What NOT to Do When Beginning Your Novel: Advice from Literary Agents. The Jane Austen Word List | Mary Robinette Kowal. The Jane Austen Word List One of the things that’s tricky about writing historical fiction like Shades of Milk and Honey is getting the vocabulary right. There are a lot of words which are obviously anachronisms but there others which aren’t.
Short of looking up every word in a novel, there’s no way to really know if a seemingly innocuous word like “hello” exists yet. So here’s my planfor Glamour in Glass. I’ve created a list of all the words that are in the collected works of Jane Austen to use for my spellcheck dictionary. It will flag any word that she didn’t use and I can then look those up to see if it was in use in 1815. It won’t be perfect. For the curious, there are 14,793 words on the list. My problem right now is that I’ve tried a couple of different sets of instructions to create a dictionary for OpenOffice and have been unsuccessful. Here is the Jane Austen Word List as a .txt. file. This is my attempt at making the Jane Austen dictionary extension for OpenOffice. Like this: Guest Post: How to Write a Sentence. By Hal Duncan In the paid critiques I do for the Writers’ Workshop, I’m often faced with writers with a level of narrative prose so rudimentary that I really can’t just tell them it needs polish in this respect or that; I pretty much have to tell them the basics of how to write a sentence.
Of narrative, that is. Even when the prose is perfectly acceptable as prose in and of itself, there can be so much that’s wrong, to be honest, in terms of how it works as narrative, that the easiest thing to do is just pick one sentence in particular and show them how to rewrite it, take them step-by-step through the application of some basic principles. Hell, even when their prose isn’t too bad, it’s easier to demonstrate than to explain the how abstractly. So I’ve thought for a while that maybe I should turn all that work into some sort of Sentence Writing 101 post for the blog, but of course, I can’t exactly use a client’s text even anonymously. 1. So… 2. So this: 3. 4. 5. Apply concision. 6. How to Write a Novel in Three Days. NaNoWriMo? Pah. Try NaNoWriWeekend. Michael Moorcock is a highly influential English writer. His career has mostly specialised in fantasy and sci-fi, and whilst some of his novels have been highly literary, he was a firm exponent of sword-and-sorcery, particularly in the sixties and seventies.
He has often commented on the craft of writing, but one of his most unique and interesting techniques is his plan for writing a book in three days. He was talking about sword-and-sorcery at the time, the fantasy inheritor of pulp fiction, and the books in question were typically 60,000 words, but even so, there’s a lot to be said for his methods. Despite the general medium, the power of his work has been huge, and his best-known character, Elric, is one of fantasy’s great standouts. Michael Moorcock Anyway.
First of all, it’s vital to have everything prepared. Elric with his evil, sentient, soul-drinking blade Stormbringer. You’ll also need to know the Lester Dent Master Plot Formula. Lester Dent So. Necessary Fiction. I am amazed that the good and wise Steve Himmer has let me have the run of the place for a month. I am going to mess this house up and only talk about how to clean it. For July, I have decided to play History. I have decided to launch a war on first drafts and erect the memorial to edits. Revision is where we do our most important work as writers, or at least where we can. And yet, for as much as we love and hate it, for as much as we talk about it, we don’t really talk about it.
(See: What We Talk About When We Talk About Revision, which I’ve revised right out of this introduction.) I want that to change. When Steve asked me to “reside,” I had the grand idea to create a sort of Rolodex for revision methods, fears, hopes. Sometimes I had to pull teeth. So I thought I would start off by putting my money where my mouth is (online, mostly). Here are 20 thoughts to start: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. You can also do this for the themes on each page. 8. 9. Related: What makes it easier: _________ 10. 10 Science Fiction Novels You Pretend to Have Read (And Why You Should Actually Read Them) The Pixar Touch - history of Pixar - Blog - Pixar story rules (one version)
Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories: #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite. #4: Once upon a time there was ___ . #5: Simplify. . #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. . #8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. . #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next.
. #10: Pull apart the stories you like. . #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. . #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. . #13: Give your characters opinions. Pixar’s Story Rules, Illustrated in Lego by ICanLegoThat. Last year, Pixar story artist Emma Coats (@lawnrocket) tweeted 22 rules of storytelling like “give your characters opinions” and “no work is ever wasted.”
Alex Eylar, aka ICanLegoThat, has illustrated twelve of those rules with Legos. He gave us the chance to premiere them at Slacktory. Describing your Characters by =Inkfish7 on deviantART. John Cleese - a lecture on Creativity. Script Formatting. Margins Stage direction and shot headings (also known as slug lines) have a margin of 1.7" of the left and 1.1" on the right. TWO BLANK LINES PRECEDE EACH SHOT HEADING. Dialog has a left margin of 2.7" and a right margin of 2.4".
Character names over dialog (speaker) have a left margin of 4.1". Parenthetical direction within dialog has a left margin of 3.4" and a right margin of 3.1". Scenes transitions such as CUT TO: and FADE OUT. have a left margin of 6.0". Font Use 12-point Courier (not Courier New) or Prestige Pica. Use of "CONTINUED" When a shot or scene continues from one page to the next, (CONTINUED) must be added at the bottom of the page where the break occurs, preceded by a single blank line.
Breaking stage direction When stage direction (also known as action) is broken at the bottom of a page, break it only at the end of a complete sentence. Breaking dialog When a character's speech is broken at the bottom of a page, break it only at the end of a complete sentence. Correct INT.