow upon further acquaintance. <S> Maybe the plucky protagonist who enters the boxing tournament against all odds, in a desperate bid to clear his father's farm from debt, actually loses. <S> If you build up the event in a fairly normal manner, readers may miss your clues because they expect a typical outcome. <A> In addition to Dale's excellent answer, try ending a chapter or a scene break on a phrase or sentence which can be slightly misinterpreted. <S> The example I'm thinking of is from Anne McCaffrey's Moreta . <S> Briefly, people ride dragons, who have the ability to teleport in both time and space. <S> When teleporting, the dragon is said to "go between ," which is a place of blackness and cold, for three to five seconds. <S> Too long, however, and the dragon is "lost between " — they never arrive at the destination. <S> SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK'S END <S> Near the end of Moreta, one of the characters has been doing multiple time-hops (on the order of 15-minute increments) on an old dragon who isn't her bonded dragon. <S> She's exhausted, the dragon is exhausted, and she gives the dragon the order to teleport without really clearly giving the dragon spatial and temporal coordinates. <S> Moreta looked at the sun and wondered with a terrible lethargy what time it was. <S> "Let's go, Orth." <S> They went between. <S> And scene break. <S> I realized there was something... off about that the first time I read it. <S> I flipped forward several pages (cheating) to see if I was right, because something didn't sit right about that. <S> And yes, it turns out that they go between and don't come out again. <S> The phrase <S> "They went between " is used all over the place in the Dragonriders series, but not on an ominous, scene-ending note like that. <S> That's how the reader is surprised. <S> So take something innocuous like "They went through the door" or "over the hill" or whatever and set it up so that the reader doesn't realize until a moment later that it's much more than simply going through a door.
| A common approach is to give the detail, but to disguise its significance. When I think about books which have truly surprised me with unexpected discoveries, they are usually books that avoid obvious genre tropes.
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Good tools for writing (game) manuals and sourcebooks As I had asked in another part of Stackexchange (didn't know about this part until some comments there) I'm writing manuals (mostly for computer games, but in addition to this also for tabletop games, pen and paper rpg games) and sourcebooks (world books for tabletop games). Now I've run into a few troubles there with MS Word, as the text grew fast very cumbersome to organize (I lost oversight quite fast and had to search for parts of the text quite long time and again) and in addition to that I couldn't position text as I needed and also including pictures (screenshots and graphics) was more cumbersome than I would have liked (also using pictures as backgrounds for some of the pages was cumbersome). So my question is: Are there any good tools out there where I can create such manuals and sourcebooks with? As a note here: I'll have to print out those manuals/sourcebooks but also want to put them into PDFs. Edit:As it was asked in a comment: Pictures are very present. Part as charts, part as pieces of art to lighten up the book Some pics are taking up a whole page, others take up only part of a page and are in between a section and its text, and others again are background images above which text is printed. There are up to 8 different types of texts (titles,...) At some locations the text must be even displayed so that "2 columns" are on the page while on most it's 1 column per page. <Q> As Lauren loves Scrivener I love LaTeX! <S> It lets you code your books, build reusable modules and makes laying out text a breeze. <S> Writelatex.com is an amazing free site that lets you work with LaTeX online, work collaboratively and save your documents as Zips or PDFs. <S> We use it to write the rulebooks for our tabletop games and RPG systems; we have a template set up with modules that you can elect to include (box contents, aim, setup, etc...) and a default style. <S> Using a style sheet much like CSS we can comment in or out different styles as required, so that we can keep a uniform structure but theme the document on the game in question. <S> I've found splitting the story out into manageable chunks makes it easier to write and stops me from ending up in plot-falls. <S> Overall I find LaTeX to be not only useful for it's flexability but also for the way <S> that having pre-built, modular documents makes writing a new rulebook a matter of simply changing some options and adding some text. <S> The time it saves us, and the consistency it gives us, is well worth the effort of getting your head round it. <A> This is a job for Scrivener! <S> :) <S> Scrivener is an incredibly flexible writing program. <S> It allows you to sort your thoughts into multiple documents within a project, see two documents at once, create hyperlinks, drop in photos and audio files, and then export as Word or print to PDF. <S> You can view your documents as notecards on a corkboard with tags and summaries so you can rearrange things easily. <S> You can create "folders" for your documents and view them like a file tree. <S> If you search the site for Scrivener and check the scrivener tag, you'll find more comments here from other users detailing the program's usefulness. <S> The only other recommendation I could make would be InDesign if the layout is very important, but that's only for the design part, not the organizing and writing part. <A> If you have the financial resources, the manpower (a team for a synchronized multitasked work environment), the time for self (or paid) training and the will to participate in a much slower than SE community for help, Adobe's "Technical Communication Suite" is your solution. <S> It's the top notch, state-of-the-art, standards supporting "technical documentation" solution on the market. <S> Just Framemaker itself would convince technical writers to try it for once. <S> But as I've stated above it has its drawbacks. <S> If you're a "one man show", you should stick with open source solutions.
| I also use LaTeX for my writing, using a template to split sections into separate modules with a defined plot guide and a handy "things to look for" checklist at the top of each module.
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What are the ethics of using real-world house addresses in historical fiction? I am editing a novel manuscript for a client of mine. It's a historical fiction set in 1948, so not that long ago. The main character lives in a house above a cafe that I believe is fictional within the real city the novel is set in. At one point, the address of the cafe is mentioned. Currently, the full address is not given, just the street it is on and some dashes in place of a house number. Is it ethical to give a house address in a fictional novel that corresponds to a real-world place? Would the owners of that house be annoyed? Would it be better to come up with a non-existent house number along the desired street? (If so, would that be hard?) The client is considering self-publishing, so there is no publishing house editor I should ask. <Q> In a case like this I would recommend looking up town records and using an old residential address that has since been demolished. <S> This might take a bit of work, but gives the accuracy that your client seems to be looking for. <S> Otherwise, look up some addresses and pick a number in between. <S> Only locals would know the problem, and it would be a Platform 9 3/4 problem to them. <A> In historical fiction use real address for real historical events. <S> If some real place was a famous hangout of some society, use it. <S> If you know of historical events that took at a specific location, have them re-enacted there in your story. <S> Say, you write a story about the artistic society of Young Poland, in Cracow. <S> Even if your artist is purely fictional, it would be entirely shameful if he didn't hang out at Jama Michalika . <S> That's where all the artists stayed, in particular encouraged by the owner accepting the tab being paid with sketches, drawings, paintings and murals (depending on size of the tab, as you can guess some were quite sizable...). <S> Things like these really add immense amount of flavor for historical fiction. <S> Don't hesitate either, if that's a public building - a school, a church, a museum, an embassy. <S> These are a fair game and feel free to put your action in there. <S> Even if that was a private house back in the day. <S> Now, if you need a generic location at a private house, and you need to give the address - best if you pick one that did exist back then but doesn't, anymore. <S> Razed, entirely rebuilt, even just numbering changed. <S> A place where fans can come and say " <S> And here stood the house of..."If you have trouble finding such a location, then make up one. <S> Tack a number or two at the end of a street. <S> Make it at crossing of two streets that don't cross. <S> Place it between two buildings that are adjacent to each other. <S> It's another bit of flavor, "the house with a relief of two cherubs above the gate", it's a very nice touch and you're still safe. <S> There's one more approach. <S> Pick a historical figure and "hijack" their history, while keeping locations true to that person's history. <S> Say, you write a steampunk novel, with a genius scientist developing distillation of crude oil into volatile fuels? <S> Why, make him work at a pharmacy in the building of the city hall of Gorlice. <A> I would use a fictional house number. <S> You don't want to end up with the 221B Baker Street problem — so many people over the years thought Sherlock Holmes was real and tried to reach him that the genuine flat is now a Sherlock Holmes museum; nobody can live there. <S> (The BBC had to film their series <S> Sherlock on another street, because the actual Baker Street is covered in Holmes imagery.)
| If a real historical figure lived in a house that is there to this day, use it. And if you don't need to give an address, give a real description of the building without pointing its exact location.
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Can novels have twist endings? Can a novel have a twist at the end? Sure, a short story can be well written towards a not-so-obvious twist, but a 200+ page novel...can you suddenly whip it around at the end and change the ending just enough to surprise the reader? <Q> Novels frequently (usually, even) contain plot twists. <S> The thing is, a twist in a novel is very different from a twist in a short story. <S> You can make a twist <S> the core of a short story , the one element that gives the whole work its theme and meaning. <S> A good example is short horror fiction, where many (many many) stories rely on a surprise ending to "push home" the reader's horrified reaction a la <S> " It was Earth all along ." <S> Murder mysteries of the whodunnit type are also expected to contain an element of surprise -- the identity of the killer. <S> A reader who is unsurprised by the ending of a mystery is a disappointed reader . <S> Most novels, however, rely on a certain back-and-forth between reader and narrator. <S> Readers require certain reassurances, which vary by style and genre. <S> In order to be effective, a surprising ending must be somewhat obvious in hindsight . <S> Solid example: any of the first three Harry Potter books, arguably the later ones as well. <S> That's why twists belong in the middle of the book , and only rarely near the end. <S> If you put a twist about two thirds of the way in, it can be used to show that things are getting worse for the protagonist. <S> Example: betrayal by a major ally. <S> The very end of the book is meant to be somehow cathartic -- unless it's actually the first part of a longer story. <S> Example: A Game of Thrones with its by now famous death scene. <A> I am not opposed to twist endings, but consider: A twist has to be earned. <S> Remember <S> The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game . <S> People loved those movies, because the twists made sense. <S> Compare the 2001 version of The Planet Of The Apes . <S> At the end, Marky Mark finds himself in Washington DC at the Aperaham Lincoln Memorial. <S> Everyone was like, "Huh?" and wanted their money back. <S> But remember, The Sixth Sense was only two hours long. <S> The twist in The Crying Game happened less than halfway through. <S> A book takes days, even weeks to read. <S> The reader puts it down, walks around, thinks about, even talks to other people about it. <S> Plenty of chances to see through your cunning plan. <S> Which means either your twist makes no sense and will just annoy your reader, or your twist does make sense and your reader will therefore probably figure it out long before the Big Reveal. <S> Hey, maybe you are incredibly clever. <S> Be careful anyway. <S> I once was writing a book with a twist ending and started explaining the whole plot to my wife. <S> I got halfway through Chapter One (about two sentences in my summary) and she guessed the whole thing, twist and all. <A> The bestselling genre novel features a protagonist on a quest. <S> The novel either ends with the hero reaching his goal (if the hero learns his lesson and changes) or not reaching it (if he resists change and fails at his life task). <S> The novel begins with a "call to adventure", and from this call the reader will know the goal of the hero. <S> If the call is a murder, the goal is to catch the murderer. <S> From the goal, the reader will know where the story is going: either the hero achieves his goal (catches the murderer), or he fails. <S> This makes the end somewhat predictable: there are only two possible outcomes. <S> To make the novel not boring, it must be open right until the end which of the two outcomes will be achieved. <S> Since the reader has a 50% chance to guess the end from clues in the text, you really have to do your best to surprise him. <S> This is done through plot twists: every time the reader starts thinking that he knows where the story will lead, he must be surprised. <S> Therefore: The reader must not be able to guess if the hero will suceed or fail right until the end . <S> Either the end is not what the reader expected, or it does not happen how the reader expected it. <S> In any case, the end must be a twist, or your end will bore the reader because he saw it coming. <S> Many novels of course have a denouement "after" the end: the hero returning home or Harry Potter married to Ginny Weasley nineteen years later. <S> This has the purpose of completing the circular journey and tying up secondary story lines. <S> When I say "end" in my argument above, I don't mean the last word of the text, but the end of the fight for the goal. <A> Twist endings are the best kind of endings. <S> One story which has become a recent favorite of mine was "One flew over the cuckoo nest"(Novel/movie) From the title you can tell that one of the Mental institution patients was going to get the better of the asylum. <S> Naturally the reader assumes its the main character. <S> (SPOILER)Surprise: <S> At the end of the story the main character gets lobotomized. <S> Then the native american who was revealed to be pretending to be a retarded mute escapes.(after mercifully killing the main character and taking his spirit as per native american beliefs.)
| A twist in a novel has to have a narrative purpose.
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Where can I find a good online thesaurus? Usually I just use the synonym suggestions at dictionary.com (or its tie-in site thesaurus.com) but it's pretty lame. Most of the synonyms it suggests are basic and well-known words I already know. In the interest of writing novels, for instance, sometimes it's nice to be able to sprinkle in those more rarely used words to make the writing a little more artful, so to speak. To that end, what's a good online thesaurus that might be able to help me expand my vocabulary or find words I might not normally think of? <Q> http://www.wordnik.com seems to be the best online thesaurus, though one is presented with such a hailstorm of synonyms and near-synonyms and synonyms from divergent disciplines it can be rather overwhelming. <S> I've used it for several years, but recently found a thesaurus called "Artha" that sits on the desktop and is spectacularly well-designed. <S> It's easy to find (just google "Artha thesaurus") <S> and there are many places to download it from. <S> I use it on Linux; hopefully it's available for other OS's. <A> I personally prefer a physical thesaurus for research... <S> there's just a feel to it when crawling through topical sections <S> I have not found online -- searching for a word online is just not the same as trolling through the sections and getting led along. <S> Being 100+ years old now, it could serve to provide the words you don't already know. <S> I'd, of course, be careful about using antiquated words more likely to cause confusion than provide clariy. <A> Have a look at Power Thesaurus - http://www.powerthesaurus.org . <S> It's very extensive! <S> The site has simple, easy-to-use layout with low ad-count. <S> The synonyms are sorted by rating and you can vote as well (and add you own terms as well). <S> The lists can be filtered by topics (the filters are on the right). <S> And there are antonyms and other word relations. <S> Please note that it doesn't have definitions of the words, but rather focuses on related words. <S> The result - you become very efficient in your writing when you use it ;) Note . <S> Our team is working on this website, so feel free to contact me for any questions related to Power Thesaurus.
| The 1911 version of Roget's Thesaurus is online and searchable.
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Handling an Inauthentic Character One of my main writing projects centers around a character rich with vices. Probably chief among them is self-interest, followed by dishonesty. When I say dishonesty, I mean more than lying to get by. This character is close-lipped about her past, goes by a false name, generally attempts to distance herself from her personal history. Readers are introduced to this character as she's living under a persona which she has constructed. A major plot point involves her constructing a new persona in much the same way. Other major characters react to this in various ways, not all of them negatively. I feel like I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I'm familiar with characters creating new identities (link to TV Tropes redacted), mostly as part of a villainous transformation. This is an idea I'm trying to play with, but I wish to present it in a less binary way. Shortly: the humble, virtuous identity is not less or more authentic than the grandiose, power-grabbing one that replaces it. Is a character like this too complicated, too alienating? Does she require some measure of genuine backstory in order to function effectively as a disingenuous manipulator? <Q> I don't think any character is ever too complicated. <S> Some may be alienating to more "mainstream" readers, but that only means you shift your target audience to more ambitious readers. <S> Then, of course, everything happens for some reason. <S> The character being that way is a result of a certain backstory. <S> That backstory must exist, and be consistent. <S> Now, whether the backstory exists locked forever in your drawer, is merely hinted in the book, or just revealed through some confession or reminiscence, is your decision. <S> In case of a character so complex, personally I'd choose to drip small hints along the way, building the complete backstory as the book goes - it's something that has enough flavor to keep the reader's curiosity piqued, keep them wanting more. <S> Not giving out the backstory would be a waste - because backstory of a character so complex is bound to be interesting. <S> Still, even if you decide to keep it hidden, keep it fleshed out - YOU need to know what makes the character tick, what fears, motivations, disappointments, dreams, vengeance twisted a person's personality that far. <S> If you skip it, you'll have a much harder time fleshing out the character and keeping the motivations consistent. <A> If "the humble, virtuous identity is not less or more authentic than the grandiose, power-grabbing one that replaces it," then both those (apparently contradictory) sets of characteristics exist in the same person. <S> You have to figure out how that's possible. <S> Her backstory is critical to that. <S> Did she grow up as the child of a monastery's charwoman? <S> Was the monastery headed by a Cardinal Richelieu type? <S> Was the monastery run by kind, humble monks who were eventually destroyed by a powerful political leader who adopted her as heir? <S> I'm just riffing here, but my point is the same as SF's: for one person to hold such contradictory personalities but have them both be authentic, she has to have had a complex life. <S> Whether the change is caused by internal or external factors, you as the author must account for it. <S> My feeling as a reader is that if I can't understand why she can be Polly Pure and then flip over to Killer Katrine with a sidebar of Emo Emily along the way, I'm going to think that you as the writer don't know what you're doing, and I'll abandon the story. <S> Other things you have to think about while you're constructing this backstory: <S> If her Polly Pure self is authentic, but she takes on multiple otherpersonae to hide her past, does she hate that Polly Pure self? <S> Doesshe look back on her innocent past with contempt? <S> Does she keep changing personae for other people ( <S> that is, so theydon't know who she is) or for herself (because she can't stand tolook at herself in the mirror any more)? <S> Who is she protecting with the constant changes? <S> Whose past is she trying to conceal? <S> Could she be trying to keep her past secret because revealing it would reveal someone <S> else's past or secret? <S> Could she have multiple personality disorder? <S> (you just don't see enough of this in fiction, AFAIC.) <S> What is the reader supposed to think of her various personae? <S> Are we supposed to like them all? <S> Sympathize with them? <S> Is there a persona we shouldn't like? <S> feel sorry for? <A> I've often read stories where I find myself saying, "Oh come on! <S> Why would he do that?!" <S> It occurs to me that the more common problem in fiction is that characters are too simple rather than too complicated. <S> I've read lots of stories where I say, "Oh brother, you can describe every character in this story completely with one sentence. <S> He's the 'idealistic young man who can't deal with practical realities', or 'the villain who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of power', or 'the young woman who constantly puts herself in danger for no apparent reason and has to be repeatedly rescued by the hero', etc." <S> Depending on the nature of the story and how central this character is, you may be able to justify her behavior with two sentences of explanation, or the whole point of the story could be to explain how she came to be this way. <S> As long as you give SOME explanation, and it's at least reasonably plausible. <S> Like, don't just say "because she had a rough childhood" or "because she's crazy". <S> But if you briefly said that, say, when she was a young woman she wanted to do X, and she lived in an environment where everyone around her hated X, and so she had to put on a façade her whole life, and she became accustomed to telling others what they wanted to hear and hiding her true feelings and <S> so .... <S> That might be enough to make me believe it.
| To a large extent, whether a character is plausible or implausible depends on how well you justify it in the story.
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Should I write Internet slang as it is spoken or as it is written? I'm writing a sci-fi novel where some of the characters are computer hackers. In some of the conversations they use the term "owned" which has a broad set of meanings in English. So I wonder if I should write the word as "pwned" like most of the hackers would do in a chat session or an Internet forum. Example: No, I owned that server last month - said Kevin vs: No, I pwned that server last month - said Kevin Which should I use? <Q> I strongly oppose drusepth's answer. <S> Slang is spoken language . <S> Internet slang is written language . <S> You cannot speak it. <S> Think about how you would speak to a friend. <S> You are unable to say pwned , <S> l33t or <S> n00b <S> out loud. <S> You will say "owned", "leet" and "noob". <S> You can use internet slang in internal monologue and stream of consciousness, because, after all, you can think the literal representation of a word. <S> So if your narrator is a /b/tard, he 1 would certainly use internet slang and not Standard English in his narration, i.e. outside the dialogue. <S> 1 <S> There are no girls on the internet. <S> Of course, letters are not sounds, and we do not actually say "noob", but (in IPA) /nuːb/. <S> But since the overwhelming majority of readers do not differentiate between phonemes and graphemes but take the letters for the sounds and even "hear" the words as they read, letters are being used as the common representation of spoken language. <S> Such a habitual and unconscious equation of letters and sounds does not yet exist for internet slang , at least not for the general public. <S> But if you write for a nerd audience and publish in a nerd publication such as Wired , or if your text is heavily ironic , you could use internet slang in dialogue. <S> If you write for a non-nerd audience, do not forget to explain the slang you use in a note before, or footnote at, the beginning of the text. <S> Just as not everyone in the world can read Lowland Scots, most people would understand "pwned" as a typo and not buy a book that is consistently misspelled. <A> Just like if you had a southern hillbilly speaking with slang, you would probably quote him saying, "He be talkin' like this'ur," but rarely would you write talkin' like this'ur outside of quotes. <S> It's the difference his/her voice and yours. <S> This rule also has the added benefit of guiding pronunciation: as a reader I'd find it odd to find pwn in the middle of a paragraph, and someone like @Lauren Ipsum might worry how to pronounce it. <S> In dialogue, however, it's been my experience that readers feel better about not knowing exactly how s'thin's sayed, and are free t'bring (or come up with) their own pronunciation for the words your speaker might as well be making up. <A> You can try to avoid the Internet spelling of things, and it'll come out a little more formal, but I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. <S> Consider: <S> "noob" and "n00b" actually mean slightly different things, and "newb" is something entirely different! <S> You lose meaning by conforming to a formal style. <S> Admittedly, the interlocutor is hearing it and doesn't know for certain which one is in use, but they* have the tone and inflection, so it's only fair that we, the readers, should get the letters (and numbers) in their true form. <S> You have the artistic license to use whichever spelling best conveys the meaning you want. <S> Pwn is a tricky case. <S> It's not uncommon to hear hackers (and company) pronounce the "P" in "pwn," especially in Pwnie Express, but also in general use. <S> (DEF CON is this weekend if you want to ask around, our you can just take my word for it.) <S> Using a "P" better expresses your character's roots in the Internet, and using an "O" better conveys how your character is pronouncing it. <S> I don't think the pronunciation is actually a solid factor, though. <S> After all, you say "tomato" and I say "tomato," but they're both spelled T-O-M-A-T-O because they're both red fruitgtables that taste good slathered across a pizza. <S> If pronunciation were any basis for spelling, Americans would write "wader" and "rondayvoo." <S> As a computer scientist, my recommendation is to keep the "P." Merriam-Webster may not include "pwn," but it doesn't quite include the Internet definition under "own" either, and where that definition is concerned, "pwn" really is the correct spelling, no matter how it's said. <S> And finally, if nothing else, it adds some flair. <S> *Don't believe everything 4Chan tells you about females. <S> In fact, don't believe anything 4Chan tells you about females.
| My general rule with slang is that if it's in quoted text (e.g. dialogue), it should be spelled colloquially ( pwned ); otherwise, slang in prose should be written properly, when possible ( owned ). So, when you write a representation of spoken language such as dialogue you must use what the person would actually say.
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Can I change between the use of past tense to present tense for the story being told by a character in first person? My story is told by one of the characters and frequently uses the past tense when describing events. But occasionally I feel like some of the events should be told in the present tense, and I switch between the two. Does this as an example work? Is it alright to do so? Our guest grabbed a bread stick without asking, and as Jack, I now also wanted to get to know this stranger a bit better. “Thank you for taking away the burden of us having to order. What is your name?” I asked him. My guess is that it would have to do with either eyebrows or a hypnotized cat. <Q> As far as there are ever hard-and-fast rules in writing (which there aren't!) <S> you should avoid switching tense within a paragraph or even scene unless the change is consistent. <S> Just as you should avoid changing person mid paragraph or section. <S> Any change that jars the reader pulls them out of the story. <S> And any time a reader is pulled out there is a chance they won't bother to go back in. <S> As an example; in a scene in Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton, there is a scene where he changes person and time mid-section. <S> He goes from a soldier walking up a beach being pelted with stones as he walks through the town, to a woman watching the soldier begin to emerge from the water and gathering stones to start throwing. <S> If the change is consistent it can be handled, particularly if it is clear why the change is happening, but if the change just happens it will be impossible for the reader to become accustomed to it. <S> Every time I hit a change like this, whether it’s time, tense, person or even a consistency fail — a pipe becoming a cigar because the writer forgot the character was smoking a pipe — I’m thrown out of the world and back into my chair while I try to figure out what just happened. <S> Peter F. Hamilton’s one of my favourite authors, despite his faults, and I give him time and allowances I would not give an author I was reading for the first time. <S> Regarding your example specifically: <S> I now also wanted to get to know... <S> Using now in this context doesn't have to be a tense change, it can still be used in past tense, and simply adds a sense of immediacy to the moment without changing tense. <S> On the other hand... <S> My guess is that it... <S> This one is definitely present tense and is a sudden and jarring change. <S> The edits that Aibrean suggests would be ideal. <A> I think the yo-yo effect is jarring to the reader. <S> This is even worse when it's character voice changing. <S> Changing "now also wanted" to "wanted" and "is that" to "was that" is fairly minimal and an easier read. <S> I don't believe it impacts your writing negatively to keep the tenses consistent. <A> For example. <S> I am more comfortable writing in present tense when using the first person point of view within the story but prefer to use past tense when writing in the third person. <S> I am currently writing a story in which the POV changes between first (main character) and third (side characters). <S> Here is an excerpt - from both third and first. <S> The white-washed corridor smelt of bleach <S> ; he wrinkled his nose in disgust and sped up his footsteps. <S> Hospital corridors had always unsettled him; he had never liked their emptiness or the hollow way sounds echoed around it. <S> Nevertheless, he pushed on, ignoring the resonating sound of his footsteps. <S> He spotted a group of signs on the wall and frowned at them, loosening the navy scarf he'd thrown around his neck in an attempt to look cool. <S> Somehow he'd managed to go in the complete opposite direction of the CAMHS room. <S> He wasn't sure how. <S> -example of third person, past tense <S> I rub my eyes fiercely as I follow Jay down the corridor. <S> He looks back briefly and sends me an encouraging smile; I summon some courage and smile back nervously. <S> Our footsteps are loud and harsh; the sound pierces my ears like a nail through ice. <S> We pass the ward where the rest of my friends are resting. <S> I peek through the small curtained window, but Jay quickly ushers me on. <S> -example of first person, present tense If you do choose to do this, make sure you clearly differentiate the two. <S> Hope this helped a bit!
| Personally, I think it's best to avoid tense change in the same section of the story. However, in stories where the POV changes, it may be ok to change the tense.
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How do I cover a lengthy time period with only a few interesting details? I'm writing a book about my three weeks of travel in Belize (is that even enough time for a book?), and I'm wondering how I can cover the first day and build a foundation without being boring. There were only a few interesting details at best on the flight between the here and Belize City, but I would like to include it to set a stage for the story. How can I cover this time period skipping from place to place coherently and interestingly? This is my first time trying to do any writing for my own benefit (not academics), all help appreciated <Q> When it comes to writing, you should not try to portray things as you have seen them so, because it would not make the readers interested in it if the things you describe is not special or unusual ones. <S> Whether you go to the places are special or not, The writing can make the them special. <S> Or you should show the readers how did you see,feel about that and simultaneously why did you experience it in that way. <S> For example: "when i was in the plane with merry mood awaiting for a spectacular touring experience. <S> It happens in people's life when they are floating with boastful emotions, something will strike them with depressing and anxious memories of past. <S> So as that it happened for me when i look at an air hostess who resembled like first love. <S> It remembered me of how i was desperate for her. <S> Still could not let, the feelings for her, go. <S> In order to distract myself from emotional eruptions due to the memories of past, i look through the window <S> and i was awestruck by the bird view about Belize. <S> " <S> Just for namesake, i created a scene it can be vividly described in more elaborate manner. <S> You describe a place in different perspective with metaphors or with interconnections with your past experience. <A> Pretend you (in your story) are reading a book about Belize, and skipping to the juicy bits. <A> Start the story with where it is interesting. <S> It's not necessary to know that you checked your luggage, showed your passport, and got a seat on the plane. <S> All readers know that stuff happened. <S> So tell if it the telling adds to the story, and skip if it doesn't. <S> My guess is that the decision to go to Belize is probably interesting, so you might want to start with that, and then jump right to being in Belize. <S> Or skip that, and start with this: After six years of dreaming, and a frantic four months of compulsive planning and preparation, I was finally in Belize.
| You might intersperse your travel with the basic history and geography of Belize (the interesting parts).
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Tension built upon whether the main character will commit suicide or not. Problem: I'm using first person narrative I'm writing a novel, called Animal Suicide, about a girl who tried to commit suicide but then postponed the plan after a phone call she received. Everything OK. But then I realized...wait a minute...this is 1st person narrative, obviously she cannot die. Can I still create tension (will the reader eventually "forget" about this)? Or should I change the narration to the present tense (that way it is possible for the main character to die)? (Here's the short story version for those who are interested.) <Q> One possible solution would be to structure the narrative in such a way that the reader might come to believe it is a (rather long and drawn out) suicide note, explaining your character's reasons for her act. <S> Obviously, this would only work if the potential suicide is right at the end of your story, rather than in the middle... <A> First person narrative is just a device, and it doesn't necessarily imply that the narrator lives through the story. <S> For example, plenty of horror stories end with something on the lines of: <S> And then the beast's bloated tentacles began to squeeze me. <S> The world grew dark, and I knew no more. <S> ...or some such. <S> (Shel Silverstein did this in True Story , although that's tongue-in-cheek...) <S> The point is, first-person doesn't mean the narrator actually sat down after the story ended and wrote a book about it. <S> It's just a choice of style and narration. <S> I will grant that some readers will expect (incorrectly) that first person means the character lives, but if this were a serious barrier, you could have no first-person fiction relying on suspense from danger to the narrator's life. <S> (Suicide isn't your problem here; it's "did the character make it to the end of the book or not.") <S> Your best guideline is to write the story as you see fit, and then get some reader reactions to it. <S> If people tell you "Listen, this didn't work because I knew the character lives," then fine, figure out a way to change it. <S> If they don't then you're fine. <S> The one exception to this is: if you first person narrator is actively referring to things that happen "later." <S> For example, How I Met Your Mother is essentially in past-tense/first-person, but the narrator is established as "telling the story to his kids." <S> He drops references like <S> "That's how I met your Aunt Robin" or "Of course, we only found out about that years later" - which clearly establish a lot of facts about what happens after the primary story is over. <S> If you do that , then yes, suspense over "Will the narrator live through the story? <S> " will be very weak (similar to how in <S> How I Met Your Mother <S> , suspense over " <S> Will this relationship be Ted's Happily-Ever-After? <S> " was very weak and usually not the focus). <A> The tense in narrative fiction is not a time specification but a narrative convention . <S> When a story is narrated in present tense it does not mean that what is told happens now , which is why linguists call it " historical present ". <S> Tempus in literary writing does not have the function of locating an event in time, but, among others, of creating immediacy or distance. <S> There is therefore no reason, why a character telling a tale in the past tense, cannot die in the course of the telling. <S> The past tense might make some readers expect that the protagonist will not go through with her plan to kill herself, but page count will be a much stronger hint : The consciousness of the narrator can only extinguish in the last sentence on the last page. <S> If there are pages following the attempted suicide, I will know that either the narrator did not kill herself, or tells the tale from her afterlife . <S> In any way, you can lead the reader to believe what you want, by (falsely) foreshadowing the outcome you want them to believe will come true. <S> This is called a plot twist and works here as it works anywhere else. <A> There is a very simple solution to the first-person-narrators-cannot-die-at-the-end rule: <S> Set the story in present tense. <S> If the story is set in present tense anything that happens later happens in the narrator’s future. <S> And the last breath of air rushed from my lungs, as blackness claimed my life. <S> Becomes <S> And the last breath of air rushes from my lungs, as blackness claims my- <A> Are you writing a ghost story? <S> You can even have the story be entirely about when the narrator was alive, so the narrator dies after the end of the story. <A> I understand the question so that the story continues after the (postponed) death. <S> Usually the reader knows how far into the story he is, so if there's too much story left, the reader will know, or at least expect, in advance that the first-person narrator will not die (unless it's a ghost story, as Jasper guessed). <S> But then, tension may still build up on what event will cause the suicide not to occur, or to occur but not be successful. <S> After all, in the classic criminal story we know from the beginning that the crime will be resolved. <S> Yet it would be a bad criminal story that would not build up tension anyway, because we don't know in advance <S> how it will be resolved. <S> The more you make the suicide seem inevitable, the more tension there will be how this suicide is ultimately avoided. <S> Of course if that postponed suicide is close enough to the end of the story that the reader could reasonably expect it to occur at its end (or you're not close to the end, but the pace of your narration makes it still reasonable to expect the suicide to be at the end), then the question of whether the character commits suicide may of course also be a source of tension. <S> Note I've not read your short story, so I can't comment on if it creates tension as is (but then, given your spoiler I would have known what will happen anyway, which certainly reduces the probability of tension building up significantly).
| A ghost story can be written in first-person, and have the narrator die at any point -- including before the story begins, partway through the story, or at the end.
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How do I cite or give credit to a statistic on a website? I'm not even sure if I need to since I often see statistics on website and blog posts without a source. Do I need to? And how should I do it? From what I've seen when the source is mentioned, people usually do it one of these ways: Blah blah blah 922% (Name of source) Blah blah blah 12312% (Name of source, Year Published) Which of those are correct? And do I need to do something different if I reword the statistic? <Q> Absolutely cite any hard numbers you use. <S> It's good practice and not nearly common enough, which means it should be encouraged. <S> Given how quickly statistics become outdated, I would definitely cite at least the year of the study/article/whatnot. <S> On Wikipedia some editors would include the date of publication and also date accessed , which is relevant to web sources. <S> I don't think that's mandatory, though. <S> Use it if you have reason to believe the source is likely to be edited, e.g. a blog post. <A> The APA style recommends the following for citing anything from web sites (which would include any claim you're reporting from one): <S> New child vaccine gets funding boost. <S> (2001). <S> Retrieved March 21, 2001, from http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/story_13178.asp <S> Use double quotation marks around the title or abbreviated title. <S> : ("New Child Vaccine," 2001). <S> Include the URL you used <S> (I would make it an active link if you're writing on the web) and the date you retrieved it (because the web is not static). <S> This helps readers verify your claims. <A> If the concern is your blog post, I would recommend you either: a) <S> The hedgehog is 25% more spiky, if raised in temperature 5 <S> °C less than average <S> ( source ) or b) <S> According to the new study from DPKR , the hedgehog is 25% more spiky, if raised in temperature 5°C less than average <S> BTW: <S> Several people are nowadays afraid of SEO, so they do something like this: c) <S> The hedgehog is 25% more spiky, if raised in temperature 5 <S> °C less than average <S> (source: Google) <S> But my personal view is: Give credit to the original source <S> and let your readers have a chance to visit the source. <S> And even in the case when original source seems to be "dodgy" (Here I used DPKR science research as an example)
| Whether you're directly quoting a source or summarizing its contents, it's important to cite that source. Cite in text the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year.
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Do Decimals Bounded Between 0 and 1 (inclusive) Need a Leading Zero? For a variable bounded between 0 and 1 inclusive, [0,1], should I use a leading zero when quoting a number? E.g. the probability of rain is 0.5 or .5 (I realize this should technically be 50%, but I hope you accept the premise of the question). And obligatory apology for the likely quite straightforward answer (a coauthor and I disagree), and thanks for whoever helps. <Q> The combination of leading zero and decimal point is far more recognizable than the decimal point by itself. <A> The Chicago Manual of Style says that the inclusion or omission of a leading 0 depends on whether quantity could be greater than 1. <S> Especially if quantities greater than 1 appear in the same context. <S> For quantities that are always less than 1, it is typical to omit the leading 0. <S> CMoS gives several examples: Probabilities and baseball batting averages. <S> Odd choices of examples, given that 1 is a perfectly valid value for probabilities and batting averages. <S> Likely they meant "never greater than 1. <S> Coulda used better editing. <S> Other style manuals may give other advice. <A> This guy is from Drexel, so he must be right: use the leading zero. <S> http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52352.html <S> I found one quote on that site especially interesting, since it implies that the leading zero was customarily left out in the English system of units, but was strongly urged in the metric system of units. <S> "In the United States, the standard decimal marker is a dot on the line (i.e., a period or 'decimal point'). <S> When writing numbers less than one, add a zero before the decimal marker. <S> For example, on a drawing you might define a small length in English units as .032 in., but write the metric length as 0.81 mm." <S> Perhaps the leading zero is especially important in Europe (birthplace of the decimal system), where many write decimals using a comma <S> : 0,81 mm. <S> Ex: <S> The length is small ,81 mm. <S> What is the error?? <S> ? <S> Is there a missing comma, or is the comma misplaced? <S> See how confusing that is, without the leading zero?
| If the quantity could be greater than than 1, include the leading 0. Unless you have a very good reason not to, you should include the leading zero.
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Needing to Believe the Story Is Real I am writing a series of interconnected metafiction stories revolving around epic fantasy tropes. The basic premise involves gradually building up an epic narrative and then breaking it down, and the interaction between the original story and the deconstructed one. As such, the fictionality of all the characters is very central, because the over-arcing story approaches them as ideas rather than purely naturalistic characters. When I explained the idea to a friend of mine who's read at least as much fantasy as I have, she seemed to like it, but insisted that I should focus on the readers as characters. Her argument was that she has no reason to care about the 'first-level' characters, because, "you just told me they aren't real." What I got from that is that metafiction breaks suspension of disbelief unless it includes meta-characters as well. This is hard for me to grasp because I never did believe that the stories I read are real, nor want to. Part of my ability to enjoy stories so brutal and violent, and characters so gray and unlikeable, is rooted in the reassurance that, well, no one's getting hurt. Needing to believe the reality of the story is an idea I have trouble wrapping my head around. Is this a typical example of a YMMV (warning! TV Tropes link) reaction, or is it more a gap between reader position and writer position? If it's the former, I can accept that. However, if I'm being blindsided by my status as the author, that's a bias I need to try and fix. After all, what's fun to write and what's fun to read can be very, very different. In summation: Do readers need the option to believe that the events in the story really transpired? Is the (fictional) author the real main character of my story, as opposed to the characters that he created? Do I need to Watsinate my story? <Q> Yeah, mileages do vary, and your friend might just be an oddball reader. <S> Don't worry about it too much. <S> Just write your story the way you want to write it, and see if it works. <S> That said, it's quite possible that you could get even your friend interested in the story without having to "Watsinate" it. <S> What your friend is expressing concern about is that, if you openly describe your characters as fictional, your friend might end up losing interest in them "since they're only fictional", and might thereby end up uttering the eight deadly words . <S> [TVTropes again!] <S> (One reason your friend may be concerned is that they may have been overexposed to the common technique where fiction within fiction is deliberately presented as cruder and less realistic <S> [yeah, it's that site again] than the main story, in order to highlight its metafictionality and to differentiate it from the surrounding story. <S> If that's what your friend (subconsciously) expects, it's no wonder they feel like a whole book full of such meta-story would be boring.) <S> To avoid your friend (and other readers like them) losing interest in your story, you need to get them to identify with the characters despite their acknowledged fictionality. <S> Ideally, your friend should end up feeling that, even if the world in which they live is purely (meta)fictional and subject to authorial whim, the characters still come across as realistic people whose goals and desires matter, rather than merely as hollow avatars of a nebulous author figure. <S> Of course, that's generally as desirable goal in writing, anyway, so in that sense your situation is in no way unusual. <S> You may just have a bit more initial resistance to overcome, and may need to be a bit more careful with some things, such as if you wish to present the fictional author as directly influencing the characters' thoughts or personalities. <A> Quick glance into European novels and movies: One of my favourite Czech writer is Jiří Kulhánek <S> (link goes to English wiki page), who always writes in first person, his stories are (almost) always set in Prague, present time, there is (almost) always reference to actual things happening at the time when book is written ... but also, once he claims he is vampire, once he claims he is possessed by daemon... <S> And sometimes part of Prague gets demolished in really supernatural way. <S> But, the story is somewhat consistent . <S> Reading it, I don’t believe that something like that actually happened. <S> But the story sets some rules which are (almost) always followed. <S> Myself, I am more in parody style of writing. <S> So, once I gave my super enemy character button Rule the world <S> which actually could rule the world. <S> Luckily, he was stopped by cunning, sexy, musculature main hero at the last time. <S> And name of my arch Enemy is always Colonel Karpof <S> The inner rules make the reader to hold into. <S> I don’t care, that Klingons in the Star Trek are actually human actors with rubber forehead glued to their face. <S> What makes Klingons really believable is, that there is culture in behind, there are some desires. <S> And that makes them look real and believable. <S> Also, you don’t have to explain everything . <S> Every Star Wars fan I know got totally angry <S> when Episode 1 had to explain, that The Force is actually caused by Midichlorians in the blood. <S> its the type of "Watsination" which actually caused more confusion than anything else. <S> The rule of thumb is, every character in your story should desire something . <S> Even if it is glass of water. <S> Give your characters a life. <S> Even if its about to end really soon. <S> The lady you killed on the street was actually going to shop. <S> The bus what exploded was driven by someone who will be missed. <S> The story can be brutal, full of blood, full of superpowers,full of magic ... but make it consistent. <S> Please <A> It depends on the kind of story you're trying to tell, and the experience you want the reader to have. <S> I think that in your case, since you are creating characters which are meant to be read as archetypes rather than rounded people, you're fine with the Doylist (meta) approach. <S> If you do include metacharacters, then the metacharacters are the ones who are "experiencing" the story, and the reader is watching their story unfold (which is what happens in a non-meta book; the reader comes to the work to watch someone's story happen). <S> Essentially, is your book a movie or a role-playing game? <S> Is your reader passively absorbing your story, or participating in it? <S> If it's an RPG, go for it. <S> I think it sounds fascinating as an experiment. <S> I also think it's going to be an acquired taste (as your friend's objection illustrates).
| The way to do that is simply to portray the characters as consistent, well-rounded individuals that appear to have a genuine personality and free will, even if they're "stuck in a fictional world."
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Should I specify the time/date at the beginning of a scene? Example: That's when the thought hit me: I had to find out. I had to solve this mystery. And so, I decided to call off my suicide plan. At least for the time being. (Next chapter) The first place I decided to visit was the Forensics Department / I decided to visit the Forensics Department in February, as soon as the semester began... Or: Destiny, however, had another plan for me. The gods would hear my plea and send the help that I'd been waiting for all along. The help that would revive the flame that almost died inside me. (Next chapter) My morning classes had just ended, and I was eating at the university's cafeteria / Two days had passed after the incident in the Forensics Department. My morning classes had just ended and I was eating at the university's cafeteria... I worry that, if I don't specify the day/date, the reader will wonder, "OK, how, is this a day or a year after the previous chapter?" On the other hand, the 'dateless" version seems to flow better. So I'm confused about which one to use. <Q> Saying "In the end of June" is a form of telling instead of showing. <S> That is, you've told us time had passed, but it's not meaningful to us in terms of what it means for the character, setting, or plot. <S> With just a little more information, it does flow well with the time information: <S> I had finals to finish and an apartment to pack up, so despite the urgency of learning more it was nearly the end of June before I finally made it to the forensic department. <A> Please please please PLEASE use date/time of day references. <S> Please. <S> With chocolate on top. <S> It's way too easy to get lost in the flow of narration and not have a damn clue when we are. <S> Is it morning? <S> Is it night? <S> Shouldn't the moon be out? <S> How can the narrator see the cows jumping off the cliff if it's the middle of the night? <S> Why is daylight slanting through the blinds if it's noon? <S> Also, as an editor, I pay close attention to all the pretty details which the writer adds to give the scene flavor, and sometimes missing the time of day, or the day of the week, can entirely snarl up a plot if the character is supposed to be at work on Tuesday morning but the writer forgot that it's Wednesday. <A> I would say that you should definitely include time/date, but as was mentioned above, you should show, not tell. <S> If you have to tell, I would use the chapter header mentioned by Mac Cooper. <S> But actually stating that information within the body of the text itself might not be a good idea. <S> The most important thing is to have a very good sense of time, date, and place yourself, while you are writing. <S> If you do, part of that sense will come across. <S> It will also avoid mix-ups like Lauren Ipsum mentioned. <S> If the moon is out, the reader will probably conclude that it is night. <S> You can also usually get away with a very brief amount of telling. <S> For example, you could say, "early in the morning," or, "a few minutes later," or, "around dinner time." <S> I hope that helps. <S> EDIT: I've had plots where I couldn't keep track of what was happening on which day. <S> I found that actually putting a label (day 1, morning; day 3, night) for myself on each scene really helped while forming the plot, and later helped me know 'when I was' while writing.
| The other thing I would do is use descriptions (also mentioned by Lauren) that show what time it is. We usually don't need to know the exact minute of the time, though novels will of course vary.
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Is my opening chapter too short? I've just started writing my first proper novel, I've written short stories and started to write before, but never really had the motivation, but now I have a new, interesting storyline to write about, and I've just set the character and established some relationships, introduced the setting etc in the opening chapter but it only amounts to 2.1k words. Normally opening chapters, in my experience have been much longer. Anyone have anything to reply? Should I add more in, or does that risk cluttering and overwhelming the reader? <Q> In my experience, chapter length does not matter. <S> Your book may look more 'impressive' or 'official' with long chapters, but are they necessary to the book itself? <S> No. <S> As long as the first chapter does what the first chapter is supposed to do (be that introducing the protagonist, setting the scene, introducing the conflict, etc.), it doesn't matter if it is only 2.1k words. <S> To use an example, if you read Harry Potter closely, you'll find that there are a few good stopping places in nearly every chapter. <S> If the chapter ended at every one of them, the book would have been the same, just with shorter chapters. <S> Length really doesn't contribute to content. <S> Do keep in mind <S> I am only an aspiring author myself, however. <A> In my experience, and from research into other's writing and professional opinions, the length or lack there of does not matter. <S> Only you can know when your chapter is officially over. <S> If you feel you have accomplished what you intended when you wrote that first chapter, than it is a success. <S> If you feel it is lacking, than it probably is. <S> Reread it and see what questions it leaves unanswered. <S> Maybe allow a beta reader (someone to edit and proofread) to look it over and get an outside opinion on what it needs or does not need if you trust others to help. <S> My first chapter of my current book is 6.7k characters (11.5 pages at size 12 Times New Roman). <S> And I had a similar question at first, except in the realm of it being too long perhaps. <S> But I came to the same conclusion, that though it may be longer than some other books, it accomplishes what it needs too: <S> It sets the scene, Starts with trouble,Introduces the main POV and his environment. <S> Does your short first chapter have at least these three things? <S> If so than I would leave it as it is for now and continue writing. <S> Otherwise you can remain focused on this one chapter and never make it to the next chapter. <S> Hope <S> this helps and does not ramble. :) <A> If to you the chapter seems good, and it seems to be fulfilling your purpose for it <S> , I would not worry about it now. <S> If it is too short, what that really means one of the following: <S> either you didn't establish as much in the opening chapter as you think you did, or else there's some other major problem <S> (e.g. it's short because you're infodumping , or because you've forgotten to type in the vowels). <S> In other words, "too short" might be a symptom, but it's certainly not a problem in and of itself. <S> If it doesn't establish enough, you'll find that out as you continue writing. <S> You'll realize you're missing key information which needs to be established earlier, and at some point you'll rewrite to include that. <S> That's fine. <S> If there's some other problem, you'll find that out when you pass your work around for feedback. <S> Someone will tell you that a character is unclear, and you'll find yourself adding in huge scenes to establish him better. <S> Someone will tell you the opening isn't very gripping, and you'll decide to add in a major sequence to the very beginning. <S> Or, readers will tell you that it's terrific <S> and you shouldn't change a thing. <S> Bottom line: keep writing. " <S> If there is a problem, you'll find it - later. <A> I'm personally of the opinion chapters exist more to organize information and events. <S> It's functionally identical in most cases to have 20 chapters to having 10 chapters twice as long. <S> Of course formatting or specific requirements might come in (publishers wanting specific chapter lengths, for example, and if this is a potential concern, you should research that specifically), but there's no solid rule and never will be for a "good" chapter length in numbers of pages or words. <S> I tend to end my chapters along thematic or time boundaries <S> and I think such a practice makes far more sense than dividing chapters rather arbitrarily on page length like a lot of writers seem to do. <S> I also like to open my chapters with quotes or such things, so keeping the chapters divided up along themes helps make the overall result look more coherent and planned. <S> That said, if you think it's a sensible place to end the chapter, it probably is. <S> You are, after all, the person who knows the story best, and should stand by your decisions in it. <S> That said, 2100 words for introducing the background seems a little small. <S> I can't say without looking at the actual writing if there is a problem there, though. <S> If you are bordering on an infodump first chapter, you might want to consider a prologue which simply does so, or ignoring it completely and add in flashbacks later on.
| Because if you know what you're doing, and your only concern about your opening chapter is that other books have longer chapters at their start - well, then that sounds like a pretty strong opening to me :) Too short" isn't a problem. The first chapter of the story I am currently writing is about 4000 words, ignoring the fact I have a prologue and some other formalities before that, and I consider myself incredibly to the point. It depends heavily on the setting, but that seems like it might be terse unless the setting is very narrow.
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Alternate universe vs. historicity: how to set the threshold/expectations? I'm working on a novel which is set in the late 1920s, and the protagonist is a minor Lord in England. I wrote the first four chapters and handed it to an American friend, whose criticism largely consisted of how poorly I understood English society and that my characters behaved in utterly unbelievable ways toward each other. I'm having a hard time with this criticism because I've seen other works (written, film, television), in which characters behaved similarly, some of which are by English writers, and some predate or are contemporary with the period of which I'm writing. My question is: let's say that she is at least partly right, how does one strike a balance between creating believable characters and situations, and telling the story one wants to tell, when one is writing pseudo-historically in an alternate universe. I've often found that you can stretch the reality to the point of it being irritating as a reader/viewer even when it's obvious fantasy, for example, H.G. Wells in Warehouse 13. Is it a matter of setting expectations early on, about how much the story sticks to reality? Is this really just a question of personal taste? She was also confused about the time period (she thought it was Victorian, and in such case the upperclass/lowerclass distinctions were different). I wonder if perhaps I needed to make this more obvious as well. <Q> You first described it as "set in the late 1920s", and then later said you were "writing pseudo-historically in an alternate universe". <S> I'm not bringing this up to nit-pick your question but, rather, to point out that these are two different things. <S> There is historical fiction , where authors try to remain accurate, and there is alternate history , where authors use history as a jumping-off point but take liberties. <S> Both are fine; both are done -- but your readers need to be able to tell which you're doing. <S> How do you do that? <S> Fortunately, you have another path (one not so readily available to those writing historical fiction): introduce some element early on that <S> is not historically accurate. <S> I trust that if your reader was confused <S> then you're not writing something as blatant as Victorian vampires, but there are other ways to handle this. <S> One is to refer to a historical or contemporary event (or state) that either didn't happen or happened very differently -- a passing reference to Britain's American colonies, or the long period of peace (no WW I), or that a character is looking forward to his upcoming cruise on the Titanic -- pick anything that works, major or minor, so long as it's obvious to the reader. <S> Another approach is to introduce a technology that didn't exist then, though you'll need to walk the fine line between justifying it (why is that man wearing a digital watch?) <S> and over-exposition (if this change isn't central to your story). <S> Finally, you got feedback from one reader; as Lauren said in a comment, do seek other readers before you rewrite your work. <S> This person might be wrong, or inattentive. <A> As to establishing an alternative universe or setting an alt-historical theme I'm a big believer in the Nineteen Eighty Four slap-in-the-face method: <S> It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen <S> Monica's suggestion of making reference to some clear and obvious anachronism dropped into the narrative flow in an almost throwaway fashion is ideal. <S> As to establishing believable characters. <S> There are levels. <S> I wrote a short series of novels set in a US based cop show. <S> i.e. the books were intended to pastiche a cop show, not portray actual US cops as I have zero experience of the way actual US cops talk outside of my reading Homicide by David Simon. <S> After this I came to understand that I should really be embracing writing dialogue for characters I could really get a good rhythm going for. <S> Think of Pegg, Wright and Frost in Hot Fuzz. <S> They were parodying US Action Blockbusters but an essential part of their parody was to ground characters and scenarios in a very recognisable Britishness because I think that they felt pretending to be Americans would be somewhat crass. <S> This does not mean that you can never get the timbre right, particuarly if you have a UK-language and culture editor to point out obvious howlers <S> but that is adding another layer of work to the already challenging process of producing a novel in the first place. <A> You only have to watch Downton Abbey to realize that the 1920s were a period of rapid social upheaval in the UK. <S> Some people clung to the old ways with a death-grip; others cast aside all conventional behavior (and mostly got ostracized for it). <S> Most people sought a middle ground, which was tricky because the ground kept shifting. <S> So, the first thing you must do is establish which kind of person your main character is. <S> Then, no matter your choice for him, you've got to set up conflict with people who've made other choices. <S> This has nothing to do with your main plot. <S> It's just the setting of the time period. <S> There was widespread disagreement as to what ought to constitute proper social and moral behavior for the "modern" day (i.e., post-WWI) British. <S> I think you must maintain this, or your world won't be recognizably 1920s UK, even as an alternate reality. <S> So, for example, if your minor lord has a valet, he might or might not treat his "inferior" with respect. <S> But your minor lord's not going to treat his valet as an equal unless your minor lord is incredibly rebellious against the social order. <S> In that case, the valet would probably be uncomfortable with that level of familiarity. <S> Even if the two of them are fine with being pals, most people around them would be shocked by it and would come up with bad explanations for it. <S> And of course that begs the question (both for the reader and in-world): why does such a lord HAVE a valet? <S> [character development and plot development opportunity]
| There's of course the brute-force way, saying it up front ("(Title) - An Alternate History"), but that's a little clunky.
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How to describe a scene involving a shift in the environment due to forbidden magic? Background/scene for question : A character witnesses his wife killed before him. While holding her, he begins screaming her name. With each time he utters her name, the world around him shifts as he uses magic he was previously unaware of. The world shifts because he is using magic that is not of this world, ripping it from another world to revive his dead wife. The shift is like the difference felt right after an earthquake where nothing feels quite right. There are no physical changes, but you just know something is different. Like a shudder in the air. (These shudders will slowly affect and change how the world works later in the novel) This "shudder" is felt strongly every time he screams her name until she is finally revived much to her displeasure. Now the question : I am asking how I can show this shift that is happening in the air around him, in this particular scene, in a believable way that makes sense to the reader? I am hoping other writers may have knowledge of this sort of scene. <Q> Monica is on the right track, but I'd push it more. <S> If he's howling the name of his murdered wife in his grief, he's not aware of anything outside that grief. <S> I would actually not show the husband being aware of the changes while they're happening. <S> Maybe, possibly, flashes of light (which cast different shadows on her face), or he feels his ears pop, or the floor tilts — basically, alterations in the physical world which he can't overlook because they are interacting with him. <S> But the "muffled traffic" is something you notice when you're reading, not when your heart has been shattered. <S> However, there could be other people in the room who do notice the changes, and once the wife wakes up, the other characters could start wondering aloud if the changes in atmosphere were related to her resurrection. <S> Or the husband distantly realizing "my ears popped" is the other characters saying "the entire building just levitated two hundred feet and then dropped" or something. <A> Something like this: <S> "Sharon, no!" <S> he shouted to no one in particular as he cradled her in his arms. <S> "Sharon!" <S> He shuddered as he began to absorb the shock of it, then shuddered again. <S> What was that odd feeling? <S> "Sharon!" <S> he repeated. <S> Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. <S> Why was it suddenly so warm in here? <S> And quiet -- the sounds of the traffic outside seemed muffled. <S> He shook his head to clear it. <S> Nope, definitely getting warmer. <S> Stuffier, too. <S> It almost felt like the walls were closing in on him. <S> Gotta knock off the coffee, he thought. <S> He looked again at the lifeless body in his lap. <S> How could they have snatched her away from him? <S> It was wrong! <S> Unfair! <S> Nearly shouting, irrationally hoping he could yet bring her back, he screamed -- "Sharon!" <S> Etc. <S> The point I'm trying to make is that we get hints as the main character gets "that niggling feeling" that things are Not Right, but he's focused on something else so his tendency is to dismiss them -- his head is fuzzy from the shock, he's had too much coffee, etc. <S> The reader will figure out that things are changing before the character does, and then will get the pleasure of watching the character work it out. <A> As has been said by others, it sort of depends on the perspective. <S> This might be troubling to write in first person for the exact reason mentioned - the character is probably not paying attention. <S> In that case, you might be better off having him revisit the experience in a flashback later. <S> However, if we're dealing with any other perspective, I think it's reasonable to present things happening that the character might not be aware of but that are happening around them. <S> To answer the question of how to present that , assuming it does make sense in your context, I would suggest to keep it as simple as possible. <S> Here is an example I just wrote in my third-person-objective story of this same sort of general situation happening: <S> [Clover is in the office of Starswirl, inside the university.] <S> “You've already picked your side: the losing side. <S> Have fun with that,” Starswirl said. <S> A flash of blue light enveloped Clover and he stood on the purple street of the Whitehorn Road, in front of the university gate. <S> He turned around, almost ready to run back into the university, but merely remained in place. <S> “I did not betray you! <S> You betrayed me!” <S> He yelled. <S> Only the gate guards noticed and chose to ignore him.
| I can't call specific examples to mind right now, but I've seen this sort of "wait, the world is not quite as it should be" situation handled by sharing the POV character's inner dialogue as he gradually notices peculiarities.
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Books on character development Are there any good books to learn about character development for mystery/thriller genre fiction? For example, when to introduce the character(s), how much background info to give about each character, how to make the character evolve through the struggles etc etc. <Q> I would suggest: Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger. <S> This is actually listed as recommended reading for applicants to ABC network's writing fellowship. <S> 45 Master Characters and A Writer's Guide to Characterization by Victoria Schmidt. <S> Reviews for these can come off mixed, but I like how Schmidt uses the hero's journey and mythological character archetypes as templates. <S> Last, but not least, there's Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress. <S> I would dive into this for when you really want to push that envelope. <S> If you'd like a good primer on thrillers or mysteries, read How to Write a Damn Good Thriller and How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey. <S> I found his books helpful, but opinions on his work are pretty polarizing. <S> You can play it safe by borrowing these from your library. <S> For something more modern, check out Jodie Renner's How to Write a Killer Thriller . <S> For further inspiration, I would also read major works by Raymond Chandler ("Farewell, My Lovely), Dashiell Hammett ("The Maltese Falcon"), and John Le Carre ("Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"). <A> It is not about characters in mystery/thrillers specifically, but Orson Scott Cards <S> Characters & Viewpoint is considered by many (myself included) to be one of the best books on the subject. <A> Two of the best Character-building books for me are: Write Great Fiction - Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint, by Nancy Kress - amazon link <S> You can read this book for free on Amazon if you are a Kindle Unlimited (Kindle Online Library) member. <S> Its a very readable book and explains character creation very well. <S> and Creating Characters: The Complete Guide to Populating Your Fiction - amazon link , (compilation) by various authors
| For a more general description of character develpoment in a plot i highly recommend Larry Brooks' Story Engineering
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Which social media platforms should writers use to build a readership? As a writer of YA science fiction and fantasy action romance, using social media to connect to my audience, which are the most important and most "converting" (i.e. turning visitors into readers) social media platforms today? <Q> Every author and book is different. <S> I've sold about 50,000 books in 3 years, so I'm a solid mid-list author. <S> Facebook is where I tend to get the most intimate engagement. <S> I'll throw out plot questions or title brainstorming for my work-in-progress, and fans and friends and family will chime in with ideas. <S> Lots of fun. <S> Twitter is where I tend to announce stuff that gets coverage to the broader world. <S> I have a modest number of followers, but some of my followers have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, so when they retweet, it gets a very big audience. <S> This helps me get exposure to new people. <S> My blog is ultimately where I'm going to send people to find out about new books, write longer articles, find my entire list of books in order, and so forth. <S> I consider that the most essential aspect of my online presence. <S> And lastly I have a mailing list, with signup through my blog. <S> I only email out to that list once per month, but it has a very high level of response from fans. <S> (I use mailchimp to maintain the list.) <S> In order of priority: <S> blog mailing list twitter <S> facebook <S> I'm also on Google+ <S> but I use it the least. <A> GOOGLE+ . <S> If you're targeting a specific niche I recommend Goodreads , just go to the forums of the authors/genre that inspired you and post your work there. <S> Same for Facebook and Google+ <S> (post on their respective pages/communities). <A> Wattpad is a really good place to start. <S> Almost everyone there is an aspiring writer and hence encourage other writers immensely. <S> You can update status and post messages to your audience. <S> There are many clubs within Wattpad to promote your works. <S> https://www.wattpad.com
| I use my blog, Facebook, and Twitter the most.
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Copyright issue when referring to a textbook I'm currently writing a little book which explains all equations that first year students will use. There is a law that requires many assumptions and I have referred the student to the page in the textbook that explains the assumptions. Is this safe to do? I'm worried that I can be charged for derivative work as I am using the textbook's explanation to help the student understand my explanation of the formula. Any comments will be appreciated. <Q> Are you copying material from this textbook into your book? <S> Or do you mean that you are just writing, "See page 42 of Such-and-such book"? <S> Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. <S> But as I understand U.S. copyright law, if you are not copying the actual words from another book, you are in no danger of violating copyright. <S> You can certainly refer people to another book. <S> You can rewrite the material from another book in your own words -- just make sure "your own words" are sufficiently different from the other writer's words, you can't just change two words in ten pages of text. <S> If you quote 100 pages word for word from a 200 page book, you are asking for trouble. <A> I'm currently writing a little book which explains all equations that first year students will use A short remark before going on with the question: your claim in bold is definitely questionable. <S> There is a law that requires many assumptions and I have referred the student to the page in the textbook that explains the assumptions. <S> Is this safe to do? <S> Yes, it is safe to do it and it is commonly done in all scientific literature. <S> Typically one doesn't cite the page of a textbook, which can change between different printings, but the chapter or the section, which are less likely to change. <S> So, you may write something like: Equation (1) <S> is valid when the following assumptions are verified [1, Sec. 4.6]: <S> If the equation is so common that it can be found in a large number of textbooks, you can stress this fact by writing something like: Equation (1) is valid when the following assumptions are verified ( <S> see, e.g., [1, Sec. 4.6]): <A> You may want to query the publisher of the Original Textbook and see if they want to issue your guide as an Official Supplement? <S> I don't know what the subject is -- if it's something like Physics where these equations are now "known facts", you may be fine doing these as your own work, but if you're doing something where the choice of equations is more up for debate, then I would consult the publisher of Main Textbook. <S> Another route may be to link your supplement to a textbook that's more Public Domain, such as those in the Open Textbook Project , or seek for some Creative Commons ones. <S> (I am not a lawyer) <A> From your question it sounds like you are making a compilation of the equations. <S> If you are not including any new material in your book (explanations or ideas) <S> it is necessary that you provide a reference to all content in it. <S> Most authors provide footnotes for this. <S> "First year students" refers to students studying what? <S> If the contents of your book are something which will be useful for only a small group of people, it would be a better idea to publish your compilation on a blog rather than go through the laborious process of bringing out a book.
| The rules here are not hard and fast, but if you quote three paragraphs from a 200 page book, you are not likely to get into trouble. There is also the "fair use doctrine" that says you can quote small sections of someone else's work. If you provide an explanation and want your readers to refer to another textbook, then say so within your text.
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Book translations for a student I am a 5th grade teacher at a private school. I have a student whose primary language is Chinese. He has come a long way in learning English, but he still struggles with reading and comprehending the language. I am looking for an easy and cost effective way to translate his text books (mostly history and science) into Chinese. Is there a software out there where I can scan the book and have it translated? The publishing company does not offer the book in any other language oth er than English. Thanks for your assistance <Q> You're better off with a translation service, or a bilingual person, than a sort of "DIY" translation. <S> (Unless you know Chinese well enough yourself?) <S> Meaning can get lost in translation, especially when English is involved. <S> An easy example? <S> Just look at the word "lead" and its possible definitions. <S> And your student may have an easier time understanding math & science in English. <S> When I was an exchange student, even though I didn't know all the words, I still did better in my chemistry & calculus classes than language & history, even though those first two were not usually my best subject. <S> And, yes, foreign students usually attend English language schools to immerse themselves, and it's best to help them in English, etc. <S> But sometimes the answers are too hard to understand, and then getting some explanations in their native language benefits them better. <A> A quick search provided the following link (of which there are many), which may be of help to you. <S> Scroll down to the middle of the following link to "online services" where they offer individuals and businesses of all sizes on-demand translation services of Web pages, written texts, or Microsoft Office files: http://www.systransoft.com/translation-products/ <A> There is a great deal of software which will allow you to scan the text. <S> The usefulness of the scan depends on how complex the layout is, the quality of the scan itself and the complexity of the text. <S> Obviously you need a scanner if you don't have an electronic version of the text (pdfs can sometimes be used). <S> Then you need to translate the text to the language you want. <S> Many programs and websites offer this facility. <S> However, you need to check that the translation service you are using works reasonably well. <S> Let me illustrate. <S> I translated a worksheet I had written into Arabic using the Word translate feature. <S> I then translated it back (slightly complicated) and found it had changed it into something quite different (and useless). <S> I then copied and pasted the text into Google translate, copied it, changed the languages, pasted it and got back something quite similar to what I had originally pasted. <S> It was not perfect, but it was definitely useable. <A> Best free online translate service: <S> https://translate.google.com/ It works quite well from English to Chinese.
| Microsoft Word, for example, has a translate command.
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Should the opening of a short story mirror the ending? When I was in school, my English teacher told me that a short story's beginning should mirror its ending, or at least the conclusion should in some way parallel the starting point of the story; but I was never told why. Is this a well accepted rule of thumb or is this just one type of writing style? If it is generally advisable, then please tell me why. More information: At the time I automatically rejected it as her style, but now I am older I willing to find out if she had a point. Sadly I cannot just go ask her, thus I came to ask here. Here is a very short example. It is only to give an example of the concept, please do not critique, I know it is very rough. 'Babies cry' I groaned at my wife 'go back to sleep '. 'But,' she yawned 'I just thought our neighbour was childless'. I gasped, we dashed out the house to peek over his fence. 'It is only a cat singing a midnight song,' I gritted my teeth 'what waste of an hour'. But when we returned to our house, guess who needed a lullaby. <Q> There are many types of endings. <S> The one your professor is referring to is just one kind. <S> What I really want to know, though, is what he means by should ? <S> If should means it should be like that so the story is successful, then no. <S> For a story to be successful it has to grip the reader. <S> So the opening sentence has to be gripping. <S> If by should he means it should be like that so the story becomes a classic, then no again. <S> There are many classics with open endings, or with endings that have nothing to do with the opening. <S> It all depends on the meaning of should . <S> In my opinion, the most important purpose of the opening is to hook the reader. <S> What good is a story if no one wants to read it? <A> Yes.. <S> That is one type of writing style. <S> Some stories have the concept at the endings as they have at beginnings as you said. <S> This is because to tell the truth or concept whatever it is strongly to readers. <S> Assume that you want to say something in a story, which is right. <S> But, the people in the society do wrongly. <S> So, You need to add this concept at a incident in the story wrongly at either the beginning or middle as the people do. <S> Then, at the end of the story You should mention the same concept correctly that the people will change the habit of doing something wrongly. <A> It's very hard to guess what precisely your teacher meant, but here's the closest piece of advice that I know: <S> Consider: <S> where is the best place to begin the story? <S> Usually you want to begin it with the introduction of the central conflict. <S> Otherwise you're just marking time until the conflict actually begins. <S> And where's the best place to end the story? <S> Pretty much as soon as the central conflict is resolved. <S> Add to this that the reader will generally understand the first conflict presented as the story's major one. <S> It would be very confusing to begin a murder mystery with a scene focusing on a romantic relationship, or a romance with a scene focusing on solving a crime - while these would be fine as secondary plots, whatever you introduce first <S> is usually what the reader will understand as being the more important, central conflict. <S> So we could phrase all this advice as: Clearly set up your primary conflict in your opening, and clearly resolve it in your conclusion. <S> You don't always need to follow this advice to the letter and down to individual line - but particularly if you're talking about short fiction, which needs to be very concise and free of flab, it's a very good guideline. <S> And making the mirroring very explicit is a good tool to make the conflict and its resolution clear and powerful.
| A story's ending should mirror its beginning, because otherwise, you have probably begun or ended you story in the wrong place. Readers won't stand for you ending the story before you resolved the primary conflict, and if you continue for long after its resolved, then the main tension is gone and the reader doesn't really understand why the book keeps on going when the story is over.
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How to research and discover topic popularity and trends to determine topic selection for article writing? I have been asked to write various technical and non-technical articles about computer usage, Windows usage (perhaps some Mac and *nix as well if they let me), Windows repair, and various other technology and computer centric topics. Unfortunately I have to choose the topics as well as generate the content. I would like to write articles that are in demand and of interest, vs just pulling topics out of my butt that I think are interesting. With my background, I find that I don't (very often) necessarily think the things that others think are interesting to be very interesting or useful. What can one do when looking into determining topics of large interest? Is Google Trends the pinnacle of available resources for such hunting & research or are there other options that will yield high value topics to create spot on market interest based content? NOTE : The target audience are general readers of all types. It is for a periodical that is for general consumption in a mixed environment of generally less savvy consumers, but with some occasional more savvy readers. Most readers will appreciate more layman explanations to issues they may run into with general usage. <Q> First, in demand and interesting is the proper goal, but it has no relationship with popular and trending. <S> Or rather, topics that are "in demand and interesting" usually become "popular and trending" after a delay at which time they will no longer be "in demand and interesting". <S> Just increasingly popular. <S> What does "in demand" mean? <S> It means that the gaining new information in the topic would be useful to significant portion of the audience. <S> It must relate to something the readers already do and have use for. <S> At the same time the topic should be something the readers are not already directly familiar with. <S> Basically, find something that readers easily could do <S> but actually do not. <S> If the reason they do not do it is mostly because they don't know they could or do not know how, you have found a topic with "demand". <S> What does "Interesting" mean? <S> It means that seeing the title readers must recognize that it relates to their interests and that they must be able to understand the text and apply at least some of the information in practice. <S> If you can't think of a title for the topic that readers will recognize as relating to them, it is not an interesting topic. <S> If you can't explain the topic in the available length so that readers will understand it, it is not an interesting topic. <S> Obviously, this answer is not THE TRUTH , nor does it try to be. <S> It is simply a suggestion of the direction you could start looking. <S> With writing of this type your personal interests, expertise, and voice are a big part of the value you deliver. <S> And remember that your actual readers will always be just a small part of the potential readers. <S> You do not need to be in demand and interesting for everyone as long as enough people find you both. <A> A professional software developer already knows how to make your PC faster by installing the right device drivers, while a home user can't get much out of reading your in-depth analysis of Clang vs. GCC. <S> An IT manager doesn't want to know which is the best graphic card for playing Battlefield 4, while a gamer isn't interested much in your cost-benefit analysis of virtualizing Linux servers on IBM mainframes. <S> When you aren't sure, ask your superiors what target audience they are aiming for. <S> After you found out who your target audience is, you need to find out what they want to read about. <S> What's new? <S> Any brand-new technology your audience might want to use is always worth writing about. <S> Tell them what it can do what their current technology can't, how to do this, and why they should (or should not) buy it. <S> What's popular? <S> What are the technologies your target audience uses daily? <S> What tips can you give them about how to make more out of them? <S> Any technical details they might be interested in? <S> What's unpopular? <S> Which are the main issues and annoyances your target audience faces daily and what advise can you give them about how to solve these issues? <A> It depends upon the topic of your interest. <S> Whatever topic you're writing picking up the right posts is the key to the success of your writings. <S> 1)Join forums and message boards of your interest.2)Engage yourself in discussions, answer question.3)Think!!4)Convert <S> YouTube videos to articles <S> ; improvise and add your own thoughts.5)How to's are trending always. <S> People are always looking for howto's so focus mainly on Howto's.6)Comparison and <S> reviews will be another trending topics. <S> http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/find-blog-topics/
| The first thing you need to be aware of is what your target audience is.
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Story without any character development whatsoever? Is it possible to write a story with one single character and no development of that character at all. <Q> You can always have a character who doesn't develop; flat Disney villains come to mind. <S> But the flat character is generally in opposition to the hero/ine, who does develop. <S> So the question is, why would you write such a story? <S> What could possibly happen in it? <S> If you have one character, period, and that character doesn't develop, what is that person doing ? <A> Is it possible? <S> Probably. <S> It may depend on the definition of "character development". <S> I was just looking for a definition and didn't find one in 30 seconds, but it's normally understood to mean (a) revealing the nature of a character to the reader, and/or (b) a character growing and changing over the course of the story. <S> By definition (a), if you write, "Bob walked into the room", you have told us several things about the character: <S> He is named "Bob". <S> He is capable of walking. <S> He has some reason for wanting to be in this room. <S> Okay, trivial things, but you have begun the process of character development. <S> It's hard to imagine a story where you literally tell the reader absolutely nothing about any of the characters, even indirectly. <S> It's a little more plausible by definition (b). <S> I suppose you could imagine a story where the characters learn nothing and do not change in any way. <S> But at the very least, you would think that SOMETHING must happen to the characters in the course of the story, so if nothing else they have gained experience. <S> Even if you do not spell out how the character's react to these experiences, the reader is likely to draw inferences. <S> Perhaps you could be more specific about what you have in mind. <A> The TV show "Seinfeld" is an example of a show where the characters didn't develop. <S> They never learn anything about themselves and this was a source of humor in the show. <S> Or at least it must have been for the people who liked it (and there was a lot of them), personally I never really got into it. <S> I think also some of Samuel Beckett's work would have one or two characters and little or no character development, some of it is also comic, and indeed absurd. <A> A popular example is Ferris Bueller's Day Off . <S> Ferris Bueller may be the titular character, but it is more or less agreed that his best friend Cameron is the real protagonist, Ferris merely gives Cameron an impetus to change. <S> This may be an interesting route to try if you were to write a story with a single unchanging character! <S> Otherwise, there would be no point in consuming it, it'd be the literary equivalent of empty calories. <A> Anything is possible in writing. <S> There may be quality issues though. <S> Wait, let me get this straight. <S> You want to write a single story with one static character total?You could, but I can only think of one other story that a single character and <S> thats Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and that was a dynamic character. <A> It is possible. <S> I once wrote a story that was literally a narration of events with no character, and the community (it was a fan fiction) really liked it. <S> I still don't know how that happened. <S> A character did appear later on, but there was no character development. <S> The closest it got was when the character almost sacrificed himself so someone could escape, but that event had no impact on anything else whatsoever. <S> The character never changed. <S> Needless to say <S> , that was written before I knew anything about development. <A> I am actually adding a second answer based on something @user16583 mentioned. <S> In some long-running comic strips, characters don't age or change. <S> Strips like FoxTrot and Sally Forth occasionally make sly meta-jokes referencing the idea that the kids in the strip have been 10 or 12 for decades. <S> Beetle Bailey has been doing the same thing for 70 years. <S> But even really long-running strips have some changes <S> : The cast of Peanuts expanded, Blondie has gotten a job, there have been new platoon members and sexual harassment training at Camp Swampy. <S> So while you might be able to pull this off with a series of short stories (like Jeeves & Wooster, perhaps) or a graphic novel, particularly if the stories are meant to be funny, I think you'd be hard-pressed to make it work with drama. <A> In many books on writing, a story is defined as the emotional journey (change) of the protagonist. <S> Plot is the physical journey. <S> If you buy into that (as I do), then you need change in order to have a story.
| Normally, when the main character remains static, that character is actually a catalyst character and the world or characters around them are the true protagonists. Some development must occur to have a successful story, even if it's a change in the audience's understanding rather than one inside of the story itself. How, I know not, but it is possible.
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How do you know when there's something missing in your story? You always hear about what has to be removed. Usually unnecessary stuff that doens't contribute to the plot. How about the opposite? How do you know when your story is lacking something? Say, more description, chapters, characters, or elements in the plot. <Q> Best get someone to read it. <S> Some seasoned writer is good, but anyone will do, except close friends and family who'd praise you no matter what abomination you produced. <S> You too, let your story sit for a couple months until you forget its key points and try to read it "as new". <S> Still, it will never be quite as efficient at catching simple omissions: missing tags in confusing dialogue, too skeletal location descriptions, thought shortcuts, your assumptions about reader's knowledge, etc. <S> OTOH, there is a significant piece you can spot for yourself without external help: closures. <S> List all characters; more or less significant. <S> (include significant non-person actors too). <S> Recall all more significant actions they performed. <S> Think of their consequences, a week, a month past the ending of the story. <S> Do they get away with their shenanigans? <S> Do they receive honors? <S> Do they recover? <S> Did they learn something new?Cull the ones that really, really don't matter, and check whether you included all the rest. <S> Make sure every thread, every event received a closure. <S> Speaking from experience, as a reader - I often focus my attention at some background characters and really just keep reading to receive the closure on their specific thread. <S> Say, two minor flunkies of the villain who happened to be exceptionally nasty jerks, and appeared early on, bullying the protagonist. <S> Then I witness the rest of the story: the struggle, the growth, the challenge, the battle, the epilogue - but the two presented early on never appear again, their fate is never even implied. <S> And I don't care about the ending. <S> I didn't receive my closure <S> and I'm disappointed! <S> So <S> : Close all your threads, and you don't need external help with it. <A> What is in your head and what is on the page may be very different things. <S> The characters, places and developments of your story may seem a tightly woven tapestry in your head. <S> But the fresh eyes of another will clearly see loose threads, tears and great big holes in the fabric. <S> Always be open to the critiques of others. <S> That being said... <S> By all means, do trust your "gut". <S> Perhaps you do know better than anyone what (for example) your protagonist should or shouldn't do. <S> If you want to follow that feeling, then attempt to be as specific as possible about what it is that feels wrong. <S> Can you explain how, objectively, that part that bothers you does not integrate with the rest? <S> The finer the level of detail you can muster, the more certain you will become. <S> The two previous are examples when the holes are subtle. <S> In contrast, when I'm writing, the most blatant signs of lacking content I run up against are things like: An unintentional unevenness in the pace. <S> Does an incidental travel scene take up more pages than events leading up to the conversation that informs the moral dilemma of the of story? <S> Perhaps trim some descriptions of the quality of light on the trees, and unfold more of the character's inner frustration at their own inability to articulate their beliefs. <S> Actions that advance the plot and are consistent with the character and the world (as known to the writer) but have no previous mention in the text itself. <S> During a sweep of revision it can be worth combing back through the text to check that all elements that combine in the central events of the plot have some seeds planted previously. <A> There are two approaches. <S> What SF already pointed out is the most easy, the unstructured one. <S> I've also had good experience reading it (aloud) to someone and immediately writing down whatever they say or ask. <S> But that requires special people and circumstances. <S> The structured approach works if you start your work like that. <S> Do you have an inventory of all your locations, characters and storylines? <S> If so, you can check them for completeness. <S> If you maintain these meta-data well, they will provide not just the outline, but a good review of them also will tell you any holes. <S> For this, make a short checklist of what matters to you. <S> Do you need closure for characters (as was mentioned already) <S> , do all your characters and locations have to be linked to each other? <S> Do you want a physical appearance description for every character (sometimes you want to leave it up to the imagination), etc. <S> Basically: To know if something is missing, you first need to know what should be there.
| In any case, for many reasons, you should give your story to someone to read and give you quality feedback.
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Is it legal to share an index you made from someone else's book? There are some books published without a back-of-book index, which I feel is a dreadful shame. As part of my research I decided to create an index of one such book. Doing so is legal for my own use, and would be illegal (I guess) if I tried to sell copies...but what if I shared the new index on a website, or gave printed copies away for free? For a book that is 'out of copyright' in my country then I guess this is allowed? What if the book is not in the public domain? I assume we have to look at the 4 'fair use' guidelines? I haven't copied anything verbatim from the original book, just individual words. I haven't detracted from the book's sales or rivalled the publisher's business in any way. I am not making a profit. I'm doing this for scholarly reasons. I'm a complete amateur at indexing and am not trying to showcase my skills in order to get hired. However, you could argue that the magnitude of my act somehow encompasses the entirety of the original book. Perhaps the author/publisher would feel annoyed that I'd somehow usurped their authority in some way? Am I on safe ground? Can you argue my usage was "transformative" enough to go beyond being a copy? (I could ask the copyright holder's permission, but let us imagine they are impossible to track down, or that I end up with 100 such indexes to share.) You cannot give me legal advice, of course, but has anyone seen a similar situation which helps shed light on this grey area? Or heard about something along the same lines in another industry? I'm in the UK but am interested in answers about the US situation too. <Q> To answer this question, I inquired with the American Society for Indexing . <S> I asked: <S> Is it legal to create an index of a book and publish that index, without consulting the autor or publisher of that book? <S> I received the following answer: <S> Accordingly, it is possible for an indexer to create an index that is publishable. <S> A good example is the "Good Old Index," which is a separately published index to the Doubleday edition of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. <S> I understand this answer to mean that Yes, it is legal to share an index you made from someone else's book. <A> has anyone seen a similar situation which helps shed light on this grey area? <S> I have in front of me two publications: Common LISP: <S> The Language , by Guy Steele (et al.) and published by Digital Press, and Common LISP: <S> The Index , by Rosemary Simpson and published by Coral Software Corp and <S> Franz Inc. Both were published in the US in the 1980s. <S> I was fairly active in the LISP community at the time <S> and I didn't hear a ruckus about that index — just cheering. <S> It is possible that the two publishers cooperated (the cover design of the index is clearly derived from the original book), but I don't know. <S> There is no acknowledgment section in the index. <S> Since the index doesn't reuse content from the original <S> I don't see how it could infringe. <S> I offer this one example where somebody did exactly that without apparent repercussions. <S> Is it legal? <S> I am not a lawyer and you should consult one rather than just trusting people on the Internet. <S> That said, another answerer argues that an index infringes copyright because it is "an exact duplicate of single words from another work", and I dispute that claim. <S> Words cannot be copyrighted. <S> Even book titles cannot be copyrighted, as demonstrated by the number of duplicate and mostly-overlapping titles out there, so surely single words cannot be. <S> (If you invented the word you might be able to pursue a trademark, but that's different. <S> And rare, within the domain of things you might want to put into an index.) <S> Using words like "iterator" and "class" and "inheritance" in an index does not infringe the rights of the person who wrote the programming book you're indexing; if it did, then using those words in contexts other than an index would also infringe, yet we see many many books on the same topics and no record of the person who got there first successfully suing the others. <S> Conclusion: <S> either this is legal or there is a vast untapped market of prospective, successful lawsuits that lawyers have routinely ignored. <S> Which do you think more likely? <A> Since it can't be used without the original text, it's not infringing on the author's ability to make a living off their work. <S> Possibly even the contrary. <A> I think if you create and publish an index to the copyrighted work of another person you are infringing on their copyright. <S> Basically what you are doing is using their work to create a derivative work, similar to making a movie of a novel. <S> Also you should note that giving your index away for free does not.change anything. <S> If you made a movie from one of Stephen King's novels and gave away the DVDs for free you'd still have broken the law. <S> Make sure you ask a lawyer.
| If your index doesn't contain any of the original work's text, I fail to see how it could be considered copyright infringement. According to US copyright law, copyright in an index exists separately from the original work that is being indexed, although upon payment of the fee to the indexer by the publisher or author, the rights to publish the index are given to the publisher/author.
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Writing an Ending: how to prune away the Wrong ones? My protagonist introduced herself to me through a sequence of set-pieces. She has a very specific altruistic goal, and the conflicts she enters are with other characters who have well-defined agendas. The arc of the plot is established... except for the last act. I have tried letting the characters speak to me (and they do). But they say too many things. There are too many equally interesting choices that they might make, too many good branches the plot might follow. My problem is how to prune this tree. I am working very hard to stay away from any reverse McGuffins , or similar devices. I don't need a device, I need a process. Your answers might tell me about: any process you might follow to (systematically?) map-out and evaluate the possibilities; any way you find works best to change your point of view, as the author, of the characters and events in your story, and thus discover a previously unseen branch to explore; any way that I should try interrogating the characters to find out if the choices they are revealing to me are genuine. <Q> For a moment abandon the crew of your story and have a peek at your readers. <S> Well, before that prune endings that are too expectable, out of characters or otherwise faulty, but once you come with the decent set... <S> Which ending would be most satisfying? <S> Which would elicit most of the emotions which you want to create? <S> Instead of thinking within the story world, you just construct a satisfactory product. <S> It's the cheap approach, but one that works well. <A> Your question seems to be primarily about how to integrate plot and characterization. <S> This is an issue I've been working hard on in my recent writing, so I'm going to make an unearthly effort to keep this answer short and to the point. <S> My writing philosophy is this: every character is a question that needs answering . <S> Every character starts the story with a gap or wound in their lives, that needs filling or healing. <S> Your job as a writer is to make that gap or wound a central part of your narrative. <S> It doesn't necessarily need to be the central axis of the plot. <S> If your character is an orphan who feels like they have no place in the world, they might defeat an evil dragon and then find out that they are the long-lost heirs to the kingdom. <S> And that ending might look cheap to you, but it's satisfying to the reader. <S> So ask yourself, for each of your characters, what is the question that drives them? <S> Common types of questions <S> : Who am I? <S> Where do I belong? <S> How can I be the best? <S> Characters may not know what their question is, and then it's your role as writer to give them an ending of what they need as opposed to what they want . <S> Example: <S> Disney's The Princess and the Frog has an entire song about this very subject. <A> Lea has given a great answer (and +1), but, as Nicole noted in her comment, there are many possible answers to the question that is your character , so I would like to expand on Lea's answer a bit (and will use SF's answer to do so). <S> To find the "correct" answer to the question that is your character, your character and his behavior do not matter at all . <S> What matters is that the end must fit the tone of your narration. <S> A gritty story must have a gritty end, no matter if the character did only good. <S> A light summer read must end well, even if the character did a lot of wrong. <S> Reader satisfaction does not happen when characters get what they deserve. <S> Reader satisfaction happens when the end fits the world the narrator creates for the reader. <S> The voice of your narrator – which can be cynical or loving, earnest or humorous, and so on – sets the reader's expectations, and your end must fit that voice.
| In conclusion: to find your plot's most satisfying conclusion, find the question that your protagonist most needs to answer.
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How to write realistic injury scenes? I'm currently writing an apocalypse themed story. As with the territory, death and/or injuries happen. I'm wondering how other writers write these scenes realistically as far as science, medicine, and biology are concerned? Meaning, if I injure a character's eye, knowing what happens if I do that, what methods can be used on the injured character when there is no sufficient medical expertise available, or the consequences of not having that medical treatment. Do writers just go by reading other materials of the same theme, looking into medical articles? I'm not really sure where to go to research this. Google doesn't seem to be sufficient because if I look up an injury, it's going to tell me, "Seek medical attention" on some medical site and well, if this is the end of the world, what's going to happen to this character who can't seek this medical attention? Thanks in advance for any resources or tips. :-) <Q> Seek medical advice. <S> Find a medical or health care professional who will answer your questions. <S> If you can't figure it out from a book, find a doctor, nurse, EMT, etc. <S> who is willing to sit down with you for half an hour. <A> The difference between a successful writer and a wannabe writer is that the latter says that "unfortunately I don't know anyone in the field," whereas the successful writer grabs a copy of the yellow pages, finds a doctor, and makes an appointment. <S> A further difference is that the wannabe writer uses Google to find information, and that the successful writer knows about publication databases such as PubMed or <S> Google Scholar and uses these from within a university library that has access to the paywalled content. <S> The successful writer also knows that there are medical libraries full of books that teach medical students about injuries, what they look like, what effects they have, and how to treat them, and he has the confidence that if first semester medical students can grasp this information in the few weeks they learn for an exam, he can do so too, <S> so he finds the next medical or university library and takes the next bus to read a copy of <S> The Wills Eye Manual: Office and Emergency Room Diagnosis and Treatment of Eye Disease or something similar. <A> Since doctor appointments cost actual money, which not every writer has, 'successful' (according to someone's standards - what a snooty, elitist response!) <S> or not, let me point you to this excellent resource I found while writing character injuries. <S> From a range of normal reactions to pain, to how fast a person will bleed out without immediate medical intervention: http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~leiafee/ramblings/realistic_injuries.htm <S> I didn't see any specific info on eye injuries (hopefully your EMT cousin can help!) <S> but there's plenty of useful info there. <S> I hope that helps you as much as it helped me. <S> Just remember that every writer is successful - by actually writing! <S> And all of us - even the published ones - are 'wannabe' writers. <S> We all started that way, and we never stop wanting to write! <A> Soldiers get injured all the time on patrols or in the heat of battles, sometimes very far away from the medical facilities that can treat them in time. <S> That's not post-apocalyptic setting, but it is as close as it gets. <S> Start your research with keywords like "battlefield medicine" or war-veteran stories. <S> That may give you the insight you need before having to dive into medical jargon. <A> Optimally, you will find all the answers you need via medical journals, medical dictionaries, doctors, and the web, however, this is unrealistic. <S> You will find that some 'injuries' you write about do not have an explanation because they are too specific or esoteric; in this case, it is important to use prior knowledge and critical reasoning to infer what might happen in such a case. <S> This being said, make sure to do as much research as possible before resorting to inference. <A> Read a textbook on forensic science. <S> They cover all the fun topics like: if ripped apart with a nail, <S> which direction does the skin shear <S> was <S> she really raped bullet exit wounds <S> hacked apart cadavers <S> this was the first 20 pages. <S> Find it at a bookstore near a medical doctor university or online.
| Considering you are describing situations where serious injuries happen without the proper equipment (or people) available to treat them, there is a field of expertise very familiar with this problem: military field medicine.
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Screenplay format: Can character names be shortened after the first mention? For example: TED DIBAR , (40s) swings his cape to the side, as he approaches Felix. Do I need to continue to use the character's full name, or can I shorten it in subsequent mentions? <Q> For example, if you tell the tale of Robert Williams, but all the other characters always address him as "Bob", you use "Bob" as the marker for this character. <S> If, on the other hand, Mr. Williams is a teacher and <S> only his wife calls him "Bob", while his students call him "Mr. Williams", use the form of the name that is used where the story happens: if it is a story about a teacher and told mostly in school, call him "Mr. Williams" in your script; if the story is about a husband who just happens to be a teacher but takes place mostly in private circumstances at home and with friends, call him "Bob". <S> Do not use abbreviations ("B."), unless the character is called "B." by his co-characters <S> (e.g. "J.R." Ewing in Dallas ). <S> If first names alone are confusing (maybe because the cast is so large or names are too similar), use the full name, even if the characters in the play/movie use the first name. <S> But this should not happen, unless you need confusing names for plot reasons (e.g. a story about two women named "Joan"). <A> Keep your script consistent . <S> You do not want to confuse the readers. <S> So, yes, always use the full name. <A> No, you do not have to keep calling the character by his or her full name. <S> It would make it very awkward to have to read "Ted Dibar does this", "Ted Dibar does that", all the way through the script. <S> Go ahead and call him Ted in the action lines. <S> Or TED when it's formatted above dialogue. <S> And read scripts. <S> They're all over the web (e.g., the mother-lode of tv pilot scripts here: https://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/us-drama/pilot-scripts ). <S> You'll see how it's done.
| All the screenplays I have seen always use the form of the name that the character is known by to the audience .
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What are some tricks for managing debilitating writing anxiety/phobia? For the past 4 years, I've developed a severe problem with writing anxiety. It's become so bad, that I had to drop out of my first university because I wasn't able to keep up with the course work. I've tried to manage the problem on my own, but with very limited success. Part of my problem is that the reaction is very visceral. I quite literally feel like throwing up when I approach a writing assignment. I haven't been able to unlearn that reaction. I suspect a great deal of my anxiety is coming from perfectionism. I know I shouldn't strive to make my first draft perfect, but it's like I can't help it. I have a lot of difficulty bypassing my inner critic when writing first drafts, so it makes the whole process very stress-inducing and unpleasant, which makes me put off the writing entirely, which then leads to binge-writing sessions which are just terrible. I was wondering if anyone had some tricks for bypassing the inner critic and mitigating the nausea. <Q> The comments on your post suggest therapy, and I think it is good advice. <S> This is more than just writer's block or procrastination. <S> It sounds like you have serious anxiety that's triggered by writing. <S> Here are some things you might try if you can't afford a therapist. <S> First, pick a book and copy the text out of it. <S> This will help you get used to the physical activity of typing or writing by hand without being concerned with what you are writing. <S> When you can copy text without feeling anxious, then you are ready to move to the next step. <S> Second, move around the text you copied. <S> Don't worry about how legible it is. <S> You're getting used to the feeling of editing. <S> When you feel comfortable moving text around like this, move on to the next part. <S> Third, play with the text you copied. <S> Take a passage and substitute a few verbs and nouns with a synonym chosen from a thesaurus at random. <S> Rewrite it using different pronouns (instead of third-person " <S> he/she/it/them", write it in second-person "you", for instance). <S> Rearrange the words in the sentences. <S> Remove all the conjunctions. <S> Do some small things like this to help yourself see that the same thing can be expressed in many different ways, and none of these is right or wrong. <S> Fourth, write something short that's not important. <S> Something that has no deadline or grade or degree attached to it. <S> A fake advertisement for an imaginary product might suffice. <S> Come back to it in a day or a week, and revise it until you like it, or throw it away if you hate it. <S> Then do it all again next week. <S> From here, work your way into writing some things that carry more baggage. <S> These steps will hopefully lead you to feel that you are in control of your work. <S> Hopefully, a few exercises like this, and you'll be over the worst parts of your anxiety. <S> You can do this. <S> You wrote this question here, so that's encouraging! <A> I have struggled with my inner critic for a long time and here are some things that have worked for me: Talking to someone you trust about your writing: Everyone writes differently <S> but I don't think anyone gets it how they want it first time. <S> Find someone who is either an avid reader or studying English that you know and trust and show them some of your writing. <S> Someone who is a good critic is always helpful. <S> Set short goals: If you are writing for an assignment/dissertation/etc it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. <S> When I had to write my PhD thesis <S> my supervisor gave me the advice to set short goals and use bullet points to layout the structure (a bullet point per paragraph with the basic idea). <S> Break the monotony <S> : Along with short goals give yourself rewards for achieving them. <S> They don't need to be big. <S> Ones I use include: a nice cup of tea, chocolate, reading a short story, a short walk. <S> I still struggle with my inner critic but these techniques helped me churn out a nearly 200 page thesis in about half a year. <S> It does get easier once you get going <S> I assure you :) <S> If you have tried all these things with limited success then seeking professional help via therapy (as suggested by several commenters) is probably the way forwards. <A> Gee, I agree with what . <S> You need a specialist. <S> Something that helped me, though (I was a perfectionist, too) is this quote: " <S> Art is never finished, only abandoned. <S> " - Leonardo da Vinci <S> Give up perfection . <S> Look at your writing as something that improves incrementally rather than something that is fixed. <A> Giving up perfectionism is great advice. <S> It's also like blithely telling someone to give up heroin. <S> I tried to overcome my perfectionistic approach to writing fiction by doing some simple writing exercises, only to find that I was just as phobic about doing the exercises. <S> I even spellcheck my own diary! <S> I think the best way to approach this is not to think of it as a writing problem. <S> Live with a bit of mess. <S> Don't pay the bills immediately they come in. <S> Go out with greasy hair and notice how little these things really matter. <S> Aim lower in your goals too. <S> Settle for a ten percent improvement rather than 100 percent. <S> Aiming too high can make you feel overwhelmed and paralysed. <S> Aiming lower gives you a can-do feeling <S> and you end up accomplishing more than you expected.
| Seeing someone enjoy your writing can really help reduce anxiety. Begin by being less perfectionistic in other areas of your life. Try rearranging the sentences in paragraph, or taking one sentence out of each paragraph to make a new story with the same words. Write as much as you can in ten minutes, and then walk away from it. You can always come back and edit later; something that's even easier with all the technology we have today.
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Are the following passages examples of tense change? Are they allowed in fiction writing? We reached the place a few minutes later, which turned out to be—a record store? The room was tiny but nice. Simple, and with the comfort and coziness of the countryside. Plus it had everything we needed: a closet, a basic table, a bathroom, and ONLY ONE BED! The reason I did this was to give the impression that the narrator is right there experiencing the action, instead of talking about something that happened in the past (does it make sense?). Is this allowed in fiction writing? If not, what's a better alternative? <Q> I don't see any tense changes in your examples. <S> It all appears to be in past tense. <S> The reason the reader has the perception of the passages happening in present tense is due to the narrator presenting their rendition of the events in the way a storyteller would. <S> To clarify, your examples give the impression of somebody telling a story around a campfire, where the speaker would add pauses and dramatic realizations to build up the listener's interest. <S> The text emphasis only increases the overall of effect of "we're being physically told a story right now by someone who experienced it. <S> " <S> Your use of caps lock and dashes and exclamation points generally amplify that effect by giving the impression of someone YELLING REALLY LOUD or... having a dramatic pause... or becoming really excited! <S> Wow! <S> Anyway, that's all totally fine. <S> Keep at it if you like it. <S> Although, be warned about the overuse of gimmicky text effects unless if you're absolutely positive you can pull it <S> off-- <S> it's somewhat annoying to your average reader. <S> You might have to change a few things to transition the perception of events into real time. <S> We reach it a few minutes later. <S> It looks like a record store from the outside. <S> The room is tiny but nice. <S> Simple, and with the comfort and coziness of the countryside. <S> Plus, it has everything we need: a closet, a basic table, a bathroom, and only one bed. <S> You can also do a "stream of consciousness" sort of thing, as well. <S> Plus, it has everything we need: closet, a basic table, a bathroom, and only one bed. <S> Wait a sec, only one bed? <S> That's a little odd. <S> I've known a few people who cannot stand present tense, but again, it's all up to personal taste and how you want to present your story. <A> There's nothing technically wrong with doing this, but you're right to think it sounds fishy. <S> I'd suggest confining exclamations like these to dialog. <S> Ultimately, though, you'll have to rely on your ear and the ears of your beta readers. <A> As mentioned above, both examples are past tense, fairly common for fiction writing. <S> What I see you have done is make use of sentence fragments, which are not allowed in essays and formal writing but quite welcome in fiction pieces. <S> I would recommend avoiding caps lock — it gives the impression of yelling, not just surprise or concern. <S> Here's an example of how I might convey the worry about only a single bed: <S> The room was tiny but nice. <S> Simple, and with the comfort and coziness of the countryside. <S> Plus it had everything we needed: a closet, a basic table, a bathroom, and... a single bed!? <S> I glanced to see if she had noticed yet, heat rising to my cheeks. <S> I checked the closet for extra blankets — one of us could curl up on the floor — but it was empty. <S> Notice how the use of ellipses slows down the train of thought as the realization happens. <S> Then I added some action and physical reaction to ground the thoughts — these can be anything that convey how your character(s) <S> feel about the situation without saying it directly (at least at first). <S> People also have differing opinions on usage of exclamation points and question marks, but I find them to be milder than all caps, while still giving the feeling of shock and initial confusion.
| An alternative is to just tell the story entirely in present tense, as it happens. Technically, anything is allowed in fiction writing, if you can do it well. As is, there aren't any tense changes.
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Writing "X, Y, and Z" vs "X and Y and Z." Example: The forest was so dense I was practically swimming through it. A dark, murky ocean of shrubs, trees, and bamboo shoots. The forest was so dense I was practically swimming through it. A dark, murky ocean of shrubs and trees and bamboo shoots. Is the effect different? How so? <Q> I don't know how to give a quick summary of its effects. <S> So I'll offer some terminology to aid your research. <S> That technique is called polysyndeton . <S> Wikipedia has a little bit about the effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysyndeton <S> You can also go in the other direction and remove all of the conjunctions. <S> That is called asyndeton : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asyndeton <A> Adding to Dale Emery's answer, besides the effects listed in Wikipedia, one basic effect is that of emphasizing the staggering number of thing <S> s: <S> "there were apples, oranges, and bananas" is just a neutral list , whereas "there were apples and oranges and bananas" emphasizes the fact that there are impressively many different fruits to choose from . <S> There are many common phrases that emphasize endlessness through the repetition of conjunctions: <S> It went on and on and on forever. <S> So, to use your own exampes, "shrubs, trees, and bamboo shoots <S> " means that there were these three types of plants (and no more or nothing else of significance), and you're stating that in a neutral manner, while "shrubs and trees and bamboo shoots" means that there was an impenetrable jungle of plants that contains the three plants and many others, and your narrator is very emotional about that fact. <A> The additional "and" changes the rhythm of the list. <S> It elongates it, which can have the perhaps paradoxical effect of increasing a sense of pace and tension. " <S> Monotony" isn't simply a matter something being boring or tedious. <S> Used properly, it can convey a meaning of fullness and richness. <S> Somewhat comparable to how "said" disappears in dialog, the additional "and" in such a list disappears (precisely because of its repetition) and has the effect adding a kind of urgency. <S> Each additional "and" builds on the previous one (even if there are only two total) and creates momentum. <S> There is a limit to how many you can get away with before it starts getting tedious, but in the proper context two or three, perhaps even four, can be very effective in controlling pace and conveying mood.
| One and is just the standard end of a list, several and s are repetitive, and repetition conveys monotony and sheer volume .
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Writing a short story with a secret code I want to write a fictional short story where part 2 is embedded in part 1. Has anyone heard of this or tried this? Any ideas of resources would be greatly appreciated. Edited for Clarity: Imagine a story where every letter could be turned into another letter (or every word into another word) if the person converting those letters or words had a secret key (a code or password, for example). Now, imagine if a story, which was written as fiction or literary fiction for example, had a second story, again fiction or literary fiction, embedded within its letters and/or words that, when converted with the key or password, turned into a brand new story--perhaps a continuation or sequel. <Q> You could certainly try , but it sounds like the main story would come out gibberish to me. <S> The only example of this which springs to mind is the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott. <S> " <S> A character receives a letter which reads: " <S> The supply of game for London is going steadily up. <S> Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life." <S> Which sounds kind of incoherent. <S> It's actually in skip code, so every third word is the real message: <S> " The supply of game for London is going steadily up . <S> Head-keeper Hudson <S> , we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly -paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life. " <S> which is: <S> The game is up. <S> Hudson has told all. <S> Fly for your life. <S> I honestly don't know how you'd make a framing story which was readable and had plot and character development while also going through all the coding circumlocutions to create the embedded story. <S> Or conversely, the main story would be readable and the second story would be a short, oddly-worded missive because you could only use the terms from the main story. <S> It seems like either you'd sacrifice readability of the main story to create the second, or the second would be seriously hobbled by being subject to whatever you could pick out of the main narrative. <A> Perhaps something like what you're trying to do could be done by inserting the second story inside the first one, but backwards, starting at the bottom of the last page, and working its way up, maybe combined with one or more skip codes (one specifying skipped words, another skipped pages.) <S> Would the two stores need to be of equal "weight" or complexity? <S> Having both read coherently and "naturally" would require each undergoing some interesting adjustments and compromises in style and readability. <S> I imagine it could be done. <S> But for how many words? <S> I'm sure there are examples of music being written this way, though I can't think of any offhand -- though the idea brings to mind Brian Eno's Driving Me Backwards . <A> You are describing a not entirely unheard of method of hiding a coded message in a plaintext. <S> I don't know if it's in common usage by real world spies, but it certainly has appeared before in fiction. <S> I fondly remember once reading a time-travel romance (whose name I've unfortunately forgotten) where the young lovers communicated using overlapping codes. <S> Can <S> this actually be used for a longer work? <S> It would certainly be difficult since it necessitates a certain level of artificiality and constraint. <S> The use of a dictionary is probably realistic, in that it doesn't require a coherent plot, and is already divided into smaller sections. <S> Try as I might, I can only think of one author who has actually used this technique (but with surprising success): Steven Hall. <S> His " Raw Shark Texts " contains 36 ordinary chapters, which contain the entire story, and can be read as given. <S> It also, however, has 36 "negative" chapters which have been hidden in various ways, including being coded into the text of the original chapters (with different negative chapters in different translations of the book, as described here ). <S> I believe some of them are coded visually and digitally (rather than in the plaintext), which gives an avenue into making one text do double duty without sacrificing meaning.
| The technique is described but not (as far as I know) actually used in Daniel Manus Pinkwater's young adult classic " Alan Mendelson, Boy From Mars " in which a dictionary hides not one, but two separate coded messages describing how to develop psychic powers AND transition to alternate realities.
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Consequences of autobiographical stories whose events are potentially illegal? I have been writing erotic stories that are based on true incidents in my life. Since some of those incidents (which occurred many years ago now) have been of questionable legality, I am unsure if publishing them could lead to my facing any legal problems. Can I get my stories published? If I publish the stories, am I likely to face legal difficulties because of those events? <Q> In response to Question 2:Likelihood implies a question of probability; rather than probability, you may wish to consider the possibility of legal ramifications. <S> One possible legal ramification is your written statements being entered into evidence under one of the exceptions to the Rule Against Hearsay <S> (Admission by Party Opponent, or Prior Consistent/Inconsistent Statement, e.g.).Under <S> these exceptions, your hearsay statements may be used for impeachment purposes or as substantive evidence. <A> Hmm, without knowing more it is hard to say. <S> If anything, that will increase the chance it will get published, because it is more sensational. <S> Sure, there are a lot of publishers who are ninnies that avoid "controversial" works. <S> Those are the publishers that go out of business. <S> Successful publishers love controversey and danger--it sells books. <S> If you confess to a crime in a book, then you could be charged. <S> It all depends on the police in the jurisdiction in question. <S> Whether they find out about it and care about it. <S> The most risky situation would be one in which there is a complaint. <S> For example, if you raped some girl, and she reads the story in your book and files a complaint, that could definitely lead to a warrant for your arrest, if the statute of limitations has not run out. <A> I assume you were talking about publishing stories - and not affidavit accounts that could be used against you in court. <S> (And if there are real people detailed in these stories, their names should be changed with respect to their personal privacy regardless of whether you were guilty of a crime or not). <S> At any rate, as long as you are publishing stories, there shouldn't be a problem and the boundary between fiction and true auto-biographical accounts has always been very indefinite, so I wouldn't say you are even responsible to point out that they are fiction preemptively (i.e. the literary device of presenting a work of fiction as a true account by <S> said narrator can be found in many works; or vice versa, such that you can always do one of those, I found obtained this manuscript (insert in such and such a way) and find them morally reprehensible and repulsive but choose to make them public (insert such and such reason for the common good) etc. <S> - which was a common frame for publishing certain autobiographic content that was considered highly immoral in certain culturally prohibitive time-periods). <S> Responding to the comments you received: There are no jurisdictions (at least in the US) where publishing stories of illegal acts is in itself illegal - but it may be different in other countries (consult your local laws) . <S> This is a first amendment right in the US. <S> You may also find this of interest: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/nj-supreme-court-strikes-conviction-based-rap-lyrics/ <S> But I will note (though this shouldn't apply to you), that people have been sentenced for inciting people to commit illegal acts (in spite of the first amendment) - usually this would require very direct promotion and it is a burden on the persecution to prove that your artistic expression did in fact incite people to commit illegal acts (i.e. no one has ever actually been sentenced for rap-lyrics about shooting cops).
| First of all, writing about illegal stuff is no barrier to publication.
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Can prologues and epilogues change POV from the main text? I have completed my book. But I'm stuck writing the prologue. I've written the story with narration by the writer (not from the point of view of any of the characters). But I don't feel like that works for the prologue. I thought I could have one of the characters narrate the prologue, as though telling the story to somebody else, but I don't want to go and change the entire book to that character's point-of-view. How should I write the prologue so that it works with my main story? <Q> You are allowed to have the prologue narrated by a different character as long as it is absolutely clear who the narrator is. <S> You do not have to change the whole book. <S> In fact, every chapter can be a different viewpoint narrator; George R.R. Martin does this throughout his Song of Ice and Fire books. <S> You can also have the prologue written in third person omniscent even if the rest of the book isn't. <S> Prologues and epilogues, being set off from the main text, have a little more leeway. <A> Yes, of course you can, <S> and you don't even have to make it clear who the narrator is. <S> You're the author: decisions like this are yours to make. <A> It sounds like your best choice might to be write your prologue from a more distant third person POV, maybe even an omniscient POV. <S> (This is assuming that you need a prologue.)
| Prologues are prologues because they break from some element of the book proper--different time, different place, different narrator POV, different something.
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What are frequently used arguments for recognizing bad writing styles in fiction? I ve heard randomly of remarks used to explain why a writing style is bad. for instance by the argument that a writing style is bad because of the usage of adjectives. Could you provide further examples of those frequentively used arguments for bad style? <Q> Well, of course this is a bit subjective, because there is always someone who likes a particular style. <S> Although, it may only be the author's mother. <S> :D <S> However, if you are interested in common expectations in the publication world, then you most likely want to check out a book like the wonderful The First 5 Pages, by Noah Lukeman -- amazon.com link . <S> It gives you a great idea in a short package about what makes fiction writing very good. <S> Here are a few other tips. <S> Show <S> Don't Tell bad : <S> He felt sad that he had been rejected by the beautiful woman. <S> better : <S> Stanley looked up at the beautiful red-head standing in front of him. <S> "Would...would...would you like to go out for a drink, Margaret?" <S> Margaret wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something bad. " <S> Uh,you're just not my type, Stanley." <S> She scurried over to the officeprinter and made herself look busy. <S> Stanley let his shoulders fall and he slouched over as he scuffled back to his desk. <S> He sat down in hischair and dropped his head to his desk and sniffed as a tear formed inhis eye. <S> For more details, you can also check out Fiction Writing Gems at amazon.com <S> I've taken numerous published books, broken them down and explained why they do and do not work. <A> Written dialogue is a good indicator of the overall quality of the story. <S> Each character should have their own unique voice. <S> For example, a poorly educated laborer is going to have a much different speaking style than a college educated banker. <S> A child is going to also be much more naïve than an adult. <S> It is more difficult to have believable dialogue coming from a child, than an adult because their way of thinking is much different. <S> When you read a fictional story, you should be able to imagine what is going on. <S> You should have a clear understanding of the setting, and the events going on. <S> The character's dialogue and actions should be clear, etc. <S> Some of the best writing uses subtle hints about things rather than just revealing them. <S> Poorly written: It was hot out in the field, the temperature was over 100 degrees. <S> The farmers were sweaty. <S> A little better: <S> Sweat poured off of the men as they labored in the field. <S> Their straw hats did little to block the rays of the scorching sun. <S> The best writers can make you feel like you are there, and can do much better than my little sample. <A> My rule of thumb comes from Elmore Leonard: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. <S> " <S> To me, this means that, as a reader, I'm experiencing the story, and not the writing. <S> This might seem vague, but it helps me avoid writerly cliches and too much incidental blah-blah that distracts from the story.
| Use more exposition -- describing things as they happen in front of the reader than you use narrative -- telling the reader what happened.
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How much information should a narrative sentence contain ,from experience on average, for good readability? While randomly browsing, i noticed fiction writings contain much more comas in their sentences as lets say sentences in chats or instruction leaflets. just for contrast simple sentence: i live in mülheim. complex sentence: I live, if it is not a misleading expression, in a town, known as mülheim to the outsiders, a world of its own, freed from the logic of the known reality found on paper and within sane mens wiring, where fountains paint stars at night, and drunk women become reborn virgins in the morning <Q> Determining how much, and what information you pass through your sentences is a very important subliminal channel of information about the speaker, their character, current situation and mood. <S> If you merely use it to optimize readability, you will crop a lot of flavour of the text just in order to pass verbatim data. <S> It's like you took a painting and tried to determine which contrast settings make it most readable. <S> Of course pulling the contrast way up, making all detail stand out sharply will make the painting very readable. <S> It will also murder any dreamy atmosphere, tricks of light or moods it conveys. <S> You optimize for information and kill all the feelings. <S> Think from perspective of the speaker, how would they convey their impressions. <S> A battle-hardened, disciplined soldier will use terse, precise report-style sentences conveying facts, but not impressions. <S> A romantic lady will use florid metaphors and concentrate on impressions. <S> A person suffering from depression will focus on dreary aspects. <S> A child will express awe and sometimes use similes that seem outright bizarre. <S> A person tired will use short, succint sequences. <S> A bore with big ego will extend bare scraps of actual information with endless pleonasms. <S> A person with passion will express that passion, delving into fascinating, little known details. <S> Do not aim at optimizing readability. <A> "How much information" does not lend itself to quantification. <S> That aside, readability is not a function only of the amount of information compressed into a given sentence. <S> Factors include the writing style, the particular scene, the pace of the story at the time the sentence is written, the surrounding text, the nature of the event (brief or elongated), etc. <S> Both of your sentences with some grammatical corrections are appropriate for different scenarios -- and even, perhaps, within the same story. <A> A world building genre like fantasy and science fiction will often benefit from generally longer, more descriptive sentences (up to a few lines long), whereas more "down to Earth" genres like drama might benefit from less. <S> That being said, it greatly depends on the expectations and style of the narrative being told. <S> You might write sentences no longer than 1-2 lines and still convey a great deal of information by simply separating them out. <S> If we take your example: <S> I live, if it is not a misleading expression, in a town known as Mülheim to the outsiders. <S> It is a world of its own, free from the logic of the known reality found on paper and within sane mens wiring. <S> Fountains paint stars at night and drunk women become reborn virgins in the morning. <S> It's the same information but written in 3 sentences and perhaps more digestible to certain readers and writers. <S> I prefer shorter sentences to the long, ongoing sentences myself but others may prefer the opposite. <S> An example of my preference goes as follows: <S> Rays of golden sunlight filtered through the translucent, dry surface of a leaf, held aloft by the hand of a small girl. <S> With eyes focused on the veins of the leaf, she spun it in her fingers as she lay on the soft, green grass under the oak tree in the backyard. <S> These are two quite descriptive sentences, but two, not one. <S> They are two different parts to the introductory paragraph, though both contribute to the setting up of the scene. <S> In this way, you give the reader a chance to reflect on what they've just read before moving onto the next part of the description (or in this case, the action). <A> This depends purely on the writing style you are going for. <S> You should give the reader just enough information to understand what is going on. <S> For example, if you are in someone's home, you wouldn't describe each and every object in the room if it didn't have any real significance. <S> It would be better to describe the room more generally to give the reader the impression about the kind of person that lives there. <S> You could pick on key points like if the objects appeared old and dusty and the pictures on the wall were crooked. <S> You could also pull in points such as odors. <S> The carpet was old and stained and there was a strong odor of cat urine emanating from the couch. <S> That description gives a clear understanding to the reader that the owner doesn't maintain their home very well. <S> This is a much better device than calling someone a slob.
| In general, it is usually a good idea to avoid superfluous descriptions of things which have no bearing on the actual story. Aim at expressing the character.
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What's the difference between purple prose and vividly descriptive writing? Elements of Style describes purple prose as "hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating." In short, it's ornate, contrived and breaks the narrative. There's plenty of advice on how to avoid it, but my question is geared towards how one can identify it. Since writing is so subjective, what can seem like purple prose to one person can be seen as something vivid and beautiful to someone else. Where is the line between the two? Can it even be determined? And if how? <Q> One of the characteristics of the kind of prose you are referring to is a very dull and dry approach, there is often quite unnecessary pompous savant words and an obtuse language, there is also a general miasma of boredomness and triteness, a sure way to spot the culprits in an entirely wholesome and objective way is the length of the sentences used which are so long as to preclude any easy understanding or even remembrance of the start of the sentence, there is no tail or heads to the beast anymore, if you want an actual illustrative example go read the works of Immanuel Kant the German philosopher. <S> The other type of prose is clear and visual, it ensnares you into its fold until the language used disappears and you are living in the story. <A> I work in the software business <S> and I have to do a fair amount of technical writing. <S> And I've very routinely found that if I write something that is simple, clear, and direct, someone else in the company will edit it to make it less easy to read. <S> I recall one time that I wrote the first draft of a user manual for a software product, and the editor at corporate headquarters apparently did a search-and-replace in MS Word to change every occurrence of "use" to "utilize" and dozens of other such changes. <S> Editors regularly tell me that they need to make such changes to my writing to make it "sound more professional". <S> Because heaven forbid if someone could understand it. <S> It's lead me to conclude that there are two kinds of writers in the world: (a) <S> Those who want to convey an idea or a story to the reader; and (b) Those who want to impress the reader with how smart the author must be to understand this complicated subject or to know all these big hard words. <S> Other times, purple prose is an attempt to be profound. <S> I think trying to be profound is inherently risky. <S> If you try to write a story that is action-packed and fail, you could still end up with a story that is somewhat action-packed. <S> Or if you try to write a story that is romantic and fail, you may still end up with a story that is somewhat romantic. <S> But if you try to write a story that is profound and fail, you rarely end up with a story that is "somewhat profound". <S> You usually end up with something that is pretentious and lame. <A> It seems to me that there is only way you can create "purple prose". <S> The term itself seems less like an actual definition <S> then words a pundit invented to describe something he recommends for or against. <S> In this case, he is simply recommending that you avoid a certain type of prose that reads as boring . <S> Is my interpretation at least. <S> edit: to answer your question, I would define purple prose as word that are superfluous without actually being informative in any capacity. <S> There are many,many ways to bore a reader when you are typing. <S> As you were quick to point out, it can be pretty subjective. <S> Thus its best to always read you own work aloud when your done, and measure the levels of these elements that are certain to degrade the engagement of your work... <S> 1) Technicality. <S> If you are not writing an academic paper or instructions for a technical guide, try to avoid trite technicalities altogether. <S> Act more like your taking to a friend or telling a story to a child then reading a file from your office desk. <S> 2) Expository. <S> The great thing about writing is that the reader's imagination is doing half of the work for us. <S> Thus, you should only concern yourself with explaining a few of the most important details rather then everything there is to know. <S> This is especially true for writing fiction. <S> 3) Repetition. <S> Make damn sure you don't repeat the use of words over and over again. <S> 4) Stagnation. <S> Don't be afraid to spice things up; a single sentence with a beautiful metaphor or simile will tell more to your audience then ten paragraphs of technical exposition. <S> Remember that. <S> 5) Pretention. <S> On the other side of the rainbow, keep in mind that the whole point of writing anything is to inform the reader. <S> The creativity is in how you inform them, not in the number of superfluous sayings you can cram into a single sentence. <S> Do not sacrifice substance for style. <S> That's the best way to spot potential flaws. <S> Thank you, and I hope that helps. <A> There is no such thing as "vividly descriptive writing". <S> There is, of course, "incredibly annoying amateur writing with lots of extraneous adjectives strung together". <S> When I read amateur manuscripts it is invariably a face palm. <S> What I need to do is write software that can automatically recognize, target and delete adjectives. <S> That would be very useful. <S> It may take a long time to do this, but it will probably quadruple your chances of getting published, so it's worth it.
| Here's a tip: go through your dictionary with an El Marko and black out every adjective. Sometimes purple prose is an attempt to impress the reader with how smart the author is. Always remember; when in doubt, read it out loud to yourself or to someone else. Be sure to always double check your work and have a Thesaurus handy if necessary.
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Am I using too much dialogue? In some of my writing, nearly every paragraph is pure dialogue, with very little exposition or description. On one hand, I feel like it flows smoothly, with little distraction, but on the other, I'm concerned that I'm failing to exploit my medium (the written word) properly. OTOOH, most of the dialogue does advance the story in one way or another. Is an excess of dialogue, by itself, necessarily a bad thing? <Q> As always, if you read a lot of well written stories, you'll have a good idea of where your story lies in terms of style. <S> Then again, if you're writing a scene like one of the dialogue scenes in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds or similar, then fire away. <S> I suspect, however, that he would be describing the intimate details of the tension within the dialogue as well, as there are many details besides speech that make those scenes so exciting to watch. <A> Well, you are the author so it is really your call. <S> If you feel that there is too much dialogue, then odds are that there is. <S> Perhaps there needs to be more of a narrative voice to pull it all together <S> and then you can eliminate some of the dialogue that is used to advance the plot. <A> I am no expert, but I believe that dialogue should be kept to a bare minimum. <S> You are not writing an audio book. <S> Your characters may want to yap away, but you need to restrain them. <S> Less is more. <S> Watch a movie; cut the sound, if it is any good you will understand most of it. <S> Yes, we write words, but they are a medium to create a sensory illusion. <S> This “special-effect” need to evocate and stimulate all the senses, with maybe a bit more of the visual. <S> Still, for instance smells are important too and they certainly can not be imagined through dialogue. <S> However, if they can, do transform that incessant chatter with descriptions. <S> I am sure that with some efforts you could get rid of 80% of your dialogue.
| Without an example it's hard to tell, but if you feel like you are writing too much dialogue in proportion to the rest, then perhaps your gut is telling you to dial it down a little.
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Why am I getting so many words per page? (Note that I use OpenOffice but this question should apply to MS Word as well) It's common knowledge that the average word count for a page is around 250. I understand that this is heavily dependent on the final formatting of the work, and doesn't necessarily apply to a manuscript. But I've noticed that I get around 700 words/page, which seems like an awful lot to me. This isn't an unbearable problem by any definition. I get that word count is far more important. But I would like to at least have a rough feel for the number of pages, and that's hard to do when you get so many words per page. All my settings are default: Times New Roman size 12, 8.5" * 11.0" page, margins 0.79" on all sides. Just raw text. Does anyone else have this problem? <Q> A standard manuscript page has about 250 words on average. <S> Standard manuscript format is this (or a minor variation): 8.5" x 11 <S> " 1" margins top and bottom, left and right. <S> 12 point Courier font. <S> Double spaced. <S> Here are a few descriptions of standard manuscript form: William Shunn (short story format) William Shunn (novel format example) <S> Vonda N. MckIntyre's (short story format) <A> It may be that you are using a lot of small words when you could be using long ones. <S> There is some times when the use of short words is a must and gives short punches and bursts. <S> Nevertheless, in selective instances lengthier word combinations might possibly generate a necessary and consequently beneficiary alternative regarding the rhythmical arrangement of the paragraph configurational structure. <S> Times is rather small too, Arial might be better and is often required by publishing houses. <S> still, what works for you, works. <S> Also how about the vertical spacing between sentences, are you using single or double, or maybe a personal setting <A> In the old days of typewriters with fixed-size fonts, a page was 8.5 x 11 inches, we set 1.25 inch margins left and right and 1 inch margins top and bottom. <S> Most typewriters gave 10 characters per inch horizontally, so 6 inches between the margins gave a 60 space line. <S> They had 6 lines per inch, so 9 inches between the margins gave 54 lines. <S> A "standard word" was considered 6 characters, so 60 characters per line equals 10 words, times 54 lines per page single-spaced is 540 words. <S> Double-spaced would be 270 words. <S> You really got a little less than that because you typically had a ragged right margin, and you often had short lines, such as at the end of a paragraph. <S> So I guess 250 words for a double-spaced page is about right. <S> Modern word processors are much more variable. <S> There are many different font sizes and possible line spacings. <S> So the number of words per page varies widely. <S> Still, if you set your font to something with fixed spacing, like Courier, at 12 point font size, and set paragraph spacing to 24 points, you should get about 250 words per page. <S> But why do you care? <A> I have the same problem--though 700 words double-spaced seems unlikely, so I assume you mean single spaced (and <S> while 350 words a page is a lot, I'm generally looking at 430 words per page)--but <S> it is NOT because you're using small words. <S> In fact, the opposite is likely to be true--you're using bigger words in lieu of a bunch of smaller words. <S> Go ahead and enter it into the Flesch-Kincaid test for readability, and I bet you're likely to get upwards of a 20 grade level. <A> And what about characters per page? <S> As far as i remember a "standard page" is 1800 characters including spaces, no matter how many words it is (though it should be around 250 words). <S> Have you tried to count characters?
| If you have significantly more or fewer than that on average, your document is likely not formatted in the standard manuscript form.
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Should I write my novel? I am a guy whose passion has always been fiction writing but in college I decided to go into software engineering because my parents were in a bind and they needed help financially. Now I am decent engineer but I have always been a better writer. My parents are taken care of and I have a family of my own. I have an idea for a novel that I always wanted to write. Problem is between a demanding job on the weekdays and a demanding 4 year old daughter on the weekends, it is hard to find the time to write (or even the time to read to improve my writing). Over the past 6 months I have written about 25k words, but even while writing that I often felt rushed and when I reviewed my work I keep finding ways to improve it (if only I had the time). Most weeks I can only squeeze in 2-3 hours for my book. So my question is given that I can't quit my job or neglect my daughter, should someone in my situation continue on this journey of writing this novel or put it of for later. Thanks in advance for any help. <Q> Yes. <S> I didn't even have to read your question (but I did). <S> The answer is yes. <S> Write 25K words in half a year. <S> That's perfectly respectable. <S> I work full-time, and often 2-3 hours a week is optimistic for me. <S> Maybe you'll crawl along, maybe you won't be fully satisfied with your work. <S> Hell, maybe you'll end up tossing everything you've written before your daughter turned [arbitrary age of independence]. <S> It doesn't matter. <S> You still write. <S> As long as you keep writing, you're making progress. <S> It might be frustratingly slow, but that's because writing is hard . <S> Community-wise, we don't like very short answers. <S> They seem curt and unhelpful. <S> I wrote out a full answer, but at the end of the day, the one-word answer is the one you're gonna get: <S> yes, write. <A> Probably, the real answer is as simple (complicated?) <S> as Charles Bukowski's, So You Wanna Be A Writer <S> http://allpoetry.com/So-You-Want-To-Be-A-Writer <S> Here's an excerpt: <S> So You Want To Be A Writer <S> if it doesn't come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don't do it.unless <S> it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut <S> ,don't do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your computer screenor hunched over yourtypewritersearching for words <S> ,don't do it.if you're doing it for money orfame,don't do it. <A> Mercy, yes. <S> If the story is burning to be told, yes. <S> If you love reading over what you've written, yes. <S> If you like the world you've created and the people you've put in it, yes. <S> "Later" you'll still have a job and your daughter will be demanding in a different way and life will always, always suck up your available time like chaos and goldfish. <S> There will never be a perfect "later" when you can sit down and just work on this. <S> So do it now. <S> And do it later. <S> And do it in little bits all in between. <S> Yes, yes, yes. <S> Write your novel.
| If you enjoy the craft of writing, yes.
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Is pantsless writing practical for NaNoWriMo? Those of you who like to just sit down and write what comes out, you all are known as pantsless writers. — KitFox We have a question on preparing for NaNoWriMo , but what if you start a NaNoWriMo manuscript without much of a plan, how do you determine what happens next? Are there processes I can use to keep my plot going for 50,000 words, or are pantless writers doomed to write themselves into a bottomless pit? If there are processes I can use, I'd like a list of tips on how to concoct a next scene from the bones of the scene I've just finished writing. <Q> I keep a second word processing document open where I scribble down ideas and thoughts which don't fit into the current point in the story. <S> This document is a grammar-free, style-free zone. <S> I record the ideas as quick as I can type them, then jump back to the main document and dive back into its tempo and style. <S> I make no promises to the ideas in this second document, they are not guaranteed to be part of the finished story. <S> Instead, I ignore them as soon as they are recorded, keeping my mind on the story that is becoming revealed in the main document. <S> Only when that main story stalls... <S> when I have written myself into a dead end... <S> only then do I go back and read through the secondary document. <S> More often than not, the next scene emerges during that reading. <A> It depends on what kind of writer you are. <S> NaNoWriMo doesn't have anything to do with it. <S> Some people are "pants" or "discovery" writers. <S> Whether they write the whole thing in a month or a year or a decade, they sit and type to see what happens. <S> Some people are plotters. <S> Again, the amount of time they spend to get a word count is irrelevant; they have to have structure first before creating. <S> Discovery writers must treat the first round of edits as part of the writing process, because it's dang near impossible to create something perfectly plotted with great character development on the first shot. <S> Beyond that, however you write and finish your book is up to you. <S> Discovery writing is no more or less practical for NaNoWriMo than plotting. <S> I'm a plotter, and discovery writing is like pulling fingernails for me. <S> I would trash 98% of what I did if I was just spewing logorrhea all month. <S> But I know people who find pre-plotting to be like watching paint dry. <A> The writers Margaret Mitchell, John Irving, Graham Greene, Mickey Spillane, Richard Peck, Edgar Allan Poe, J.K. Rowling, and Agatha Christie all famously write/wrote their endings first, according to this website . <S> So, you might want to reverse your thinking. <S> Concoct the previous scene from the bones of what you've just finished writing. <S> This ensures that your novel does, in fact, have an ending. <S> Now you just have to find a beginning. <S> ;-) <S> Or, do what I often do: <S> Then do some hard work and connect them.
| Write up various scenes, in random order, as your inspiration for them gets fleshed out in your imagination.
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How to indicate that a single letter was removed from a quotation Suppose a source text says: 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God desires all people to be saved. Now suppose I want to quote it like this: It is possible for God to "desire all people to be saved." Notice that I used 'desire' instead of 'desires'. How do I indicate this in the quote? <Q> You could use empty brackets with a space between them. <S> Brackets are generally used to alter a quote inline, such as fixing grammar or to add information like a name so the quoted material will work within the context of the piece quoting it. <S> "desire[ ] all people to be saved" or don't quote that word: It is possible for God to want "all people to be saved." <A> I would go with the following. <S> It is possible for God to "[desire] all people to be saved." <S> To me, this suggests that the original quote clearly implied the word desire ; a rephrasing like <S> It is possible for God to desire "all people to be saved. <S> " <S> leaves more ambiguity. <A> In this example, just move the word in question outside the quotation marks: <S> It is possible for God to desire "all people to be saved." <S> It's more difficult in the case that the word in question is buried in the quote. <S> In that case, you would probably just put the entire word itself in brackets. <A> Agree with "cut the Gordian knot" answers recommending you change your lead-in to the quote <S> so you don't have to change the quote. <S> The problem with that solution is that you can't always do it. <S> So we're back to your original question. <S> If this is a scholarly essay/paper for a class/journal, then AFAIK you should use [], regardless of how ugly or distracting it is, because [] is the standard notation among scholars. <S> If this is non-scholarly, then you have another option. <S> In many English translations of the Bible, italic font is used for words which were not explicitly in the original Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic, but which the translators felt were clearly implied and necessary for smooth flow in English. <S> You could use that technique on the changed word. <S> Italics has the advantage of being less intrusive than [], but the disadvantage that some readers might think the word isn't in the original at all. <S> However, if you MUST change a quoted holy text, then you MUST indicate that somehow, consequences be darned. <S> (If you were adding a single letter, you could make that one letter italic. <S> Sure, it would be hard to notice, but you're not changing the meaning so you're only obligated to obey the LETTER of the law. <S> yukyukyuk)
| Bracket the whole word, or bracket where the missing letter(s) would be.
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Should I use ellipses or em dashes to denote pauses in speech? I flipped open its latch and peered inside. A—gold tooth? I flipped open its latch and peered inside. A ... gold tooth? Was it an elephant? No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. It was—a whale! Was it an elephant? No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. It was ... a whale! What's the right symbol to use in the examples above? <Q> ' <S> I just don't see why— <S> 'I don't care what you think,' Johan barked, turning from me before I could protest. <S> ' <S> She was just...' <S> His face turned pale as his memory returned to that night. <S> 'Just what ?' <S> I asked, eager for more. <S> here are some resources: <S> Jodie Renner Editing <S> Novel Publicity <S> Writer's Relief <A> I might use an M-dash for the whale example, because it's startling. <S> For the gold watch, that's more of a thoughtful pause, so it would take an ellipsis. <S> Also related on this site: <S> Using dashes in writing dialogue and How not to overuse ellipsis? <A> Adding to the answers by Lauren Ipsum and CLockeWork. <S> I'll just look at the second example: <S> Was it an elephant? <S> No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. <S> It was — a whale! <S> Was it an elephant? <S> No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. <S> It was ... a whale! <S> It seems to me that the dash as a sign of a sudden change works well in the narrative, but not in direct speech: <S> "What happened?" <S> "I found something on the beach," John replied. <S> "I saw something and at first I thought it was an elephant? <S> But elephants don't frequent beaches. <S> It was — a whale!" <S> To me, this sounds strange. <S> John is talking as if he were writing a book! , which he is not. <S> He is supposed to be speaking with someone. <S> But this works fine: <S> "It was ... a whale!" <S> In direct speech, an ellipsis signifies a pause. <S> A dash in direct speech can only signify an interruption, where the speech breaks off and does not continue. <S> Only in the narrator's narrative, which follows different stylistic principles, does a dash mean a sudden change. <S> Here it cannot mean a break-off, because the narrative does not break off until the end of the book. <S> Only if the narrative is written as if it was spoken, can a dash in the narrative means a break: <S> Was it an elephant? <S> No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. <S> It was— <S> What? <S> No. <S> Stop interrupting me, and let me tell my tale. <S> It was a whale! <S> And an ellipsis has no place in the narrative, in my opinion. <S> What does this mean: <S> Was it an elephant? <S> No, elephants didn't frequent beaches. <S> It was ... a whale! <S> Does it mean that the narrator pauses? <S> He cannot, because he is not talking. <S> There are no pauses in writing, or rather, they take a different form, e.g. as full stops, paragraph breaks, and so on. <S> In poetry you might do: It was. <S> A whale. <S> or more commonly: it was a whale. <S> In prose you need to use different constructions: <S> It was, as we found, a whale. <S> Here, the subsidiary clause, serves as a suspenseful pause. <S> tl;dr <S> To sum this up: (a) ellipsis: dialogue: pause narrative: — (do not use in fiction) <S> (b) dash: <S> dialogue: <S> break-off narrative: sudden change <A> I'd use ellipses for pauses, dashes are usually used for interruption. <S> "I found this - " "That doesn't matter, look what I found!" <S> As opposed to: <S> "She... <S> She's dead."
| em dashes are usually used to denote an interruption or sudden change — whether in dialogue, thought or narrative — ellipses are for pauses, again in all respects.
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Commas at the beginning of a sentence: should I follow convention or intuition? An example from my own writing (Mother and daughter are burying their deceased dog): As planned that Friday, Mom and I underwent Choco’s burial at my home in __ (yes, she kept him in a garbage bag for three days). We dug a hole in the backyard, threw the corpse inside, and shoveled the soil back. Finally, my mom knelt down and stuck a handmade wooden cross in the little mountain of dirt. After that we stood there, in solemn silence, looking at the grave being bathed by the evening sunlight. I felt strange. Like I’d come visiting a hometown I’d forgotten about a long time ago. I could have written the bolded parts like this: As planned that Friday Mom and I underwent Choco’s burial ... Finally my mom knelt down and stuck the wooden cross ... After that, we stood there, in solemn silence ... How should I decide whether to put a comma in these cases? Should I follow my hear? Or what English teachers and spelling software tells me? <Q> Commas are used to increase clarity. <S> In each of your examples, a speaker would pause while reading the lines, indicating a comma is called for. <S> A sentence with too many commas probably means the sentence is overly complicated. <S> Your writing sample is first person and modern, so I would follow contemporary writing and speaking as a guide. <S> A good reference for questions of punctuation is "The Careful Writer" by Bernstein. <A> I think all your original examples sound fine. <S> Go with your inner ear and let your beta/editor add or remove commas for the sake of grammar. <S> As Bobn points out, the commas indicate pauses, and all those pauses sound natural and appropriate. <A> All right, this is an interesting one. <S> If you want to be proper in your use of punctuation, perhaps you ought to check out what the Chicago Manual of Style (or another style guide, for that matter) has to say about commas. <S> Grammatically speaking, there should always be a reason to use a comma. <S> In other words, it isn't correct to simply play it by ear. <S> There are quite a few occasions where one might need to use a comma. <S> Beware, however, of improper use, as that can change the meaning of the sentence. <S> For instance, in your third example ("After that we stood there, in solemn silence, looking at the grave being bathed by the evening sunlight."), you should have a comma after "After that," but you shouldn't have a comma after "there," because "in solemn silence" does not modify "there"; it modifies "we stood." <A> Late to the party, <S> but I disagree with promoting unwavering adherence to the formal grammar rules forced upon us in schools. <S> But I agree with the sentiment to let your ear be your guide. <S> Schools have to teach a basic, abstract style that will serve most people. <S> And that arrangement is perfect for people who are not particularly creative, but who are great at following rules. <S> That system is, however, toxic for the creative and the talented. <S> So I would encourage you to find your own style. <S> The heuristic I follow is simple: If the sentence is short I consider omitting commas. <S> Applying my approach to your sentences, I'd say #1 ( As planned that Friday, ) and #2 ( Finally, ) should keep their commas, and #3 ( After that ) is improved by omitting it. <S> Although I say that thinking #3 is too "flowery". <S> You'll deliver a better punch with a #3 like this: After that we stood there. <S> Silent. <S> Just looking at the grave. <S> I felt strange. <A> I am no native speaker of English, but in my native languages I break conventions when clarity is at stake. <S> Consider this spoken rendition: <S> As planned (pause) that Friday mom and I... <S> As opposed to As planned that Friday (pause) mom and I... <S> In the second case, where I mean that the planning took place on Friday, I would definitely add a comma. <S> Otherwise the reader without prior context is highly unlikely to catch the intended meaning.
| But for longer sentences, omitting commas tends to damage either the meaning or the rhythm, so I find it's best to keep them.
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Changing main character within a trilogy, is a good idea? I am writing the first novel which will be part of a trilogy. For plot reasons, I am considering to change the main character in the other two parts (will be the same in the last two books). But I don't know if it would be a good idea to change the main character in the trilogy, so I don't know if keep the same protagonist in all the books, or do what I have planned. What do you think that would be the best? <Q> There's certainly precedent -- Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles switches main characters in its original trilogy: Louis in the first, Lestat in the next two. <S> In that case, Lestat was a major character in the first book, so it made the transition a bit more smooth since we as the reader already had an idea of who this character was. <S> Since you say you want to kill off the protagonist of your first book and give the reins to someone else for the second two, there are several ways you can go: <S> Let the second person's POV dominate all three books. <S> The main point-of-view character and protagonist don't have to be the same person. <S> (Think John Watson versus Sherlock Holmes.) <S> The current main character can still be the focal point of the story, but his tale can be told through the eyes of this second character. <S> Give the second person a strong presence in the first so that the transition to the second book isn't jarring. <S> Both of these assume that the two characters have some kind of relation to each other and are both present during the events of the first book, of course. <S> Since I don't know for certain that's what you have planned, these may not work for you. <S> If the second main character isn't directly involved in the events of the first, then you may want to consider: Bring back supporting characters from the first book as guideposts for the new main character. <S> This is another way to give readers something familiar from the first book to latch onto and relate back to. <S> This gives you as the author a chance to call back to the events of the first book and connect the narratives into a cohesive trilogy. <S> Switching main characters between books certainly can be done (and has been done), but you definitely need to examine why you feel it's necessary and how you are going to keep the books feeling like one complete story instead of separate tales that just happen to share a title. <A> George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" kills off many important characters as the story progresses, and characters you might have thought were the main protagonist or the "hero" are frequently dead by the end of the book. <S> This works because there are lots of characters and so there are at least a few established ones to carry the plot forward in the subsequent volumes. <S> However, readers who are really invested in your main character may find that his or her death is too much for the story to bear, and not bother reading the subsequent volumes. <A> Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee sort of did this with the Rama series. <S> The first novel reads startlingly like a history book from the future and focuses on the military and government people who find a spaceship which has reached Earth. <S> Books 2, 3, and 4 are more traditional narratives around human and non-human families and other characters. <S> Anne McCaffrey did something more like what you're thinking in her Harper Hall trilogy. <S> Dragonsong and Dragonsinger are about Menolly, a girl who is abused by her father for her musical ability until she escapes to Harper Hall to become a professional musician, while the third book, Dragondrums, focuses on Piemur, a different apprentice in the same Hall. <S> Piemur is a secondary character in Menolly's books, while she barely shows up in his. <S> Both are tertiary characters in other books in the overall Dragonriders of Pern series. <S> As long as you establish some manner of continuity between the stories — in the Dragonrider books the characters overlap; in the Rama series it's about the same ship and species — I think you're okay. <A> I think that would be just great. <S> I mean changing the protagonist doesn't seem to be a problem at all since after all its your writing and you basically have control over what you write as long as you do it the right way. <S> From a readers perspective, I find that somewhat interesting and it makes me want to read more and know what happened to make the new protagonist the main character in the other books, so if you have the capabilities to keep the level in intensity and be able to kind like convey why was the protagonist changed indirectly and write convey the new protagonist in the same way you did with the original one <S> then I think that would be great. <S> After all it all depends on your capabilities of keeping the level of strength in your writing throughout your trilogy. <A> So there is definitely grounds for a character switch <S> , it's just about how you go about performing <S> said switch.
| If you've ever read Darren Shan's Demonata series you'd know that switching characters can work effectively, as he uses three different main characters who meet up at the end. Since your reader knows the main character is dead, seeing someone else in the lead won't be a shock, and having it be someone they're already familiar with will help them to be more comfortable and keep you from having to introduce a new character.
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How can I turn my short story into a novel? I just wrote last week about Sleeping Beauty but a different version of it. (I changed the characters, and the conflict, and mostly everything except the fact that one of the main characters is cursed and must fall asleep, only to be woken by true love's kiss. In this case I made it the guy.) I want to turn it into a novel, except whenever I try to write novels I get intimidated and I can't seem to do it. But then again, I've never wrote a short story about it beforehand. What I have to do to turn it into a novel? Obviously, I need to add more detail. But do I add more characters? (There are only 4 in my short story.) Do I make the scenes longer? etc. <Q> While it's possible to expand a short story into a novel (c.f. Ender's Game ), what seems more common in my experience (citation needed) is for the short story to become one part of a larger novel. <S> Your short story is already a self-contained unit; what else is going on around those characters, in that setting, etc? <S> Is there a bigger story that you can develop out of that context? <S> As you get used to making longer-running threads of connection through a few hundred pages (instead of a few dozen), you will be preparing yourself to write a novel from scratch next . <A> Contrary what others will tell you - I know, because the same question has been asked before - <S> I think that ideas for short stories and ideas for novels are fundamentally different and one cannot be turned into the other. <S> A short story is a story that can be told in a handful of pages, while a novel takes a few hundred pages to be told. <S> Think of me telling you about my visit to the doctor as compared to me telling you the story of my life. <S> I cannot possibly add enough characters and side stories to the dentist's visit to blow it up to novel length, without turning it into another tale entirely. <A> It depends on how your story is structured and where you might like to expand. <S> A story that takes place in a single day would be more difficult to expand, but if the inciting incident takes place a month before it would be simple to add in more detail of how the protagonist gets from point A to point B. You could also show events prior to the inciting incident of the short story and explain in greater detail how the events came to pass. <S> As you could expect this might lead to the addition of subplots and additional characters. <S> How involved these characters become in the story is up to you. <S> Short stories and novels do have a different pacing and tone, so while it is possible, the novel version will likely be dramatically different than the short story you've already written. <A> Another good way to approach your question is to consider what a short story is in terms of substance (not just length). <S> The definition can certainly be nebulous, since it varies from writer to writer. <S> My favorite analogy comes from author Marilyn Singer who likened the short story to a photograph: a captured moment in time. <S> She also adds that, "But while a photo may or may not suggest consequences, a short story always does." <S> The structure of a short story is more urgent and immediate: oftentimes, an irrevocable change has occurred and a single character (or two) must confront that change in media res. <S> In comparison, a novel can be likened to a movie. <S> Think about why you want to turn this short story into a novel. <S> Revisiting your reasons can help you build a foundation for a plan. <S> It could be something as simple as: I really like my main character <S> and I want to show more of her courage by doing X, Y, and <S> maybe Z. So in the end, it's not a question of how much detail to add or how many more characters you need. <S> These things come later and organically as you write. <S> It's a really question of: what is this story truly about and why does it need the space of a novel to explore? <A> Neil Gaiman's most recent novel started out as a short story that got longer and longer the more he worked on it. <S> He says he ended up "accidentally writing a novel" (which I think is hilarious, because I can't even write one on purpose). <S> So it's definitely possible for an idea that starts out as a short story to turn into a novel. <S> If you've read it, you'll notice a few things. <S> There are only a handful of important characters, there is only one major plot, and the subplots (if you can call them that) mostly exist to provide context and atmosphere. <S> Furthermore, Gaiman's writing style is quite direct. <S> He doesn't use particularly flowery language, and he doesn't draw out scenes for longer than necessary. <S> So your first impulses (add more characters, subplots, make scenes longer) are not necessarily what you need to do. <S> They might help, but they aren't obligatory. <S> Another thing you might notice in older novels is the tendency to forgo one cohesive narrative in favor of a more episodic format (it seems to have fallen out of fashion recently). <S> In particular, I'm thinking of several examples from children's fiction (the Alice books, The Wind in the Willows, etc.). <S> This might be something to consider, especially as your story draws inspiration from Sleeping Beauty. <S> It could be a fun exercise to study the structure of folk tales to see if you can use that to motivate a new approach. <A> I made a novel called "I Attempt to Write the Worst Novel Ever" once, and my answer to that is: Make your novel a story, but make them short stories connected by a single continuity. <S> By this, I mean write a novel, but write each chapter as a different story, but have a single revolving story around the entire novel. <S> Hope this helped.
| Another approach you might consider for your first novel-length work is to assemble a collection of short stories with a common element -- setting, characters, or theme.
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Where can one go to find police procedures I'm writing a novel that involves a crime (in the USA) and need to know the proper police procedure and timeline for the events. Where can I find accurate information to help me? More specifics--A natural disaster occurs in a slightly bigger mid-western city. The main character's parents get killed in it. How long would it take the police to identify all the people who were killed and notify family? <Q> A Guide for Writers . <S> It can shed a lot of light on how a criminal investigation actually works, and was written by an author who had a long career in law enforcement. <S> I would recommend that you check this book out at your local library or bookstore to see if it has information on the specific scenario you listed above. <S> If anything, this book could help you ask the right questions should you decided to interview an actual police officer. <A> You can learn so much about police procedure by watching TV cop shows. <S> For example, I've learned that: (a) <S> If two policemen are assigned to be partners, one must be a straight, by-the-book person and the other a maverick. <S> (b) <S> Every police investigation requires at least one visit to a strip club. <S> (c) <S> The average police officer is involved in at least two shoot-outs per week, but is never injured. <S> (d) <S> Unless, of course, it is the day before he retires from the police force, in which case the most trivial call will likely result in him being shot and killed. <S> Etc. <S> Okay, maybe you're better to go with Quilly's suggestion if you want realism. <A> Funny story about this one, but perhaps it will point you towards a previously unmentioned source of police procedural knowledge... <S> I was a writers group meeting a few years ago, reading and critiquing the works of other amateur authors in return for their performing the same service on my latest prose. <S> This particular night, all of the stories had an unplanned commonality; they all involved drug related crimes. <S> Inevitably, two of the stories contradicted each other on some miniscule aspect of the responding police officer's behavior and both authors claimed that their depiction was right. <S> A heated discussion arose. <S> For a few minutes voices and egos escalated, each participant claiming ever increasing intimacy with the drug world and its denizens. <S> Then a mild mannered meeting attendee, whose drug related story did not involve any police, finally added his two cents worth. <S> The argument ended instantly with nobody doubting that he was right. <S> After all, he was an authority on the subject, literally. <S> It said so on his badge. <S> My point is that the best way to learn about police procedure is to ask a police officer. <S> Just make sure that you explain to them why you are asking, and invite them to not answer, if answering would compromise either their safety, or their trust that you are a law-abiding citizen.
| One source that you may want to check out for general reference is Police Procedure & Investigation:
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When to use normal caps and small caps in fiction? Sometimes I don't know which one to use. For instance, what kind should I use when referring to the stamping on a t-shirt? Mark wore a t-shirt that said, SAVE WATER, DRINK BEER. <Q> All caps is for shouting. <S> Small caps could be used as a stylistic device at the beginning of a chapter to look nice, but beyond that I'm struggling to think of where they'd be appropriate. <S> Maybe to quote a poster? <S> For the T-shirt example, if the text on the shirt itself is not in all caps, I'd italicize it (or put it in quotes). <A> Small caps can become a temporary convention for something distinct but similar to normal communication. <S> In the same way that ALL CAPS has become symbolic of shouting, other character formatting can be used to imply meaning. <S> In many alternative fiction works, italics is used consistently to symbolize non-verbal telepathic communication. <S> In these cases, the author usually establishes the convention during its first few instances, using tags to describe the unusual nature of the associated text. <S> After that association has been established, all italicized text within the remainder of the novel is assumed to be non-verbal telepathic communication. <S> This is helpful to both reader and writer as the collection of speaking tag-friendly verbs (said, shouted, swore, etc.) is much larger than the equivalent verbs for telepathy (thought, pathed, ..?) <S> It is not an established standard anywhere that I know of, but it can become a temporary standard within the domain of any author's current work, or works. <A> Contrary to what the other answers claim, capitals do not need to mean shouting, but can quite simply mean that what is quoted was written in capital letters. <S> Example: <S> Despite this and other examples, I still stand by my comment that says to avoid all caps. <S> The example would not have changed its meaning if it had read: <S> In one location, Schiavone wrote "Chuck" in large letters with pink chalk on a wall ... <S> Just looking at my example will make it clear why you should avoid all caps: they dominate the text, which obviously is not about Chuck or how cool he is, but about wether or not Adams had rightfully discharged his employee Schiavone from his job because of misconduct.
| Similarly, and again distinctly for alternative fiction, small caps formatting could be used by the author to symbolize any unusual communication including alien-languages, magical-incantations and even thunderous voices from the heavens.
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Offline Tool for finding identical/similar phrases in a text? I'm searching for a tool which finds and lists identical phrases in a long text like a dissertation. The goal is to find repeating texts which have been created accidentally by copy/paste. It necessarily has to be an offline tool, as I don't want to use an online tool, where my text is processed and possibly stored on a server under someone else's control. <Q> It depends how much you want to get into it and how big the project is. <S> If it's finding only identical phrases or text, most word processors support this, and finally a lot of programming ide's support regular-expression searching ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression ). <S> On the other hand if you are looking to find reworded or similar paragraphs and/or excerpts and want to automate this (rather than substringing and searching for variations manually), than I would recommend you look at http://www.nltk.org/ <S> - I realize it may be more in depth than you want to go (but it is quite easy to learn and has a very good beginner friendly documentation http://www.nltk.org/book/ ). <S> I'll let others comment on more generic and perhaps more 'use out of the box' type tools, as I have no experience with those. <A> This is one of the main functions of the program, ClicheCleaner , which highlights passages in your text that are either cliches, other overly-used common expressions, or phrases of your own that you have repeatedly used within the same document. <S> ClicheCleaner includes a list of nearly 7000 unique cliches and common expressions that are compared against your text. <S> Currently it only works on text files; a new release currently in progress will allow editing of text, Word, and PDF files within the document. <S> It runs on all versions of Windows. <S> Disclosure: I am the author of this program. <A> As @user3467349 states, regular expressions (regexes) are your (complicated) friend. <S> There's quite a learning curve involved, but it's worth it if you have to do any significant amount of text searching or modification. <S> Many tools support their use (and some use slightly different dialects for their syntax). <S> If you have access to a Linux system (where it will almost always be installed by default - I expect it must also be installed on OS X, but I don't use that OS) or to a package of tools for your OS (such as Cygwin for Windows), then the place to start is with the grep (global regular expression print) command. <S> It can find almost anything once you know the basics of regexes. <S> There is also a more obscure command, agrep , which specializes in finding things "like" other things, but I haven't used it yet. <S> Another alternative is if you have or can install the programming language <S> perl on your system (should be available for almost all OSs), it supports it's own dialect of regular expressions which I believe is the most powerful version. <S> It's easy to access the regular expressions feature of perl without knowing a lot about the rest of the language. <S> If you do have access to a Linux system, then the command info sed will bring up instructions for using the sed tool (which you don't need at the moment). <S> But, if you scroll way down in this help file there's a fairly detailed section explaining how to use regular expressions. <S> This will transfer directly to using them with grep as well.
| NLTK is a toolkit that integrates a whole range of language manipulation, sorting and tagging tools
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Is there a book title generator that takes an input and outputs plausible titles with related words? There are a couple book title generators out there (Google will find them for you). Unfortunately, none of them seem to take any input . That is, they all generate titles by assembling words from a database, and the user cannot influence which words are chosen and how they are assembled. What I want to do is input a word, like "Sword" and be given a bunch of plausible titles that contain this word or related words (like "knight" or "knife") and that are not utter nonsense (like "Sword Cake"). Does such a title (or phrase) generator exist? <Q> If you know the gist of what your book is, which you should, try http://www.nameboy.com/ <S> Designed for domain names, it will give a big list of synonyms and all the possible combinations. <S> So if you enter Sword and Warrior, you'll get lots of variations. <S> Knife Fighter, Sword Soldier, etc. <S> Yes, a lot of it will be nonsense, but it should help get the juices going. <A> <A> I don't have any software to recommend, but I do have some tips. <S> If you know the main idea of your story, main protagonists name, and setting, you can find a great name using those little things. <S> If that doesn't work, give something slightly doesn't seem to fit at first, but starts to make more and more sense as the story progresses. <S> Or you could find my quotev account (Bracelet girls) and I could pretend to be a software.
| I was just now looking for the same thing and came across this tool that worked for me: http://www.adazing.com/book-title-generator/
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Is replacing "this" with "a" allowed in fiction? Example: "Exploding whales?" My date stared at me as if I had given him some bad news. He'd taken me to this fancy Italian restaurant. "That's what your thesis is about?" I'm not sure why, but this sounds better to me than a . Can I use this in this way in fiction? <Q> I think in this case this serves to emphasize the object in the sentence and connotes a specific kind of consideration or attitude (the narrators?) towards the object . <S> On a natural level I find it quite reasonable - but I don't have a precedent or formal reference to support that. <A> Most of the rules for formal and academic writing can be blithely disregarded when you're writing dialog or a first-person narrative, because you're trying for a reasonable approximation of casual conversation, and in real life people break all the rules. <A> It changes the meaning for me. <S> The use of "this" implies to me that you are still at the restaurant in question, whereas the use of "a" would imply that you were no longer there. " <S> a" also implies that you don't care which restaurant it was, only that it was fancy. <A> As stated the use of this in place of <S> a is a Southern colloquialism. <S> It would be okay to use if the story is first person and the protagonist/narrator is native to the appropriate region. <S> It should be noted: it immediately gives the sense of the narrator being a impoverished uneducated Southerner. <S> It pushes more emphasis on her opinion of how fancy the restaurant is, and implies she unused to such places. <S> If the story was written in third person, the grammar would be expected to conform with traditional grammatical standards since it's an semi-omniscient narrator telling the story. <A> No. <S> It obfuscates the meaning of your sentence and impedes thought flow; especially in the case given, which I would rewrite completely for clarity. <S> [ironic] Edit for Clarity <S> :I say that it confuses and makes understanding your sentence more difficult because I couldn't even tell how I was supposed to read the sentence at first. <S> I actually thought it was a fragment. <S> I had to re-read it a few times before I figured out what you were trying to say. <S> I say that it impedes thought flow because it breaks me out of your story; it totally distracted me from the interesting, relevant, first sentence about the 'thesis'. <S> Granted, it would have been less distracting if I had immediately understood the sentence, but when I say that I would rewrite it for clarity I mean that I personally would probably reorganize the setting information out of the middle of the dialog.
| You have a first person narrator, you're trying to convey a sense of character, and this is commonly used in this way by (some) people in informal speech, so it's perfectly okay and appropriate to use in this situation.
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Difference b/w Abstract and Introduction writing for a research paper I was slightly confused with differentiating Abstract and Introduction writing for a research paper. What is the difference between these sections? They seem to be similar. <Q> It reports what the paper is for, what you did and the conclusion. <S> E.g. <S> This paper explores the hypothesis that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. <S> The experiment classifies new tricks as tricks the dog hasn't learned before. <S> Six dogs were used in the trial. <S> Three old, three not old. <S> Two tricks were used. <S> One the dogs knew and one <S> the dogs did not. <S> The results show that old dogs can learn new tricks. <S> The introduction should give the rationale for your paper. <S> It will cite references to back up the reasoning behind your hypotheses, define what you mean, and explain what you hope to find out. <S> For centuries philosophers have posited that old dogs can't learn new tricks (Surname, 1788). <S> However, it has been claimed that this stance is not backed up by scientific research (Smith, 1998; Jones, 2001) and is actually based on an old wives tale (Doe, 1967). <S> Two issues arise from trying to accurately tell if old dogs can learn new tricks: what is an old dog and what is a new trick... <A> The writing of the abstract and introduction of a paper is a very difficult task because if you have 1000 readers most of them read these parts and your paper evaluation strongly depends on these parts too. <S> In abstract, you should give an overall view of the paper including the importance and necessity of the paper topic (the first line of the abstract), the previous works and difficulties on this topic( second and third lines), the big picture of your novelty in this paper (fourth and fifth lines), and verifying your results (the final part of the abstract). <S> For Introduction, you should provide an extended abstract here. <S> Write a paragraph to explain the ingredients of the abstract as I explained. <S> The important fact in this part is to write everything with a valid reference for it. <S> Also in the paragraph containing "the previous works and difficulties on this topic", you should carefully review and categorize the benchmark techniques in the topic of the paper and specify exactly the subtopic of your work. <S> Also for your novelty and contribution, you should clearly state your approach with benefits versus the earlier works. <S> Also, you don't to refer works in the abstract (exception if your work is directly related to the earlier published works) but you should mention important and benchmark works on the paper topic in the introduction section. <S> Friendly speaking, you should mention the recent works in your introduction and also some published ones in the target publication for submitting! <S> To see good examples, you can see most published works on highly valued journals. <A> Abstract An abstract can be defined as a summary of the information in adocument. <S> It should not exceed 250 words <S> It should be written in one paragraph. <S> It should be written in the past tense as it refers to workdone. <S> Long words should be followed by its abbreviation whichwould be used through out the abstract and paper. <S> It should not cite any references (except in rare cases) <S> It should never give any information or conclusion that is notstated in the paper <S> Must be accurate with respect to figures quoted in the maintext. <S> Introduction <S> It should present the nature and scope of the problem investigated Review the pertinent literature State <S> the method of investigation State <S> the principal results of the investigation State the principal conclusion(s) suggested by the results
| An abstract should cover the whole paper.
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How can I trust that the proofreader and designer of a book will not plagiarize our work? My friend and I are writing a book in English in the Electrical Engineering field. At this stage, we need someone to proofread our texts and also to design the layout of the book, so we will need to entrust them with our manuscript. I was wondering, how can we trust that the proofreader and designer of the book will not plagiarize our work? <Q> Work with reputable proofreaders and designers, who have proven track records with satisfied clients. <S> Anybody with a reputation to maintain will have no profit from plagiarizing clients' work. <S> First of all, a manuscript on its own isn't worth a whole lot (it takes a lot of work to earn good money off a manuscript), and secondly, they'll stop getting clients. <A> The language might state that the contents/cover/etc. of the book is to remain strictly confidential until official publication by X publishing house or Y printer. <S> Honestly, I don't think this is something you need to worry about. <S> Any proofreader or designer who plagiarized clients would be out of business the next day. <S> Nobody is going to work with someone who steals from the client. <S> It's utterly self-defeating. <A> It is not clear from your question if you intend to publish your book with an established publisher or in an independent way. <S> In scientific fields, proofreading is typically done, at least partly, by colleagues who know the subject. <S> Here confidentiality is commonly guaranteed by trust. <S> Then there is the publisher's editor. <S> Here confidentiality is guaranteed by the contract. <S> The book design should typically follow the publisher's style, which can depend on the book series. <S> Many scientific publishers distribute style guides and LaTeX classes to their authors. <S> If you want to follow your own design you should probably make an agreement with the publisher. <S> Finally, take into account that the yearly income which can result from selling a scientific book is typically very limited and hiring a professional proofreader and a designer can be onerous.
| In addition to "Work with reputable proofreaders and designers," as Standback correctly notes, you can also add a non-disclosure agreement to your contract.
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How does one become lucid in Copywriting? I am an Advertising Undergrad and wish to become a copywriter. My writing skills are above average but I can't seem to regularly create the same quality of writings everyday. What should I do to consistently write and create good content? <Q> One good way to answer the question is to cite how I billed for, say, a freelance print ad. <S> I would quote a blanket fee excluding any hourly rate. <S> The reason is I may have the headline in five minutes or it may be five days. <S> Creativity, in short, can't be rushed. <S> I would encourage you to adopt a process I got many years ago from a Depression-era (I think) <S> book written by James Webb Young, A Technique for Producing Ideas. <S> Write down any and all words connected to a product or service. <S> Go to an extreme in this. <S> For instance, when I wrote copy for bacon, some of the words went beyond the obvious from "fat" and "from pigs" to "red and white, <S> " "streaky," "wavy when fried," etc. <S> What I was doing was feeding my subconscious. <S> This can be tricky as some products are no different from others. <S> I did a campaign for pickles one time, and basically a pickle is a pickle. <S> The unique proposition, however, was that children influenced the brand their mother bought. <S> Hence, an animated tv spot and accompanying print drawing on cartoon characters. <S> A previous campaign had called a pickle a "dilly," which, of course, went on my list of words and from that came "have a [brand name] dilly daily" which is a take off on "dilly dally." <S> An idea, by the way, are two unrelated things being related as in dilly dally and dilly daily. <S> Good luck. <A> The short answer is : Be Curious <S> The longer answer requires : Explaining how being curious matters Explaining how to use your curiosity Curious Matters <S> Because : If you're going to sell something you must be truly interested in it <S> If you're going to talk about something you should know every aspect of it. <S> If you're going to sell something that you know <S> every aspect of youshould definitely believe it is something great and be able to explain why. <S> How Do You Use Your Curiosity? <S> Suppose you are selling blogging software. <S> Create Blog Entries Fast with editor <S> Write Blog entries from your phone. <S> Now begin to explain why these are so important with powerful words which are inspired by your belief in the thing you yourself have researched and are interested in. <A> Practice. <S> In my writing experience, I started out extremely inconsistent. <S> So I made a pattern to follow, where I wrote on paper daily <S> whenever I could and one day a week rewrote everything for as long as it took, often past sunrise the next day. <S> Those were some of my best times writing. <S> Following that pattern helped lead me to writing more consistently. <S> These days I continue writing consistently by following specific patterns. <S> Listen to the same kind of music whenever writing. <S> Pick specific times of the day to write. <S> Make a cup of coffee or tea before you start. <S> If you set yourself up for writing, the consistency will follow. <S> Then just keep practicing and the level of consistency will get closer to what you'd expect day to day. <A> I think you mean 'articulate', <S> no?The previous answer is the best - curious and critical reading - continuous reading - of all types of material. <S> Try to work with as great a variety of sentence and phrasal constructions as possible, so the unusual and effective in any given required situation is always at your fingertips. <S> Good luck! :)
| The one thing I added to Webb's idea was to write in one sentence the unique selling proposition of the product. Consistency comes with practice and keeping conditions relatively the same daily. Research find out everything about your subjectWrite Short Design blog pages with drag and drop controls
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How does one get Fanfiction "Published"? When the final chapter of " The Legend of the Sword of the Day and the Sword of the Night " was translated to English I kept hearing on the chatroom where it was posted that we had best read it now before the author asked the translation to be taken down off the site. The Author also made this post Thanks Crazyla for your work and for finishing the translation, I know it was not easy (the long chapters and some of the words used in it). Hehe, I would had posted the epilogue one or two days after the final chapter (as I did with the original in Spanish), it was funny (as a writer) to see peoples reactions to that end ;) And, as Crazyla said, read and enjoy it while is up, I don´t know when I going to ask to take it down, but my publisher is actually studying the possibility of publication, so the sign of a publishing contract is not that far away. Now from my understanding it's set in the Nanohaverse and uses the same characters while adding new ones so it's not a entirely different story with coincidental characters going by the same names, however I have always been told that Fanfiction could never be published unless the original creators adopted it which to my knowledge the author hasn't. So how does one get Fanfiction "Published", does the original creators need to be contacted to get permission? <Q> We aren't lawyers, and I don't think there's a single hard and fast rule for this. <S> Rights can vary depending on geography, time, and author preference. <S> There are works which are now in the public domain which anyone canadapt, so, for example, any Sherlock Holmes story which uses elementswhich Conan Doyle wrote before 1923 can be legitimately published orbroadcast. <S> (Yes, the BBC Sherlock is technically fanfic). <S> Some authors invite you to play in their universes (Mercedes Lackeyoversees anthologies of short stories written about her worlds andcharacters) and some don't want you even to assemble an encyclopediaof what's been printed if that encyclopedia is for sale (JK Rowling). <S> Parody may be acceptable to the author/estate ( Bored of the Rings )or not <S> ( The Wind Done Gone ). <S> Amazon set up a deal with some writers and TV shows which gave peoplepermission to sell fanfic in specific universes as Kindle books. <S> Honestly, the only way this writer can try for publication is to talk to the author of the original 'verse and try to work out permission. <S> And there's no guarantee the fanfic writer will get it. <A> The reason for this is that fan fiction by its very nature is considered a derivative of the original, and a copyright protects the owner against any derivative works being created. <S> There are some authors who willingly accept the existence of fan fiction web sites where people can contribute their own stories told in the same setting or with the same characters, but even those authors would draw the line at having those stories "published" in the form of a book or an e-book. <S> There are also certain fan fiction sites that exist without the knowledge or approval of the original author, and once they are discovered, they are often shut down. <S> Quite simply, no author wants to end up competing with themselves! <S> As Lauren pointed out in her response, there are certain exceptions or situations where writing fan fiction would be considered perfectly acceptable (public domain, Kindle Worlds). <S> The responsibility lies with the author of the new content to ensure that their works don't violate any existing copyrights. <A> In addition to the other answers, a writer of fanfiction may also go the fifty shades of grey route. <S> That is, rewriting the fanfic, so that it isn't in the same world anymore and stands on it's own.
| If the original work is still protected by an existing copyright, then the only way any form of fan fiction could be published would be with the permission of the original author or copyright owner.
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Software for keeping track of book edits? So I'm writing a new edition of an old textbook, and I need some way of keeping track of what needs to be done, and what I have done. I could use paper - but I tend to lose that. Or even a plain text file, but that would get confusing. Is there any software which is helpful for something like this? For what it's worth, I'm using LaTeX under Linux - so any software I use will have to be either cloud-based, or linux-based. <Q> I use several methods depending on the situation: when a client reviews my work, I supply them with a PDF and ask them to use the Acrobat commenting tools to insert the comments and changes. <S> Then I can go through the list and add checkmarks to the comments I've processed. <S> Acrobat can filter these, giving me a list of comments I haven't done yet. <S> You can also combine the comments from different people in a single PDF. <S> I'm not familiar with PDF options in Linux, but a brief search found at least one Linux PDF reader that can handle commenting: <S> Okular. <S> if this is not available or the comments are more general, I use a text file. <S> One comment per paragraph, and I'll postfix the comments with '-ok' when I've processed a comment. <S> A revision control system can help you track differences (by allowing you to compare before and after versions of the book), but AFAIK <S> it's not an easy way of maintaining a comments list. <A> May I recommend an approach I use since I also license my content for reuse: <S> Source - HTML source format is my preference, but you can use LaTex as wellWorks great for all your distribution formats - PDF, Mobi, Word, etcGoogle <S> Web Designer - Editor for all major OS's http://www.google.com/webdesigner Love this line from License agreement <S> - You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. <S> In short, what belongs to you stays yours. <S> Wether the format is HTML, binary, it will do a great job of tracking changes, branches, revisions and releases, and Github or Bitbucket are great cloud repositories to work with contributors <S> Tasks <S> - I like Jira https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira and is also cloud based <S> I use all three for my works and it has paid off, literally and figuratively - Happy Writing. <S> Git can be configured to show the "revision" checkin's in Jira, so it is easy to track and allow others to contribute, monitor progress and provide Project Wiki's, etc. <A> First of all, I wouldn't use LaTeX (unless you're required to do so). <S> LaTeX is great if you want a collegiate-looking PDF, <S> but it's a pain to convert to other formats (I know from experience). <S> I'd recommend markdown or the more advanced <S> reStructuredText . <S> Then all you need is pandoc to convert the document (the added plus is that you can convert rst or md docs to LaTeX if needed). <S> In addition to this, @what's suggestion is good. <S> Git is an excellent VCS. <S> If you are syncing your work with a place like GitHub and don't want your work visible, then just encrypt it with gpg . <A> Google docs this out of the box, but leaves a lot to be desired as far as management of a giant document. <S> And there's also the concern about storage if you're ever going to hit the limit and have to pay for it. <S> The programmer in me thinks the best solution is likely a writing "ide" that saves plain text. <S> Then you can use something like git or SVN. <S> This could be done if you are comfortable working in something like notepad and setting up a version control repository; but it will require a lot of personal management and tech know how. <S> Scrivener can do something like this, or so I've heard; <S> but I've been using it for over a month and haven't found the feature, so <S> it's at the very least not discoverable if it does in fact exist.
| Tracking - GIT http://git-scm.com/
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"And" vs "with" in description lists When should I use the former or the later? Examples: It was a bird. It had a black head and wings and a golden underbelly. It was a bird. It had a black head and wings with a golden underbelly. I went inside the building. It had small, windowless rooms and shelves of all sizes and shapes. I went inside the building. It had small, windowless rooms with shelves of all sizes and shapes. <Q> "Wings and a golden underbelly" is better because otherwise it seems like the wings have a golden underbelly. <S> The second example depends on if you want the rooms or the building to have the shelves. <S> With if you want to the rooms to have the shelves, and otherwise. <S> In a list of attributes, such as yours, use and to demark the last attribute of the main object and with to create a sublist of attributes of one of the main list attributes. <S> The tree had green leaves with spikes and pronounced veins. <S> Leaves are an attribute of the tree, spikes and veins are attributes of the leaves. <S> The figure had six legs, four arms and three heads with horns <S> The legs, arms and head are attributes of the figure, the horns are an attribute of the heads. <S> It is possible to use with with the main object: <S> The tree was tall, with green leaves. <S> So the tree has leaves, not the attribute tall . <S> C.f. <S> " <S> The tree was tall and had green leaves." <A> The first answer by Matt Ellen is good, but excessively rigid imho. <S> It is just a direct consequence of the grammatical fact that and isa conjunction while with is a preposition. <S> So this implies indeedthat whatever follows with is related to what precedes it. <S> However,being related to does not necessarily mean being part of, as in : he saw his aunt with his mother (using one of the various meanings of with ). <S> In addition, the conjuction and is somewhat bland, and creates norelation between conjuncts. <S> It just enumerates. <S> Using with when itcan be appropriate may reinforce the conjunctive aspect by insistingthat the conjunction may have more meaning than just coincidence. <S> For example, in the sentence: She wore a blue hat with a green coat. <S> , using and instead of with would be a sort of objective,factual description as in a police report, while the use of with puts the green hat and the blue coat in stronger relation, hence triesto suggest something, possibly that the character has no color taste. <S> In the case of the bird example above, it could be that the story wasabout finding an animal having a golden underbelly. <S> Then the use of with emphasizes an attribute that has an important role, as opposedto other attributes, though it is emphasized softly which gives asmoother style than writing ... but a golden underbelly . <S> Of course, there are cases when the intention is to provide a structurelessenumeration. <S> Then and should be used. <A> I would avoid the unneccessary enumeration of body parts: <S> It was a bird. <S> It was black with a golden underbelly. <S> I would avoid the enumaration, because you are missing body parts that the reader is left wondering about: what about the bird's back, tail, peak, and legs? <S> Are they black, too, or of a third color? <S> If you say that the bird was "black with a golden underbelly, it is clear that everything is black, except the underbelly. <S> Personally, I would even drop the "It was" from the second sentence: <S> It was a bird. <S> Black with a golden underbelly. <S> If you need to emphasize the (unexpectedly or sought for) golden underbelly (as @babou descibed), just add punctuation or vary the sentence structure: <S> It was a bird. <S> It was black, with a golden underbelly. <S> It was a bird. <S> It was black – with a golden underbelly. <S> It was a bird. <S> Black. <S> And with a golden underbelly. <S> etc. <S> Your choice will depend on the rhythm (which should match the surrounding text) and the strength of emphasis you want to achive. <S> I put my preferences in bold face.
| While the use of with is quite appropriate to describe an attributeof an attribute, and can often suggest that, it can be usedfor other purposes, especially when there is no semantic ambiguity.
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The etiquette of updating News Posts - Help please! I do updates on our UK Charity's website ~ Our "Latest News" Posts show the wrong tense for events that are now past. I want to update the tense in those articles butI I'm told (by Ms B) this is not 'accepted practice'. She says that from her long experience in maintaining websites for a well-known News Magazine that you NEVER update a Press Release or News Post. I'm sure she's right - for News Magazines; but not for a Charity website. I don't believe that our readers want to click on a link to an event to find that it is long-gone. I also believe that once an event is over, the tense in the report on that event should reflect the history. I'd really welcome some informed opinion on this, please. <Q> Once an event is over, you should (ideally) always have a NEW article about the event, describing how it went, and what it has led to. <S> This will push the old article down the page (assuming your web site is set up properly). <S> Then you should do <S> as Dale Emery suggests: add a link to the new article at the top of the old article. <S> But also add a "disclaimer" to the top of the old article, pointing out that it is old news. <S> Otherwise, keep the old article the same, as your co-worker said. <S> It would also help if your news page had a clear division between "new news" and "old news". <A> Note: This is from my perspective as a consumer. <S> I think it's okay to leave the present/future tense, especially if the date of the article is clearly visible. <S> Most of the time I don't mind (much) finding an old, somewhat outdated article as long as the date is obvious. <S> Google searches (and perhaps others) allow users to specify a timeframe for their searches. <S> When I know I don't want outdated articles, I can use that to limit the age of the search results. <S> One problem with changing existing articles: It affects the apparent validity of anyone who quoted the original. <S> It can be helpful if this link appears early in the original article, in or near the byline. <S> Inclusion in a "related articles" list also works, though those often appear at the end of the article, and may not be readily visible if the text is longer than one screen. <A> EDITED TO ANSWER <S> Original post asking permission from admins to link is below Updating (Blog) Posts An Answer From Another Forum <S> I wrote an answer to a similar query in another forum here on StackExchange and you can read it at Updating a Company Blog . <S> And what follows are the main takeaways from that. <S> If Google Does It, You Should Too Basically, while searching for a reference for my answer, I went to Google's Webmaster Guidelines and found an Update notice of their own. <S> Now, I'm a pretty smart fella, so I reckon that if they do it that way it's probably a safe bet. <S> SEO <S> Tips - <S> How Not to Blow Your Search Ranking 1. <S> DO NOT change your URL/Permalink! <S> And if you do, BE SURE to use a 301 Redirect to avoid a 404-Page Not Found Error. <S> 2. <S> Use HTML to Scroll to Link on Same Page : <S> This seems like the most efficient way to show an update by Noting the changes separately at the top as Google did, and link to the section that you updated down in the actual content. <S> 3. <S> Be Proactive in Your Keyword Use <S> : Ensure that _ DO <S> NOT _ cannibalize your SEO for the page by losing your focus Keyword. <S> If anything. <S> you should add to the strength of the page SEO by tying in semantic keywords and synonyms of your focus keyword. <S> Let me know if this works for you, please. <S> ORIGINAL <S> POSTING <S> This is a similar question to what I just answered in another Stack. <S> I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to it? <S> If an Admin says it's ok <S> , I'll post the link which includes Google's answer to the question. <S> best of luck
| One solution I've seen used well: Update the original article only to add a link to a more recent article, which describes the event after it occurs.
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What label to use in an article for a group of equations? Writing an academic paper, one might use different labels for different entities. For example in MS Word, Figure, Table, and Equation might be used for figures, tables, and math equations, respectively. Equation labels are typically placed to the right side of the equation. What label should I use for a group of equations? Can I use equations (for example equations (15))? Update: Here is an example group of equations from a mechanics-related text, where different parameters of a criterion are calculated in a series of equations. what do we call such a group as a label (e.g. [label] 7)? In this study, Mohr-Coulomb criterion has been selected in this study as the fracture criterion. Parameters of this criterion are calculated corresponding to [label]s (?) 7 to 9. <Q> A common way to number a group of equations is to use a single number for the whole group and lower-case letters to identify the different equations (subequations). <S> For example, the above equations can be numbered (7a), (7b), (7c) and (7d). <S> You can then refer to each single equation (e.g. "Equation (7a) yields...") or to the whole group (e.g. "The set of equations (7) represents..."). <S> The choice depends on your needs. <S> In the example you provided, probably, the author did not need to refer specifically to any of the subequations. <S> If you are using LaTeX to typeset your document, the amsmath package defines the subequations environment for this purpose. <A> What you might want to do is: Decide (by refering to relevant literature) if your formulas are considered (a) one equation with a set of subequations, or (b) a series of equations. <S> If they are a series of equations, label each equation consecutively with numbers: 1, 2, 3, etc. <S> Always label each (sub)equation! <S> Do not give one number for a group of equations as you did in your example. <S> Your three options are: <S> All of these three are common in published articles. <S> In text, refer to a series of equations as "equations 1 to 4", to an equation with subequations as "equation 1", and to an individual subequation as "subequation 1b". <A> Assuming that the equations have a relationship (such as all describing different properties of the same process) they are a set of equations, but the question is are they a named set? <S> If they are a named set, use their name, otherwise you should label them.
| If they are one equation with subequations, label each subequation consecutively with letters: 1a, 1b, 1c, etc.
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Is the following "shortening" allowed in fiction? I know you can write stuff like this: Head on pillow, I glanced at the clock. My mind made up, I went over to the counter. How about following: And with that he put on the climbing shoes, the harness, and attached himself to the rope. Everything set, he threw the end of the rope down the cliff, and began his descent. <Q> The middle one is fine, and the third one is okay. <S> The first feels a little dodgy because you're veering close to a dangling participle, where you have a phrase which doesn't have a clear subject. <S> In the first and third sentences, the context clarifies the subject, but I'd rewrite them so you don't get into the habit of sloppy antecedents: <S> My head still on the pillow, I glanced at the clock. <S> And with that he put on the climbing shoes, the harness, and attached himself to the rope. <S> With everything now set, he threw the end of the rope down the cliff, and began his descent. <A> Second one is good. <S> First sounds weird. <S> Third one is begging for another sentence: <S> And with that he put on the climbing shoes, the harness, and attached himself to the rope. <S> At the cliff's edge he rechecked every knot one last time. <S> Everything set, he threw the end of the rope down the cliff, and began his descent. <S> Maybe put in a mutter: <S> And with that he put on the climbing shoes, the harness, and attached himself to the rope. <S> At the cliff's edge he rechecked every knot one last time. <S> "All set," he muttered. <S> He threw the end of the rope down the cliff, and began his descent. <S> But, straight answer to your question is "yes." <A> This is well within the bounds of individual style.
| While not everyone might choose to write in this way, it isn't incorrect and may suit your particular "writer's voice."
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Use of realism in a fictional setting I am writing a fictional novel. It is set in many fictional places and the book will have it's own set of rules of physics. However, I feel that if I lose the sense of realism too much there will be no relation between the book and the reader and I will lose their attention. Will I still get a sense of relation and if not, can I get it through another method? <Q> Realism has several components. <S> Different ones dominate in different genres/settings and among individual readers. <S> (Real) setting accuracy: If you're describing a real place or a time in history, people who know something about that will respond based on how closely you match what they know. <S> If there isn't a lot of noise and traffic on your mid-day NYC streets (and there isn't a plot element that explains that), for example, people aren't going to buy that. <S> Setting plausibility: This is the case you've identified. <S> Basic errors of credibility -- <S> e.g. routine snowstorms in terran tropical climes -- will be noticed by everybody and bother some. <S> Others will be less obvious to some -- <S> e.g. giant creatures that disregard the square-cube law -- but will be just as disruptive as the basic ones to the people who know . <S> This also applies to consequences of plot points; people with medical knowledge may know that your pandemic isn't credible, scientists may know that your meteor strike wouldn't produce the effect you describe, and so on. <S> You need to decide how important this is to your audience. <S> Behavior plausibility: Unless you do a lot of stage-setting to the contrary, people will generally expect your characters to act like people. <S> Your readers have expectations about how "Joe Average Person" would behave in a given situation; that expectation may be reasonable or unreasonable, or uninformed because your characters are different, but this is what they'll be looking for. <S> Seemingly-rational characters behaving irrationally, experts who don't seem to know the basics of their fields, and so on disturb some readers. <S> "Magic" plausibility: People are generally willing to go along with a fantastical setting if they think it's internally consistent. <S> The sorcery in your story can be completely unrealistic (from our perspective) but realistic within your story . <S> You do that by exposing the important rules of your world (ideally through illustration, not long exposition) <S> and then staying consistent with that . <A> I think you will still have a sense of realism. <S> As long as you explain the physics laws/magic laws/whatever differs before they take effect, the reader will know why/how things are happening. <S> Consider: <S> Any novel that deals with magic has an unknown set of rules. <S> Once those rules are explained to the reader, however, and if the magic follows those rules, things seem perfectly realistic within the novel . <A> The term you want is verisimilitude . <S> Basically, you want to avoid breaking the readers suspension of disbelief. <S> This means that what happens must be consistent to the rules of what can happen that the reader has accepted for the setting. <S> If the story is set in the real world, this is close, but not identical, to realism. <A> In my experience, whether a relation between the reader and the characters of a story can be established depends not so much on the accurate depiction of physics or any kind of back-ground but on the realistic psychological depiction of the character. <S> Can I identify myself with the character? <S> Can I understand what he is doing? <S> (This is very different from liking the character.) <S> Previous answers pointed out this issue, and I'd merely like to comment on it by listing a few examples that I thoroughly enjoyed and that appeared, in a psychological sense, realistic to me: <S> The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: <S> She muddled up both the laws of physics and biology and wrote, in my opinion, the best love story of the past 20 years. <S> Jonathan Strange <S> an Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke <S> The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker: <S> A coming-of-age story set in a world with severly disturbed boundary conditions. <S> A great book that I couldn't put away, because it was beautifully written and psychologically accurate. <S> Do I really have to mention it? <S> A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. <S> Some say Martin revolutionized Fantasy. <S> I tend to agree, because he did the one thing I always missed in Fantasy literature: he gave psychological depth to his characters. <S> Personally, I recently wrote a novel about transsexuality that uses fantasy elements to explain the transsexuality of the main character (body switch theme). <S> Unfortunately, I have some difficulties to explain to the publishers that this approach is valid, because the psychology of the transsexuality problem is not affected by slightly disturbed physical laws. <S> In my opinion, this is exactly what fantasy should do <S> : Take a conflict out of our world and place it in a situation that doesn't allow the reader to ignore it any longer. <S> In this respect, Fantasy can be immensely powerful, so: <S> Go ahead, don't be afraid to lose touch with reality. <A> Internal consistency is the key. <S> Build your world and how it works and play by your own rules.... <S> I remember a book which had two types of magicians whose who worked with magic and those that worked with the rules that magic followed... <S> a little weird <S> but it worked because when the way magic worked changed you knew why and how, and in this case it was all part of the plot.
| Even in fictional world the genre matters, for example in science fiction you are expected to warn the readers of the changed parts in advance, in fantasy having the setting consistent with itself is sufficient. I think, as long as your characters are credible, lacking realism will not be a problem for stories set in a fantastical world. As long as your definitions are clear, detailed, and consistent with the effects, you should be fine. In fact, regardless of genre the setting must be self-consistent, but usually it is not necessary to make specific effort because your own experience of how the real world works helps you. You'd still be expected to adhere to genre conventions even if the story is set in the real world.
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How do I get publishers and agents to read my full book? My problem is that my first few chapters are decent but the last few chapters of my book are superb writing that is capable of becoming famous. How do I get publishers and agents to read my full book? <Q> Rewrite the first few chapters and make them superb. <S> There is no law that says that yesterday's writing has to stay in the story. <S> If the story's definition has improved, or if you yourself have improved in writing skill and creative voice, then throw away yesterday's inferior work. <S> Make every page shine! <S> Publishers and Agents are like every other potential fan of your work. <S> The only tool you have for seducing them into reading the next page, is the excellence of all the pages they've already read. <A> Agents and publishers are irrelevant. <S> The real question here is: How do you get readers to read your full book? <S> And the answer to that is that your book won't leave the book store if the beginning is not superb. <S> And that is why agents and publishers read only the beginning: because the reader will. <S> Also, congratulations on a healthy dose of overestimation of your own abilities. <S> Research has shown that it's not ability but bigheadedness that better predict success. <S> Bad writing has consistently made the bestseller lists – in fact most beststelling authors are at best mediocre stylists –, but self-doubt rarely has. <S> So I'm sure you're gonna go far. <A> You can't tell literary professionals to hang in there till your story gets interesting: you'll be tagged as an amateur straight away. <S> Do your homework. <S> Serious writers know this stuff. <S> I wish you well. <A> Most books can stand some tough-love editing, and if the first few chapters don't stand out as great, even to you, the author, maybe it means they are dispensable. <S> It might be that you needed them to get your start on the story, but --like the sketch on the canvas that the artist later paints over --they aren't that important to the final product. <S> You could also see if they might work better if placed elsewhere in the book. <S> For instance, if the book is fairly linear, you might experiment with starting in the middle of the action instead.
| Consider dropping the first few chapters. Hook your readers from the first sentence and don't let them go until the very end.
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How can I ensure my POV character's writing isn't too sophisticated? I am writing a piece which features two POV characters. A conceit of the story is that the POVs are writing their chapters, so each one reflects not just their personality, but how my characters would actually write. One of my POVs is very sophisticated and cultured, and I have endowed his writing with complex sentences and sesquipedalian words and fancy references. The other character however, is not a native English speaker (though she is fluent), and an average high school student in terms of writing ability. in addition, I want her writing to have an informal, almost conversational tone. Her chapters have been difficult to write, because I tend towards complex sentences and fancy references. As a preliminary step, I've tried banning semicolons from her writing, but I often find myself re-reading my own work and thinking, "No 18 year old would write this." How can I ensure this character's writing is age and background appropriate, when my own writing is very different? <Q> Boy does this sound familiar! <S> I struggled for a year trying to coloquialize my YA characters. <S> Every week, I would bring a new sample to my writing group. <S> It became a standing joke, guess how old my POV characters is! <S> The group's conscensus never got within a decade of my targetted age. <S> Then I received the suggestion which I will share with you now... <S> Buy a digital voice recorder. <S> Write your sophisticated character with a keyboard, carefully refining every sentence, phrase and word. <S> Write your non-native character using only your own spoken words. <S> Talk fast! <S> Don't pause to find the right words. <S> Instead, pour our thoughts out in words as if someone were fighting with you for the microphone. <S> Later, when you're transcribing the recording into your story, keep your fingers off of the backspace key and try your best to capture your words without adjustment or replacement. <S> Yes, you are allowed to drop the "umm's" and extra "and's", but try to limit any other restructuring to grammar only. <S> Finally, keep all your contractions! <S> Dropping apostrophes, increases the formal correctness of any narrative, so for this charcter's words, don't drop them. <S> You will not believe how less literate you are when you limit yourself to spoken words. <A> This is an interesting and thought provoking question: "How do I write as an 18 year-old, non-native speaker would write?" <S> And assume I am not one. <S> I found this site looking for tips on my iphone and I am not in a habit of writing on internet threads to people I've never met, so I apologize in advance for etiquette faux-pas. <S> 2 words: computational linguistics. <S> Since each human's language and vocabulary is unique, to replicate the sound of language or the writing of an "18 year-old, etc," one must have specific model in mind...or just let that 18 year old write it. <S> However, as I imagine you're involved in some sort of exercise to see if you can stretch your writing ability, I believe that would require an extensive study of the patterns of speech of specific demographic. <S> I imagine in time there will be access to on-line speech pattern analysis that will be applicable to defined percentages of certain demographics. <S> This data-bank may be a by-product of an attempt to categorize speech for the purpose of developing natural language processing. <A> First, lemme say i like Henry Taylor's answer. <S> Hmm. <S> Obviously, you're going to attribute more-sophisticated words to more-sophisticated people. <S> It's not too difficult to tell when someone drops an "SAT word" on you. <S> Your ear's a good judge. <S> Try occasionally running a choice word of dialogue through a Synonym list. <S> Grammar counts too of course. <S> Bad grammar can be based in ignorance, but much of the time even well-educated people don't just disregard "proper" grammar, they pick and choose which rules they'll follow. <S> For more sophisticated/formal characters, analyze your writing and then correct the rules that you realize you've broken (ending sentences in prepositions, doublenegatives, etc.). <S> For more immature/informal characters, think about the rules present that you've followed -and break them. <S> It sounds artificial, but it's a mechanism that'll at least get you headed in the right direction <S> -especially if the character doesn't inspire "naturally". <S> One way to TEST/gauge what you're writing is to run it through an analyzer. <S> I'm no MS fan, but there's one included in Word. <S> https://support.office.com/en-au/article/Test-your-document-s-readability-0adc0e9a-b3fb-4bde-85f4-c9e88926c6aa . <S> At the end of a spell&grammar check, it gives you "Readbility Statistics" including word count, but also (most importantly for us) "Reading Ease" and "Grade Level". <S> There're a bunch of online ones too. <S> Top one in a search for me was <S> https://readability-score.com . <S> They're not going to write for you <S> and they're probably not completely accurate, but they should at least get you Relatively where you need to be. <S> It'd show you, with hard metrics, what dialogue is "smarter" and what dialogue is "dumber". <S> That's my plan anyway. <S> Good luck to you. <A> This doesn't answer your question, but: I have given up on trying to make my characters sound different because: I cannot write it. <S> I dislike reading it. <S> This is literature and can damn well employ literary language. <S> All viewpoints in <S> The Song of Ice and Fire sound the same. <S> They can sound the same in my writing, too. <S> It is better to have a text that reads well than one in authentic slang that many readers will find incomprehensible or in laughable fake youth speak.
| Then it's just a matter of consistently choosing words for that character that're similar in complexity. For your more extreme characters, it's just a matter of polish.
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Getting My Rights Back Back in the late 90's I wrote a picture book which eventually was published in 2002 by a big name publishing house. The book was critically acclaimed, won an award, and went through a couple of printings, before finally going out of print around 2006. Since then, I've tried a couple of times to get my rights back, with no luck. The deal is that the book is technically still available --print on demand. However, they only sell about 1 copy a year. I'd be glad for them to keep the rights if they would actually put the book back into print, but if it's just going to be POD, I'd like to try my luck elsewhere. Any advice? I don't want to burn any bridges. A little background: If your book goes out of print, you have the right to get your publishing rights back so you can place them with a publisher that will publish your book. Several years ago, however, the major publishers all started doing POD as a way of retaining rights to books that would otherwise revert to the authors. My contract was signed prior to this becoming a standard practice --later contracts have this spelled out, but mine is before that became a thing. I appreciate the advice about the lawyer, but part of what I'm trying to decide is how smart it is to push this issue. Nowadays I can't get a response to my emails, but at one point I had a good relationship with this publisher, which is one of the best in the business. Also, as a separate point, I don't even know how likely it is I can resell the rights. At one point I looked into getting an agent (I sold my book without one) but I couldn't find anyone interested in representing a reissue. <Q> For works published after 1978, the termination start date would commence 35 years after publication, and you can initiate this process in the decade before this 35 year mark. <S> https://rightsback.org/ <S> Some contracts are written to have different termination procedures, so ultimately it depends on your initial agreement. <S> One more thing. <S> You can always buy back your rights -- although it may be costly. <A> It will depend on the terms of your contract. <S> Try consulting a contract lawyer and look it over. <A> If you have a contact at the publisher you could start by asking directly; but it sounds like you've been down that road. <S> You could easily get the run-around here or talk to someone who has not the power to do what they may feel is a good idea. <S> Business practices want to hoard IP, not release it. <S> If you have an agent, have a conversation and see if you can work the social network of connections. <S> Even if you can't get the rights back, you might be able to engineer an environment where they want to reprint it; which it sounds like is what you're really after. <S> Finally, if the above two don't work your only option really is a lawyer. <S> Might not be worth it. <S> This type of thing in the states is basically a game of chicken played with your bank account. <S> If you can be annoying enough and the contract is vague enough to have an opening and you live in the right state <S> and you get the right judge and the lawyer on the other side believes certain things then this can work. <S> It's a giant puzzle full of twisting nobs and twisting any nobs, your opponent can also twist (by spending money and time). <S> Whoever is less interested, and less monnied will probably lose. <S> If you're of equal interest/monetarily interested then it could be drawn out, stressful, and may burn bridges. <S> But sometimes all you need is a strongly worded letter. <S> If you're on solid ground, you feel legally, then you could take the risk of doing what you think is your right and leave it to the publisher to prove you wrong. <S> There is risk here. <S> It's definately not worth doing without talking to a lawyer. <S> Mostly this type of thing sucks and its a reason to pay close attention to the contracts you sign when you sign them. <S> Some things you just can't see coming. <S> Good luck.
| In some cases you can terminate the transfer of copyright and get your rights back.
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How to copyright ideas? I'm a phd student in physics/math who has some ideas about how these phenomenon occur. However, I do not have the experiments and mathematical theory done yet to support these ideas, and it may take years to get them done to publish a paper. How can I get copyright these ideas (hypothesis?) Can I just make a blog on the internet and put (c) with the date and my name on the bottom of each post, or is that not enough? I would like to have some proof that I had these ideas at this point in time, and since I'm sharing them with others, I'd want proof that they were mine without others not crediting me. <Q> Thank gods, ideas are not copyrightable at all (in any country, as far as I know; particularly in the US under Section 102 of the Copyright Act, in Russia under Section 1259 of Civil Code, etc). <A> One could write a creative text with these, but then using them (in an entirely different text) will be completely viable. <S> If these ideas could be used as methods, technologies or devices, you can patent them. <S> The one "beautiful" thing about patents is that they absolutely don't need to work for real, you just need to claim that they work - so whether the ideas are valid and true is moot. <S> Still, if the ideas merely cover concepts of how things work in the nature, they won't be patentable. <S> On top of that, the process of obtaining patents is lengthy and expensive. <A> As others have said, you cannot copyright ideas. <S> However, that is not really what you want to achieve here is it? <S> What you really want is to be credited with coming up with the ideas in the first place in the event that either you or someone else is able to do the science to prove them right. <S> It's the recognition you want. <S> If you want to profit from the exploitation of your ideas, then you would need to come up with a method of exploiting them and copyrighting, patenting and otherwise protecting the exploitation. <S> My suggestion would be to publish as widely as you can. <S> Write a self-published book; create a blog; physically print everything off and post (mail) <S> it back to yourself <S> so you have date proofs. <S> A suggestion: read the history of how Charles Darwin came to publish his internationally famous On The Origin of Species and then ask yourself why you have never heard of Alref Russel Wallace. <S> The key is not to procrastinate but to publish, publish, publish. <S> If you do not blow your own trumpet, no-one else will and - worse - others may gain the credit for what you have done. <S> Finally, it is highly unlikely that the ideas you have are unique to you. <S> Others may well be thinking along similar lines. <S> There is never a perfect moment to go public, never a moment when you have everything carefully marshalled together. <S> In the real world, there is intense competition in every aspect of life ... <S> so act now, act fast and work out how to support your ideas later.
| Ideas can't be copyrighted.
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Can a Town/City Sue an Author for a Bad Portrayal in Fiction? Lets say we choose a random town off of google maps on which to base a story where the local authorities (we won't say police, or whatnot, but local authorities) perform an investigation that is completely off-protocol and basically corrupt. Or something like that...the local authorities of X CITY Y STATE are (in a fictional context) completely corrupt and self serving. The story becomes a hit, and suddenly this previously unknown town has a bad reputation completely based on a random fictional account. Is this, in the writer's world, a scenario that already has guidelines? Can a city create a lawsuit against an author for a bad portrayal in fiction? <Q> Only people can be libelled or slandered. <S> Places cannot. <S> In most western-type jurisdictions, the dead cannot be libelled (that is certainly the case here in the UK which has some of the strictest libel laws around). <S> The above all assumes you live in a law-abiding country rather than a dictatorship. <S> In those places, all bets are off. <S> Finally: just because you cannot libel or slander a city doesn't mean that those who operate that city won't get angry. <S> You are not guaranteed a peaceful life if you slag off somewhere that people care about even if they have no direct recourse to the law! <A> I am not a lawyer, so this is from a writer's, not legal point of view. <S> As it were, anyone can sue anybody for anything at any time. <S> So the issue is, how have people minimized the possibility of this happening (and worse, losing) <S> For instance, if something supposedly took place on the Brooklyn Bridge, you'd make it the BrookLINE Bridge. <S> Another example was when "Don" (Dan) Rather announced the fictitious start of World War III (as part of the plot). <S> The reason for misspelling his name was to communicate the idea of "nationally known newscaster," not the actual person. <S> What you are doing here is creating a "parallel" universe. <S> Perhaps the classic example was "The Wizard of Oz." <S> (U.S.). <S> By using a slight misspelling, you are alluding to the place of your choice (for fictitious purposes), but disclaiming that the fictitious events in your book actually took place there. <S> Also, the slight misspelling weakens the party's "standing" to sue (unless the similarities are so strong that the name change is effectively overridden). <S> Brookline bridge? <S> Not the same as Brooklyn Bridge. <S> Don Rather? <S> No, your name is Dan. <A> At least in the U.S.A., just about anyone (human or corporate) can sue just about anyone for just about anything. <S> All it takes is a specious legal theory of damages to get past the first step. <S> By then, a lot of money has been spent. <S> Check out the Wikipedia article, "Food Libel Laws. <S> " <S> I advise you to create an entirely fictional town, which is not specifically identified with some real town. <S> This is what Raymond Chandler did, in some of his famous detective novels, set in the greater Los Angeles area of his own era. <S> The local officials were corrupt, and so forth. <S> But (other than being somewhere near L.A.) it was no particular town. <S> If someone reading that books says to himself, "Ah, the author must mean XYZ City, because veryone knows they're corrupt," That's not the author's fault.
| Provided that you do not write in a way whereby specific public officials could make a case that you are attacking their personal behaviour and reputations, then whatever you think about a place is your own business. One form of "protection" that has been used by some authors and publishers is to slightly "misspell" the place in question.
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How can I write a thesis statement and stay on topic in a persuasive essay? Recently I was made to write a persuasive essay about whether or not this quote by W. H. Auden is true: Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill. Below is my introductory paragraph, with what I consider the thesis statement in bold: W. H. Auden (1908 – 1973) is considered one of the greatest English poets of the twentieth century. He wrote over four hundred poems as well as numerous quotes. One such quote is: “Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.” This quote is applicable in a wide range of machinery. Although Auden might have been thinking of machines that are designed to do manual labor, his quote also holds true for computing devices like desktop computers, mobile devices, and calculators. You can continue to read the full essay here . Unfortunately, I apparently didn't have a good enough thesis statement, I argued both sides of the issue, and I barely stayed on topic. Does anyone have suggestions on how I could formulate a better thesis and stay on topic in the future? <Q> It's impossible to know exactly why you got the scores you did, but what jumps out at me is that your thesis statement doesn't really match the prompt. <S> The prompt is NOT to write an essay simply inspired by Auden's quote, but rather to write an essay taking a stance on whether or not his quote is true. <S> To recast Auden's argument in simpler language: <S> Machines help humanity by reducing the need for labor, but hurt humanity by reducing the need for skill/skilled-labor . <S> It would be equally on topic to say Auden is incorrect to say humanity is helped by machines reducing the need for labor because of A, B, and C, or Auden is incorrect to say humanity is hurt by machines reducing the need for skill because of X, Y and Z . <S> You could even write a good essay arguing Auden is right on one point and wrong on the other. <S> As far as the essay itself, it supports the idea that Auden is right that relying on machines leads to people losing skills, but it doesn't explain why that should be considered a bad thing. <S> So you're basically agreeing with Auden, but you haven't even touched on the most substantive part of his claim --the value judgment. <A> If I were grading this essay I'd be looking to be persuaded to think that your viewpoint is better than one I might have had prior to reading your work. <S> Personally I look for a strong statement to open a persuasive piece, it should be the very first sentence I read. " <S> WH Auden was absolutely, 100% on the money when he said '...' <S> " There's no mistaking which side of the argument you stand on when you open with a statement that cannot be misinterpreted and it sets you up to spend the remainder of your word-count convincing me that you're right. <S> it's likely to stand out like dog's balls. <S> By including examples of why arguments alternate to your own will give you the opportunity to convince me further of your wisdom - but you must then go on to effectively tear those antagonistic reasons to shreds. <S> Don't know if that helps <S> (especially as you posted nearly ten days ago) but good luck regardless, you have a clarity of writing that should be commended. <A> Well, I do not know what have you written in your thesis statement. <S> However, I will give you some advice on how to do it better. <S> First of all, if you need to comment the quote, then do not write what has been already written. <S> Write your opinion and stick it to the end, providing a lot of good reasons for it. <S> Your professor will like it. <S> Also, it would be great if you weren't SO critical of the saying. <S> You can be critical, but not so strongly. <S> Here is an excellent post at dissertation writer that gives quite good tips on this kind of writing. <S> Think in a unique way and stay positive. <S> That's all that I have to say.
| An on-topic thesis would be Auden is correct to say that humanity is helped by machines reducing the need for labor because of A, B and C, and correct to say that humanity is hurt by reducing the need for skilled labor because of X, Y and Z . It will also help you to stay on topic if you are constantly re-reading your work as you go because if you have written something tangential
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Any advice on how to learn DITA for technical writing? My situation is such that I will be looking for a new job next week as this contract ends. For a tech writer, it is good to have DITA on the ole' resume. So, I just wanted to know if anyone has a site or book or tutorial on how to learn Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).Thanks all. <Q> I don't know how much benefit you'll get on a resume from having read about, as opposed to used , DITA, but <S> some knowledge is better than none. <S> DITA is both a specific framework and an approach. <S> My documentation group is currently working through the book DITA <S> Best Practices: <S> A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA by Laura Bellamy, Michelle Carey, and Jenifer Schlotfeldt and we're finding it a good introduction so far. <S> We are not planning to migrate to the DITA framework , but we've been trying to apply a similar approach on our own and we're finding the book helpful for pointing out issues <S> we haven't necessarily thought enough about. <S> The book contains a lot of information specific to the framework too, so it should be even more helpful for somebody who's going all-in on DITA. <S> The book is under 300 pages and not terribly dense, so you should be able to absorb it in less than a week. <A> I don't know if this will be way too late but still, here's a free tool I found for learning DITA: <S> http://www.learningdita.com/ <S> I'm currently following the course, although it's dropped down my todos a bit. <S> I'm already familiar with most of the content from my own reading and from that perspective <S> I'll say it's very comprehensive and thorough. <S> Although I already have the basic ideas I would recommend this for beginners, it definitely starts simple. <S> Here's the complete styleguide which explains in detail how to use each element if you're diving in and trying it out: https://www.oxygenxml.com/dita/styleguide/webhelp-feedback/index.html <A> After you have set up the toolkit, you can: <S> Take a look at the DITA XML source for a real publication, namely the DITA Open Toolkit user's guide. <S> The source is located in the docsrc folder, but you can also access it on GitHub . <S> Use this source to build the final output, for example, HTML or a PDF. <S> To do this, see Rebuilding the DITA-OT documentation (or Chapter 20 in the PDF version). <S> Open a .dita topic file. <S> Try to find that topic in the document by searching for its title. <S> Notice how the XML follows a specific topic structure . <S> In DITA, a topic is the basic unit of authoring . <S> Open a .ditamap file and compare what you see to the table of contents in this publication. <S> Notice how it uses DITA map elements to organise a series of topics. <S> Make a small change to the title of a topic (perhaps after making a backup copy) and rebuild the publication. <S> Notice how your change is rolled into the new version of the document. <S> At this point, you'll realise that it could be quite a challenge to write a document in DITA without some additional tool support. <S> This is where "DITA-aware" tools such as Oxygen XML Author come in to provide editing support. <S> Note that Oxygen comes bundled with the DITA Open Toolkit. <S> There is a list of tools that use the DITA Open Toolkit on dita-ot.org . <S> See also this list of DITA-related software tools . <S> Section 2.2.1.2 of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture <S> (DITA) Oasis standard contains more on the benefits of topic-based authoring. <S> For more examples of DITA-based authoring, check out the list of Open Source DITA Collections on oasis-open.org.
| For a more hands-on introduction, you might consider downloading and installing the DITA Open Toolkit .
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Using Present Tense to describe a Fact on a story that uses Past Tense newcomer here, and I have a question. I have a story that starts with the sentence, ' the ocean is vast '. However, I'm actually going to write my story in past tense form but changing that 'is' to 'was' sounds off to me. I feel that saying 'the ocean was vast' somehow implies that the ocean was once a vast body of water and it's just doesn't seems very strong and concrete than saying 'the ocean is vast'. So my question is, [1] Should I use present tense to describe an everlasting/obvious fact even if the whole story is told in past tense? Excerpt: The ocean is vast. Capt. Harris could actually hide his supply ship, the Clement , in the endless stretch of the ocean and not trouble himself with worry regarding any attacks from prowling raiders. Of course if said raider was equipped with the most sophisticated radar equipment that 1939 could offer, then that would pose a problem. But then again, he was currently steaming along the southern parts of the Atlantic, what chances were there for a German surface raider appearing out of nowhere? Thanks. <Q> If you're deeply in the character's viewpoint, it doesn't matter that a sentence is expressing an everlasting fact. <S> What matters is that it is what the character is experiencing at this moment. <S> Of all the things the character could be thinking about, this is what he is thinking at this moment. <S> So you write it in the same manner as the rest of the character's experience. <S> The challenge here is that as readers read that first sentence, do not yet know what viewpoint to adopt. <S> They might imagine that this is a character's opinion, even though they don't yet know which character to attribute it to. <S> But when the next sentence sort of seems to be in Captain Harris's point of view, in past tense, it becomes even less clear whose opinion that opening sentence expressed. <S> It can't be Captain Harris's, because his viewpoint is in past tense. <S> Maybe it's the author's opinion. <S> Uh, oh. <S> Viewpoint confusion. <S> Popped right out of the story before it even begins. <S> If readers were already in Capt. <S> Harris's viewpoint <S> , you could write <S> the ocean was vast, and readers would get it. <S> They would not take it as suggesting that the ocean is no longer vast. <S> Actually, I think the viewpoint confusion continues. <S> Until the last sentence, it is not clear whose viewpoint we're in. <S> Until then, the viewpoint is quite aloof. <S> We could be in the viewpoint of someone telling us about Captain Harris. <S> If this were the opening of a movie, all of it (perhaps including the last sentence) could be a voiceover as we watch Captain Harris gazing over the vast ocean. <S> My suggestion: <S> Leave these opening lines alone for now. <S> Write the story. <S> Then revisit the opening, in full knowledge of how the story goes. <S> Then you'll be a better judge of how to open the story. <A> Adding to Dale Emery's answer, and maybe clarifying it a bit, I would say that the tense depends on the narrator . <S> If the story is narrated by an omniscient narrator, then the ocean is vast, because that is what the timeless and universal narrator knows about it. <S> If the story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, as he experiences the events, then the ocean was vast, because the protagonist perceives it as vast. <S> I feel that most writers do not have a clear understanding of their own narrator and switch back and forth between omniscient and personal narrator, sometimes even between first and third person (like Stephen King in Carrie ). <S> This works for some books and writers (as the success of Stephen King shows), but depending on your writing style you might want to think about who is telling your story and stick to that viewpoint and only deviate from it if you know why you do it. <A> Stories do not have tenses. <S> Individual verbs have tenses. <S> Even an individual sentence can contain verbs in different tenses. <S> Tom is saying that Jane promised that she will marry him in September. <S> Stories may be told in the narrative present, meaning that the narration is framed as if it were taking place at the events of the story unfolded, or in the narrative past, meaning that the narration is frame as if it happens after the events of the story. <S> This has nothing to do with the tense of verbs using individual phrases in individual sentences in these stories. <S> In the narrative present, there will be numerous occasions to refer to events that happened in the past relative to the current moment of the narrative, or that will happen in the future. <S> These are described using the appropriate verb tense. <S> In the narrative past, there will, similarly, be occasions to refer to events that happened in the past relative to the current moment of the narrative, or that will happen in the future. <S> These are also described using the appropriate verb tense. <S> And in either the narrative past or the narrative present, there are statements that are describe permanent things, like the vastness of the ocean. <S> Statements of permanent features are usually made using the present tense, since to use the past tense would imply that they have ceased to be true, and to use the future tense would be to imply that they are not yet true.
| The choice of tense in this case is determined entirely by the particular statement being made and is entirely independent of the rest of the sentence, paragraph, or story.
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How to write a conversation Conversation is the thing I have most difficulties with while writing stories. How do I write a conversation so it will be clear who said what, and in a way that's not like a court transcript? Should I start a new line with each sentence of dialog? Just one paragraph? Should I use quotation marks? Should I indicate the speaker's name after every sentence? If not, how do I make it clear who is the speaker? The major problem is when I need a fast pace, like in an argument. It looks like calling the speaker's name every time just slows the scene down. <Q> Generally accepted structures, which are used for clarity: <S> Each time the speaker changes, you start a new paragraph. <S> The speakermay start and stop, and you can have narration and action tags, butas long as that person continues, it can be the same paragraph. <S> Dialogue gets some kind of punctuation to set it off from narration. <S> This punctuation varies from country to country. <S> Americans use doublequotes ", Brits use single quotes ', the French use guillemets «, andI've seen various dashes and hyphens. <S> You should add some kind of tag, speaker or action, any time it's notclear who is speaking. <S> I wouldn't go more than four or five exchangeswithout a tag of some kind, but you might be able to go longer if forexample, there are two people speaking two different languages. <S> Whenin doubt, use a tag, and then ask your beta reader or editor if anycan be removed. <S> Tags can be "he/she," a name, or a descriptor (the doctor, thedetective, the woman, the younger man, the captain, the Vulcan, theSoutherner). <A> I've wrestled with this too. <S> Easy part: If you're writing in American English, what the character is saying should be enclosed in double quotes ("). <S> Whenever the speaker changes, start a new paragraph. <S> I think the hard part is making clear who is speaking. <S> It gets tedious if you constantly write, "Bob said ... <S> Then Mary said ... <S> Then Bob said ..." etc. <S> Some writers try to vary this up by using words other than "said". <S> Like "Bob said ... <S> Sally replied ... <S> Bob insisted ... <S> " This can work to an extent, but if overdone it starts to look like a gimmick. <S> Especially if you start running out of ways to say "said". <S> A technique I like is to mix action in with the dialog. <S> This gives you an excuse to identify the speaker while simultaneously breaking up a long string of quotes. <S> Like: <S> "Did you clean the garage?" <S> Mary asked. <S> Bob tried to look busy. " <S> Yes, dear." <S> "You know it's very important that the garage be clean when the realtor arrives. <S> " Mary looked stern and concerned. <S> "I'll clean it now," Bob said sheepishly. <S> Etc. <S> Having different speaking styles can work too. <S> The catch to that is if it's too subtle the reader can miss it, and if it's too pronounced, it can look like a gimmick. <S> I've read stories where one character is always sprinkling his statements with Latin or someone is always quoting Shakespeare, and I think it gets stale pretty quickly. <S> You can give a character a distinctive nationality or occupation and use that to dictate how he talks, like the scientist is always using technical terms or the surfer dude is always using beach slang or whatever. <S> But again, if overdone it can get tedious. <A> When in a continuing, back and forth dialogue, use boldface <S> everytime <S> you reference the speaker in question (additionally you can secure good formatting by always using NBSPs per speaker reference): <S> Sailor/Pirate : <S> Hello, scout! <S> Where are you headin', matey? <S> Ziska : <S> Oh! <S> I was just walking along the pier here to look down at the water. <S> Sailor/Pirate : <S> Nothing dere to see in these old waters; dead fish, maybe two. <S> (Just ignore the space formatting that is used above, and imagine them pressed together) <S> Some people express sentiment of characters this way too ( <S> e.g., <S> "Oh! <S> -surprised- <S> I was just walking along the pier here to look down at the water. ). <S> Another way you can mix it up and make it less repetitive is by writing it out from a narrative perspective sometimes, and referencing characters as if from a speaker rather than elaborately directed to you <S> (e.g., "You could never do that," said Jane ). <S> Most books do not have a long, endless string of dialogue between characters, so mixing it up is a must. <S> @Jay's answer here expresses a perfect example of conversation dialogue that's easily confusable.
| You may start a new paragraph with the same speaker if it's clear that the person is continuing to speak, like if the person is giving along speech.
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Resource for someone better at editing than writing (I had a previous question, closed as too opinion-based, about being a better editor than writer. I wasn't able to rescue that one, but I thought I'd take a try at a related question.) I am an excellent editor, well able to work with someone to bring out the best in another author's writing, and I'm also very good with overall plot and structure. However, when it comes to writing fiction, I'm weak. I'm very impatient with the process, and my writing tends to be thin, rushed and elliptical. I do well writing non-fiction, and I take a lot of enjoyment out of working with other people's writing, but fiction is a passion of mine, and I have some concepts of my own that I think are very strong. Are there any avenues for finding someone who wants to write to fit someone else's plot outline? It's not an arrangement I've ever really heard of (except when a famous author tires of working on a series and brings someone else in --usually to very mixed results). <Q> You are looking for a co-writer. <S> There are websites where you can find a partner for your project (e.g. co-writers.com). <S> If you think are good with plot, structure and editing, you could look for somebody to bring in the literary depth. <S> However, have you tried different ways of writing your fiction yet? <S> If you get impatient, you may want to try writing your story down as you see it in your head without doing any research or perfectly formulated sentences yet (I "watch" my stories as movies in my head and write them down without writing down thoughts or backgrounds that I can't see). <S> Then I go over the draft again and fill in everything that makes a complete story. <S> I find it impossible to drop the project as soon as I have the first draft, so it will hopefully keep you going too. <S> It could be also be the draft that you could pass on to a co-writer if you choose so. <S> Good luck! <A> An editor might better anticipate the public response to a work, but it's hard to imagine an editor who isn't at least a competent writer. <S> Most editors were once writers and wrote for years. <S> Editors are also avid readers. <S> Concepts are great but bringing them to life is another thing. <S> How do you know you're A) not a good writer and B) <S> an excellent editor? <S> Were you told this by a credible person? <S> If you enjoy working with another person's writing you should be able to work with your own. <S> If you have no interest in writing, but enjoy editing, then you still have to spend time as a writer and work on the craft. <S> An editor recognizes good writing. <S> I would be terrified if my work was being edited by someone who thought they couldn't write! <A> What you're refering to seems to me like you're talking about ghostwriting? <S> Telling someone your plot/story, and him/her turning it into an actual piece of writing.
| A good editor should also be a good writer.
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How to deal with online comments to published pieces? I mainly write for academic journals (and creative writing for my own amusement), but from time to time, I publish opinion pieces in various mainstream magazines and newspapers, for which I am modestly compensated. Recently, some of my pieces have generated a large volume of online comments, some critical, some favorable, and some seeking clarification. What is the best strategy in this situation? Is a modern writer expected to engage in these online discussions, or as a professional, is it better to "stay above the fray"? <Q> There's no single standard about this. <S> Whether you engage your readers is up to you, in some cases up to your editor at the publication in question (or perhaps their policies). <S> Barring that kind of guidance, here are the pros and cons of reading the comments and replying to them: Joining the discussion can make you part of the community. <S> This can create an image of you as accessible. <S> You can reply quickly and easily, which may be a time-saver if volume is low. <S> However, on larger sites, replying to comments can become a chore. <S> Refraining from joining in discussions can make you seem aloof, but it has the advantage of letting the participants discuss the issues unencumbered. <S> You can always reply to comments at a later time in another article, if an issue is large enough. <S> It's also worth thinking about whether you're better at conversational writing or considered, careful writing that can be edited and cleaned up. <S> Whether you even read the comments is up to you; there are communities where I'd suggest never even browsing them. <S> But many communities have worthwhile things to say in the comments. <S> You could always join the two approaches, commenting rarely when something can be easily cleared up, saving larger discussions for future articles. <A> There's little to gain and much to lose by responding directly to online comments. <S> For another, there are large pools of people who have raised to an artform the skill of drawing people into arguments (and goading them into making unwise responses they can then mock them mercilessly for). <S> As someone who has achieved the not-inconsiderable goal of publication in mainstream press, you have a loftier platform than the comments section. <S> In general, I would stick to your platform, and leave them to theirs --after <S> all, you don't want to risk a reputation that I'm sure <S> took you a lot of time and effort to build. <S> There are, of course, some people who excel at interacting directly with their fans, and this can be a way for them to build a larger, more loyal audience, but if you want to go this route, make sure you go in with your eyes open. <S> My best advice would be to put the same level of care, polish and professionalism into your comments as into your articles. <S> Never be fooled into thinking you're in a private conversation. <A> The best thing to do with the critism is to not attract yourself. <S> There will be some who like your pieces and there will be those who don't. <S> As for your question, if you are expected to engage in online discussion, I say: make the choice for yourself.
| If you want to engage in a online discussion then it has to be your own decision. For one thing, you have to be extraordinarily disciplined to avoid responding emotionally to criticism.
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Skipping the action scene My novel has a lot of fighting scenes. It's natural since its about a war.The problem is that people don't read books for fighting scenes. Numerous fighting scenes is just bad writing. J.R.R. Tolkien decided to knock Bilbo Baggins unconscious rather than to write a single one (although I did read the abridged version of The Hobbit .) What is a good way to skip over the action scenes? I don't plan to write too many of them. What I have right now is basically this: The monsters attacked Maeken. He slew the primitive beasts with the several tricks up his sleeve that he had learned over the years.Blah blah backstory. Maeken beheaded the final monster and surveyed the field of corpses. <Q> I am not convinced of your premise that people don't read books for action scenes, nor that numerous fighting scenes are "just bad writing. <S> " I'd argue that knocking a character out just to skip an action scene is bad writing. <S> The Hobbit certainly had battle scenes, I remember one where Gandalf was turning pine-cones into fire bombs. <S> Tolkein's The Two Towers contained multiple battle's that spanned multiple chapters. <S> If i remember correctly there was a battle that lasted for two chapters, and another that lasted three. <S> Now we have two, apparently conflicting, examples of handling action scenes from the same author. <S> I think this illuminates the fact that that story is whats important. <S> If your story is better told with cover-to-cover action scenes, write it that way; if a scene hurts your story, then you should excise it! <A> As to a good way to skip the action scenes - what you have seems fine. <S> It's basically just that - skipping the action scenes. <S> Say 'he slew the monsters,' and you can technically stop there. <S> However , I think you're going about this wrong. <S> Fighting scenes can be tedious in a book. <S> Does this mean you should skip them? <S> No, it means you need to know how to write them correctly. <S> A book with no action will not bore the reader if it is written correctly, but it will certainly make the job a lot harder for you. <S> Action is a useful device for maintaining reader interest (note: useful, not necessary to certain types of books). <S> The way to relate action scenes, from my own experience, is not to focus on the action. <S> Focus on the emotions. <S> Focus on the inner action, not the outer action. <S> But show why every move was made, and what they meant. <S> Follow the PoV's thoughts as he performs the action. <A> Approach this the same way you approach everything else. <S> Some books contain eating and cooking to an extent that you could recreate the exact meal, if you wanted, others just let the reader assume that the characters eat, without mentioning it at all. <S> War is no different. <S> Make up your mind what your story is about. <S> That is what must be told. <S> A detective story does not need to show the murder happening. <S> But the protrait of a serial killer must show how that protagonist feels and behaves while he kills. <S> In that case, skipping the murder would be odd. <S> So, is your story about a fighter? <S> Then you must show him fight. <S> Is it about someone with a non-fighting story who also has to fight (just like everyone has to go to the toilet, even that is not the premise of their story)? <S> Then show him doing what his story is about and skip the fighting (like you would skip his bowel movements). <A> my favorite fight scene of all time is when David Webber has Honor cut a guy in half with a sword. <S> The whole fight is one stroke of the sword. <S> On the other hand the whole book is about a fight centered around that single stroke of the sword. <S> Webber's Honor books are a great examples of the fight following and influencing the politics. <S> It is not that the action is in balance with the plot, but that the fight is part of the plot. <A> To be honest, it depends on if any character arcs are being explored through the fight. <S> If the result is all that matters, then eh, skip to it. <S> But if there's layers of doubt being overcome, grief being felt, self-discovery occurring through percussive maintenance, et cetera, then be sure to focus on that aspect of the fight rather than a play-by-play.
| You shouldn't skip action scenes because you have some irrational belief that writing too many is "just bad writing," you should only skip the scene if it serves your story . By all means, detail the scene with every move made.
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How to write a character who uses a lot of smalltalk without boring the reader? Since a lot of what they say is by definition irrelevant to the plot should I just skim over it? I'm worried this might make their manner unclear to the reader and I don't want their impression of this character to rely solely on the opinions of the narrator. I feel like including longer sections of their dialogue might work for a short story but would get annoying quite quickly in a novel. For context my POV character is comparatively quiet and private but humors this character because they're working together, they eventually become friends. <Q> First, show the character - the introduction should present them in detail, following the inevitably boring blather. <S> Once the reader knows the character and their vice, you can start skimming, letting the narrator replace the actual blather ("after ten minutes of introduction and catching up on recent gossip..."). <S> And then, whenever it matters, return to the actual blather - where it won't be boring. <S> Say, we're in an urgent situation and the annoying person just can't get to the point. <S> Or we have a moment of downtime right when the sky is in the process of falling, the character fills the silence with blather, and another character just snaps at the incessant babbling. <S> Or contrary, an antagonist is trying to squeeze information from the team, and the 'talker' just drives them crazy by talking everything except of what matters. <S> Or a disaster happens because an important information just got lost in the sea of trivialities. <S> Don't make a character who uses a lot of smalltalk without reason. <S> It's an annoying trope and stories are better off without it unless it can serve a valid purpose. <S> Maybe the character is secretly an introvert with a dark secret, shielding themselves with a habit they know to be annoying and repulsive, to drive others away. <S> Maybe the character will fall entirely silent at that one crucial moment, creating a deep, ominous impression that it is now . <S> Maybe they are really clever and can use their blather to manipulate others; the apparently annoying vice being in fact a powerful weapon. <S> Or maybe they keep talking to silence the inner demons, not to let out things that really bother them. <S> Anyway, it's tricky and difficult to strike balance between showing the character and keeping it interesting. <S> But such a character does have a lot of potential, and a proper build-up - even if annoying and boring - can be immensely rewarding, and if you really let that character shine in the end, all the sins of boredom committed earlier will be forgiven. <A> Remember the law of conservation of detail: When a detail isn't important, don't waste time describing it. <S> When literal speech does not contain any information which is relevant for the plot, get rid of it. <S> You can instead describe the conversation in an abstract summary to convey that the conversation did happen, but the content wasn't relevant. <S> Switch back to literal speech when the conversation turns to something plot-important: <S> While waiting in the lobby Bob and Alice killed time by chatting about the weather. <S> Then Bob tried to start a discussion about recent sports events, but Alice didn't seem to be interested. <S> After about half an hour of idle smalltalk, Bob finally got the courage to ask the question he wanted to ask for weeks: "Alice, would you like to go out with me?" <A> Adding to the answers already given: 1) <S> If your POV allows it, you can add humor or pathos (or both) by continually interrupting the blathering with the main character's thoughts. <S> Those thoughts can be internal commentary on the inane blather, or juxtaposed seriousness. <S> 2) <S> When people rudely interrupt the blatherer it can be quite humorous. <S> Think Archie Bunker. <S> 3) <S> The blathering itself can be quite funny, especially if it keeps veering further and further off-track. <S> (Think Edith Bunker, and lots of Shakespeare clowns.) <S> 4) <S> Giving only snatches of the (continual) blathering can be very effective. <S> This would work best with 1st-person POV (where of course the 1st person is NOT the blatherer). <S> Just don't overdo it. <S> You have to keep interrupting the blathering with something . <S> Nobody wants to read 3 paragraphs of non-stop blathering. <S> In movies/TV, one can have that, because other stuff is going on simultaneously. <S> The blathering then turns into background noise, either because visual events have captured your main attention or because the volume is reduced below "foreground dialogue". <S> In a novel, you must use other techniques to turn the blathering into background noise (which occasionally intrudes into the foreground). <S> Literary examples that come to mind: <S> The pushy lady in "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber; Mr. MacCawber in "David Copperfield"; Mr. Collins in "Pride and Prejudice".
| Keep reminding the reader, exposing them to bits of the small talk now and then, but just not enough to bore them. If you don't have a really good reason, just don't do it.
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Quantity of Writing Needed to Find Representation For a TV Serial I have reached a point in writing a TV serial where I'm considering looking for an agent to represent me, but I'm not sure how much I should have to show in order to do so. Obviously in order to find representation for a film script you need to present the full product, but for a TV serial that means many times more written product than it does for a film script, even if you only require a single season. At present I have a pilot and two full "normal" episodes, as well as a comprehensive outline for the hypothetical first season; more than enough to give a good idea of the concept and (hopefully) the promise of the show. Is this sufficient, or should I have a full season of fully-written scripts before I start looking for an agent? <Q> Writing one or two examples of the "average" script won't hurt, and it's good practice. <S> I wouldn't do any more, though, because it could all change if and when it goes into development. <S> One thing you should have in order to pitch this project is a simple bible. <S> If they like the pitch they may ask to read the pilot. <S> If they like the pilot they may ask for a bible. <S> It gives prospective readers a sense of the show as a whole. <S> But also, it gives you the knowledge you need in order to pitch. <S> You need to know well beyond the pilot and a few sample shows. <S> As a guide, you could include something like the following - and keep the whole thing to about 5 pages: Logline for the series Genre <S> Overview of the pilot Overview of the series with some sense of where it would go over the first 5 years <S> Characters - a paragraph on each of the main characters - who they are, what the conflicts are, character arcs over the course of the first season <S> Any themes that the series will explore A logline for 5 - 7 episodes of the first season <A> I think you just need to add a few things to go ahead. <S> You should have a flow of events for at least an entire season written. <S> This will not only give the agent a better idea of your story but also give you a baseline to follow. <S> An entire script for the season may not be necessary. <S> Also an outline for another season. <S> Just few possibilities will get more trust in your story. <S> Linking of events in different seasons is generally applauded by the audience. <S> So a preview of the same in your mind and putting the same in the agents mind will surely help you. <S> Rest you do have a good amount of material ready. <A> I'd like to be honest here, agents are not looking for baby writers with zero experience on staff for a brand new unproven tv show. <S> That's the bad news. <S> The good news is that you've got the work ethic to pump out a pilot and episodes? <S> That's stellar right there. <S> Mostly people only have ideas. <S> I would work on the second piece of breaking into entertainment, which is network network network like crazy until you meet the right people. <S> It's not gonna matter that you have an agent if no one in town knows who you are. <S> An agent isn't a magician who can open the gates for you... <S> they're just there to help you negotiate the nitty gritty terms. <S> It's business, not Entourage <S> so think about why any agent would get into bed with a new writer not guaranteed to have return in time/money invested? <S> Keep working on your samples, write a few more pilots (they will be better than your first, that just how writing goes) <S> and if you want to make American TV, BE IN LA. <A> However, in this day and age, at least to my understanding, you need a trailer. <S> This means taking ~20 minutes of footage and editing it down to ~3 minutes of something that is consumable (gives the gist of the story). <S> Unfortunately, trailers cost money. <S> Expect to spend $20K to shoot and edit a trailer that someone is going to watch and say, "yeah, we want to buy this."
| As far as the writing portion goes, you've got enough.
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How to write a "strong" passage? By strong I mean causing some reaction on the reader (not necessarily goosebumps, maybe just a small wow ). I'm having this problem right now. Example (the bolded part): "He told me about how squirrels collect and store nuts for the winter. Nothing unusual. What's interesting is that sometimes they forget where they bury them. Cute, but odd if you think about it. Like, why did nature give a flawed skill to an animal? Why waste its time? The answer is that nature creates imperfect creatures. And that's because--sorry, do you know how natural selection works?" [The character gives the protagonist a metaphoric explanation about natural selection] I mulled this over. I'd never thought about nature that way. Imperfection. Was that the reason allergies, cancers, syndromes, and other genetic disorders existed? How about death? "But that's a very depressive thought," I said. "That means organisms are just broken machines. Including us." "Maybe," Cath admitted. "De-Shi didn't see it that way, though. On the contrary, he found it incredible how squirrels were planting all these trees, and doing it without even knowing it. How they were rebuilding parks, woodlands, forests, jungles--home of countless plants, insects, and animals. How they were taking part in something immensely big: protecting the Earth, a planet belonging to a solar system, to a galaxy, to a vast and ever-expanding universe. All because of a tiny defect. All because an innocent mistake from nature. "I'm not sure why, but after De-Shi finished his monologue, I felt fresh, renewed. I not only saw nature differently, but my own life as well. True, I was imperfect, and I would probably always live in pain. However, that didn't make my existence worthless; there was still space for amazing things to happen. For the sun to shine in. For trees and beautiful forests to grow. Like, in this case, what would make the bolded part stronger? Making it longer? Adding short sentences? Or using a different choice of words, perhaps? EDIT: This is something that I consider to be strong . And it's very similar to my passage. It's from the movie Adaptation : Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid look exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way. <Q> In general, for a passage create an emotional reaction, the reader has to be able to relate to it. <S> First, determine the point you want to make. <S> Next, make your point in a way your intended audience can relate to. <S> Using metaphors helps, as does using visceral language that really drives home your message. <S> For example, first determine if the point you want to make is that a) nature produces truly flawed creatures who thrive anyway, b <S> ) creatures' perceived 'flaws' are not really flaws at all but essential to their continued existence, or c) something else entirely. <S> Once you determine that, drive your point home with an interesting example, analogy, or metaphor. <S> I like your existing passage in bold as-is, because in my mind I picture those cuddly little creates going about their merry way doing what they do, and being completely oblivious to the significance of their actions. <S> But keep in mind, other readers may not be as familiar with squirrels or may not get the same mental image. <S> There's only one way to be sure the reader gets the message you're striving for and that's to give it to them. <S> You could expand your passage by choosing to describe in detail the effort needed to acquire and preserve a nut, only to have it not matter in the end. <S> Or you could describe how us humans benefit from the actions of these unknowing creatures. <A> What makes a passage strong is almost always its context. <S> We walk by the wonders of nature unseeing everyday. <S> Only at certain times and in certain moods or circumstances do we pause to notice them or be moved by them. <S> Squirrels accidentally plant forests by hiding nuts and forgetting where they put them. <S> By itself, that is a mildly interesting fact. <S> In the right context, that mildly interesting fact could illustrate a broader truth about the universe, which is what you are going for here. <S> So far so good, your passage does that well. <S> But for it to have a profound emotional impact on a person (or an audience) we have to be in the right mood and circumstances to receive it. <S> We have to be in a moment in which this truth makes a profound impact in our lives or how we understand them. <S> Your passage states that this happens. <S> But whether the audience will feel this strongly will depend on whether what comes before puts them in a receptive mood. <S> With the right setup, a truth like this can be devastating. <S> With the wrong one it can be as banal as a grade school science fair. <S> It's all in the setup. <A> The passage is making too many assumptions, and does not really open much of a dialogue with the reader. <S> The De-Shi character is just kind of thrown at us without really explaining who they are, and why we should care about what they are saying. <S> There is also very little supporting evidence of forests that are planted by squirrels. <S> Sure, a handful of acorns may germinate, and some trees may grow as a result, here and there, but there is no evidence presented which would make us think that entire forests are being planted. <S> Trees reproduce in many different ways. <S> This is simply one way that it can happen. <S> It is true that things in nature are interconnected. <S> Seeds are spread by many different kinds of animals. <S> Flowers are pollinated by bees, and other insects, as well as by humming birds, and the wind. <S> The flowers themselves have bright colors, and sweet smells which attract insects. <S> The flowers also produce an excess amount of pollen, which is enough for the bees to convert that to honey and feed their hive, which in turn feeds other animals, including people. <S> It is also true that many living organisms have flaws. <S> The argument that we have flaws for a reason is very weak. <S> Sure, there is a positive side effect for some of the flaws in nature such as with squirrels, but not all flaws are positive. <S> What is the purpose of a human being getting cancer, or some kind of other disease? <S> The point I am trying to make is that a writer doesn't need to get into lofty discussions about how the world works to have an impact. <S> Especially if the writer does not have a complete understanding of the subject. <S> The reader will not necessarily have a passionate response to something just because the writer intends it to be about a passionate subject. <S> You can't guilt someone to be passionate, you must engage them in the conversation, and give them enough information for them to arrive at the place where you are. <S> Sure, this is something you believe in, but you need to tell the reader how you arrived there, so they can follow along.
| Bottom line, it really depends on what you want to say and saying it in a way your audience can relate to.
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using a literary agent I have read numerous books on the pros and cons of getting representation with a literary agent. Would any of you care to give advice on whether or not an agent is a good idea? I understand they work off sales percentages, but are there other issues I need to be aware of? Thank you. <Q> Keep in mind, an agent has more functions than just to sell your book. <S> Having sold a book to a major publisher without an agent, I can certainly attest that it is possible. <S> However, in hindsight, I would have been better off getting one. <S> Unless you want to become an expert in the business of books, and you have time and opportunity to hobnob with publishers, an agent will probably be well worth the fees. <S> For instance, as I mentioned in another post, I'm interested in trying to get my book reissued, or the rights back, and I haven't had much success. <S> I'm reasonably sure <S> if I had an agent, this wouldn't be an issue. <S> (On the downside, it isn't particularly easy to get a good agent --selling your book might actually even be easier!) <A> I'm not an expert in the subject, but I've recently done a lot of research into this myself. <S> From what I can gather, nowadays publishers are almost entirely likely to dismiss a piece of writing (whether it's a novel or a children's book) if it is not sent to them from an agency. <S> This is because they get thousands of submissions weekly, so it is their first line to reduce the amount of scripts that they need to read. <S> However, an agency is more likely to read, give notes and be more invested in your project, as they will make money personally if you do well. <S> They generally already have a good relationship with many publishers, so the publisher will know that the work that they are submitting is at least worth reading. <S> And them charging a percentage of your sales seems like a good choice. <S> Better than having 100% of no money if you can't get published. <S> I'm not aware of other issues, but someone else with more experience on literary agents may be able to enlighten you on that. <A> You need to negotiate when publishing the cases in which the rights revert to you if the book goes out of print. <S> (I suppose today one would also have to negotiate whether a POD book is considered out of print or how long it remains POD only for it to be considered out of print.) <S> Do you want to make digital editions of your work be free of DRM? <S> Do you want foreign rights. <S> That is another thing to negotiate, and so on. <S> An agent helps with this; they know more about the book trade than you do. <S> It's division of labor. <S> Most publishers, except in science fiction (and quite a few in science fiction) simply won't accept manuscripts without agents or without you knowing the editors personally. <S> You're reduced in options without an agent. <S> But you'll need to get a book accepted without an agent first to later get a capable agent you'd want working for you. <S> It changes your publishing record that you present to potential agents to get them to work for you. <S> (I agree with O.S.C. in this.) <S> Only exception is if you get lucky: a great agent is looking for authors for some reason.
| Overall I would suggest trying to submit to an agent, as you are more likely to be able to get published.
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Using ideas posted on social media: is it ok? I have a question about copyrighting. I was scrolling through tumblr the other day and someone had posted an idea that said something about people seeing in black and white until they meet their soul mate - then they see in color. I really like this idea and would want to use it in my fiction novel, but I was wondering if that is considered copying? I don't want to copy someone's idea. Can you use any idea posted on social media or is it considered stealing someone's ideas? <Q> In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. <S> ( Copyright Law of the United States of America, § 102 (b) ) <S> Copyright only protects works . <S> Anyone can use any idea, even ideas that have been turned into works. <S> If you chose to write a novel about a postapocalyptic society forcing teens to go through some media event where they had to kill each other, Suzanne Collins couldn't sue you (or she would long since have sued Veronica Roth and her other imitators). <A> As others have already stated, there is no copyright or patent in ideas only in the expression of those ideas. <S> For example, Romeo and Juliet has probably been written and re-written a thousand times since Shakespeare wrote the original play. <S> Think about West Side Story: <S> that is essentially the updating and retelling of a very old tale. <S> So long as how you tell the story is fresh and original, the fact that you took an idea, thought or concept as your inspiration does not matter. <A> This idea was used in a TV show called "John Doe", but I don't remember in which episode <S> it was. <S> wikipedia link
| Ideas are not protected by copyright.
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Starting Out a Novel Would it be more effective to the reader to start out a novel explaining the setting and scenery or, introducing the characters? <Q> Readers are different and enjoy different things. <S> And stories are different and require different beginnings. <S> That said, most people are more interested in persons than in environments, and character driven plots sell better. <S> But it is best if you don't perceive this as either-or, but rather try to introduce both the character and the setting at the same time. <S> All great novels begin with (1) the most intimate concerns of (2) one character (3) living in a certain situation. <S> Pick some recent bestsellers and read their first pages to see how these three aspects might be integrated. <A> In response to SaberWriters comment, I'd like to raise the question what a story is. <S> As a a trained physicist, the answer to me is easy: Change, or, in the pysical setting, d/dt. <S> Anything that is different at the end of the story from what it was at the beginning of the story can possibily maintain a story. <S> This element - the aspect that changes - is what you should introduce at the beginning of your story. <S> In my experience, this is essential, because you need to establish a benchmark that allows your reader to judge the wonderful changes happening in your story. <S> If you take away this benchmark, you remove the context of the entire story. <S> Coming back to SaberWriter and incorporating the change idea means that, as SaberWriter pointed out, you need to know what your story is about. <S> Is it about the transformation of a single character? <S> (This usually is a Hero's Journey.) <S> Introduce the character and stress the character traits that will have changed in the end. <S> Is it about a societal change? <S> Show the society in question. <S> A country? <S> A landscape? <S> Well then, go ahead, and show your reader the status quo, before everything changes. <A> I would say it's better to start with neither; start with the story. <S> If you start with setting the scene or introducing the characters then the reader has to wait for you to finish before they get to read the story. <S> Many publishers will only read the first few lines of a piece, and many readers will only read the first page or two, before deciding whether to continue. <S> If your piece doesn't set the stage for the story (better to be left after page one wondering who this is and what that is, than to know but not know that it's important) <S> people will get bored. <S> This is where prologues are especially useful; if you know you have to set the scene and the character start with a prologue that gives the reader a taste of the action. <S> Get the reader hooked before you start filling bits out. <S> And as a final note, it's worth remembering: <S> If you stop to describe the scenery, the story stops to wait for you. <A> This question is analogous to the painting artist asking, should I use light blue, medium blue or dark blue for the sky I am painting? <S> The answer is: use the color that the sky appears. <S> You might say, <S> "Well, the painter just looks at the sky and paints it the color hesees so that is a different thing." <S> But the best painters do not only paint what is there , but instead paint what they want you to see . <S> Paint <S> What You Want the Reader to See <S> That should also be the way you, the writer, should paint your scenes. <S> Paint what you want the reader to see. <S> If setting is extremely important as it is in, All Quiet On The Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque -- amazon link . <S> If that setting were changed, since the book is based upon World War I, the entire story would be changed. <S> Meanwhile, a book like, John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, (amazon link) is a character-driven novel with events occurring because of who the main character is and his outlook on life. <S> Read the beginning of each of those <S> and you'll see how different they are and how fitting the beginnings are for each book. <S> In conclusion your answer can be obtained by asking yourself: <S> Am I writing a character-driven book? <S> Am I writing a book that comes from a story concept I have in mind? <S> Am I writing a book which richly describes some setting / historical period? <S> The one you seem to gravitate toward is the answer to your question.
| Both setting and character should be introduced bit by bit, as the story begins to unfold. All three -- character, environment, and "problem" -- make up the story, and they can (and in my opinion should be) present right from the first paragraph.
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How to structure a sentence containing long code examples? In the context of a technical manual, I need to write instructions guiding users through several standard manipulations. When providing examples of these manipulations, I have written a short sentence containing "before" and "after" examples which appear in (potentially multi-line) vertical blocks of their own. As a result, I am unsure as to whether the middle of the sentence should be capitalized. Additionally, a suggestion was made on ELU SE that removal of colons leading the code blocks may be preferable. I have presented an example of this below as well. With capitalization Hence, the following code: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25) Should be replaced with: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) Without capitalization Hence, the following code: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25) should be replaced with: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) Without capitalization or colons Hence, the following code camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25) should be replaced with camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) My instinct suggests the second or third examples are preferable, but I'd be interested to learn of any style rules addressing this. For that matter, if there is a better way of structuring such examples which avoids these issues altogether, I would be most interested! Should I capitalise "or" between examples? was the most relevant question I could find to this one (and indeed was the corner of SE where I first posed this query, before being made aware of Writers), and I tend to agree with its reasoning that the lowercase version is preferable. Unfortunately the best suggestion in its answer (to use a bullet list of examples) doesn't really lend itself to potentially large blocks of code. <Q> In my opinion, any answer looks messy. <S> One "sentence" with capitals halfway through bugs me; so does a line starting without a capital. <S> Personally, I would restructure the entire thing to avoid the issue entirely: Example 1 <S> Currently, line 57 of camera.py looks like this: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25) <S> In this line, the parameter quantization needs to be replaced with quality , giving us this: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) <S> Example 2 <S> Look at Figure 1 below. <S> Our code currently contains line (1); we need to replace it with line (2). <S> (1) camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25)(2) <S> camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) <S> Figure 1 <S> - Two versions of line 57 of the code in camera.py <S> (Obviously I don't know your code file name, line numbers, or programming language. <S> Substitute where necessary. <S> "camera.py" can be replaced with Example 1 if you're taking that route.) <A> I like the third version, without colons, because the visual break and the code formatting makes it clear that this is a new "clause," or thought, and the piece of code is not a grammatically correct full sentence. <S> Since you are continuing one sentence over several breaks, I wouldn't use capitals. <S> I think Watercleave has another good solution if you can't settle on any combination of punctuation and capitalization. <A> Since it is not spoken language, I do not use the conventions for spoken language (same font, quotation marks, etc.), so as to cause no confusion, but the conventions for displaying code (monospaced font, line numbering, blockquote, etc.), but I integrate it syntactically in the same way, for example by using colons and continuing sentences with lowercase letters. <S> Therefore, in my opinion, your second example is best. <S> Example: <S> When five year old Maude said: "I am not interested in horse riding," what she actually meant was: "I am afraid of horses". <S> Similarly: <S> Hence, the following code: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25) , should be replaced with: camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) . <S> Of course you must not put commas inside the code quote, as English rules require for dialogue ('riding,"'). <S> When you put your code snippets on separate lines for better readability, the syntax, capitalization and punctuation remain the same. <S> A good practice is to print the whole script in an appendix, and thoughout the text use the same line numbers as in that appended script. <S> You can then refer to code by line numbers: <S> In line 21, quantization must be replaced by quality : 21 camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25) <A> Do the simplest thing that works, which in this case is example 3. <S> The rules of sentence structure don't really cover these kinds of things. <S> That is a defect of the rules of sentence structure, not of the examples themselves. <S> Remember that the first rule is clarity. <S> Grammar rules and style guides exist to codify the practices that usually produce the clearest and least ambiguous result. <S> They are a good guide most of the time. <S> But these rules are the servants of clarity, not its master, and in some cases clarity will demand something that these rules cannot account for. <S> Doing something more convoluted or complex in order to stay onside with a grammar rule or a style guide is putting the horse before the cart. <S> As George Orwell said, "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." <A> I have to document code use on occasion and I prefer a clear cut structure, so I would simply say: The following code camera.start... <S> should be replaced with: camera.start_... <S> Programmers won't care about your grammar choices, they will only need to know what code to use. <S> Just my two cents worth. <S> Thanks
| I approach code in text in the same way I approach dialogue: the code is a quotation from another "speaker", so I set it off from the surrounding text.
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Commenting on blogs and forums I'm working on a project for company's upcoming book. We thought it would be cool for me to ccomment on blogs and forums as one of the lead child characters. Do you foresee that as being a problem, especially if the blog targets Tweens? And what if I only commented on adult targeted blogs,but as the child character? <Q> Many adults take everything they find in writing at face value, apparently unable to imagine that people make up stuff and post it on the web. <S> Children around ten years old ("tweens") have an even weaker ability to keep fact and fiction apart. <S> My son, aged seven, still does not properly understand what an actor does and how a live action movie is not real. <S> A twelve year old will have developed a lot from this naïveté, but they are still very gullible and trusting, and certainly don't understand that persons promoting produts are playing characters from that product and fake-interacting with them on the internet. <S> Personally, I find this practice extremely offensive, and it is one reason why I try to keep my son from the net for as long as I can. <S> Human interaction and friendship is fundamentally important for our well-being. <S> Our physical and mental health depend on our social life. <S> If I found that my son was interested in the product of a company that did what you describe, I would do everything in my power to make sure he understood how he was being duped and lead him to lose all interest in a company that abuses his feelings. <A> The marketing department for the movie Ex-Machina recently did a similar thing, they made a Tinder profile for their main character and had her 'talking' with real people who were looking for dates, then ended up linking them to the website for the movie. <S> This breached Tinder's Terms & Conditions, <S> and I think there's now a massive lawsuit directed at them <S> (but I'm not 100% on that). <S> Outside of the MASSIVE ethical reasons not to do it that <S> @what has described, it is very possible you will be breaking the law on a lot of sites by marketing the product on these websites, even indirectly. <S> My suggestion <S> : don't do it. <S> Unless you want to trawl through the site's T's & C's to make sure you're not breaching their rules of use policies. <A> Posting on other people's content may be seen as hijacking their audience to promote your own project. <S> That's the only real ethical problem I see. <S> So if you created your own blog, or commented in very public spaces that don't "belong" to anyone, you should be fine. <S> As for it being misleading to children... you know what? <S> So is every other form of advertising that has ever existed. <S> Manipulating people into buying something they normally wouldn't have is literally the whole point of advertising. <S> If anything, I would much rather buy a book because I identified with a character, as opposed than buying something because I thought it would make me cool, or because all my friends were doing it. <S> You may be interested to know that some people already do this. <S> There are a few webcomics out where the artists involved have set up fake accounts where they answer fan mail in character. <S> I think it's quite cool.
| The problem I see is what you probably intend: that young readers will believe this person actually exists. I think it is unethical to abuse this basic human need and simulate it to sell a product.
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How to decide the position of short phrases? Example: As agreed, we met at Shangai Train Station the next morning . Eventhough it was just seven, the place was terribly crowded; people wererunning and lining, jostling and shoving. A sign that the Mid-Autumn Festival wasapproaching. As agreed, we met the next morning at Shangai Train Station. Eventhough it was just seven, the place was terribly crowded; people wererunning and lining, jostling and shoving. A sign that the Mid-Autumn Festival wasapproaching. Are there rule to use for these situations? Should short phrases always go on the front, or something like that? <Q> There aren't rules. <S> As previously mentioned, it's a matter of opinion. <S> But, things to remember include: Brains like patterns. <S> So, if you use similar phrases several times in a row, you might consider putting them in the same place to add emphasis. <S> That said, if you don't do that carefully, you can sound repetitive or uncreative. <S> I received a pretty good example of using the phrasing to add emphasis and humor in an email once: <S> There were multiple failures. <S> For the first, a required step in the directions was missing. <S> For the second, we found an error. <S> Additionally, step one is no longer required, per Jeff. <S> Step one is required, per Fred. <S> The whole company might be confused as to what step one requires, per the usual. <S> Flow counts. <S> Ask yourself, does this sound awkward here? <S> Regardless what you do, some people will disagree. <S> Do what you think sounds best. <S> But, don't be resistant to advice. <S> Some people dislike prepositional phrases at the end of a sentence. <S> I like this guide: Prepositional Phrases <A> There is no hard and fast rule, but rhythm is very important in sentence structure. <S> Ordering the words so that they roll off the tongue in many instances makes them more pleasing to the eye. <S> In this case I think the first example just sounds better. <A> I prefer the first example, the " where -and- when " one. <S> If you think about it, humans tend to (at least in my experience) ask the question " where and when? <S> " when asked if they would like to meet; rarely have I heard anybody ask "when and where?" <S> Example: <S> Bob: <S> "David, would you like to meet for lunch?" <S> David: " <S> Sure, where and when?" <S> Now consider the converse: <S> Bob: <S> "David, would you like to meet for lunch?" <S> David: "Sure, when and where?" <S> It just rolls off of the tongue nicer and sounds better to me. <S> Furthermore, ensure that you continue the pattern throughout your entire work and do not interchange them as it can disrupt the flow. <A> Here are the things I consider. <S> Clarity. <S> Moving a phrase can make the sentence more clear or less clear. <S> For example,moving a modifier further away from the thing it modifiessometimes makes makes the relationshipharder to see. <S> But not always. <S> I'm not sure how to give rules about that,but if you consciously checkhow the ordering affects the clarity of the sentence <S> ,you'll do okay. <S> For me, clarity trumps all of the following considerations. <S> Burden. <S> The order of phrasescan can affecthow much information readers have to hold in their headsas they read. <S> In general,I want to make it easier to read my sentences. <S> Emphasis. <S> In his brilliant book Style, Joseph M. Williams says that the end of a sentenceis the stress position. <S> So I try to arrange phrasesso to take advantage of that. <S> Move the most important information,or the most interesting information,or the most surprising informationto the end of the sentence.(That previous sentenceis a counter-example. <S> Moving the interesting stuff to the endmade the sentence less clear.) <S> I think about emphasis a lot when I write non-fiction,and sometimes when I write fiction. <S> Flow Changing the order of phasescan enhance or hinderhow <S> well this sentence follows from the one before it,or leads the reader into the one that comes after. <S> In fiction especially,I want to hold the reader deeply in the story. <S> So I work hard to make sure thatwhen the reader ends one sentence,they are perfectly primedfor the beginning of the next. <S> Mea Culpa. <S> I apologize for not providing examples of these things. <S> I am pressed for time at the moment. <S> I will add examples as I think of them.
| Readers tend to give more emphasisto the information they findat the ends of sentences. Your opinion counts the most. This is a matter of opinion, especially since the meaning is the same.
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Prologues with no protagonist - How can they work? It is my understanding that novels should generally start right off with the protagonist. The story is about the protagonist , after all, not something else (This obviously changes a bit if the PoV is not the protagonist, but that is beside the point). It is also my understanding (through experience as well as being informed) that too much telling will generally bore the reader, while showing will not. This is also beside the point, however. I recently started to re-read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone . Imagine my surprise and confusion, when I discovered that the first chapter barely contained Harry at all. He shows up in the last two pages, but was only a 1-year-old sleeping baby. My confusion deepened as I realized that the first half of the chapter was almost pure telling. Harry Potter was clearly successful. This means that a book clearly does not need to open with the protagonist. My question is this: Was J. K. Rowling one of those authors who knew how to write an exception to 'the rules?' Or is my above assumption (that you need to start with the protagonist) wrong? And if it is, why is it, and how can you be successful when you do not start with the protagonist? Note: I realize that no writing 'rules' are set in stone, and that there are likely exceptions to many (if not all) of them. Some authors know how to bypass the rules, but most do not. At least such is my understanding. <Q> If you read any Dan Brown books (Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons etc.), he generally writes a prologue where the main character (of the prologue) is actually the victim of the murder that the protagonist investigates throughout the rest of the book. <S> There are many more authors than just J.K. Rowling who are accomplished and have managed this feat. <S> That being said, some of the prologues to his books are incredibly confusing, but are mercifully short. <S> Prologues are generally reserved for being detached from the main narrative, so even having them from a different character's point of view who is never met again is acceptable. <S> They can also be used for exposition that could not be worked into chapter 1, or that are needed before the beginning of chapter 1. <S> If you take Harry Potter as an example, the prologue establishes that it is set in a world with wizards, flying motorcycles, and a boy who is fated to do great things. <S> If it didn't have the prologue, it would be around chapter 4 (Not 100% on that) that the reader is even aware that wizards exist , never mind that the protagonist is one, and would be incredibly bored before then <S> (this of course is based on the assumption the reader has lived under a rock for the last 15 years and has never heard of Harry Potter ). <S> So as for the writing 'rules' that you mentioned, you can probably throw most of them out of the window for the prologue in relation to the rest of the story. <S> As long as it does its job, which is to set up the story , it can be a good prologue. <A> The thing to do with any writing rule is to consider its functional utility. <S> One good reason to start with the protagonist is that otherwise the reader may become invested in the the initial characters and narrative and may resist transferring that interest to the main protagonist and storyline. <S> For me, both Salman Rushdie's Enchantress of Florence and Samuel Delaney's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand committed this mistake by following up a captivating prologue with a much duller main narrative and protagonist. <S> I would advise that if you take this route, you keep it brief, and make sure that what you give the reader serves to prepare them for the introduction of your protagonist. <S> In the Harry Potter example, the prologue offers a great deal of important context about Harry, and frames him as a significant figure. <S> If it had just been (for example) a random day in the life of Dumbledore, the effect might have been quite different. <A>
| A prologue without a protagonist can be foreshadowing events using irrelevant characters that interact, speak, or otherwise see events happening that foretell the story ahead, and hint toward the evil of the story or share exposition. You can have different characters, settings, time period, POV, and other things that are entirely different from the main narrative.
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Pieces missing from my narrative I have this (IMHO) cool idea for a general storyline I want to write about, and one or two ideas for characters. However, I'm really struggling to go about fleshing it out. It's like having a string for a necklace with two big beads at the ends and one or two minor beads along the way. Are there any techniques for fleshing out a story? Coming up with new elements that can be used to join the beginning and end together, given that you have this vague overall idea for a storyline? <Q> It sounds as though you have two pieces of the story right now: the premise and the conclusion. <S> In order to come up with a complete plot you will want to come up with one or more developments , plot points that change the direction of the story (in a mystery they would be called "plot twists"). <S> If you're using the common three act structure you will want three of these. <S> So, Act I would begin with the premise and end with the first development, Act II would go from there to the second development, and Act III would go on to the conclusion. <S> Depending on the length you want to work at, each act will need to have some internal structure of its own. <S> As far as determining what these developments should be, a good question to ask yourself is where is the conflict? <S> It could be something as straightforward as saving the world from evil, or as complex as the conflicts inside a family having issues. <S> Generally there will be smaller conflicts that also play out. <S> The Fellowship of the Ring sets out to save Middle Earth, but Boromir feels that the Ring should be used to save Gondor etc. <S> Adding an internal conflict can help create tension. <S> The hero has to stop Hitler from getting an atomic bomb but also his father think's of him as a failure. <S> like they're LEGO pieces, and assemble them in different configurations. <S> Then bust 'em up and see what you can put together from the results. <A> Somebody has said (probably on this site) that a plot goes like this: He wanted [goal]. <S> So he [action]. <S> But then [conflict], which caused [tension]. <S> So he [action], and [resolution]. <S> Repeat this a bunch of times, and you've got a plot. <S> Of course, if you don't disguise it better than that, your story will be awful. <S> Also, along the way you'll want [characterization], to help explain the [goals], [actions], [conflicts], and [tensions] of your characters. <S> Plus, you'll need some sort of [setting] for your storyline. <S> (Remember too, that the [characterization] and [setting] in turn can often shape the storyline.) <S> If you fill in the brackets well, you'll have a fine story. <A> I'm a firm believer in working hard on your characters, then your plot will follow. <S> On blank paper/screen write all there is to know about each character. <S> Add as much as you can. <S> You will find your character will grow as you write and possible plot lines will jump up at you.
| Basically, play around with the plot and characters you have
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