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budgieinspector posted:it's like never having read any of the King James Bible. Why King James specifically? That seems like a pretty odd restriction.
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Jul 15, 2012 15:25
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budgieinspector posted:Something I'm curious about : How many folks here regularly use their local libraries? I used to when I was in school and had no money, but the selection of books is obviously quite limited and often the books you want are checked out or have been lost or damaged so I haven't been to a library in years. Now I just buy ebooks, because you can't beat the convenience of hearing about a book, searching for it, and then having it in your hand within the space of about a minute, no matter where you are.
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Jul 16, 2012 12:12
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Testro posted:Libraries are wonderful, because you can dip your toes into any book, any genre, any writing style etc with no purchase risk...it's all for free. I usually read the sample chapter(s) of ebooks from Amazon before buying them. Testro posted:If you're only reading a handful of books a year, which is what most people do, it's viable financially Even if you read a lot, books are pretty cheap. $5-$20 for a book as compared to $60-$90 for a new video game or $15-$30 for a film at the cinema. Or even compared to $2-$4 for a coffee. And if I'm short on cash I switch to public domain books from Project Gutenberg for a while, or stuff I've already bought and not read yet. I never finish a book and don't start another one. Testro posted:I costed my reading habit up and to have bought all the books I read last year, it would've cost me several hundreds of pounds...and I don't think I'd have been as adventurous with my choices had I been purchasing the books. I just don't even think about the cost of books, really. They're cheap entertainment that doesn't really make an impact on me financially. If I hadn't spent that money on a book I'd just have spent it on some other form of entertainment. Or worse, snacks.
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Jul 16, 2012 13:29
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Time Cowboy posted:In dialogue, a little bit of accent goes a long way. A smidgeon too much distracts me and pushes me out of the story. Make it read smooth: Also, keep in mind that the person reading might not have the same accent as you. Sometimes when people try to write accents they seem to forget that people with different accents still spell things the same, so different letter combinations sound different to people from different places. If you keep it minimal and just hint at the accent people can fill in the rest themselves, but if you go too far you just end up making it hard to understand and not even the right accent for people who don't read it the same way you do.
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Aug 16, 2012 04:12
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Black Griffon posted:I want to set up a blog for my writing, to share with family and Facebook friends and so on. Is there a blog service that's especially good for this, and how should I treat any material that I want to send to a publisher? Blogger is really easy to use and if you already have a Google account you can just use that to log in, so you don't even have to remember an extra password or anything.
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Sep 6, 2012 04:34
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Black Griffon posted:In the meantime, however, some of my friends convinced me to start a tumblr, which has the option to stop indexing by search engines. Is tumblr a bad idea though? So far it's very simple and to the point. Maybe it's just me not knowing how to use it, but I find reading stuff on Tumblr really awkward. Old posts always seem to be inconvenient to access and every post seems to be followed by a bunch of notifications of people who reposted it for some reason. I dunno, maybe I just don't get how it's supposed to work.
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Sep 6, 2012 15:06
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screenwritersblues posted:I'm writing a story about a man who finds out that he's a father of a fifteen year old girl and now has to raise her on his own. I'm currently splitting the the chapters between her, her father and the two of them together. Is this going to work in the long run or should I change what I'm doing all together so that it doesn't get messed up? Are you asking if writing different parts of the story from different perspectives can work? If so, the answer is yes. Or are you saying that some chapters are about each of them doing things not involving the other and some chapters are about them doing things together? That's fine as well. Lots of stories do both those things. 
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Oct 10, 2012 16:08
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I kind of understand not liking the McCarthy thing but I don't get this. "" is completely arbitrary and a ton of European languages use something completely different: «», which are called Guillemet. I don't know why CB_Tube_Knight doesn't like single quotation marks, but I just find that they look too much like apostrophes. Double quotes clearly mark the start and end of a quotation, but sometimes if there's a confusing bit of dialogue or I'm tired or whatever I can get a little thrown off by a mix of single quotes and apostrophes. There's nothing wrong with «» from the point of view of clearly marking the quotation, but an English-speaking reader won't automatically associate them with dialogue, so they're not as obvious if you're writing in English, and you don't really want people to be thinking about the punctuation instead of the content. screenwritersblues posted:Is it wise to throw some information about the two that your story is set in to break up the story? I'm considering doing it so that my readers don't get bored with the story and have a better feel for the story. Would it be fluff or would it be a good idea? I don't understand how this would make people less bored. Maybe it's just the way I'm interpreting what you're saying, but it sounds like these would be bits that you could just skip without losing anything from the story, so why would you include them in the first place? If you need to explain things about the setting then that should generally happen as part of the story, not as isolated bits breaking it up. An obvious exception is in sci-fi or fantasy quoting bits of an encyclopaedia or history book or something between (or at the start of) chapters or sections, to fill in some background that the characters in your story would be familiar with, but it has to match the style of the rest of the story. An example is in Foundation where the whole thing is presented as a sort of historical novel from the future and excerpts from the Encyclopædia Galactica are given at various points to provide background context to whatever's happening. Or if you're having your protagonist narrate as though they're telling the story they can just explain things as they go, if necessary.
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Oct 17, 2012 08:18
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Subway Ninja posted:The author then goes on to speak about using big "SAT" words, and while he does speak about using them in moderation, I for one love reading a book, coming across a word I've never seen, trying to determine what it means based on context, and following this up with a quick search in an online dictionary. In addition to experiencing a (hopefully) wonderful story, I feel a certain sense of satisfaction if I come away from a book with half a dozen new words in my vocabulary. This basically just means that you shouldn't use words you don't really understand or deliberately use an obscure word where a common one will do. If you have a large vocabulary and use words correctly and appropriately, that's fine. The mistake people make is in going through their writing with a thesaurus to try to make it sound less boring or more intelligent. It won't work. If you do that you just sound dumb and often don't even make sense.
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Nov 2, 2012 04:48
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Tartarus Sauce posted:Right now, I'm thinking that the whistleblower gives that Mole an encrypted USB, and hides the encryption key in a separate location. One group of characters could have the USB, and the other group, the key. The only way I can think of is if the whistleblower is somehow prevented from giving them the key. Like, whistleblower tells a trusted party how to access the data, in case something happens to him, then as he attempts to hand the data over to the mole he's killed, captured, arrested, whatever. The mole gets away with the USB drive but finds he can't access it and then somehow he and the trusted party need to find out about each other to unlock the data. It'll probably still be full of plot holes though, because that is needlessly convoluted, and it does remove the whistelblower from further action (at least until the plot is pretty much resolved).
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Nov 8, 2012 13:37
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LaughMyselfTo posted:How should exposition be handled to avoid turning your novel into a fictional, and therefore useless, edition of Encyclopedia Britannica? If you think you could cut it out and people would probably still understand, cut it. You can always get someone to read it later and they'll tell you if they're confused about anything. It doesn't hurt for you to come up with a detailed setting and backstory but that's probably not what people are going to want to read, so think about it yourself as you're writing to give you a better idea of how things should go but don't actually go into details about it in the story. Most of the time these sort of things become apparent without being directly addressed. And anything that has a direct and important impact on the plot and characters will probably be discussed at some point, so you can slip a bit of exposition in there.
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Nov 26, 2012 13:27
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screenwritersblues posted:So what's the general opinion of Fan Fiction? I know that most of it is really bad, but I've come across some really well written ones, but not really good, just well written. Is there really such a thing as good fan fiction or is it all bad and is it strange that I want to dabble in it? I don't understand why anyone would want to write fanfiction. If you want to write something similar to something that already exists, you can. In fact, it's pretty much unavoidable. So why not just do that? I think a lot of people just write fanfiction because they're not interested in learning to write something good, they just want people to tell them they already have. It's like people who say they have a lot of ideas but never do anything with them. They want the recognition you get from having done something but without actually having to do it first.
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Jan 1, 2013 11:10
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Tartarus Sauce posted:For you as a reader, which is more suspenseful and compelling: knowing something that the character doesn't know yet, and waiting in anticipation for them to learn it, or being as equally in the dark as the character, and journeying alongside them as they work to uncover the truth? I definitely prefer the latter. I generally feel that if I know something the character doesn't, I'm kind of just waiting for them to get there so the plot can move forward again. Even though it actually is still moving, mentally I'm already in the future and waiting for the protagonist to catch up with me. Echo Cian posted:This is really basic question, but how do you motivate yourselves to write? I know everyone says "Just start writing," but I can't seem to get myself that far. I got absolutely nothing done in December. I know I'm not self-motivated but this is ridiculous. I go out of my way to convince myself why not to write. I generally find there's one easy way to make myself do anything I want to get done but don't feel like starting. Just deny myself something I want until I've done it. Like, if I have dishes to wash, I won't let myself have a beer or play videogames until I've done them. CB_Tube_Knight posted:This isn't condescending at all, you sound like one of those people who thinks ever person who wants to take pictures should learn to be a grade A photographer and be completely original and artistic. I seem to have come across poorly. I'm not saying everyone should try to be the best, or that fanfiction can't be good. I just don't understand the desire to write it. I just don't see the appeal. If you liked a story and want to write something like it, well, you can do that without it being fanfiction, you can just write something similar. The same applies if you think there was a glaring flaw in the original and you would have done it differently. Just do that then. Write your own version.
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Jan 2, 2013 04:57
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:For the record, most people will read X as Sh and most westerners will read Xiang as Shang. Or zee-ang. Personally I hate when people make up words for their fantasy stories and spell them in a way that makes you mispronounce them. I was really annoyed when I got to the end of the first Wheel of Time book and saw the pronunciation guide and found out that "cuendillar" was meant to be pronounced "CWAIN-de-yar", because why would you spell it with Ls if you wanted it to be pronounced a Y? They don't speak English or use the Latin alphabet in that world, so when you're making up words for things that don't exist in reality you can just spell them phonetically (or close to it).
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Jan 7, 2013 07:28
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Chillmatic posted:
The biggest problem I see with that (apart from the dashes instead of quotation marks) is that it's really hard to interpret Bill's tone. It's clear he goes from laughing at her to angry at some point, but not clear where that happens, and then at the end is he contrite? Whining? Still angry? I can't tell. The same applies to Jean, but I think her tone is supposed to be consistent through the whole conversation? But I cant tell if she's angry or resigned or sad or what. squeegee posted:Open up a good book, though-- something that you really admire that has a good amount of dialogue-- and really dissect what the characters are saying. Then go outside and find some strangers to listen to who are having a conversation about something at least a little bit compelling. Generally the dialogue in the book will be a tightened-up, carefully worded version of what a real person might say, distilled down to its most important elements while still "ringing true." If you really want to see the difference, record a conversation and then transcribe it. It's amazing how much people repeat themselves, stutter, start a sentence and then abandon it halfway through, or change what they're talking about halfway through the sentence. You don't notice it when you're listening to them in a normal conversation, but writing it down makes it really clear.
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Jan 11, 2013 05:00
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The Bananana posted:Death draws nearer; ten thousand pounds of pressure await, to crush and entomb him in an endless night. Sean's hand finds, at last, a useful lever- the battery's priming pump. I think you're just using too many commas. I tend to do the same thing and when I write stuff I often find myself having to go back and remove a bunch of them. Death draws nearer. Ten-thousand pounds of pressure wait to crush and entomb him in an endless night. Sean's hand finds a useful lever at last — the battery's priming pump.
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Jan 23, 2013 02:57
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I'm working on a story not set on Earth, but I want to show that that world is culturally diverse as well. Would anyone find it distracting to have an line in actual Spanish (despite the no-such-thing-as-earth thing)? I'd say that if the viewpoint character doesn't understand that language, don't even bother writing it, unless it's a word or phrase that's easy to work out from context. Just say something like quote:The dude said something in NotSpanish. If the viewpoint character does speak that language, just write it in English. If it's a one-off, rather than a language that's being spoken all the time, you could mention that. quote:"Do you have any cheese?" asked the dude in NotSpanish. (Why the cheese? I was just reminded of this bit from Scrubs.)
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Jan 31, 2013 04:04
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Great Rumbler posted:I even get a little antsy about using commonly used words that were recently derived from other languages in my own writing. Like "hors d'oeuvre." Just about any native English speaker knows what it means, but it just feels...wrong...to use it in some fantasy world with no connection to the real world. I don't understand this. It's just like if you were writing a book in English that was set in France. You just write it in English using whatever words express the concept best, because although the book may be about French people it's not written for French people, so you don't include literal translations of French idioms or whatever, you just express the concept as an English-speaker would.
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Feb 1, 2013 02:32
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Runcible Cat posted:I think you may be being a bit strict about your fictional science there; do you also consider anything involving FTL travel to be science fantasy? I like Robert Heinlein's definiton: "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." I'm also OK with FTL as long as it's set far enough in the future (or there are sufficiently advanced aliens), because there's no way to know which impossible things might be everyday realities in a thousand years, as long as it works in a plausible and consistent manner. Same goes for souls. Maybe they really exist, but if they do then it must be in a way that's consistent with what we already know about the nature of reality. As long as souls are plausible and consistent, then I'm OK with them being in sci-fi. But if, for example, you swap a soul from one body into another and it takes the personality and memories with it, well, we know that the brain is where those come from, so unless that was also somehow duplicated then you've moved into fantasy. This is pretty much a hypothetical though since I can't think of any sci-fi that included the existence of souls that met my criteria.
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Feb 5, 2013 14:34
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