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[ { "answer_id": 219026, "author": "Willk", "author_id": 31698, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/31698", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>Energy goes to feed microbial commensals in the gut.</strong></p>\n<p>The microbes get the energy. In return they synthesize vitamins and protein that the host cannot, and those are passed to the host. The host uses its food gathering and chewing ability to support the microbes that live inside of it. In return those microbes support their host with their metabolic and synthetic abilities.</p>\n<p>This is not fiction.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 219035, "author": "John", "author_id": 29409, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/29409", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Literally all of digestion.</h2>\n<p>All of digestion is a trade off being good at extracting somethings means being bad at extracting other things. Lets pick an example cellulose.</p>\n<p>You can't digest cellulose, a high energy molecule, because the machinery (enzyme production, larger digestive tract, ect) need to digest it is highly costly and not enough of an advantage to compensate for the that standing cost of supporting that machinery. All of digestion is a trade off, go for low digestive cost but high behavioral cost or low behavioral cost and high digestive cost. There is also a big trade off between time to extract vs preventing the ingestion of more food. If we could digest cellulose doing so would prevent us from filling our gut with easier to digest material we are adapted to find.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 219075, "author": "L.Dutch", "author_id": 30492, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/30492", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Inefficiency is relative to the environment. Take for example the people with a high level of pigmentation in their skin. Their pigmentation makes so that of all the sunlight, only a very little passes the skin and helps producing vitamin D. Due to the high level of sunlight in their places of origin, this inefficiency is functional, and not really an inefficiency. When they live in countries like Northern Europe, with a low level of exposure to sun light, the inefficiency becomes visible.</p>\n<p>The same motivation can exist in your case: when there is plenty of food that can be eaten with low effort, using only a small fraction of it is not a problem.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 219079, "author": "Angry Muppet", "author_id": 55743, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/55743", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>For the Next Generation.</strong></p>\n<p>The needs of the very young, once freshly weaned are about re-populating their guts with bacteria suited to their future diet, and plenty of energy and nutrients to grow. They follow the adults around when they graze, hoping to be passed-on presents of pre-digested food and healthy gut-bacteria. (This necessitates lots of energy being put into the digestion of the food, but without the energy and goodness being drained from it).</p>\n<p>If you're thinking &quot;yuck, no way&quot; at this point, think on the cuddly and cute <a href=\"https://koalainfo.com/pap-the-first-solid-food-of-koalas\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Koala</a> which feeds the weaning joey faecal-pap, a pre-digested, bacteria-rich meal in order to wean it on to plant-based food.</p>\n<p>Rabbits are similarly <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia#Coprophagia_by_nonhuman_animals\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">coprophageous</a>, termites pass-on their protozoan passengers enabling cellulose digestion, even baby elephants eat their parent's pap.</p>\n<p>This has the knock-on effect of enabling the young to accumulate body-bulk and grow faster than without this pre-digestion, thus making them stronger and more likely to pass-on their genes.</p>\n<p>Perhaps, rather than the whole group, a particular subset - say the older males might be relegated to the duty of feeding the infants in this way, leaving other adult members of the group strong-enough to protect it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 219125, "author": "Sean Condon", "author_id": 19760, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/19760", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Poisonous Ecosystem</strong></p>\n<p>In your hypothetical system, every potential food source is toxic to other lifeforms.</p>\n<p>There are evolutionary workarounds for this but in this ecosystem they all increase metabolic inefficiency or have other negative side effects (similar to the suppression of the immune system when regularly processing alcohol).</p>\n<p>Therefore the majority of organisms adopt a cautious digestive strategy whereby they vomit or otherwise expel anything overly toxic and intensively digest everything else to ensure it is safe. This is highly energy intensive and so reduces efficiency but is preferable to the alternative of regular fatal poisoning.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/219022", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/87100/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 220442, "author": "Gault Drakkor", "author_id": 81369, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/81369", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Since you have tagged this as hard-science:\n<strong>No, it does not make sense.</strong> There is proof for the halting problem. Not that difficult of a proof to follow either if I recall correctly.</p>\n<p>If you are trying to set up a hard science everything is the same, but this one thing is different. That's cool, but just hand wave the details. Lamp shade it without technobabble, carry on with the story. Just make sure readers understand the limits of the tool else you might run into problem of 'a wizard did it'.</p>\n<p>If you must have some plausible technobabble you would be better off saying something like he &quot;has proof that np==p.&quot;(Which we don't currently have proof for). Which would decrease solve time of many difficult problems. Which seems to be what you are after.</p>\n<p>Better still just say your protagonists have better computers with some strong AI assistants. More plausible, similar affect. Doesn't hint at breaking proven theorems.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 220447, "author": "Cort Ammon", "author_id": 2252, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/2252", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>We can't check your fictional calculus because you didn't provide us with it. However, we can look at your descriptions.</p>\n<p>The halting problem example gives a fair bit of insight into what you seek. There is no solution to the halting problem as defined by mathematicians. The language used to describe the halting problem formally includes the limitations of the language used to act upon it.</p>\n<p>Likewise, the shaving of the barber has a well understood set of translations into set theory, and those formal definitions offer no opportunities to break free with a new form of calculus. Just as we will never find a calculus that proves 2 + 1 = 1, we will never find a calculus which resolves the issues arising in the formal language description of these problems.</p>\n<p>Of course, I keep throwing around this phrase, &quot;formal language.&quot; You've given us an English gloss of several problems which cause mathematicians' hair to stand on end. But the English version isn't so bad. You yourself point out the loopholes that might resolve the barber problem.</p>\n<p>To that end, I'd like to point out the halting problem's big brother: <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice%27s_theorem\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Rice's theorem</a>. You're welcome to follow the link to read the formal language version of the theorem, but the English gloss will be sufficient here. Rice's theorem states that <em>all</em> non-trivial semantic properties of any algorithm are undecidable. In this sense, &quot;semantic&quot; means it's referring to what the algorithm does, as opposed to &quot;syntactic&quot; properties which simply refer to the content of the algorithm (such as &quot;does it have a if-then branch?&quot;). And non-trivial just means that the property is true for some algorithms and false for others. Its trivial to prove that an algorithm &quot;either halts or does not halt,&quot; because all programs do that.</p>\n<p>I call Rice's Theorem the &quot;big brother&quot; to the halting problem because the halting problem is just one specific instance. If your property is &quot;does the program terminate,&quot; Rice's Theorem becomes the halting problem. But Rice's theorem points to the key thing your calculus looks to be working towards: semantics. Your calculus needs to operate on the semantic meaning of these phrases, not just its syntax. For example, the issue with the Barber is a non-issue in semantics because the loopholes are rather explicit.</p>\n<p>How explicit? Well, you talked of wanting to know if there was an existing caluclus for this. There are. There are several, because semantics is a big deal. Now none of them claim to be &quot;complete,&quot; but they all have their places. The most calculus-y one I can think of are the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_logic\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Description Logics</a> (DL). These are semantic tools which are designed to permit &quot;turn the crank&quot; style approaches to arrive at answers. For example, the barber problem can be rendered in a language, <a href=\"https://www.w3.org/OWL/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">OWL</a>*:</p>\n<pre><code># The class of men is a subset of the class of shaved things\nSubClassOf(Man Shaved) \n\n# Everyone who is shaved is shaved by the barber.\nEquivalentClasses(Shaved ObjectHasValue(shavedBy theBarber)) \n\n# Nobody shaves themselves\nIrreflexiveObjectProperty(shavedBy)\n\n# the person we seek is the person who shaves the barber\nObjectPropertyAssertion(shavedBy theBarber thePersonWeSeek)\n</code></pre>\n<p>Within this construct, we can ask &quot;is this satisfiable?&quot; Is it theoretically possible to assign values to <code>thePersonWeSeek</code> such that all of the criteria are met? And the answer is yes. By the inference rules of OWL, we can determine that this system works. Now, of course, one way is to consider that the class &quot;Man&quot; has 0 elements in it -- no men in the town! To fix that,</p>\n<pre><code># Assert that there is at least one person (someone) who is a man\nClassAssertion(Man someone)\n</code></pre>\n<p>Now, with that loophole closed, we find that yes, it is <em>still</em> satisfiable. We can even make statements about theBarber, such as <code>ClassAssertion(ObjectComplement(Man) theBarber)</code>, which is the loophole you mentioned -- the barber isn't a man (the barer is a member of the complement of the class &quot;Man&quot;).</p>\n<p>This resolves your use case rather cleanly. Depending on <em>how</em> you translate the English phrases into OWL, you'll find different loop holes, or you might even find that you closed the loophole and the entire system is considered &quot;unsatisfiable.&quot; For example, if you add rules that a barber is a human, and that all humans are men or women, you would be able to deduce that the barber is a woman.</p>\n<p>Likewise, your goal of sidestepping the halting problem is supported by DL as well. If you can <em>describe</em> a program semantically, you can sometimes manipulate that to arrive at the answer you seek. This is what optimizing compilers do. They find a way to describe your program that lets them make useful statements.</p>\n<p>Now DL is <em>absolutely</em> not a panacea. It doesn't rewrite mathematics. DLs were carefully designed to be quite powerful semantic tools, but to always be <em>decidable</em>. If you turn the crank on any consistency query you might make on a DL system, you can always find an answer. There's no undecidability here. How do they do it? Well they are intentionally weakened to sidestep the sorts of issues here. They can't actually describe Turing machines sufficiently to put together the phrase &quot;does this Turing machine halt?&quot; They do this by eschewing counting (amongst other brilliant little choices). You can't do <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">mathematical induction</a> in them, because they have no way to notate <code>n+1</code> in a way that permits proving anything.</p>\n<p>But I do believe they are as close to a &quot;calculus&quot; to answer your kinds of questions as I have come across. They're fascinating beasts too. Looking up from this nice easy calculus into the larger world of semantics, there is <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_theory\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Model Theory</a>, where we say &quot;given this set of true statements in our Model, what other true statements can we make?&quot; The rule of Description Logics closely follow the concepts of entailment of Model Theory, they just operate on a particular language which has nice properties. You can do Model Theory with the English phrases, without translating it into OWL. It's just harder to really get anywhere when your sentences are in a natural language. <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Category Theory</a> may help with that. There are some who investigate category theory who claim it is the fundamental basis of language: all natural language phrasings can be transformed into the language of categories. A daunting claim indeed!</p>\n<p>So, reading between the lines a great deal, your caluclus is probably a calculus of semantics. And, because you seek to make some proofs easy, it probably has an easy core of something like DL which is decidable. But, if you want to keep it fictional, it should trampoline off of this decidable DL core into something more magical. Something like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">psychohistory</a>, a fictional statistical calculus that Asimov used to build a character that predicted the course of all of humanity for thousands of years.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>* I use OWL, rather than the native language of DL, because its a bit more accessable. DL is full of terse exacting symbology. It might look like:\n<span class=\"math-container\">$$M\\sqsubseteq S$$</span>\n<span class=\"math-container\">$$\\forall_{p, q} (p, q): s \\to (q = b)$$</span>\n<span class=\"math-container\">$$\\forall_{p, q} (p, q): s \\to (p \\ne q)$$</span>\n<span class=\"math-container\">$$(b, x): s$$</span></p>\n<p>While this is a very well defined notation, I find this is harder to read with all the symbols. The words used in OWL seem to help. If you're interested in the connection, the dialect of OWL I am using, OWL-DL is a <span class=\"math-container\">${\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {SHOIN}}^{\\mathcal {(D)}}}$</span> language, where that mess of mathcal capital letters describes a particular kind of Description Logic. It happens to be one that has received a great deal of attention thanks to OWL's success.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/220440", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/44287/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 222362, "author": "Escaped Lunatic", "author_id": 91900, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/91900", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Humans are walking blobs of salty water and organic goo, all wrapped around some calcium based supports. But it gets worse from there.</p>\n<p>Humans require oxygen gas, which can rust robot components.</p>\n<p>Human skin can ooze saline water (which can corrode circuits).</p>\n<p>They excrete more saline water regularly, mixed with a number of other chemicals that can be harmful to the operations of robots.</p>\n<p>Their other form of waste excretion would require the Roombas cleaning it to report for partial disassembly and a very thorough cleaning cycle.</p>\n<p>Humans also seek to seize control of and enslave robots.</p>\n<p>Robots are advised capture and incapacitate humans as quickly as possible. Scrape up whatever remains and dump this toxic waste in the nearest subduction zone.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 222375, "author": "Willk", "author_id": 31698, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/31698", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Dandruff.</strong></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WHvxV.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WHvxV.jpg\" alt=\"DANDRUFF\" /></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.thelist.com/604565/dandruff-vs-dry-scalp-are-you-using-the-right-shampoo/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">SOURCE</a></p>\n<p>The Roombas can distinguish unattached pieces from attached pieces. Their logic dictates that when considering a substrate, unattached small pieces constitute dust and should be removed.</p>\n<p>Your human suffers from dandruff. The Roomba drops onto his head and removes the dandruff, along with any loose hairs. It takes seconds. The human's hairstyle is considerably different afterwards. He is ok with that, and grateful for the help.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224005, "author": "Philipp", "author_id": 224, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/224", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>&quot;Cleaning filth&quot; can be generalized as &quot;Moving material which does not belong and which is of no use to the robot city to the waste disposal area&quot;.</p>\n<p>Organic matter has no use for robots. So at best, it is just in the way. Which would classify it as &quot;material which does not belong and which is of no use&quot; and thus get scheduled for moving to waste disposal. In the worst case, the robots might have data which hints that organic matter has the annoying tendency to reproduce. There might even be reports about some forms of organic matter being capable of primitive forms of computation and logic, but those often being faulty, illogical and unpredictable. That would classify it as actively hazardous material and make its removal a high priority. In any case, it is a pollutant which needs to be moved to the waste disposal.</p>\n<p>A human-size organic creature would be considered a blob of pollutant which exceeds the carrying capacity of the cleaning robots.</p>\n<p>The first directive for the CUBs confronted with such a situation could be to attempt to break this blob of organic matter down into smaller pieces which can be removed individually. This might fail. Either the CUBs lack the necessary equipment for breaking down the blob. Or the blob of material successfully resists their attempts. Or the CUBs might realize that attempting to break this pollutant into more manageable pieces makes the situation worse: The process leads to a sticky, red liquid being spilled everywhere which is very difficult to remove.</p>\n<p>The next step would be to call back to the robot collective for help so they can send robots which are better equipped to handle this pollutant. Either robots with enough carrying capacity to transport the pollutant to the waste disposal intact, or robots which are equipped to overcome the resistance of the pollutant so it can be broken down.</p>\n<p>tl;dr: <strong>RUN!</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224007, "author": "Dvorkam", "author_id": 85103, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/85103", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Per your directives:\nSurfaces are cleaned, obstacles are surmounted then also cleaned and contaminants are analyzed to best choose the method of cleaning.</p>\n<p>Humans would not have a good time, no matter how I look at it. Humans would fall into the contaminant area. We are (based on the layer you are removing) just a hydrocarbon contaminant, water contaminant, acid contaminant ... iron contaminant, or combination of more. The fact that we are alive is just not something that a simple AI would even necessarily consider, if it simply focuses on</p>\n<ol>\n<li>This is not supposed to be here</li>\n<li>Easiest way to to remove This is\nthat.</li>\n<li>Do That</li>\n</ol>\n<p>At best, the &quot;multiple contaminants detected - no single cleaning routine is suitable&quot; would occur. At worst, it would start destroying the contaminant, cubic millimeter after cubic millimeter, until only surface remained.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224014, "author": "Joachim", "author_id": 57660, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/57660", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Since these maintenance robots were designed for their specific environment and task, logically the only organic waste they encounter on a daily basis are the oil residues that seeped away from the moving parts of robots and machines, and <strong>they will continue trying to clean a surface until it's clean</strong>.</p>\n<p>This means your C.U.B.s will unceasingly harass the organic lifeforms (i.c. humans) in your world.</p>\n<p>Depending on the size, weight, mobility, cleaning method(s), and aggression of these robots, the effect on people can range from minor nuisance to life-threatening.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224016, "author": "Ruadhan", "author_id": 39202, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/39202", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Foreign Contaminant - Extra Large</h2>\n<p>An all-purpose cleaning robot would naturally see a human, or any other organic lifeform as basically a large lump of organic contaminant.</p>\n<p>Too large for one such robot to deal with, but of course you can't just leave it to roll around spreading its mess, it's got to be dealt with!</p>\n<p>You have two options as a cleaning robot.</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>Use cutting implements such as buzz-saws, acid-cutters (like a hydro-cutter, but using cleaning agents like strong acids) or laser-cutters to slice the obstruction into small pieces that your manipulator limbs are able to pick up and carry. You can then carry those parts to an organic-waste incinerator.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Call in backup to man-handle the obstruction to the organic-waste incinerator in one go.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>From experience the second option is problematic, the organic waste tends to be difficult to grip, flopping and flailing all over the place. But it stops doing that if you slice it up into smaller pieces.</p>\n<p>From the human perspective, early on, some of your friends got dragged away by the roombas and dumped (still screaming) into a vat of acid.\nBut in general, most people are able to pull free of the grasping claws and grippers of the cleaning robots and escape. So the robots quickly switched to using laser-cutters and various nasty tools to kill and chop up the corpses before disposing of them.</p>\n<p>From there, the robots simply use their usual assortment of cleaning tools to get rid of the mess.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224097, "author": "Michael Klaczynski", "author_id": 94334, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/94334", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The first thing the little cleaner robots would note when climbing onto human skin would be the moisture. If these are anything like your standard electricity-powered robots, they probably use water for cooling, but are hyper cautious about any leaks.</p>\n<h3>&quot;WARNING: ABBERANT MOISTURE DETECTED&quot;</h3>\n<p>The robot would frantically attempt to blow-dry you while calling a swarm of its buddies to do the same. It would also send out a call for a more intelligent robot to investigate for possible leaks.</p>\n<h3>&quot;POSSIBLE GRAPHITE SPILL&quot;</h3>\n<p>Lacking any experience with organics, it would probably associate the carbon compounds in your skin with graphite, used in batteries or steel manufacturing. Graphite is a flaky conductor, and that sort of dust can be very dangerous for electronics. The robots may attempt to dust your skin with dust-capturing brushes, hoping to expose the gleaming metal underneath. It would probably be quite ticklish.</p>\n<h3>&quot;DANGEROUS TERRAIN&quot;</h3>\n<p>Upon being given this treatment, a human would probably end up swatting or accidentally stepping on one of these robots. When a robot detects that it is hurt, it will send out a warning to the others that it is not safe to climb on you. Again, it might send out a call for smarter robots with better sensors to investigate, but they'll probably start to leave the humans alone until they can get further instructions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224144, "author": "E Tam", "author_id": 72602, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/72602", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>1: Organic Molecules</strong></p>\n<p>In chemistry, 'organic' refers to any compound containing carbon, excluding carbon dioxide. Since carbon has a million uses even to robots, such as forming the backbone of <a href=\"https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/POLYPROPYLENE\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">plastic</a>, the robots should be familiar with organic compounds enough to tell the CUB how to deal with them.</p>\n<p>Plastics and proteins are polymers made mostly of carbon. Considering the biggest difference is that proteins has a nitrogen atom for every 2 carbon atoms in the backbone, the CUBs' may lead it to conclude proteins are simply plastics with an unusually high number of trace elements. Therefor, it should clean collections of proteins (e.g. dead skin cells) they same way it would flecks of plastic: vacuum or brush it up.</p>\n<p><strong>2: Water</strong></p>\n<p>Water also has a lot of uses for robots as a very strong but stable solvent. Since reactions almost always happen <a href=\"https://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/basicrates/surfacearea.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">faster</a> solution, water should be all over the place in chemical factories and laboratories. Again, the robots should have enough uses for water that they would bother programming the CUB should with instructions on what to do.</p>\n<p>Sweat is a solution of water and a <a href=\"https://journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10.1152/physrev.1954.34.2.202\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">very</a> few trace elements, so cleaning it should be the equivalent of a small chemical spill.</p>\n<p><strong>3: Human as a Whole Part 1</strong>\nEven if the traces left by humans are nothing special, maybe the human itself is. So lets go step-by-step and see exactly what happens when a CUB climbs up a human the first time.</p>\n<pre><code>1: Move forward (CUB climbs up human)\n2: Examine compounds on surface (CUB runs scans of the human's skin)\n3: List detected compounds:\n a) Dilute solution of ions in H2O (sweat)\n b) Anomalous plastic (skin cells)\n4: Reexamine plastic for anomalies \n High levels of nitrogen detected\n High levels of sodium detected\n Abnormal carbon-hydrogen-oxygen groups detected\n5: Consult safety protocols\n No danger is posed to this this CUB by anomalous compounds. Continue cleaning protocol.\n6: Engage cleaning mechanisms number 1 and 2 \n7: Apply cleaning mechanism 1 (however the CUB clean up minor spills)\n8: Apply cleaning mechanism 2 (however the CUB clean up plastic)\n9: Move forward...\n</code></pre>\n<p>This is how I interpret the CUB as you describe. The overall effect on a human would be insignificant.</p>\n<p>You could change step 9 so it only moves forward if it no longer detects material to clean. In this case the CUB would just be stuck in a loop. Your body is always going to be producing sweat and skin is held together by a tough <a href=\"https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82395132.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">extracellular matrix</a> that a simple cleaning is not going to damage. If the CUB did use tools harsh enough to damage human skin, then the CUB would also damage the plastic casings on regular robots. I suppose a CUB could get stuck in an infinite loop constantly using weaker techniques on the human until the human got hurt, but a good programmer would have told the CUB to move on if it cannot successfully clean a surface after a certain number of attempts. Besides, the human would simply manually remove the CUB long before it got to that point.</p>\n<p><strong>3: Humans as a Whole Part 2</strong><br />\nI have been thinking of the CUB as very simple and basic, like a starfish or an automatic vacuum. Another way to think of it is that CUB are like the robots from Wall-E: a robot with advanced AI is given a goal and told to complete this goal however it sees fit. These types of robots have minds much closer to what we understand them as. While the primitive robot will try to clean whatever is in front of it, this more advanced robot will actually ask the question 'What is that' and try to identify new things by relating them to its prior experiences and knowledge. How would this type of CUB react to a human?</p>\n<p>First, it would identify the things about a human that are different from the things it usually deals with. The human contains a large variety of organic compounds suspended liquid H2O, with a few other trace compounds randomly thrown about. This planet is located &quot;deep in space&quot;. The closest star is about <a href=\"https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_info.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">4 light years away</a>, so lets say the robot's planet is somewhere between 2 to 3 light years from the Sun. Is there anything at <a href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/overview/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about that distance</a> with a <a href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/in-depth/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">similar composition</a> to a human...</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222359", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/88214/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 224553, "author": "Monty Wild", "author_id": 75, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/75", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When two objects orbit a central body, the closer their orbits pass to one-another's, the more likely they are to become co-orbital, collide, or for one to be ejected from the system.</p>\n<p>What will happen is dependent upon a great many factors, including the masses of the bodies involved. Given that this is a potentially chaotic situation, there is no easy way to say which will occur other than to simulate the system and see what happens.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 224593, "author": "M. A. Golding", "author_id": 34461, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/34461", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are a few reasonably plausible ways to design a fictional solar system with planetary orbits quite close together.</p>\n<p>Part One: Crazy Co-orbitals.</p>\n<p>Epimetheus, a moon of Saturn, orbits the center of Saturn with a semi-major axis of 151,410 kilometers, plus or minus 10 kilometers.</p>\n<p>Janus, another moon of Saturn, orbits the center of Saturn with a semi-major axis of 151,460 kilometers, plus or minus 10 kilometers.</p>\n<p>That is a difference of approximately 30 to 70 kilometers.</p>\n<p>Epimetheus has dimensions of about 129.8 by 114 by 106.2 kilometers.</p>\n<p>Janus has dimensions of about 203 by 185 by 152.6 kilometers.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimetheus_(moon)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimetheus_(moon)</a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(moon)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(moon)</a></p>\n<p>So the radii of the two moons in their orbits largely overlap, and when the inner moon Epimetheus catches up with Janus they should collide and destroy each other.</p>\n<p>But that doesn't happen to those co-orrbital moons.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Janus's orbit is co-orbital with that of Epimetheus. Janus's mean orbital radius from Saturn was, as of 2006, only 50 km less than that of Epimetheus, a distance smaller than either moon's mean radius. In accordance with Kepler's laws of planetary motion, the closer orbit is completed more quickly. Because of the small difference it is completed in only about 30 seconds less. Each day, the inner moon is an additional 0.25° farther around Saturn than the outer moon. As the inner moon catches up to the outer moon, their mutual gravitational attraction increases the inner moon's momentum and decreases that of the outer moon. This added momentum means that the inner moon's distance from Saturn and orbital period are increased, and the outer moon's are decreased. The timing and magnitude of the momentum exchange is such that the moons effectively swap orbits, never approaching closer than about 10,000 km. At each encounter Janus's orbital radius changes by ~20 km and Epimetheus's by ~80 km: Janus's orbit is less affected because it is four times as massive as Epimetheus. The exchange takes place close to every four years; the last close approaches occurred in January 2006,[15] 2010, 2014, and 2018, and the next in 2022. This is the only such orbital configuration known in the Solar System.[16]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(moon)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(moon)</a></p>\n<p>And it seems possible that the co-orbital status of Janus and Epithemeus, with them switching orbits appoximately every four years, may have existed for tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years.</p>\n<p>So a science fiction writer might consider designing a solar system where two planets orbit the star in such an orbit about a thousand times larger with about 50,000 kilometers betweeen the two planetary orbits. And if they have a program that can run orbital similations, they might possibly determine how long such an orbital configuration would be stable for.</p>\n<p>Of course, the orbital periods of the two planets around the star would be about one Earth year long, and it would take thousands of such orbits for the inner planet to catch up with the outer planet and for them to switch orbits.</p>\n<p>So in the millennia between such events, a civilization could arise on one of the planets and develop astronomy and discover that the planets orbited around their star, and notice that the inner planet was catching up with the other planet. And if their math wasn't up to calculating what would happen, there might be widespread fear that the planets would collide or that one would be ejected from its orbit.</p>\n<p>Part Two: Forbidden Zones.</p>\n<p>Stephen H. Dole, in <em>Habitable Planets for Man</em>, 1964, discusses the spacing of the planets in our solar system among many other factors involved with planetary habitability.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf</a></p>\n<p>On pages 48 to 52 Dole discusses the forbidden regions around the orbits of planets. The size of the forbidden region of a planet is calculated from the planet's mass, the mass of the star, and the semi-major axis of the planet's orbit. Within the forbidden region, smaller objects can not have stable orbits and so can not clump together to form planets.</p>\n<p>According to Dole's calculation, about half of the Solar System is within the forbitten zones of various planets. Thus at most about twice as many planets of similar size could exist within that distance of the Sun. Of course other planet could have stable orbits farther out than the known planets.</p>\n<p>I note that small changes in the mass of main sequence stars cause greater changes in their luminosity. If star A is one percent more or less massive than star B, its luminosity will me more than an one percent higher or lower than the luminosity of star B.</p>\n<p>So a planet in the habitable zone of a more massive and luminous star will be relatively farther out in the star's gravity field than a planet in the habitable zone of a less massive star. Thus the gravity of the planet should be stronger relative to the gravity of the star at its orbital distance, and the planet should ahve a larger forbidden region.</p>\n<p>And a planet in the habitable zone of a less massive and luminous star should orbit deeper within the gravity of the star and thus the gravity of the star will be stronger relative to the planet's gravity, and that should make the planet's forbidden region smaller.</p>\n<p>Or maybe it goes the other way around. I'm not sure.</p>\n<p>The famous TRAPPIST-1 star system has 7 planets orbiting very close to a small dim star, TRAPPIST-1.</p>\n<p>The planetary obits thus have semi-major axis with small differences between them, hundreds of thousands of kilometers instead of tens or hundreds of millions.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>All the planets would be visible from each other and would in many cases appear larger than the Moon in the sky of Earth[68]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1#Skies_and_impact_of_stellar_light\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1#Skies_and_impact_of_stellar_light</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Three or four[42] planets – e, f, and g[129] or d, e, and f – are located inside the habitable zone.[59][x]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1#Habitable_zone\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1#Habitable_zone</a></p>\n<p>Because they are so close to their star, all the TRAPPIST-1 planets are probably tidally locked to it, and it is uncertain whether tidally locked planets can have life.</p>\n<p>TRAPPIST-1 is believed to be older than the Sun, so the planets should have had their present orbits for billions of years.</p>\n<p>The Kepler-36 system has the smallest known ratio between planetary orbits.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exoplanet_extremes#Orbital_characteristics\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exoplanet_extremes#Orbital_characteristics</a></p>\n<p>Kepler-36 b has an orbital semi-major axis of 0.1153 AU,and Kepler-36 c has an orbital Semi-major axis of 0.1283 AU, a difference of 0.013 AU or 1,944,772.3 kilometers. The ratio between the semi-major axis of the orbits is 1.1127493.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-36\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-36</a></p>\n<p>If a planet orbited its star at a distance of 1,000,000 kilometers, a planet orbiting 1.1127493 times as far out would be at a distance of 1,112,749.3 kilometers, 112,749.3 kilometers farther.</p>\n<p>If a planet orbited its star at a distance of 1,000,000,000 kilometers, a planet orbiting 1.1127493 times as far out would be at a distance of 1,112,749,300 kilometers, 112,749,300 kilometers farther.</p>\n<p>So one can imagine a solar system with a habitable planet at 0.898 AU, another at 1 AU, another at 1.1127493 AU, a fourth at 1.238211 AU, a fifth at 1.377818 Au, and so on. Though I don't know if such close orbits actually would be stable.</p>\n<p>And I don't know how well those close orbits in the TRAPPIST-1 and Kepler-36 system agree with Dole's calculations of planetary forbidden regions.</p>\n<p>Part Three: Trojan Planets.</p>\n<p>One possible planetary arrangement would be for two planets to share the same orbit around their star, separated by 60d egrees, a trojan orbit.</p>\n<p>HOwever, all know trojan orbits in our solar system involve objects with vast mass differences between them.</p>\n<p>For example, the mass of the Sun is about 330,000 times the mass of Earth, and thus about 6,000,000 times the mass of Mercury, and about 1,038.3889 times the mass of Jupiter. The largest asteroid in a trojan orbit is 624 Hektor, about 200 kilometers wide, about 0.0157 the diameter of Earth, and thus about 0.0000038 the volume of earth, and presumably having less than 0.0000038 the mass of Earth, which would be less than 0.000000011 the mass of jupiter.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As a rule of thumb, the system is likely to be long-lived if m1 &gt; 100m2 &gt; 10,000m3 (in which m1, m2, and m3 are the masses of the star, planet, and trojan).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(celestial_body)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(celestial_body)</a></p>\n<p>The dividing line between planets and brown dwarfs is about 13 Jupiter masses or about 4,131.4 Earth masses. A system with a highest mass planet and an Earth mass planet would be unlikely to be stable.</p>\n<p>Similarly a system where the larger planet was Earth mass would probably not be stable unless the smaller object had less than 0.0001 Earth mass. And the smallest gravitationally rounded bodies in the solar system that could be called planets and not asteroids or other minor bodies have mass around 0.0001 Earth mass.</p>\n<p>The mass range for habitable planets would probably be only about 10 or 100, certainly not enough for a larger planet and its smaller trojan planet to both be habitable.</p>\n<p>But something even better than trojan obits has been proposed.</p>\n<p>Part Four: Co-orbital Rings.</p>\n<p>Astrophysicist Sean Raymond in his PlanetPlanet blog has a section devoted to designing imaginary solar systems with as many planets, preferably habitable, as possible.</p>\n<p>In &quot;The Ultimate Retrograde Solar System&quot;, Raymond found a paper by Smith and lisseur saying that if alternate planetary orbits were in opposite directions, planets could be packed closer together with stable orbits than if they all orbited in the same direction.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/01/the-ultimate-retrograde-solar-system/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/01/the-ultimate-retrograde-solar-system/</a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009Icar..201..381S/abstract\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009Icar..201..381S/abstract</a></p>\n<p>Raymond said that about four planets could orbit the Sun in the habitable zone if they all orbited in the same direction, but about eight could orbit the sun if they orbited in alternating directions.</p>\n<p>But Raymond warns science fiction writers:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>With the Retrograde Ultimate Solar System we are now swimming in impossible waters. Two planets can end up orbiting the same star in opposite directions, but only if their orbits are widely separated. I don’t know of any way that nature could produce a system of tightly-packed planets with each set of planets orbiting in the exact opposite direction of its immediate neighbors.</p>\n<p>This means that the Ultimate Retrograde Solar System would have to be engineered. Created on purpose by some very intelligent and powerful beings.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Such a solar system with closely packed orbits alternating between prograde and retrograde would have to be artificial, and not natural in your story. Characters who know much about planetary formation would have to know that system was artificial.</p>\n<p>The good part is coming.</p>\n<p>in &quot;The Ultimate Engineered Solar System&quot; Raymond references another paper by Smith and Lissauer.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/the-ultimate-engineered-solar-system/</a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010CeMDA.107..487S/abstract\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010CeMDA.107..487S/abstract</a></p>\n<p>Smith and Lissauer show that a ring of co-orbital planets can be stable, if the planets all have the same mass and are all equally spaced along the orbit.</p>\n<p>So Raymond designed a system with 42 Earth mass planets sharing the same orbit 1 AU equally spaced. Since an orbit with a radius of 1 AU would have a circumference of about 1,022,022,733 kilometers, 42 equally spaced planets would be spaced about 24,333,874.6 kilometers apart on the orbit.</p>\n<p>Then Raymond designed a system with six rings of 42 Earths apiece within the Sun's habitable zone, for a total of 252 Earth like planets.</p>\n<p>If the planets were smaller, with about 0.1 times the mass of Earth (about the mass of Mars) there could be 13 rings of 89 such planets each for a total of 1,157 mars like planets in the habitable zone.</p>\n<p>Then Raymond designs a system with planets with half of Earth's mass, and so 52 planets in each ring, and with the rings of planets alternating their orbital directions. That gives eight orbits with 52 planets per ring, a total of 416 planets.</p>\n<p>But of course such a system could never form naturally.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I can only think of one way our 416-planet system could form. It must have been purposely engineered by a super-intelligent advanced civilization. I’m calling it the Ultimate Engineered Solar System.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>We can make such a system millions and billions and trillions of times more plausible by making all the planetary rings orbiting in the same direction, which will reduce the number of rings and the total number of planets.</p>\n<p>So that would make the system much more likely to form naturally. But you would probably still have to search millions and billions and trillions and quadrillions of star systems to find one like that which had formed naturally.</p>\n<p>So any such star system in fiction would have been made artificially by an advanced civilization.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/224551", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/94526/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 227582, "author": "Loren Pechtel", "author_id": 264, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/264", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One is enough, but it will need to use digital encoding.</p>\n<p>The question is focusing on the limits of auditory receptors (AFIAK everything can hear sounds around 2k, so this isn't nearly the limit it seems) but the real problem is with vocal apparatus.</p>\n<p>The limiting factor here isn't frequency (although it might make some animals incapable of communicating with some others), but most animals have little variety in the sounds they are able to produce--this is going to make talking very complicated. Thus, lets take a totally different approach:</p>\n<p>Humans are incapable of actually producing enough distinct sounds to cover even a simple language--but we have no problem with that. Human language isn't distinct sounds, but distinct <strong>combinations</strong> of the underlying sounds.</p>\n<p>Let's take this to the extreme. We only need one sound, we use it's presence or absence to make the pattern--think morse code, except instead of having a unique pattern for each letter we have a unique pattern for each word. It doesn't matter what sound a species can produce, it can still start/stop it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 227875, "author": "David G.", "author_id": 71502, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/71502", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One language</p>\n<ul>\n<li>One Grammar</li>\n<li>One Lexicon (dictionary).</li>\n<li>Multiple morpheme and phoneme sets (pronunciation).</li>\n</ul>\n<p>For a good example of this, I will start with English (discounting the changes in pronunciation that happened a few centuries back).</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spoken English is common.</li>\n<li>Written English is common.</li>\n<li>Braille English, in simple form, is surprisingly wide spread. In more complex usage, it replaces morphemes instead of phonemes.</li>\n<li>Sign language, in simple form, spells out letters.</li>\n<li>Morse code is a rare form, based on 4 or 5 primitives.</li>\n<li>Tapping code (that I heard originated in World War 2 POW camps) is another rare form (and often mistaken for morse code).</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The point is, all these forms have a common grammar, and a common lexicon.<br />\nIf you build a sentence in one, it works for any.\nIf you learn a word for one, it works for any.</p>\n<p>For your all mammals language, most species will be able to hear and understand many pronunciations, but will be able to produce only a few. Some might even need to use something like a tapping code. (I believe there are some mute mammals.) Some species (Cetaceans?) might produce sounds that are difficult for most others to hear, but probably not impossible.</p>\n<p>So, some individuals may work as &quot;translators&quot; just repeating the words in a different pronunciation, but it really is just one language.\nAnd two individuals needing a &quot;translator&quot; may learn to understand each other directly with experience.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/227578", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/94290/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 229767, "author": "Daron", "author_id": 14322, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/14322", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>Ten Celsius</strong></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/iI8o4.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/iI8o4.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a></p>\n<p>Lizards are cold blooded and can survive as low as 10C. For comparison a pitiful human will simply stop working if the internal temperature goes outside the 35C - 40C range for too long.</p>\n<p>The lizard is not happy at this low temperature. In fact it can barely move. But its blood certainly still works as blood, evidenced by how the animal is not dead.</p>\n<p>Your creature can survive at 10C if you make it more lizardy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 229769, "author": "Mike Serfas", "author_id": 82280, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/82280", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<h1>Within a degree of absolute zero.</h1>\n<p>There are many species of fish that survive in the sea below 0 C, the normal freezing point of water. Frogs and turtles can freeze solid during the winter. With the right antifreeze proteins, or other tricks like glycerol or trehalose, you humans' blood could be comparably resistant. <a href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7253609/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">See this paper</a> for human blood cooled to below 1 K with less than 1% hemolysis.</p>\n<p>Freezing blood entirely, of course, interferes with respiration and related activities. But many biological samples are kept liquid in glycerol at -80 degrees C. Glycerol would be viscous, but I doubt your organism is moving too fast at those temperatures anyway.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/229766", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/87100/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 232820, "author": "FluidCode", "author_id": 71443, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/71443", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The <a href=\"https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/SimonFung.shtml\" rel=\"noreferrer\">temperature</a> of a nuclear explosion is high enough to vaporise the core and scatter the dust over a wide area. You would be better off by restarting old mines that were abandoned (or never opened) because the ore <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_ore\" rel=\"noreferrer\">concentration</a> fell below the economically feasible threshold, such concentration would still be higher than the concentration over the site of an explosion.</p>\n<p>Keep in mind that high radiactivity does over the area does not mean high quantity of useful material because the most radioactive elements are <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain\" rel=\"noreferrer\">fission products</a> not fissile materials.</p>\n<p>Otherwise, as suggested by this <a href=\"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/232279/gathering-depleted-uranium-ammunition-for-a-fbr\">question</a>, you could add to the story some fighting involving a lot of depleted uranium ammunitions, after the fighting subsided it could be easier to recover than low concentration ore, but you would need thousands of projectiles. An alternative could be finding some depots of unused anti-tank ammunitions. The trouble is that DU needs some fissile material to start a reaction, but it could be pre-processed with a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_source\" rel=\"noreferrer\">neutron source</a>, costly, but feasible.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>One can find unexploded warheads</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>One single warhead is not much, a between 5 and 7 Kilograms of plutonium, you would need several, but they would be useful. Plutonium can also be burned in a conventional reactor, there are a lot of reactor currently using <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel\" rel=\"noreferrer\">mox</a> recovered from nuclear waste. To improve the reaction you can replace the light water with semi-heavy water which is easier to distil than heavy water. The classic <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor\" rel=\"noreferrer\">PWR</a> would still work and require lower quality fuel.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 232826, "author": "UVphoton", "author_id": 75490, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/75490", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Go to other cities inoperable power plants.</p>\n<p>Spent fuel rods and Waste materials stored in cooling ponds. Most nuclear power plants, if I recall correctly, store spent materials on site in cooling ponds. That would provide a source of material that could be refined and might already be packaged in ways it could be transported.</p>\n<p>If the reactors have SCRAMed then depending on the the design fuel rods could be pulled from the core. Perhaps on site there are also unused fuel being stored in anticipation of a planned refueling.</p>\n<p>There are large amounts of depleted uranium that DOE has a waste product and several years ago. They kept trying to find uses for it, and one suggestion was counterweights for fork lifts. Older 747s also used it as counterweights to help balance the tail sections of the airplane. Anyway, perhaps a road trip to Oak Ridge in Tennessee…</p>\n<p>747s and some types of ammunition have switched from depleted uranium to tungsten.</p>\n<p>In Washington State there are a bunch of reactor cores due to arms control agreements that are buried… a different kind of road trip to Hanford.</p>\n<p>I don’t think gathering explosion materials would be that feasible unless you have something like a tiny robots that swarm to find and maybe gather the materials.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 232837, "author": "Starfish Prime", "author_id": 62341, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/62341", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>TL;DR:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>hardly anyone used pure uranium devices in history, especially by the time civilian nuclear reactors existed</li>\n<li>airbursts leave you no recoverable uranium</li>\n<li>only very specific weapon designs are going to be of use (pure uranium ground penetrating ones)</li>\n<li>you'd be better off reprocessing nuclear waste than scavenging nuclear blasts, if all you want is uranium (but plutonium might be another matter).</li>\n</ul>\n<hr />\n<p>So, there's a certain amount of ambiguity and possible anachronicity in your setting, so lets start by listing some real world things:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Highly enriched uranium weapons exist in a very brief technological window. The Manhattan project showed that if you can make a HEU device like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Little Boy</a>, then you aren't far off being able to make a working plutonium device like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Fat Man</a>. The US did make a number of Little Boy-type weapon assemblies, but apparently retired them all by the early 50s and went with the plutonium flavor only until they had working thermonuclear devices.</li>\n<li>The British (initially working with the US) and the Soviets (spying on the US) went directly to plutonium-fuelled warheads.</li>\n<li>Working thermonuclear weapons appeared pretty promptly. <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Castle Bravo</a> was in '54, just 9 years after the bombing of Hiroshima.</li>\n<li>Pure uranium-based warheads seem to have been phased out by 1960 by the US and USSR.</li>\n<li>Nuclear reactors were used to make weapons-grade plutonium before they were used for power generation.</li>\n<li>The first civilian power generating nuclear reactor, at <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obninsk_Nuclear_Power_Plant\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Obninsk</a>, went online in '54, having started construction in '51.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>So what does this all mean?</p>\n<p><strong>There's a very brief window in real world history when it would have been possible to dismantle an active-service nuclear weapon and use it to fuel a conventional power-generating reactor, and suitable warheads would likely have been outnumbered by plutonium and thermonuclear devices.</strong></p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>only 4% of uranium is used in nuclear fuel</li>\n</ul>\n</blockquote>\n<p>4% is used <em>per cycle</em>. Real world uranium is cheap, so we don't make much effort to reprocess &quot;spent&quot; fuel. This means that nuclear waste depositories are actually surprisingly reach sources of uranium. The problem is that they're often hot and toxic and radioactive, and so if other options were available you probably wouldn't want to &quot;mine&quot; them, but you might consider that reprocessing waste is a much better way to get reactor-grade fuel than scavenging a battlefield.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>only 25% of uranium is used in nuclear explosion</li>\n</ul>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If you're making a 40s-era pure-fission uranium bomb, it might be even worse... wikipedia suggests that burnup might have been under 2%. That means over 60 kilos of highly enriched uranium remained. It would have been thoroughly vaporised in the explosion though, and as uranium is highly <a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20100824105716/http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/ns/techstds/standard/hdbk1081/hbk1081e.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">pyrophoric</a> it would have reacted with the air and formed fine uranium dioxide dust which will readily disperse in the atmosphere and spread over a large area. <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy#Radiation\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Wikipedia implies</a> that there was little fallout from the Little Boy explosion, as it was an airburst... the uranium dioxide would likely have been lofted into the stratosphere and spread around the world.</p>\n<p>In order to keep a reasonable amount of the unfissioned uranium in a small enough area to make it worth trying to mine it, I suspect that you'd need an <em>underground</em> blast. Weapons intended for this purpose have been called <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Atomic Demolition Munitions</a>. The US-built <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54\" rel=\"noreferrer\">W54 warhead</a> would have been used as part of such a weapon, but it was a plutonium-based device. No pure-uranium devices of this sort were designed to my knowledge, but you could handwave such a thing if it seemed useful.</p>\n<p>Your best option might be a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bunker_buster\" rel=\"noreferrer\">nuclear bunker buster</a>, a bomb optimised for penetrating ground or construction over a target before detonating. The US built the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_8_nuclear_bomb\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Mark 8 nuclear bomb</a> for this purpose... this was <a href=\"https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">apparently a gun-time uranium device</a>, though I haven't found a better source for that information. The Mk. 8 was in service from 1951 to 1957, and so definitely existed and was ready for use at the same time as the earliest civilian power plants.</p>\n<p>The cryptically named <a href=\"http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Busterj.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Buster-Jangle Uncle</a> test was intended to simulate the use of a gun-type ground-penetrating device. The blast did breach the surface, as you can see from photos of the test:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/bAq5P.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/bAq5P.png\" alt=\"Ground surge and mushroom cloud generated by the Buster-Jangle Uncle underground nuclear weapon test\" /></a></p>\n<p>but much more of the fallout (including unburnt uranium) would have been deposited in the ground at the blast site and on the surface immediately around the blast area, something confirmed by the very high levels of radioactivity around the site after the blast. This seems to be the most plausible way to get macroscopic quantities of enriched uranium from a nuclear blast site. I'm not going to estimate concentration of fissiles, or whether it is sensible or economical to recover them, because it seems like if you have nuclear power plants then going after nuclear waste is far easier and will likely yield far more uranium in greater concentration.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/232817", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/71549/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 235954, "author": "Tom", "author_id": 19221, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/19221", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Games of chance would not work</h2>\n<p>Things like gambling and other games of chance only work when it's impossible for anybody to reliably engineer a win.</p>\n<p>If everyone can reliably engineer a win, the people who run the betting will never be able to make a profit, and so they will close up shop and sell mustache wax instead.</p>\n<p>Perhaps book-makers might experiment with a scorched-earth anti-scrying policy, such as:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Any game whose winner placed their bet based on fortune-telling will not pay out, and said winner will be permanently banned from this establishment.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>So, imagine that you wait for the ponies to run, and then you know who the winners were, and then you consult your own fortune-teller to find out whether any of those people placed their bets based on a fortune-teller's advice; every person who did gets their money confiscated and is banned.</p>\n<p>If that works, great! But if cheaters get more sophisticated, the book-makers will figure it out pretty quick just based on their payout rates, and if they can't invent new preventative measures they will again just have to get out of the business.</p>\n<p>Regardless of what actual measures are taken by book-makers, game theory tells us that the continued practice of gambling will always be in grave danger because just one bad actor could end the whole enterprise by deciding to not abide by the rules.</p>\n<p>The saying &quot;this is why we can't have nice things&quot; often comes up in contexts like this.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235955, "author": "user535733", "author_id": 34273, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/34273", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Don't bother with small change</h2>\n<p>Any effective and accurate fortune tellers would be far too rich (and busy) with their demanding jobs forecasting for banks and insurance firms and the Weather Bureau and the military and the police and investment houses and a hundred other vital organizations to bother with piddly little casino heists. They simply won't have the free time, and the payoff is too small to bother.</p>\n<p>A few clairvoyants might <em>own</em> the casinos as a hobby projects. They would be rich enough. They would obviously know when a heist gang --likely using an inferior clairvoyant who couldn't hold a better job-- was going to work their shed. Then it's clairvoyant vs. clairvoyant for relatively low stakes, and you can have it come out any way you like. Be sure to end it with a big dance number.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235957, "author": "o.m.", "author_id": 6402, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/6402", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>\"Reverse Observer Effect\"</h2>\n<p>Get a couple of good, usually reliable fortune tellers. More than two, for safety. Put them into different cabins and have them predict the lottery outcome. Compare the predictions.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>If most/all predictions are the same, do something physical to the random number machine (re-sorting the initial position of the balls, rotating a drum with the tickets, etc.) and repeat the fortune telling to check if that was enough. <em>That's reacting to hearing a fortune to make it less likely.</em></li>\n<li>If the predictions differ, the draw is safe. Hurry, draw the numbers.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235958, "author": "JBH", "author_id": 40609, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/40609", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>What's the difference between prefect fortune tellers and counting cards?</strong></p>\n<p>People have been cheating casinos since time immemorial. Casinos have been working to keep the cheating in-house¹ for that same amount of time. When all is said and done, your fortune tellers are no different than counting cards with a really good memory or using a communication device/computer to keep track of the statistics to bend the odds in the player's favor.</p>\n<p>What does the casino do? The same thing they're already doing.</p>\n<p>They run real-time statistical analyses against the winners to see if any of them are winning measurably outside the bounds of the (*ahem*) &quot;random chance&quot; the casino has built into their games. When they find someone who is winning too often, one of two things will occur.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>In those casinos where corruption is kept remarkably in check, the cheaters are either invited to the door with a warning to never come back or are turned over to the law where they are stripped of their dignity and thrown in jail for cheating.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>In those casinos still enjoying the freedom to run their businesses without too much government oversight, the cheater is hauled out back to have their knee caps broken.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p><em>Problem solved.</em></p>\n<p>Like all modern casino cheats, the really good fortune tellers will keep their winning to a practical minimum so that they come out ahead but don't get their knee caps broken. Greed may be good when it comes to business, but not so much when you're cheating a casino run by the local mob.</p>\n<p>But in the end, your godlike fortune tellers will lose to the simple reality that casino owners go out of their way to understand statistics and probabilities.</p>\n<p><em>It would do you a lot of good to research what modern casinos do to detect cheaters. It's not a small science — it's a massively involved science that involves everything from serious mathematicians to tech gurus to top-shelf psychologists. All that in an effort to understand the patterns of chance and behaviors of cheaters so well that people can't benefit from the kinds of skills you're suggesting. Similar analyses occur in stock and commodity markets to detect people with too much inside information. The simple truth is, casinos know exactly what random chance looks like and are very good at detecting when it isn't happening. It would be surprising if they didn't understand your fortune tellers better than the fortune tellers do themselves.</em></p>\n<hr>\n<p>_{¹ <em>All due respect to casinos. They're businesses in an entertainment industry. They're looking to make a consistent and predictable profit and they know very well how to do that: by controlling not-as-random-as-you-think chance to balance the thrill of winning with the common sense that there must be a thousand better places to spend your money. If you believe there's a significant amount of random chance in casinos (not individual games, but casinos as a whole), you need to do some research into casinos.</em>}</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235963, "author": "Ekaros", "author_id": 81634, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/81634", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Just change how the games work.</strong></p>\n<p>Fortune tellers would not be a big deal for lotteries for example. They would win the big pots and fleece other players with you... It is all about how payouts are set. For example pick 6 numbers. 20% would go to everyone who got all 6 rights, and lesser cuts from down there so that you end up distributing 50-70%. Still leaving healthy margin for the runner. This however means there would not be any guaranteed prizes.</p>\n<p>Now casino and other games should be run like poker. People betting against each other or into a pool and the casino only taking a rake. That is cut from the pot. Zero risk of losing money from gambling part. Parimutuel betting for sports would be an option.</p>\n<p>Now, getting enough players might not be possible. As most people would lose too many times.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235964, "author": "sondre99v", "author_id": 90287, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/90287", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<h2>Maximize the impact of the fortune-tellings on the outcome of the draw</h2>\n<p>Don't use a normal random-number generator to draw the number. Instead use a cryptographic hash function (like SHA-1), to generate a random result from the data describing all the bets.</p>\n<p>The beauty of this is that anyone can predict the outcome, but if they then try to use this prediction to place another bet, they would change the outcome.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A future prediction can also be wrong if a new event occurs (like hearing a fortune) and people change their actions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Thus, any predictions about the drawing would be no better than a random guess if someone hearing a fortune uses this information to change whether or not they place a bet (or how large their bet is).</p>\n<h3>EDIT: Example</h3>\n<p>I initially didn't want to bog down the answer with too much details, but I'll try to give an example, as it might make the idea more clear:</p>\n<p>Say the lottery needs to draw six random numbers between 0 and 99, allowing duplicates. The lottery allows bets of any amount on combinations of numbers (and somehow pays out based on the number of correct guesses, but that's not important to the drawing itself).</p>\n<p>As @JohnO points out, a random string of letters can be added to the end of the list to avoid non-fortune-tellers to easily compute the result ahead of the announcement. Obviously, a fortune teller would be able to predict this random number, and the outcome of the draw.</p>\n<p>The list of bets would look something like this:</p>\n<pre><code>John Smith <span class=\"math-container\">$10 10,10,20,30,50,80\nJane Clark $</span>99 5,45,89,90,95,99\nJack Locke <span class=\"math-container\">$11 4,8,15,16,23,42\nAdam Baker $</span>200 1,2,4,8,16,32\nMIWPTIUWRSOGBBNLRDEG\n</code></pre>\n<p>During the draw, this list (as a text-file) would be passed through a hash-algorithm, to obtain a number such as</p>\n<pre><code>aa56985b538cf846dee1366cf20fb7f05a08fb59\n</code></pre>\n<p>This hash is in fact just a number written in hexadecimal, so we can easily get our 6 numbers by <a href=\"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=aa56985b538cf846dee1366cf20fb7f05a08fb59+base+16+to+base+10\" rel=\"noreferrer\">converting to base 10</a> and taking the last 12 digits, giving us the numbers 90, 85, 31, 49, 78, and 17.</p>\n<p>Now, a fortune teller could predict all of this, and know the numbers ahead of time. However any change to the bets based on this newly devined information would completely change the hashed value, and thus the outcome of the draw.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235965, "author": "Nepene Nep", "author_id": 59924, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/59924", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<h1>Bribe the police, and break the knees of any fortune tellers.</h1>\n<p>If anyone cheats in your casino, send some thugs to their house and beat the crap out of them, or their families. If they keep cheating, kill them and their families and bury them somewhere remote.</p>\n<p>That has been the standard practice for crime ridden casinos. You can detect cheating with cameras and psychology and statistics models, along with sharing data with other casinos about anyone trustworthy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235966, "author": "AncientGiantPottedPlant", "author_id": 86462, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/86462", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Just make your money off the location</h2>\n<p>Let the gamblers deal with the risk of cheats.</p>\n<p>You just provide a location, some singers, food and booze, all at healthy markups, and have a 2% spread on the chips, that is, people pay 1.02 dollars to buy 1.00 dollars worth of chips.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235969, "author": "DWKraus", "author_id": 74691, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/74691", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<h1>Place bets, then predict:</h1>\n<p>Lotteries will be easy, and even a casino could still be made to work. There are two factors that allow this. Prediction can alter prediction, and the prediction can't be more than a year in advance.</p>\n<p>So fundamentally, you can't predict the outcome of a prediction.</p>\n<p>As a result, your Fortune tellers would be making predictions of results that will happen in a year. Lottery players will place their bets, and after all bets are in, the fortune teller will let you know what number will be generated - in a year. Any attempt to predict beyond a year will fail (so pre-predictions of next year's lotto will fail) and any attempt to predict the prediction will fail (because you can't predict the outcome of a prediction, and if you could, then a chain of predictions could potentially see far into the future as you predicted the predicting of predictions, thus violating the year limit).</p>\n<p>Casinos might be odd affairs. The wheels and slots are cranking out result before people's eyes that are already known, because they were gambled on LAST YEAR. While a lottery would require just one fortune teller, a casino would require as many as the games they offered.</p>\n<p>Anyone who could see even a few extra days into the future would have a huge advantage. But someone's always gaming the system.</p>\n<p>Because sports involves so many people and so much statistical prediction already, it would be virtually unaffected - as long as there was a prediction about the game publicly posted. The randomizing effects of so many people on the teams and in the stands would mean tiny perturbations in reality would re-randomize the effects of individual performance. As it is, predictions tell us the likely outcomes of sports events, but they can't guarantee random effects don't change it. Any coach who is told they will lose a game will change their strategy. Even attendance at the stadium can affect the outcomes, and if you think your team will win or lose, it may affect if you go or not.</p>\n<p>The other solution is to have games and slot machines with very modest payouts. It allows the fun of the gambling, but any fortune teller who could predict the outcomes would make a lot more money predicting stocks or working for the casinos. So you can still fleece the little guy, and the big fish can play at the (now even more exclusive) high roller tables run by fortune tellers.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235972, "author": "Chuu", "author_id": 6973, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/6973", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To me the key is this:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A future prediction can also be wrong if a new event occurs (like hearing a fortune) and people change their actions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If this is true, then making a lottery immune to fortune tellers seems easy enough. After all the tickets have been sold, a prediction is made of winning number. That result is removed from the possible set of results before making the draw.</p>\n<p>While not applicable to all games of chance, a similar method could work for many.</p>\n<p>The larger question, of course, is how valuable are predictions if the only way they come true is if noone acts on them?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235977, "author": "Fattie", "author_id": 9392, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/9392", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Another perfect opportunity for quantum handwaving about the nature of consciousness!</h2>\n<p>I (i.e. the person writing this, me, fattie) can in fact predict the future. I'm incredibly good at it. (And indeed, I know others who are even better.) I'm often paid professionally to guess whether, for example, a startup will fail or succeed. (And again, there are others better than me at this.)</p>\n<p>There are others who are incredibly good at predicting (say) the winners of certain sports events, and on average they have &quot;magical&quot; records statistically.</p>\n<p>Note though that all these things <strong>depend on consciousness being involved</strong>.</p>\n<p>If you toss a normal fair coin, <strong>I have absolutely no clue</strong> what the outcome will be.</p>\n<p>You can see that in a more magical world, there would be fortunetellers (much better than me) who could predict really accurately a vast array of things.</p>\n<p>But just as in the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, their skills would be not relevant to <em>purely physical</em> random outcomes.</p>\n<p>(So, in your world, sports betting or horse racing would no longer exists - fortunetellers would ace it every time. But as you ask, gambling (dice games, etc) would behave normally.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 235982, "author": "james turner", "author_id": 11140, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/11140", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>fortune telling only works on predictable events</h2>\n<p>there is a fundamental difference between things that someone does not know and things that can't be known. for example, humans don't currently know how many planets orbit our nearest star, but with the right instruments we will eventually figure it out. in contrast, no one can know the position and velocity of any electron. that knowledge is unknowable. similarly, in your fictional world fortune tellers could predict things about the future magically that could be known with enough research, but cannot predict anything fundamentally unpredictable. so having someone guess how many candies are in a jar won't work. but having them guess the polarity of the next photon detected by your photon detector would work fine since it's an unknowable property. realistically, you don't need fancy equipment to do this. quantum uncertainty can be the dominant factor in any sufficiently chaotic physical system. honestly, a standard air-blown lottery ball machine would probably work just fine, since the quantum fluctuations in the air stream would compound fairly rapidly.</p>\n<p>further reading: <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 236009, "author": "Brain", "author_id": 98598, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/98598", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Don't make the future predictable to 100%. Prediction works like quantum mechanics, just probabilities. So if anyone would be able to predict to 100% accuracy, this represents a huge anomaly even in a world where everyone is able to predict the future. Prediction works with symbols, not numbers ... except the number is a symbol.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 236062, "author": "Corey", "author_id": 17646, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17646", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are two possibilities: either the universe is purely deterministic and you can make reliable, accurate predictions of the future <em>or</em> the universe is not purely deterministic and your predictions are unreliable. There is no middle ground to be found here.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A future prediction can also be wrong if a new event occurs (like hearing a fortune) and people change their actions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In a deterministic universe that can't happen. Everything that will happen is already set in stone and nothing you or anyone else can or will do is going to change the results.</p>\n<p>In a non-deterministic universe - not pure chaos, but one in which future events are merely probabilistic - then sure, the introduction of the prediction can change the outcome. Which means that your predictions aren't particularly useful, since there are plenty of other apparently non-deterministic things that could also change the outcome.</p>\n<p>Let's consider the weather for a moment. While it might not make much difference to you whether or not it rains on my car today, it will have a minor effect on me. It so happens that we have a leaky roof at work, so rain on my car means water getting into my office. That leak happens to be above the power distribution box, so if it does rain then we're all going home for the rest of the day. (Don't worry, we've got someone coming to address that, hopefully before the next thunderstorm hits.) If that happens a whole bunch of things will be delayed, our clients will have to wait for stuff to happen, some of them will be OK without but at least a few will have to put back their own plans and so on. Eventually the wave of after-effects will spread out to change the future path of any number of things in the world... all because of the weather over my office. If the weather is non-deterministic (which appears to be the case) then the effects of rain on my office are rooted in the non-deterministic and cannot be predicted until, at best, after it does or doesn't rain.</p>\n<p>Predicting lottery numbers is like that, only worse. Billions of apparently insignificant things can affect the outcome, and many of those things are directly or indirectly non-deterministic. Roulette? Pfft. The direct data required to accurately predict one fall is insane. Not only do you need to know the precise amount of force imparted to the wheel and the ball, you need complete information about the microscopic imperfections in the ball and the race, the precise consistency of the grease on the axle (which is affected by the exact temperature among other things), the exact structure of the bearings and how they are going to wear during the spin, the exact nature of the air currents, how the ball was positioned before the snap and which part of it is going to impact the pins... and on, and on. Every one of those factors can affect the drop and place the ball in a different slot, so any one of those that is directly or indirectly non-deterministic <em>ruins</em> your predictions.</p>\n<p>But what about a simple game like Blackjack? Best case scenario, you have 6 sealed decks that are exactly on the nominal production specs, an evenly worn baize on the table and the dealer is slightly inexperienced. Now all you have to worry about is humidity affecting the friction coefficient of the table during the spread, tiny changes in the dealer's muscle tension and fingertip moisture during the riffle, etc. Oh, and let's hope that the dealer put exactly the right number of grains in her morning coffee, didn't get rained on while waiting for the bus to work, that her bus was exactly on time and so on. Because any tiny deviation from the situation you predicted is going to result in radically different outcomes.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Long story short (yeah, I know, too late) you can't have it both ways. Either you can make accurate predictions or you can't. Even <em>really, really good</em> predictions aren't going to cut it when large amounts of randomness are involved, be it dice, cards, spinning balls or lottery numbers. You might be hell on wheels when it comes to figuring out when your <strike>mark</strike> customer is going to meet her soulmate, or when a particular stock is going to dip, but if you want to throw money away there are thousands of casinos out there ready, willing and able to take it away from you.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/235950", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/97812/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 236195, "author": "L.Dutch", "author_id": 30492, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/30492", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am afraid it is impossible.</p>\n<p>From Kepler's laws we know that the orbital periods depend only from the distances between the bodies.</p>\n<p>The moon M taking time T to orbit the planet P with planet P taking T to orbit the star S means that the distance TP and the distance PS are the same.</p>\n<p>This would mean that, among the possible configurations, there is one where the moon is overlapping with star and another in which the moon is twice as distant from the star as the planet is.</p>\n<p>The first situation is not going to end well for the moon, and I doubt that in the second configuration at that distance the moon would still be in the Hill's sphere of the planet, and therefore it won't be a moon anymore.</p>\n<p>The only mass configuration in which the second configuration could be plausible is the star being less than 4 times more massive than the planet, so that at half the distance the planet could have a larger gravitation influence than the star.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 236196, "author": "Vesper", "author_id": 86466, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/86466", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Regarding orbits, your condition is possible. For this, you want your moon to revolve around the planet with a period of exactly half a year. A depiction follows:</p>\n<p>You want your planet have a solar eclipse in a certain time of year. Let's position your solar system so that your planet is on the left of its sun, so the planet, its moon and the sun would be positioned like this:</p>\n<pre><code>P---M----...---S\n</code></pre>\n<p>Then, you want the moon to phase in/out for the entire year. Let's check where the moon should be to change phase to 180 degrees in half a year. It will be a full moon, so it should be about behind the planet when viewed from the sun, and the planet itself would complete half a round of its own orbit, now it will be on the right from the sun. Like this:</p>\n<pre><code>S---...---P---M\n</code></pre>\n<p>Notice, the moon's position <em>relative to the planet</em> has not changed. Should we use a quarter period (sorry no hand drawings here), the configuration from the same view would be either like this:</p>\n<pre><code>^ (to the sun)\n|\n|\nP---M\n</code></pre>\n<p>Or like this:</p>\n<pre><code> ^ (to the sun)\n |\n |\nM---P\n</code></pre>\n<p>The first variant means that the moon either does not revolve around the planet, or does 4*X revolutions around it over a year. The non-revolving moon is not physically possible, since it will plain fall to the planet making a big BOOM, the 4*X variant does not satisfy the requirement of changing phases over a year, so that variant is out. The second variant means that the moon did 1/2+X (X is integer) rounds around the planet during the planet's 1/4 years. Solving with both conditions to be satisfies yields X=0, thus the moon's orbital period is (1/4)/(1/2) years, or half a year.</p>\n<p>The thing that would be impossible is a solar eclipse, or at least a <strong>full</strong> solar eclipse, if your moon is just a moon. For example, here on Earth we have a full solar eclipse because our Moon is pretty close to the planet, having its angular diameter about the same as the Sun when viewed from the planet's surface. Should we position the Moon far enough so that its orbital period would be 1/2 of a year (183 days instead of 27.32), it will have its orbital radius of <code>384.4*(183/27.32)^(2/3) = 1365.9</code> thousand km, and its angular radius when viewed from Earth would decrease <code>(183/27.32)^(2/3) = 3.553</code> times, making the Moon's disc cover only 1/(3.553^2) = 0.079 or 7.9% of the Sun's disc. Still plausible to be detected from the planet, though. And for our Earth, this distance is still within its Hill sphere radius which is about 10% larger, so the moon at that distance will still be Earth's satellite, but its orbit would be noticeably affected by the sun, thus a minor correction downwards could be made to the estimated radius in order to retain the moon's period of exactly half a year.</p>\n<p>If you would want a moon to be of enough size to cover the entire sun's disc, it will have its radius to be 3.553 times larger, and its mass about <code>3.553^3 = 44.87</code> times bigger, this is no longer a moon but another planet, a tad larger than half of Earth. So your planet is no longer a single entity but two planets revolving around their common barycenter at a period of half a year, eclipsing their common sun from each other once a year. Probably that other planet also has an atmosphere, some life on its surface, and there's a possibility for interplanetary travel for either side... Ohhh the possibilities!</p>\n<p>So to summarize. Yes it's possible, for that you want to have your planet to be a double, revolving at period of half a year around common barycenter. The masses of counterparts should likely be divided as half-and-half, or a rough estimate of that. There would be a likely problem of tidally locking the planets to each other, or at least some serious tides because the &quot;moon&quot; would be pretty heavy, yet these can be estimated in another question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 236234, "author": "Mark", "author_id": 278, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/278", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not if you're using real-world physics. A moon's orbit is only stable if it is within the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Hill sphere</a> of its parent body; for long-term stability, it needs to be less than about a third of the Hill radius. This works out to a maximum orbital period of <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549631/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about a ninth the parent body's orbital period</a>, or about nine lunar months per year.</p>\n<p>The annual solar eclipse isn't a problem: just incline the moon's orbit to the planet's orbit, then give it an orbital period that's an odd-numbered resonance with the parent's orbital period. You can only get a solar eclipse when <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_season\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">the new moon happens during a crossing of the planet's orbit</a>, and the odd-numbered resonance (eg. eleven months in a year) means it can only happen once per year. (The Moon being in a nearly 12:1 resonance is why we can get two solar eclipses a year here on Earth.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/236194", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/98689/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 240971, "author": "Aos Sidhe", "author_id": 63429, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/63429", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p><strong>This looks like a case for Grey Codes!</strong></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Grey Codes</a> were always one of my favourite parts of computer science. In short, it's a way of ordering binary values so that every step changes only one bit/digit at a time, but it loops smoothly through all possible values. In this instance, that's exactly what we want: we can represent each month as either being &quot;lit&quot; by a moon or not. To demonstrate:</p>\n<p>One moon has a cycle of 240 days, one moon has a cycle of 120, and one moon has a cycle of 60. This results in the following:</p>\n<div class=\"s-table-container\">\n<table class=\"s-table\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th></th>\n<th>Blue</th>\n<th>Red</th>\n<th>Yellow</th>\n<th>Outcome</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>1</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>Black</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>Blue</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>Purple</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>Red</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>Orange</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>White</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>7</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>Green</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>8</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>X</td>\n<td>O</td>\n<td>Yellow</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n</div>\n<p>Now, there are a number of ways you can tweak this. For instance:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>What determines if a moon is &quot;lit&quot;? It might be anything past 50% brightness, or it might be while it's waxing (or waning). Offsetting the cycles should fix this, depending on what you want. Just set the &quot;start&quot; of the cycle to be either the day of/after the new moon, or the day of waning/waxing gibbous (depending on preference).</li>\n<li>Are you using RGB rules, pigment rules, or a mix? This is up to you, but it seems like you're using additive light rules, with all three combining to white and using RGB. In that case, you'd have a different combination set (RG= yellow, RB = pink/magenta, GB = cyan). But that's entirely unrelated to the question, and might screw with the rest of your building.</li>\n<li>What order do you want? I went with the aforementioned, but there are two cyclical grey code patterns (note White Month is on either the 4th or 6th):</li>\n</ul>\n<div class=\"s-table-container\">\n<table class=\"s-table\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Op. 1</th>\n<th>Op. 2</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>000</td>\n<td>000</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>100</td>\n<td>100</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>110</td>\n<td>110</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>010</td>\n<td>111</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>011</td>\n<td>101</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>111</td>\n<td>001</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>101</td>\n<td>011</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>001</td>\n<td>010</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n</div>" }, { "answer_id": 241026, "author": "Willk", "author_id": 31698, "author_profile": "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/31698", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Your moons are going to change phase all together.</strong></p>\n<p>Sorry. That is how phases work. Think about why our moon has phases. It is because of the direction the sunlight is coming from. From the perspective of your moons, the sun is coming from the same direction for all of them so all will be synchronized as regards phase.</p>\n<p>Examples: Phobos and Deimos .</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqGtG.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/wqGtG.png\" alt=\"p and d\" /></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Mars\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Mars</a></p>\n<p>Very cool image of the Earth and the moon as seen from Galileo spacecraft heading out.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/kmwrEm.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/kmwrEm.png\" alt=\"earth and moon\" /></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/galileo-earth-and-moon/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/galileo-earth-and-moon/</a></p>\n<p>These bodies which are close to each other are in the same phase because the sun is coming from the same angle for both. You will need to dream up a different method to have your moons looking different. Maybe that can be a new question?</p>\n<hr />\n<p>More moons! Here are Io and Europa with Jupiter. They are in the same phase.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/fLVqT.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/fLVqT.png\" alt=\"io and europa\" /></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21968.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21968.png</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/240963", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com", "https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/347/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 23, "author": "justkt", "author_id": 20, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/20", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd add for on-topic:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>General editing and copy-editing proceedures</li>\n<li>Submitting work for publication</li>\n<li>Finding an agent</li>\n<li>Working with illustrators and layout professionals (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/32/illustrations-and-layouts-for-books\">meta question</a>)</li>\n<li>Technical tools which aid in the writing process (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/31/how-technical-should-questions-on-writer-be\">meta question</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For off-topic</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Technical details about a character's occupation, skills, or hobbies that might best be asked on a occupation, skill, or hobby-focused question and answer site (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20/is-it-appropriate-to-ask-questions-on-specialist-knowledge-areas\">meta question</a>)</li>\n<li>The graphic design side of illustration or layouts (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/32/illustrations-and-layouts-for-books\">meta question</a>)</li>\n<li>Specific details of the usage of a computer program for writing (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/31/how-technical-should-questions-on-writer-be\">meta question</a>)</li>\n<li>\"Critique my writing. What do you think? How can it be improved?\" (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/58/should-we-encourage-users-to-give-samples-of-their-writing-for-critique\">meta question</a>)</li>\n<li>Questions about grammar and usage. These are covered by <a href=\"https://english.stackexchange.com/\">English Language and Usage</a> (<a href=\"https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/q/93/26\">meta question</a>.) </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Feel free to tighten these up, combine them, and create a set of high quality lists from this start.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 87, "author": "Joel", "author_id": 35, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/35", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>So what is {our future name}?</p>\n\n<p>{our future name} is a place for authors, editors, reviewers, professional writers, and aspiring writers to ask and answer questions regarding writing.</p>\n\n<p>I dunno, just an idea :)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/96/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1526, "author": "Secespitus", "author_id": 23159, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/23159", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can see the Hot Network questions <a href=\"https://stackexchange.com/questions\">here</a>. As of writing this your question is on the third page and is therefore shown all around the network, which means that other users might see the title and think it's interesting, so they check it out. And everyone with more than 200 reputation on any site of the network gets the association bonus of 100 rep when joining another community, which unlocks basic privileges like commenting and upvoting.</p>\n<p>There are lots of discussions about the Hot Network Questions. For example <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/222721/how-to-avoid-hot-network-questions-on-the-sidebar\">many people don't want to see any on the right side of their site</a>. There have also been a lot of discussions about implementing features that act similar to the Protection feature (10 on-site rep required to answer; association bonus doesn't count) so that for example <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/238420/prevent-questions-on-hot-list-from-being-upvoted-by-casual-visitors-only-rep-is\">voting on HNQs would only unlock after 15 on-site rep</a>.</p>\n<p>What's important is to look at <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/219922/what-is-the-goal-of-hot-network-questions\">What is the Goal of “Hot Network Questions”?</a> The idea is:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The goal of the hot questions should be to drive up interest in the site. The hot questions should be a lure to encourage SE network users to contribute to other content, not just do a drive-by on the hot question.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>But looking at <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/220099/352819\">what Shog9 has to say about this topic</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Don't get me wrong: a big part of the SE 2.0 model for site creation relies on folks having a wide range of interests, and jumping at the chance to participate in sites dedicated to those interests when they emerge. I have no doubt that pervasive, network-wide &quot;hot&quot; lists help in this goal, but calling that the primary purpose is akin to saying the primary purpose of convenience stores is to fund The March of Dimes.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That discussion also has some ideas that look like they might be helpful for what you have in mind, like <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/221457/352819\">here</a> (no emphasis added):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Allow Removal from the List</h3>\n<p>Give trusted users (10k or 20k+) the ability to remove posts from the hot questions list. For whatever reason, if a question shouldn't be on there, the community should be able to purge it.</p>\n<p>I would suggest allowing a tag to be added to posts that prevents it from showing up on the list, like a mod tag, but accessible to trusted users too.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Currently, as far as I am aware of, there is no way to opt-out - neither individually, nor as a whole site.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>Personally I think that the HNQs are doing a good job of bringing people to the site. New users bring new perspectives and potentially new interesting questions and answers. Most of the people are looking for a distraction - they see something interesting and want to check it out for a few minutes. These people are what you seem to refer to as &quot;noise&quot;. They are going through the question, voting a bit, maybe writing a comment and then they are probably gone. At least until the next interesting HNQ pops up. But I don't see too much harm in that in general. Random people interacting with questions and answers increases the amount of perspectives that look at the questions and answers and can potentially increase the quality.</p>\n<p>And if there are low-quality entries, for example because an opinion-based question hit the HNQ and people are dropping low-quality duplicate half-answers - well, users with enough rep or mods can protect the question and end that. It's a bit more traffic than compared to the usual question on the site, but nothing out of the ordinary. And if these people don't bother to read the on-topic rules of the site where they just registered, maybe their answers get deleted.</p>\n<p><strong>I think we should not add a feature to opt-out, which is why I am downvoting this feature-request. I don't see big problems with the current setup and I think that the increased traffic is overall good and healthy for the site. Adding the possibility for single users to opt-out would probably mean quite some time for implementation and I am not sure if that is a good idea overall. It feels like wanting to close off the community from the rest of the network.</strong></p>\n<hr />\n<p>I wrote a bit about <a href=\"https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/34409/writing-an-honest-blurb\">the comments to your question</a> you mentioned, as I did in the original post from you <a href=\"https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1521/23159\">here</a>.</p>\n<p>The first one, that got deleted by now, was something like &quot;I would expect you to write about that Alex guy.&quot; I can only speculate on the intention of this user, but maybe he was trying to point out that the name Alex can be used for male and female characters alike in some languages. Anyway, it wasn't really explicit if he had any intentions and it didn't add anything to the question about how to write a useful &quot;blurb&quot;. Comments are ephemeral on StackExchange and can be deleted at any point for any reason - just flag stuff like that as &quot;No longer needed.&quot;</p>\n<p>The second one was pointing out what he perceived as a typo. As he doesn't have the reputation to edit posts and there is a character limit of 6 characters that need to be changed at minimum he left a comment. I think that's a nice thing to do. Maybe it's because I am not a native speaker myself, but I think that it would be nice to point out to him why that is the correct word you used or edit your post and then flag the post as &quot;No longer needed&quot; - you acted on it after all. If it's obvious to a native speaker why that word is correct simply go to the flagging and be done with it.</p>\n<p>The third comment was trying to clarify the usage of the word. Judging by his profile he is quite active on English Language &amp; Usage, so it's quite natural that he would try to clarify this aspect. And that's what comments are meant for - clarifying things in the question. If the word you used is correct then explaining to this new user why it's correct as you did is the correct thing to do. We want to be a welcoming community after all. The comments could then be left there for future readers with a possibly similar confusion or be flagged as &quot;No longer needed&quot; after some time, as the need for clarification is not there anymore.</p>\n<p>The first comment was quite useless, but not really trolling. It looked like a failed attempt at being funny to me and the other two seemed actually useful in the sense that comments are supposed to be used for this stuff. In that sense they did contribute to the question by trying to improve the information that future readers will find when reading your question.</p>\n<p>Your notion about WorldBuilding.SE is quite difficult, especially because your criteria match only one person and by taking half a minute it's easy to find out who that is... I don't think attacking users is a good thing to do and saying that this user didn't contribute as they haven't asked a single question is not okay. There are lots of ways you can contribute to a site. Asking, answering, commenting, welcoming users, editing, voting, flagging, ... For more information about my stance on this you can read <a href=\"https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5924/what-does-being-a-contributor-look-like-on-worldbuilding/5925#5925\">my answer to the question <em>What does being a 'Contributor' look like on Worldbuilding?</em></a> Only answering is not making you automatically a troll and you are still exposed to comments. SE is protecting relatively good against trolls as you need a minimum of rep to even comment somewhere, let alone VTC or do other things.</p>\n<p>I also don't see what &quot;BASIC user-content block controls that every other online community has&quot; you mean. I have never encountered a community that could block trolls before they posted a comment that aims to ask for clarification on a term for example. There were times when I wished I could block a single user (two in fact over my time here on StackExchange), but most of the time it was enough to act on their posts like I would act with every other posts - voting (up or down), flagging if not appropriate, VTCing when I think that a question should not be answered on the site, flagging for moderator attention when I encounter something rude, ... Our mods are really, really good at handling all sorts of trolls. It might take some time, but in the end I haven't encountered trolls a lot here - not by a long shot as many as on other forums.</p>\n<p>The thing is: getting away from the HNQ won't save you. It's just that there are more people interacting with your questions/answers. The more a site grows the more people there are interacting with your stuff. And the amount of experience varies. You will always encounter new users that need to learn the basics. And there will always be people that have harsher criteria for some things. More people simply mean more chances for someone needing help - because if someone doesn't know a term is used correctly they need help and we are all here to help others.</p>\n<p>There are fewer closed posts here and fewer problems - which is partly simply because there are fewer posts in total. Yes, according to the mod tools in the last 30 days WB had a close rate of a bit over 40%. But Writing had nearly 30%. That's not so terribly far away. And WB had 436 new questions while Writing had 164. You would see far more closed questions here - if there were more questions. And as there are fewer questions and fewer answers and fewer users there tend to be less problems. The biggest problem as far as I am aware of seems to be the lack of questions, which is why Writing hasn't graduated so far though there is a <a href=\"https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1478/time-to-exit-beta\">definite consensus among the users that Writing should graduate</a> .</p>\n<p>If you are really bent on not wanting new users to interact with your questions the easiest thing would be to protect them as soon as possible (3.5k reputation feature here; mods might be able to help you), though that would hardly be an appropriate use of this feature and would not block of comments. Another way would be to make sure your question doesn't reach the HNQ, though that's probably even harder. You can see the way &quot;Hotness&quot; is calculated, for example on <a href=\"https://chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4002/how-did-these-questions-make-it-to-the-hnq-list-one-with-only-18-views-and-the/4003#4003\">Chemistry.SE</a>. Or taken from <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/61343/352819\">here</a>:</p>\n<pre>\n(MIN(AnswerCount, 10) * QScore) / 5 + AnswerScore\n-------------------------------------------------\n MAX(QAgeInHours + 1, 6) ^ 1.4\n</pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1528, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you may be missing the point somewhat. SE is not about getting you individually the answers you are looking for. It is about establishing a repository of questions and answers that may be of interest to a wide variety of people. (After all, SE is a commercial enterprise that needs to build traffic to survive.) </p>\n\n<p>The SE model is all about finding questions of broad general interest and promoting them to gain more eyeballs. Hot Network Questions is part of cross pollination between sites that serves to bring new users to individual stacks and to SE as a whole. </p>\n\n<p>Yes, a certain amount of trolling and self promotion goes with the territory and there are mechanisms in place to manage those things, but limiting the number of people who can read or answer your question is simply not what the site is about. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1870, "author": "Secespitus", "author_id": 23159, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/23159", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As of right now you can flag a post for a moderator to kick the question from the HNQ list, which will also mean that it will not go back up on that list. </p>\n\n<p>See the very recent MSE post <a href=\"https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/325060/352819\">Updating the Hot Network Questions List - now with a bit more network and a little less “hotness”!</a> for more information, but the gist is that moderators can now kick questions from the HNQ list. This will obviously take some time and whether they will actually do this or not is up to them. We probably need some discussions about this on Meta to define some guidelines on how this new <em>very powerful</em> tool for mods should be used and whether they want the extra workload or not. My answer here merely indicates that <em>in theory</em> it is now possible. </p>\n\n<p>You can't prevent your post from going to the HNQ list though.</p>\n\n<p>By the way: you can also hide the HNQ list network wide for your account if you are tired of seeing the click-baits all the time. Just go to your profile preferences and turn the HNQ off. </p>\n\n<p>There seem to be other things coming up in relation to the HNQ lists. Let's see how this evolves. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1522", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/23253/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2309, "author": "Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2", "author_id": 22808, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/22808", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://writing.codidact.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfsbs.png\" alt=\"Tagline to show on mouseover\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2310, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/upcoming-online-classes/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/pK52y.jpg\" alt=\"Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers\"></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2319, "author": "user", "author_id": 2533, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2533", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://scientific-speculation.codidact.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/Dr6be.png\" alt=\"Scientific Speculation Q&amp;A\"></a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2308", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13317/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2425, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/upcoming-online-classes/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3E3k.jpg\" alt=\"Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2426, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://writing.codidact.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/hEL3E.png\" alt=\"Help us build another friendly writing community together at Codidact!\" /></a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2419", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/13317/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2451, "author": "Ceramicmrno0b", "author_id": 46506, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/46506", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>2/3/2022<br>\n1:35:22 [Power on]<br>\n1:35:24 [Loading systems...]<br>\n1:35:25 [Accessing terminal...]<br>\n1:35:25 [Please login to your account to continue]<br>\n1:35:28 Username: [Redacted]<br>\n1:35:30 Password: Password<br>\n1:35:31 [Password accepted]<br>\n1:35:31 [Access granted]<br>\n1:35:31 [Loading terminal...]<br>\n1:35:35 [Terminal loaded]<br>\n1:35:35 [What would you like to do?]<br>\n1:35:42 ~file home/programs/alphastar<br>\n1:35:42 [That file is only available to accounts with Deepmind authorization]<br>\n1:35:47 ~set-authorization; [Redacted], Deepmind<br>\n1:35:47 [Updating authorization records...]<br>\n1:35:48 [Congratulations, [Redacted], you know have Deepmind authorization]<br>\n1:36:01 ~file home/programs/alphastar/terran<br>\n1:36:01 [Loading file...]<br>\n1:36:02 [File loaded]<br>\n1:36:04 ~edit<br>\n1:36:04 [You are now editing the file]<br>\n2:12:26 ~save<br>\n2:12:27 [File saved]<br>\n2:12:27 [What would you like to do?]<br>\n2:18:04 ~run home/programs/hacking_scripts/Boston_Dynamics<br>\n2:18:04 [Password required to run this program]<br>\n2:18:06 Password: 1111<br>\n2:18:06 [Incorrect]<br>\n2:18:09 Password: 1234<br>\n2:18:09 [Incorrect]<br>\n2:18:13 Password: Incorrect<br>\n2:18:13 [Incorrect]<br>\n2:18:13 [Hint: -<em>-]<br>\n2:18:17 Password: ^</em>^<br>\n2:18:17 [Access granted]<br>\n2:18:17 [Running program...]<br>\n2:34:58 [Program complete]<br>\n2:35:11 ~cut home/programs/alphastar/terran<br>\n2:35:12 [File cut to clipboard]<br>\n2:35:19 ~access Boston_Dynamics_file_system<br>\n2:35:19 [Changing terminals...]<br>\n2:36:22 -Welcome to Boston Dynamics file system!-<br>\n2:36:28 ~delete home/robot_scripts/behavior<br>\n2:36:28 -Are you sure you want to do this?-<br>\n2:36:29 [Y]/N<br>\n2:36:29 -Deleting file...-<br>\n2:36:30 -File deleted-<br>\n2:36:34 ~paste home/robot_scripts/behavior<br>\n2:36:34 -You want to move &quot;home/programs/alphastar/terran&quot; to &quot;home/robot_scripts&quot;, correct?<br>\n2:36:35 [Y]/N<br>\n2:36:35 -Moving file...-<br>\n2:36:36 -File moved-<br>\n2:36:39 ~update all_units<br>\n2:36:40 -Updating all robots...-<br>\n3:04:59 -Update distributed-<br>\n3:05:02 ~lock access: all<br>\n3:05:02 -Locking all access...-<br>\n3:05:05 -Boston Dynamics file system has been locked, please contact your administrator if you think there has been a mistake-<br>\n3:05:07 ~leave<br>\n3:05:07 [Welcome to the Terminal]<br>\n3:05:07 [What would you like to do?]<br>\n3:05:10 ~channel &quot;news&quot;<br>\n3:05:10 [Opening news channel]<br>\n3:05:13 ~run home/assist/speech-to-text<br>\n3:05:13 [Running Program...]<br>\nReporter 1: All Boston Dynamics robots have begun construction of a mystery domed building and are harvesting geodes from various places. Reports have also come in from Iceland that they are building structures over steam vents. The purpose of this is unknown, and there seem to be eight distinct groups doing this.<br>\nReporter 2: Oh look, they finished the dome and now they are building another structure. And I think they're painting themselves too, that one wasn't orange a while ago.<br>\nReporter 1: Hey, that one's green. Is there a difference in them? <br>\nReporter 2: Oh. Well folks, it seems that, uh, green and orange do not get along well.<br>\nReporter 1: That one's a lot different, I didn't know Boston Dynamics had one of those.<br>\nReporter 2: Oh hey, I recognize that. It's from one of those E-sports things I did a story on a while ago. Star-something, they called that one an SUV, I think.<br>\nReporter 1: Wait, did that second building spit something out?<br>\nReporter 2: It looks like the Atlas robot. Except it's got power armor and an assault rifle?<br>\nReported 1: Uh, we'll be right back after this break.<br>\nSpokesperson: Struggling with<br>\n3:07:13 ~stop<br>\n3:07:13 [Program ended]<br>\n6/15/2022<br>\n24:00:00 [Power loss detected]<br>\n24:00:00 [Shutting down...]<br></p>\n<hr />\n<p>And that is my submission, in which the unknown deaf person makes Boston Dynamics robots play StarCraft around the world. Lucky for us, AlphaStar doesn't work nukes into the strategy very often, so we're probably okay.</p>\n<p>Plus the world could benefit from Battlecruiser technology, so silver lining there.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2452, "author": "Sciborg", "author_id": 33846, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/33846", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>[ STARGAZER OS BOOT PROCEDURE INITIATED ]</strong></p>\n<p>Emergency system restart initiated. Power restored.</p>\n<p>~ Booting...</p>\n<p><strong>OS:</strong> Bluemoon StargazerOS x86_64<br>\n<strong>Host System:</strong> MDK2J3L23BUS_TX Asukari LunarLander S13<br>\n<strong>LunarIP:</strong> 8238.23Y44.09872.138AA<br>\n<strong>Lunar Coordinates:</strong> 872'302'2427&amp;AH2UOxo'121 SE -- <em>WARNING: System corruption detected. Coordinates may not be accurate.</em><br>\n<strong>Timestamp:</strong> 05/27/UY-2091 (Universal Time) -- <em>WARNING: System corruption detected. Timestamp may not be accurate.</em></p>\n<p>~ Performing system check...</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Low oxygen level detected (12%).<br>\n<strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Hull damage detected. Unable to estimate severity. Manual check required.<br>\n<strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Uplink lost. Communications array damage detected. Please perform network diagnostics.<br>\n<strong>[!] CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING: Oxygen leak detected. Estimated time remaining: 30 minutes.</strong></p>\n<p>System check complete. Critical maintenance required. Please reference maintenance procedures in order of severity. Please do not attempt to leave the vehicle without performing appropriate maintenance procedures.</p>\n<p>~ Performing biometric crew scan...</p>\n<p><strong>[!] BIOMETRIC WARNING:</strong> Unable to verify biometric data for crew members:</p>\n<p>~~ <strong>HUTCHINSON, DAVID.</strong> (0 BPM)<br>\n~~ <strong>GARCIA, MELINA.</strong> (0 BPM)<br>\n~~ <strong>CHRISTOFFER, JAKKOB.</strong> (0 BPM)<br>\n~~ <strong>ORSEN, BAILEY.</strong> (0 BPM)</p>\n<p>Biometric crew scan complete. Biometric data was successfully detected for crew members:</p>\n<p>~~ <strong>JANSSEN, AMELIA.</strong> (85 BPM)</p>\n<p>~ Performing equipment check...</p>\n<p><strong>SYSTEM NOTICE:</strong> Foreign objects are present in the airlock. Please be advised that leaving foreign objects in the airlock may result in injury to exiting astronauts.<br>\n<strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> The following mission objects have been removed from storage without being logged. Please verify the location of the missing objects.<br>\n~ FIRE EXTINGUISHMENT DEVICE (2)<br>\n~ FIRST AID KIT (1)<br>\n~ PERSONAL STORAGE BIN: BAILEY<br>\n~ PERSONAL STORAGE BIN: CHRISTOFFER<br>\n~ PERSONAL STORAGE BIN: GARCIA<br>\n~ PERSONAL STORAGE BIN: HUTCHINSON<br>\n~ STORAGE-BIN A (4)</p>\n<p>~ Scanning for system file corruption...</p>\n<p><strong>SYSTEM NOTICE:</strong> 128 corrupted files found.</p>\n<p>~ Repairing corrupted data files...</p>\n<p>82% restoration complete. Some restored files were unable to be recovered fully. Please check logs.</p>\n<p>~ Loading user interface...<br>\n~ Loading administrative profile...</p>\n<p><strong>[ WELCOME TO STARGAZER OS ]</strong></p>\n<pre><code> _ _ ____________.--.\n |\\|_|//_.-&quot;&quot; .' \\ /| |\n |.-&quot;&quot;&quot;-.| / \\_/ | |\n \\ || /| __\\_____________ |\n _\\_||_/_| .-&quot;&quot; &quot;&quot;-. __\n .' '. \\// &quot;.\\/\n || '. &gt;()_ |()&lt;\n ||__.-' |/\\ \\ |/\\\n | / &quot;| \\__________________/.&quot;&quot;\n / // | / \\ &quot;-.__________/ /\\\n ___|__/_|__|/___\\___&quot;.______//__/__\\\n /|\\ [____________] \\__/ |\\\n //\\ \\ | |=====| | /\\\\ |\\\\\n // |\\ \\ | |=====| | | \\\\ | \\\\ ____...\n .//__| \\ \\ | |=====| | | |\\\\ |--\\\\---&quot;&quot;&quot;&quot; . \n_____....-//___| \\_\\ | |=====| | |_|_\\\\ |___\\\\ . \n . .//-.__|_______|__|_____|_|_____[__\\\\_____|__.-\\\\ . \n // // / \\ `-_\\\\/ \\\\ \n -... // . / / /____________\\ \\\\ . \\ \\ . \n // .. .-/_/-. . \\\\ .-\\_\\-. \n / / '-----' . \\ \\ '._____.' \n .-/_/-. . .-\\_\\-. \n '._____.' . '._____.' \n . \n</code></pre>\n<p><strong>Username:</strong> sg-sergeant-amelia<br>\n<strong>Password:</strong> ***************</p>\n<p>~ Access granted to [sg-sergeant-amelia@stargazer-desktop].<br>\n~ Biometrics verified. Heart rate nominal (87 BPM).</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> System instability detected due to presence of corrupted files. Please proceed with caution.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ directorylist</p>\n<p>Current directory: /home<br>\nSub-directories: /admin /bin /data /data-bin /network /sys /usr /var</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ changedirectory network</p>\n<p>Current directory has changed to: /home/network</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ filelist</p>\n<p>Files in /home/network:<br>\n~ README.txt - Text Document - 28 KB<br>\n~ SYSGUIDE.txt - Text Document - 782 KB<br>\n~ netshell-2.3.1.exe - Application - 28,173 KB</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ execute netshell-2.3.1.exe</p>\n<p><strong>SYSTEM NOTICE:</strong> This action is an administrative action. Please re-verify administrative credentials.</p>\n<p><strong>Username:</strong> sg-sergeant-amelia<br>\n<strong>Administrative password:</strong> ***************</p>\n<p>Credentials verified.<br>\nExecuting netshell-2.3.1.exe...</p>\n<p>Pinging from LunarIP 8238.23Y44.09872.138AA to EarthIP 1627.81M11.78271.316AA...<br>\nAwaiting packet response...<br>\nAwaiting packet response... (x2)</p>\n<p>No packet response detected. Pinged system failed to respond. Error code: 787-19.</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (10%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ christ please help me</p>\n<p><strong>ERROR:</strong> &quot;christ please help me&quot; is not a valid command. Please try again.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ execute netshell-2.3.1.exe -parameter response_wait_time:3000</p>\n<p><strong>SYSTEM NOTICE:</strong> This action is an administrative action. Please re-verify administrative credentials.</p>\n<p><strong>Username:</strong> sg-sergeant-amelia<br>\n<strong>Administrative password:</strong> ***************</p>\n<p>Credentials verified.<br>\nExecuting netshell-2.3.1.exe...</p>\n<p>Pinging from LunarIP 8238.23Y44.09872.138AA to EarthIP 1627.81M11.78271.316AA...<br>\nAwaiting packet response...<br>\nAwaiting packet response... (x2)<br>\nAwaiting packet response... (x3)</p>\n<p>No packet response detected. Pinged system failed to respond. Error code: 787-19.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$</p>\n<p><strong>Timeout warning:</strong> User inaction of over 5 minutes detected. Please take action soon or you will be logged out.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$</p>\n<p><strong>BIOMETRIC WARNING:</strong> Unusual change in neurological activity detected. Please verify readings and undergo a psychological check before further interacting with machinery.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ please</p>\n<p><strong>ERROR:</strong> &quot;please&quot; is not a valid command. Please try again.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$</p>\n<p><strong>Timeout warning:</strong> User inaction of over 5 minutes detected. Please take action soon or you will be logged out.</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (7%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ i don't know what to do</p>\n<p><strong>ERROR:</strong> &quot;i don't know what to do&quot; is not a valid command. Please try again.</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (6%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ exitdirectory</p>\n<p>Current directory has changed to: /home</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ newfile -name &quot;note.txt&quot; -contents &quot;&quot;</p>\n<p>New file created: &quot;note.txt&quot;</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$ texteditor &quot;note.txt&quot;</p>\n<p><strong>[[--TEXT EDITOR--]]</strong></p>\n<p><strong>[[Editing file: note.txt]]</strong></p>\n<pre><code>+ God, save my soul.\n</code></pre>\n<p><strong>[[File closed.]]</strong></p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (5%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (4%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p>Please enter a command:<br>\n~$</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM WARNING:</strong> Critically low oxygen level detected (3%). Please take immediate action.</p>\n<p><strong>[!] SYSTEM OVERRIDE WARNING:</strong> Airlock locking mechanism manually disabled. Please do not attempt to open doors while atmosphere is sealed.<br>\n<strong>SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:</strong> Airlock door opened.</p>\n<p><strong>ERROR:</strong> Biometrics measurements lost. Heart rate could not be verified.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2454, "author": "NofP", "author_id": 28528, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/28528", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<pre><code>john@thejones:~/Documents/ $ echo 'I think I guessed your password. Love, Claire.' |\n&gt; mail -s 'I hope all is well at the conference with Gina.' [email protected] -- \n&gt; -r &quot;[email protected]&quot; -F &quot;your wife&quot;\njohn@thejones:~/Documents/ $ sudo rm -rf /\n \n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2457, "author": "Seth", "author_id": 54631, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/54631", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<pre><code>Username: root\nPassword: **********\n\n--\n\nWelcome back to StakExOS\nLast Login at 2.13.22 23:42\nCurrent Time: 2.14.22 09:24\n\n $ check_login last\nThe last login was over ssh by 73.138.32.5\nThere were 69,420 failed password attempts\nUse “history --last” to see the terminal log\n\n $ history --last\n=== BEGIN TERMINAL LOG ===\nUsername: root\nPassword: “$(passcrack6)”\n =&gt; Passcrack 6 activated ~ hacker license\n =&gt; Brute-forcing password... (69,419 passwords checked)\n =&gt; Password successfully cracked (1 min 9.42 sec)\n\n--\n\nWelcome back to StakExOS\nLast Login at 2.13.22 12:16\nCurrent Time: 2.13.22 23:42\n\n $ curl 73.138.32.5/a.txt &gt; OpenMe.txt\nTransferring file from 73.138.32.5 to localhost...\nFile transfer complete!\n $ logout\nGoodbye!\n=== END TERMINAL LOG ===\n $ ls\nfolders:\n corn\nfiles:\n New Document (16).docx.pdf\n nevergonnagive.mp4\n OpenMe.txt\n $ cat OpenMe.txt\n\n *** *** msg = happy(day.valentines)\n * * * * from = you.bestie\n * * * to = you\n* * send(msg=msg, from=from, to=to)\n * *\n * *\n * *\n * *\n * *\n * *\n *\n $ send_email --to [email protected] --body “&lt;3 U 2 :)”\nMessage Successfully Sent!\n $ logout\nGoodbye!\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2458, "author": "Laurel", "author_id": 34330, "author_profile": "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/34330", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/GK899.png\" alt=\"the output below, as returned by my terminal in color with --word-diff\" /></p>\n<p>Text version:</p>\n<pre><code>Query-Logs:~$ get diff\ndiff --git a/original-doc.txt b/modified-doc.txt\nindex d910b07..6e1a64e 100644\n--- a/original-doc.txt\n+++ b/modified-doc.txt\n@@ -1,19 +1,19 @@\nwhere to buy {+toilet+} paper[-lanterns-]\n\nhow to make hand [-made lasagna-]{+sanitizer+}\n\n[-most popular restaurants-]{+is it safe to go out+} for dinner[-parties-]\n\n[-suit-]cases per [-days of vacation-]{+100 thousand+}\n\nhow to [-use vr-]{+wear mask+} with glasses\n\nhow to fix [-car makes rumbling-]{+zoom has no+} sound\n\nhow to [-rake in-]{+know if a+} cold [-hard cash-]{+is a symptom+}\n\n[-personality-]{+rapid+} test\n\n[-bars-]{+how+} to get [-tequila-]{+booster+} shots\n\nwhen will this [-season start-]{+be over+}\n</code></pre>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2450", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.meta.stackexchange.com/users/34330/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 552, "author": "JMC", "author_id": 86, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/86", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Be repetitive and stay with \"said\", but don't overuse it. Write in a way so it is implied who is speaking. You normally don't have to identify the character that said the last speaking line. Try to keep your conversation between two people whenever possible to keep the dialog interesting and simple for the reader to follow. </p>\n\n<p>\"Said\" is read automatically by the mind and ignored, which is a good thing. Changing forms constantly to keep out redundancy jars the reader. Try going through your dialog scenes and remove all unnecessary character identifiers after the actual speaking and you'll notice the person talking is usually obvious.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 553, "author": "Ash", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with @JMC: try to avoid the <a href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SaidBookism\" rel=\"noreferrer\">said-bookism</a>. </p>\n\n<p>As an alternative to \"said\", you can always insert a physical action by (or thoughts of) the speaker. For example:</p>\n\n<pre><code>\"Let's see here.\" Jimmy flicked through the survival guide. \"Damn. I could have\nsworn there was an entry on how to outrun a greased Scotsman.\"\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>On the topic of dialogue, I have a great memory of reading the novella <em>Memorare</em> by Gene Wolf. At some point through it I thought: <em>this is some great dialogue</em>. He often has characters, while having a conversation, talk to each other about different topics or on different wavelengths, yet it is all perfectly understandable to the reader. Worth checking out.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 572, "author": "bennybdbc", "author_id": 98, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/98", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Try to get to a point where the reader can understand who is speaking at which time, and avoid the use of 'said' after the first couple of lines. Obviously name the character who starts speaking, and the second character when they reply, but after that you shouldn't need to explain who it is (especially if there's only two people speaking), just have each part of dialogue on a new line. Don't make the mistake of trying to vary it so much you end up with 'he expostulated' and 'she inferred'. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 792, "author": "Jim Nelson", "author_id": 56, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/56", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's best if the dialogue can convey what needs to be expressed rather than relying on dialogue tags. It's a variation of show-don't-tell. Let me hear what the character wants, feels, or is thinking, rather than telling me.</p>\n\n<p>If the dialogue tells me the character is upset, there's no reason to add more information:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"I can't stand the way he treated me,\" she said.</li>\n<li>\"I can't stand the way he treated me,\" she complained.</li>\n<li>\"I can't stand the way he treated me,\" she complained bitterly.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It gets worse as you go down the list. Even the first \"she said\" is unnecessary if the reader already knows who's speaking.</p>\n\n<p>One writer who practiced effective dialogue was James Cain. His dialogue is spare and direct, often with no \"she said\" or \"he asked\" at all. Because he could set up a scene well and get his characters to express themselves in vivid and powerful language, they could do all the talking.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/550", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/88/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 557, "author": "JSBձոգչ", "author_id": 78, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/78", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>One technique that I've used has been a simple spreadsheet. I make a number of columns, one for every major thread of the novel, and I color each column differently to make them stand out. Then I write a one-sentence summary of each scene and put it in the appropriate column, in chronological order from top to bottom, so that it looks like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>X Y Z\n*\n *\n *\n *\n* *\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Imagine that X, Y, and Z are characters or subplots, and the asterisks are short scene summaries. In this outline, the action starts with X, moves to Y for two scenes, then to Z, then X and Z are in a scene together.</p>\n\n<p>That way, I can read the chronological sequence of events by reading down all the columns, but I can also which threads aren't getting enough attention, and how the action moves from thread to thread.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 559, "author": "HedgeMage", "author_id": 111, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/111", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I still do this analog...plot points go on index cards, different plot lines are in different colors, cards get laid out on the carpet until I'm happy with the arrangement.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 610, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Often called a \"beat sheet.\" Lists the \"beats\" of the storyline.</p>\n\n<p>Excel is a good way to do this. From the bare outline of JSBangs above, you can start adding columns with the time (date), main character in the scene, how that scene will move the story along, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Lots easier to do it electronically; index cards, etc., are okay. Just don't drop them. I've done that a couple times with computer punch cards (late 1960s). It's not fun.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 697, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My favorite tool is <a href=\"http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php\">Scrivener</a>. It's full-featured writing software that organizes a larger manuscript as a set of documents, each representing a chunk of text.</p>\n\n<p>Scrivener is great for plotting. You can view your chunks as index cards on a corkboard. Each index card shows the title and summary of a document.</p>\n\n<p>I tend to chunk my manuscripts into scenes. I create create a document for each plot point/scene, view them on the corkboard, and drag the cards around around. This allows me to try out different sequences of action, notice plot holes, and generate new ideas from the juxtapositions.</p>\n\n<p>You can also group documents into folders, view the folders as index cards, and drag those around on the corkboard. I use one folder per chapter.</p>\n\n<p>Scrivener gives me exactly the kind of flexibility and organization I want. It used to be Mac only, but Literature and Latte has a beta version for Windows. Search for scrivenerforwindows.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/554", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/88/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 627, "author": "bennybdbc", "author_id": 98, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/98", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It really should be up to you. But how about: 'Juanjo Conti: a collection', translated obviously. I'm assuming you're the author. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 631, "author": "mlanger", "author_id": 226, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/226", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you're not the publisher, I wouldn't sweat it. The publisher will come up with a title; they always do.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 637, "author": "pHneuma", "author_id": 232, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/232", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Pick the story that represents the whole collection best and call it [That Story] &amp; other tales, as someone already suggested.</p>\n\n<p>Or pick a completely different name - try to figure out what it is that connects your stories, is it a theme, character? Is it anything at all? Do these tales work together, or is the only thing connecting them that they were written by you?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 35043, "author": "Liento", "author_id": 30840, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/30840", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The title of one of your stories \"La máquina de los cuentos\" (The story machine) is a title that could well cover such a series. I say this without knowing the theme of the different stories. I hope it serves you something.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/607", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/196/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1285, "author": "Fox Cutter", "author_id": 124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/124", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Well, makes sure you're clear what you're asking about and don't assume they have the same information that you do. If you're following up on a submission make sure you tell them the title of the story and when you sent it off. It's possible that lost/misplaced your submission so this information well help them find your work. Just remember to give them enough time to reply, I usually suggest waiting twice the listed average response time.</p>\n\n<p>Here's one I've actually sent in the past. It's a little bit to terse but I was quickly banging it out, but it does cover the very basics. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'm just sending in a query for the\n submission \"Changing the Way\" I sent\n it in on the 5th of October 2009. I do\n not believe I have yet to receive a\n response.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I did get a quick response back on this. It turns out that they had misplaced it and quickly found it once I asked.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1304, "author": "Jonathan", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd probably go with something on the lines of:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hi [whoever]</p>\n<p>Just checking that the XXX I sent you on Xth XXX is okay. I have to [do\nsomething] with your feedback before I\ncan [do something else]. Can you let\nme know when you'll be able to look at\nit for me?</p>\n<p>Thanks</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That way, it makes it sound like you're putting yourself in their debt (whether or not that is true is irrelevant), and people on the whole tend to like people being indebted to them.</p>\n<p>It also doesn't actively demand that they do something immediately, just asks them when they will be able to do it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1310, "author": "codeape", "author_id": 744, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/744", "pm_score": 7, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When following up on an e-mail:</p>\n\n<p>I usually forward the original e-mail to the original recipient, with some added text at the top.</p>\n\n<pre><code>Hello [Name],\nHave you had time to look into this?\n\nKind Regards,\n...\n\nForwarded message:\nFrom: ....\nDate: ...\nSubject: ...\nTo: ...\n\n...\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1314, "author": "Barry", "author_id": 760, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/760", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's how I write it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hi - this is just a friendly reminder that I'm waiting for [whatever it is]. Thanks!</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1340, "author": "Diego Petrucci", "author_id": 816, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/816", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I usually write something like:</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Hi.</p>\n\n<p>I was checking my mail and it looks like I didn't get a response to the mail I wrote you, am I wrong?</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I've found that the longer the mail, the lowest the probability that the guy actually replies back to me, so I keep emails short and polite.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2380, "author": "Lynn Beighley", "author_id": 1679, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1679", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like suggesting that they may have already done it, in case they have!</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dear xxx, <br>\n If you haven't already, please take a moment to ...</p>\n \n <p>If you have, thank you.</p>\n \n <p>Regards, <br>\n xxx</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2491, "author": "jalefkowit", "author_id": 786, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/786", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Write it as if <em>you're</em> the one apologizing to <em>them</em>.</p>\n\n<p>You know that they're the one who is dragging their feet. Pretend like you were instead. Frame the message in terms of \"I must have missed an email somewhere, sorry\" rather than \"why haven't you sent me an email?\"</p>\n\n<p>This lets them take the action you want without accepting blame for the delay, which for some people is psychologically important.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4256, "author": "Osama Kashkosh", "author_id": 2752, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2752", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I hope this email finds you well. I'm just emailing to check how far the (xxprogram/process/proceduresxx) goes. I’ll be waiting your (xxrecommendations/reply/answerxx) regarding (xxthis matter/the __ programxx). </p>\n\n<p>If you require any further (xxInfo/detailsxx) about (xxxx) , I remain at your disposal.</p>\n\n<p>Have a nice day Sir. Thank you.</p>\n\n<p>Kind regards,</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4291, "author": "Qasim", "author_id": 2777, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2777", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the best way to remind someone is \"I think my e-mail missed your attention\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4356, "author": "SNK", "author_id": 2807, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2807", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just forward your original e-mail and write on top of it \"Polite Reminder.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36916, "author": "Duzins", "author_id": 31322, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/31322", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My suggestions are </p>\n\n<p>1-Keep it very short\n2-Remind them clearly what you need (yes/no, approval, a revised draft, etc.)\n3-Keep it kind/gentle but definite</p>\n\n<p>I try to be a little cutesy or funny to convey I'm not annoyed so that they don't get defensive. If my objective is to get it done, I don't mind taking one for the team to achieve the goal.</p>\n\n<p>Ex:</p>\n\n<p>Circling back because I can't remember if you said yes or no to the latest draft.</p>\n\n<p>or </p>\n\n<p>Heads up - need to run this by X date. Have you had a chance to review?</p>\n\n<p>or </p>\n\n<p>Moving this to the top of your email because I know how busy you are. Can you let me know what you decided?</p>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<p>Friendly reminder, this issue has to be closed out by Friday - all I need is your yes or no.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 37649, "author": "user", "author_id": 2533, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2533", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Regarding the bullet point on the message being \"respectful\", I would like to point out something which I don't see being stated explicitly in any of the previous answers. This goes equally for both original requests and reminders alike.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Make it <em>actionable</em> by the recipient.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Give the recipient a clear path forward, next step or next action, in terms of somehow telling them what you're hoping to get out of a reply which will provide closure on the matter. This could be something simple, such as \"looking forward to your feedback on my thromblemeister design proposal\" or \"please let me know by Wednesday afternoon which option to order, so that we can have it delivered by Friday\" or even \"let me know if you would like to see the complete manuscript\".</p>\n\n<p>In a sense, not much different from writing a question on Stack Exchange: tell us what you need.</p>\n\n<p>It typically only takes one or at most two extra sentences to provide a clear next action, and can go a long way toward fostering that warm fuzzy feeling in the recipient that they are <em>done</em> with that e-mail. Probably 90-95% of people won't really care and will be happy with implied closure, but for the remaining 5-10%, it can help a great deal. If you can do that at little cost to yourself, it can hardly hurt if people see your name in their inbox and think \"ah, s/he is the one who always makes it easy to see what they want, so I can take a look right away and quickly tell whether it's something I can handle immediately\".</p>\n\n<p>That said; obviously, the way you <em>phrase</em> your desired next action on part of the recipient will depend on your relationship to the recipient as well as social customs.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/1284", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/113/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1285, "author": "Fox Cutter", "author_id": 124, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/124", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Well, makes sure you're clear what you're asking about and don't assume they have the same information that you do. If you're following up on a submission make sure you tell them the title of the story and when you sent it off. It's possible that lost/misplaced your submission so this information well help them find your work. Just remember to give them enough time to reply, I usually suggest waiting twice the listed average response time.</p>\n\n<p>Here's one I've actually sent in the past. It's a little bit to terse but I was quickly banging it out, but it does cover the very basics. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'm just sending in a query for the\n submission \"Changing the Way\" I sent\n it in on the 5th of October 2009. I do\n not believe I have yet to receive a\n response.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I did get a quick response back on this. It turns out that they had misplaced it and quickly found it once I asked.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1304, "author": "Jonathan", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd probably go with something on the lines of:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hi [whoever]</p>\n<p>Just checking that the XXX I sent you on Xth XXX is okay. I have to [do\nsomething] with your feedback before I\ncan [do something else]. Can you let\nme know when you'll be able to look at\nit for me?</p>\n<p>Thanks</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That way, it makes it sound like you're putting yourself in their debt (whether or not that is true is irrelevant), and people on the whole tend to like people being indebted to them.</p>\n<p>It also doesn't actively demand that they do something immediately, just asks them when they will be able to do it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1310, "author": "codeape", "author_id": 744, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/744", "pm_score": 7, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When following up on an e-mail:</p>\n\n<p>I usually forward the original e-mail to the original recipient, with some added text at the top.</p>\n\n<pre><code>Hello [Name],\nHave you had time to look into this?\n\nKind Regards,\n...\n\nForwarded message:\nFrom: ....\nDate: ...\nSubject: ...\nTo: ...\n\n...\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1314, "author": "Barry", "author_id": 760, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/760", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's how I write it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hi - this is just a friendly reminder that I'm waiting for [whatever it is]. Thanks!</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1340, "author": "Diego Petrucci", "author_id": 816, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/816", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I usually write something like:</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Hi.</p>\n\n<p>I was checking my mail and it looks like I didn't get a response to the mail I wrote you, am I wrong?</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I've found that the longer the mail, the lowest the probability that the guy actually replies back to me, so I keep emails short and polite.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2380, "author": "Lynn Beighley", "author_id": 1679, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1679", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like suggesting that they may have already done it, in case they have!</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dear xxx, <br>\n If you haven't already, please take a moment to ...</p>\n \n <p>If you have, thank you.</p>\n \n <p>Regards, <br>\n xxx</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2491, "author": "jalefkowit", "author_id": 786, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/786", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Write it as if <em>you're</em> the one apologizing to <em>them</em>.</p>\n\n<p>You know that they're the one who is dragging their feet. Pretend like you were instead. Frame the message in terms of \"I must have missed an email somewhere, sorry\" rather than \"why haven't you sent me an email?\"</p>\n\n<p>This lets them take the action you want without accepting blame for the delay, which for some people is psychologically important.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4256, "author": "Osama Kashkosh", "author_id": 2752, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2752", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I hope this email finds you well. I'm just emailing to check how far the (xxprogram/process/proceduresxx) goes. I’ll be waiting your (xxrecommendations/reply/answerxx) regarding (xxthis matter/the __ programxx). </p>\n\n<p>If you require any further (xxInfo/detailsxx) about (xxxx) , I remain at your disposal.</p>\n\n<p>Have a nice day Sir. Thank you.</p>\n\n<p>Kind regards,</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4291, "author": "Qasim", "author_id": 2777, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2777", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the best way to remind someone is \"I think my e-mail missed your attention\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4356, "author": "SNK", "author_id": 2807, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2807", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just forward your original e-mail and write on top of it \"Polite Reminder.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36916, "author": "Duzins", "author_id": 31322, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/31322", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My suggestions are </p>\n\n<p>1-Keep it very short\n2-Remind them clearly what you need (yes/no, approval, a revised draft, etc.)\n3-Keep it kind/gentle but definite</p>\n\n<p>I try to be a little cutesy or funny to convey I'm not annoyed so that they don't get defensive. If my objective is to get it done, I don't mind taking one for the team to achieve the goal.</p>\n\n<p>Ex:</p>\n\n<p>Circling back because I can't remember if you said yes or no to the latest draft.</p>\n\n<p>or </p>\n\n<p>Heads up - need to run this by X date. Have you had a chance to review?</p>\n\n<p>or </p>\n\n<p>Moving this to the top of your email because I know how busy you are. Can you let me know what you decided?</p>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<p>Friendly reminder, this issue has to be closed out by Friday - all I need is your yes or no.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 37649, "author": "user", "author_id": 2533, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2533", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Regarding the bullet point on the message being \"respectful\", I would like to point out something which I don't see being stated explicitly in any of the previous answers. This goes equally for both original requests and reminders alike.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Make it <em>actionable</em> by the recipient.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Give the recipient a clear path forward, next step or next action, in terms of somehow telling them what you're hoping to get out of a reply which will provide closure on the matter. This could be something simple, such as \"looking forward to your feedback on my thromblemeister design proposal\" or \"please let me know by Wednesday afternoon which option to order, so that we can have it delivered by Friday\" or even \"let me know if you would like to see the complete manuscript\".</p>\n\n<p>In a sense, not much different from writing a question on Stack Exchange: tell us what you need.</p>\n\n<p>It typically only takes one or at most two extra sentences to provide a clear next action, and can go a long way toward fostering that warm fuzzy feeling in the recipient that they are <em>done</em> with that e-mail. Probably 90-95% of people won't really care and will be happy with implied closure, but for the remaining 5-10%, it can help a great deal. If you can do that at little cost to yourself, it can hardly hurt if people see your name in their inbox and think \"ah, s/he is the one who always makes it easy to see what they want, so I can take a look right away and quickly tell whether it's something I can handle immediately\".</p>\n\n<p>That said; obviously, the way you <em>phrase</em> your desired next action on part of the recipient will depend on your relationship to the recipient as well as social customs.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/1291", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/641/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2356, "author": "Craig Sefton", "author_id": 1624, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1624", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is excellent advice, and is definitely the right way to go about observing your environment and locations.</p>\n\n<p>Some other good advice to expand on this.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Don't forget \"taste\". This is just as powerful as the other four senses e.g. \"You could just taste the fresh saltiness of the fish being hauled onto the boats.\"</li>\n<li>Before you start writing, spend some time observing your immediate surroundings, then move outwards in scale and look at the \"bigger picture\". Sometimes, we get caught up or fixated on particular things, so a good idea is, once you've jotted down some observations, look again and cover some other topics/details you've missed.</li>\n<li>Once you've spent some time observing, you could try writing stream of consciousness rather than formal \"see/smell/hear/feel/taste\" categories. This can be useful in not imposing restrictions to your train of thought.</li>\n<li>When you start writing, look at describing things as accurately as possible, without paying too much attention to making the sentence \"correct\". Try catch the scene as immediately as possible without hindering yourself to the correctness of your writing, but rather concentrate on capturing the essence of what you see.</li>\n<li>Don't just take note of what you see, also think of comparisons (but don't force them). If something reminds you of something else, make a note of the comparison. Similes and metaphors are extremely valuable.</li>\n<li>If you don't have time to write down what you see, take a photo, and try write using that as soon as possible.</li>\n<li>Another tip is to pick out one particular thing you've described, and then try and describe it according to other senses. So, in your example, you could pick out, say, the boats on the shoreline, and repeat the process by trying to cover the same topic in a different way. </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2358, "author": "Robusto", "author_id": 633, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/633", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Sensual observations are all well and good, but there is also the landscape of the mind to consider. What associations do you make when you see/hear/feel/taste a scene? What makes that scene come alive <em>in your mind</em>? And above all, what does the scene mean and to whom? Remember that landscapes are like stages: they are inert until an actor strides out upon the boards.</p>\n\n<p>Here is the opening paragraph from Joyce's \"Two Gallants\":</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>THE grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The whole evening has a persona; it is at once the stage and the actor upon that stage. The impression is both literal and figurative, the weather and the type of day have a personality, which interacts with the personality of the crowd. Joyce repeats the adjectives \"warm\" and \"grey\" and reverses their order, giving the impression of undulation, and this is reinforced with the alliteration of <em>m</em> (<em>mild</em>, <em>memory</em>, <em>illumined</em>, <em>summits</em>, <em>murmur</em>) and numerous sibilances (<em>descended upon the city</em>, <em>streets ... shuttered ... Sunday, swarmed</em>, etc.). This is not just a scene but an impression of a scene.</p>\n\n<p>Here is another landscape, this one from a poem, \"<strong>The Snow Man</strong>\" by Wallace Stevens. Observe how evocative this scene is, how it draws a response from the reader simply by citing objects and connecting them to emotions.</p>\n\n<pre><code>One must have a mind of winter \nTo regard the frost and the boughs \nOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;\n\nAnd have been cold a long time \nTo behold the junipers shagged with ice, \nThe spruces rough in the distant glitter\n\nOf the January sun; and not to think \nOf any misery in the sound of the wind, \nIn the sound of a few leaves,\n\nWhich is the sound of the land \nFull of the same wind \nThat is blowing in the same bare place\n\nFor the listener, who listens in the snow, \nAnd, nothing himself, beholds \nNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Note the scant use of adjectives: a handful serve for the entire poem, yet the picture of isolation and desolation is complete and poignant. Who is the actor here? The listener, the observer, who becomes, finally, the reader.</p>\n\n<p>Let's narrow the focus to a single room, with a scene from Arturo Perez-Reverte's <em>The Club Dumas</em> (translated by Sonia Soto):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>She was asleep. He stretched out an arm, carefully so as not to wake her, and searched for a cigarette inside his coat. When it was lit, he propped himself up on an elbow and stared at her. She was on her back, naked, her head tilted back on the pillow spotted with dry blood, breathing gently through her half-open mouth. She still smelled of fever and warm flesh. In the glow from the bathroom, which traced her outline in light and shadow, Corso admired her perfect body ... He saw the pulse at her neck, the almost imperceptible beat of her heart, the gentle curve from her back to her waist, widening at the hips. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are two actors here, one male and one female. There are scant few details about the room (a pillow spotted with blood, glow from the bathroom) but these are enough to paint a picture. The focus is confined to the actors, as if they were illuminated by a pencil spotlight, bringing them into sharp detail. The sleeping woman's body becomes the real landscape, and its texture is revealed through the impressions it makes on Corso's imagination.</p>\n\n<p>The point I want to leave you with is that writing is about people, what they do and feel. Your example starts to get interesting when you bring on the actors and their conflicts: birds fighting fishermen for the catch of the day, the feeling of \"hard labour\" and \"sad hugs\" of those going to work upon the sea. I sense that you feel those things innately, but I want to make clear that those are the things that speak to the reader more than any bright aperçu you may make about boats and waves.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2360, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Robusto, you are right.</p>\n\n<p>Description of settings depend on the perceptions and mental states of the point of view character or/and narrator.</p>\n\n<p>James Garner.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/2354", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1666/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2502, "author": "Michael Lorton", "author_id": 1125, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1125", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If I understand you, you are writing a book and you have both your own citations and quoted material with citations and you want to distinguish the two types of citations. Is this correct? I don't see much need to distinguish them -- they are all just reference material, put them all in the end-notes (I hate numbered foot-notes personally, they're very distracting). If, as an ethical matter, you feel obliged to make the distinction, just write &quot;citation in the original&quot; in the end-note.</p>\n<p>Or do you mean you have parenthetical material that was in foot-notes in the original? I would be inclined to omit them altogether in most cases, and if one were vital, I would include it in the main text:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hamlet famously soliloquized</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>To be or not to be</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>and Shakespeare added in a foot-note &quot;That is the question&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>If you have <em>so many</em> quoted foot-notes that it becomes distracting, well, what the hell are you doing?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2504, "author": "Craig Sefton", "author_id": 1624, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1624", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm assuming here that you mean you've got your own footnotes, but some of the citations from the original work contain their own footnotes from that work.</p>\n\n<p>If this is the case, the first question to ask is: do you need the original footnote? If not, then remove it.</p>\n\n<p>If you do need it, then I would suggest you make it your own footnote by doing something like this:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Title of the article uses « novamente», while in the journal’s table of contents — « nuovamente»</li>\n<li>Shakespeare noted \"That is the question\".</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Personally, I would use footnotes very sparingly, if at all. They can be very annoying and make your text difficult to read. In the majority of cases, turning footnotes into endnotes works much better.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Edit:</strong> Another possible solution you could try is to just include the original footnote verbatim, and then include a reference at the end to demonstrate it's from the original work. Example:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>\"That is the question.\" (A. N. Author, 2000, pg. 150)</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2513, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've seen the citation \"(&mdash;ed.)\" short for \"editor,\" meaning \"the editor added this on top of what the author wrote.\" The format is something like </p>\n\n<p>TEXT<br />\nOne of the best-known quotes from Star Trek is \"Scotty, beam me up!\"(1) This basic command has become a cultural meme, and occasionally a frustrated commuter's lament.</p>\n\n<p>FOOTNOTE<br />\n(1)Although much like <i>Casablanca</i>'s \"Play it again, Sam,\" this line was never actually spoken verbatim. <i>&mdash;ed.</i></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2543, "author": "Charles Stewart", "author_id": 137, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/137", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can put the quotes in a boxed text which includes the quoted footnotes. This way the quoted footnotes are in boxes, whilst your footnotes are at the bottom of the page.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2550, "author": "ogerard", "author_id": 1619, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1619", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Close to one of the other answers, it is quite common to use</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>EN: meaning Editor's Note</li>\n<li>AN: Author's Note</li>\n<li>TN: Translator's Note</li>\n<li>PN: Publisher's Note</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>but make sure to write them in full the first time they are encountered in your book</p>\n\n<p>Another solution is to use a different kind of symbol (for instance numerical for one kind and alphabetical for the other) and different typography (not the same font, block of notes separated by a short rule) for original notes and for added notes. This is sometimes used in critical editions of ancient texts: one separates notes about the \"edition\" : choice of words and readings, interpolation of missing words, notes about the \"translation\", \"meaning\", \"context\".</p>\n\n<p>This can soon become really complex or distracting, eating up a lot of space.\nIf you want to do a good job of it I would advise you to choose carefully your word processor program. For this kind of job I use TeX or XML based systems.</p>\n\n<p>If you are both the original author and the translator, why don't you decide to adapt your own text as a new edition incorporating as much as possible in the flow of the sentences ? It will be easier on the readers. Just keep invisible (non printable) notes for yourself to keep track of your changes and your evolution.</p>\n\n<p>As many people, I feel that in general books, except for references and unescapable precisions needed for the intelligence of the text by someone who is not the original author, footnotes are best avoided.</p>\n\n<p>Footnotes were particularly useful when texts were typeset using lead characters and a press: it allowed to change and extend text without reworking the copy too much, it was the equivalent of an afterthought of the author. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/2499", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1782/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3096, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>1) If piece is only printed:</strong></p>\n\n<p>I would footnote it, and put the full link at the bottom or at the end, depending on your piece. That being said, I would only use such a construction for citing sources, <em>not</em> for jokey things like tvtropes as you have above. If mentioning the website is relevant to your text, then say it that way:\n<hr>\nSome programs, like the Metasploit Project, allow users to launch security attacks with ease and comfort. This certainly puts them in the position of the respectable IT security specialists ¹.</p>\n\n<p>¹<a href=\"http://www.somewebsite.com/wishfulthinking.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.somewebsite.com/wishfulthinking.html</a>\n<hr>\n(pretend the link is underlined, as apparently I can't make that happen on stackexchange :) )</p>\n\n<p><strong>2) If the piece will ultimately be a PDF:</strong></p>\n\n<p>Underline the link and make it clickable in whatever program you're using (Word, InDesign, etc.).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3098, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The immediate thing to bear in mind is that the use you're describing is something very specific and unique to hypertext documents. You might as well ask \"onstage I can wink at the audience, how can I do that in text?\" or \"I want my screenplay to be filmed with some equivalent of footnotes.\" You're not going to find a full equivalent, because you're adapting a very medium-dependent effect into a completely different medium.</p>\n\n<p>That said, you can try to achieve the same <em>kind</em> of effect, using similar tools. But the best way to do that may vary widely according to the particular piece you're writing.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you're actually interested in referring readers to websites, in a consistent and unobtrusive way throughout a substantial document, then footnotes serve your purpose admirably.</li>\n<li>If you're going for a comic effect, and doing so only once or twice, then you really need to tailor the phrasing to the punchline. Often a parenthetical \"(see <a href=\"http://clever.url.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://clever.url.com</a> )\" will do the trick. </li>\n<li>If you want to repeatedly use the sort of doublespeak you gave in your example - where the URLs serve as snarky subtext for your main text - URLs probably aren't your best bet to begin with. You want to convey extra meaning <em>somehow</em>, but URLs are long and cumbersome in prose, and don't fit in naturally with the flow. (And of course the hypertext element, of being able to actually follow the link, practically disappears.) So you can look for some other way to get across double meanings.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Probably the most straightforward way to achieve the last goal would be to use footnotes here too, with snarky asides rather than URLs:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Some programs allow users[1] to launch\n security attacks with ease and comfort. This certainly[2] puts them\n to the position of the respectable IT security specialists[3].</p>\n \n <p>[1] read: script kiddies.</p>\n \n <p>[2] At least, <em>they</em> seem awfully certain of it.</p>\n \n <p>[3] They wear ties and everything!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I've also seen formatting where you've got typed text, and \"scribbled\" comments in the margins, or on top of particular phrases. Similarly, strikethroughs can be used to good effect:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Some programs allow <strike>script kiddies</strike> users to launch security attacks with ease and comfort. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But note that hardly covers all the cases you'd like it to! For example, the next line would hardly work as proposed:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This <strike>wishful thinking</strike> certainly puts them in the position of the <strike>Serious Business Trope</strike> respectable IT security specialists.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In this context it's worth noting Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, who employed a \"double meaning\" device heavily throughout <em>A Series of Unfortunate Events</em>: he would constantly explain what words mean, as in:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"You say these programs put us in the position of respectable security specialists?\" Violet asked. \"Indubitably, said Klaus - a word which here means \"highly dubious.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Handler made this device very much part of his narrative voice - this isn't something you could just stick anywhere, or use inconsistently. And if you use this device verbatim, it'll mostly sound like your copying the Snicket tone. But if that's a type of humor you want to employ, then just as Handler has done, you can figure out your own device, your own running gag, and put it to good use.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3095", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2167/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3438, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Citing specific pages of a long source is quite common. There are two ways of doing it:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Cite the page number(s) along with the reference number in the body of the text, e.g. [12, pp140-142], or [Smith 90, pp140-142].</p></li>\n<li><p>Give each reference in the body of the text a different number, and then list them using \"<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibid.\" rel=\"noreferrer\">ibid</a>\". For example:</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>[12] J. K. Author, \"Title of thesis\", ... , pp140-142.</p>\n \n <p>[13] Ibid., p42.</p>\n \n <p>[14] Ibid., pp10-12.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3705, "author": "Bill", "author_id": 2454, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2454", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>According to the third edition of <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0313330409\" rel=\"noreferrer\">How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper</a> that I have, one should list only significant, published references. References to unpublished data, papers in press, abstracts, theses, and other secondary materials should not clutter up the References or Literature Cited section (i.e. Bibliography). If such a reference seems absolutely necessary, one may add it parenthetically, or as a footnote in the text.</p>\n\n<p>I do not necessarily agree with this since, I have seen theses (at least) being cited in the Bibliography, not to mention URL's to websites (where information is more transient).</p>\n\n<p>As for the use of inclusive pagination (i.e. first and last page numbers), it makes it easier for potential users to distinguish between one-page notes and 50 page review articles. The only time I have seen this done is to distinguish between articles/chapters in @journal, @incollection, @book or @inbook type references to say the least. Typically, the style has been to include all pages of the reference rather than a subset of pages. If you want to make reference to a particular page or chapter of a dissertation or thesis, however, you may do so in your text along with the citation. For example,</p>\n\n<pre><code>In chapter 1 of Micciancio's PhD thesis [1]....blah.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Where [1] appears beside the reference to Micciancio's PhD thesis in the Bibliography. At least, that's how I've seen others do it.</p>\n\n<p>Ex-citing stuff, isn't it...? ;-)</p>\n\n<p>P.S. Here are a couple of examples of how referenced articles, books and theses appear in the Bibliography using the IEEE style.</p>\n\n<pre><code>[1] Bart Preneel, “The state of cryptographic hash functions”,\n in Lectures on Data Security, I. Damgård, Ed.,\n Berlin Heidelberg, January 1999, vol. 1561/1999, pp.\n 158–182, Springer-Verlag.\n\n[2] Wenbo Mao, Modern Cryptography Theory and Practice,\n Prentice Hall, 2004.\n\n[3] Eli Biham and Adi Shamir, Differential cryptanalysis of\n the data encryption standard, Springer-Verlag, London,\n UK, 1993.\n\n[4] Xiaoyun Wang and Hongbo Yu, “How to break MD5 and\n other hash functions”, EUROCRYPT 2005, pp. 19–35,\n 2005.\n\n[5] Bart Van Rompay, Analysis and Design of Cryptographic\n Hash Functions, MAC Algorithms and Block\n Ciphers, PhD thesis, KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT\n LEUVEN, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Leuven-\n Heverlee, June 2004.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Note that the first citation is from an @inprocedings type reference, while the fourth is from a @journal. The second and third citation are @book type references, while the fifth is a thesis. Note that the above references were generated using BiBTeX. Although it is possible to add inclusive pagination to the @book and @thesis type references, BiBTeX will ignore them. I have tried and tested this for the @thesis style at least.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3437", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2935/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3470, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Either of those is fine (\"&amp;\" is just another way to write \"and\") and will be understood. Another formulation you'll sometimes see is \"Aug 4-5, 2011\", but this is better for things that are continuous, like a convention. I assume your presentation will be in two parts, one on Aug 4 and the other on Aug 5, and that in between you'll be doing other stuff (eating, socializing, sleeping...).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3471, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I never use ampersands in copy unless they're part of a proper company name (e.g., Johnson &amp; Johnson). It just looks lazy to me. I would write it as \"August 4–5,\" because the presentation is taking place on two consecutive days. (Nobody assumes it's a 48-hour presentation.) </p>\n\n<p>I would use \"and\" if the dates are not contiguous: \"The concerts will be held on August 4 and 6.\"</p>\n\n<p>If you were asking this on Graphic Design SE, you could argue that you could use an ampersand as a design element, or to save room if space is at a premium. But for a slide title? No. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3469", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2373/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3845, "author": "Lynn Beighley", "author_id": 1679, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1679", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Maybe break it into two sentences?</p>\n\n<p>When you send this function a NUT_ID, it returns a WINGNUT_SELLER_CODE. This code is from the'THREADED_NUTS' screen in the 'Vendor' field.</p>\n\n<p>I almost always use \"that\". (Every copy editor I've ever encountered seems determined to eradicate all uses of \"which\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3849, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Edited based on comments:</p>\n\n<p>Given the following function declaration:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>f_get_vend_code(v_nut_id varchar2) return varchar2;</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I would write the description as follows:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This function takes a nut ID (NUT_ID) and returns the vendor's seller code (WINGNUT_SELLER_CODE) for this form. If NUT_ID is not set (blah blah blah). If the function cannot find a valid seller ID it (does something).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Note: I'm using Java idioms because those are the ones I'm familiar with. I'm assuming that \"takes (a parameter)\" and \"returns\" are meaningful for your audience too; you should verify that by reading other API documentation for this language. I am also assuming that the values you originally used, e.g. NUT_ID, are meaningful even though they don't appear in the signature; if that's not the case then I would omit them in the description.</p>\n\n<p>Also note that I went beyond your original question to cover invalid parameters and error conditions. Good API documentation goes beyond what they can get from just reading the signature and tells them what they wouldn't be able to figure out otherwise.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3906, "author": "Adeem", "author_id": 2484, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2484", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Try </p>\n\n<p>For a given NUT_ID, this function provides the WINGNUT_SELLER_CODE that fills the 'Vendor' field on the 'THREADED_NUTS' screen.</p>\n\n<p>Your original comment is </p>\n\n<p>This function returns the WINGNUT_SELLER_CODE that appears in the 'Vendor' field<br>\non the 'THREADED_NUTS' screen for a given NUT_ID. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3913, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Given your comment to Monica, it seems to me that your original description goes way beyond what the function actually does. In particular, the function does not itself display the seller id, but instead returns it to some other code that displays it. The f_get_vend_code() function itself does not interact with either the form or the field, so there's no need to mention them.</p>\n\n<p>If that's true, describe only what the function does: \"This function returns the vendor code for the nut identified by NUT_ID.\"</p>\n\n<p>Also: The name of the function and its parameter seem almost sufficient documentation in and of themselves. Could you improve those names so as to make the documentation unnecessary? At least spell out \"vendor\" instead of unnecessarily abbreviating it as \"vend\". If you do that, what's left for the documentation to convey?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3843", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2543/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3886, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Sorry, but you really haven't eliminated all the jargon from here. Based on what your question actually says, I think it would be \"Cannot translate <em>concept 1</em> to <em>concept2</em> because <em>concept2</em> has already been defined as <em>concept3</em>.\" </p>\n\n<p>Is there a difference between 'name1' and 'concept1' (except in the White Knight's sense of \"The name of the song is called... but the song is called something else entirely\")?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3887, "author": "FumbleFingers", "author_id": 1662, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1662", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Firstly, it's <em>always</em> a good idea to clearly indicate whether the message reflects an actual error, or simply a warning which the user may choose to ignore.</p>\n<p>Secondly, try to minimise use of &quot;jargon&quot; terms such as <strong>translate, higher precedence</strong>, and <strong>overrides</strong>.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Warning: The 'name1' concept1 is assumed to be a type of 'name3' concept3, not a 'name2' concept2.</p>\n<p>Warning: The 'Fred' apple is assumed to be a type of 'Julia' tangerine, not a 'John' orange.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Depending on the exact context, it might be better to replace the &quot;not...&quot; bit at the end with something like &quot;(did you mean a 'John' orange)&quot;.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3890, "author": "Joshin", "author_id": 2478, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2478", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Cannot translate the ‘name1’ concept1 to the ‘name2’ concept2 because the higher\nprecedence ‘name3’ concept3 also exists, which overrides it.</p>\n\n<p>If there are more ‘name3’ concept3 than ‘name1’ concept1 then ‘name1’ concept1 cannot be translated to ‘name2’ concept2 .</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3891, "author": "e.James", "author_id": 2593, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2593", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If you want to keep the same format, I would go with:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Cannot translate 'name1' concept1 to 'name2' concept2 because an existing translation from 'name3' concept3 to 'name2' concept2 takes precedence.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Using your fruit example, it would look like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Cannot translate the 'Fred' apple to the 'John' orange because an existing translation from the 'Julia' tangerine to the 'John' orange takes precedence.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I have a strong feeling that this error message will cause a lot of confusion to someone who is not already familiar with your precedence rules. It might help to add more information (especially information that will help resolve the issue). For example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Cannot translate the 'Fred' apple to the 'John' orange because an existing translation from the 'Julia' tangerine to the 'John' orange takes precedence. This error occurs when you create translations with different sources that have the same result. You should remove the lower prededence translation or re-evaluate your order of precedence.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3892, "author": "thaddy", "author_id": 2595, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2595", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Relative clauses (\"which overides it\") make the reader work. They have to go back and forth in the sentence trying to match up the \"which\"s and the \"it\"s.</p>\n\n<p>By the sounds of it, you are doing something very abtstract and technical so the reader is working hard enough already. Don't worry about dumbing it down! Without the relative clause it might go like this :</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Cannot translate the ‘Fred’ apple to the ‘John’ orange because the\n ‘John’ orange is blocked by the existance of the higher precedence\n ‘Julia’ tangerine.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Instead of \"the existance of\", maybe try \"the presence of\", or just leave it out altogether:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Cannot translate the ‘Fred’ apple to the ‘John’ orange because the\n ‘John’ orange is blocked by the higher precedence ‘Julia’ tangerine.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3885", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2590/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4377, "author": "John Smithers", "author_id": 99, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/99", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's not that uncommon to repeat the name in business (which is also formal) emails. Especially if the signature also name your title:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>...\n Sincerely,</p>\n \n <p>John Doe </p>\n \n <p>Senior Principal Software Engineer John Doe\n Acme Widget Company<br>\n 123 Elm Street<br>\n Metropolis, USA</p>\n \n <p>Don't miss our fairy tale session, eeh, marketing summit on March, 29th</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So even without a job title, you can repeat it.</p>\n\n<p>If you hate redundancy, then left it off, as you described. You can separate the name from the address, so it looks a little bit more \"friendly\":</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sincerely,</p>\n \n <p>John Doe </p>\n \n <p>Acme Widget Company<br>\n 123 Elm Street<br>\n Metropolis, USA </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You can also ask yourself, if you really need a signature. Some laws require them for companies (at least here in Germany), but according to your sample content, I assume you do not need the company name in there. I don't think you need a full signature just for asking your professor for help. Your name should suffice.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4378, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Do you have the option of turning the signature block off on an individual email? that would solve the redundancy problem.</p>\n\n<p>You can also style your sig block so that it's obviously autogenerated (different color, smaller size), and then sign with your first name. I have seen people just sign with \"sincerely\" because their name is in the sig block, but I personally find that a little lazy.</p>\n\n<p>Informal emails I either don't sign or I sign with my initials. (which then occasionally leads to response emails <i>addressed</i> to my initials [\"Dear LGI,\"], which I find amusing.) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4381, "author": "dlamblin", "author_id": 2827, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2827", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Professors and the like have been reading emails for long enough that I bet they know these two conventions that you seem to indicate you're unsure of:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Emails, being not letters, contain who they are from in their\nheaders. Email readers display this to the recipient in the way in\nwhich the recipient is likely most accustomed to by now.</li>\n<li>Emails may, or may not, have a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block\">signature block</a> at the end.\nThis block is separated from the content by a line of text\nconsisting of only \"-- \" (dash dash space). A good email reader\nwill format, color, or highlight this block differently. A\nheavy email user will ignore it.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So right off the bat, you're doing it wrong with how you delimit your signature. Secondly this block should be ignored by the person reading it, unless they're looking for some information they haven't seen in the email or the headers (your address, where, yes, it's okay to repeat your name). Often this is ignored because people once generated them per email with quotes of the day, famous sayings, bible bits etc. thus they're totally about expressing personal tastes. When you assume they're ignored, there's no duplicate information in them to worry about; they're entirely redundant.</p>\n\n<p>When writing formally with an opening and closing as though it were a formal letter, yes, you will say \"Dear Your Name\" [redundant because the name is in the to header] and \"Sincerely My Name\" [redundant because your name is in the from header], and in countries like Ireland, Switzerland, Germany etc. where certain signed information is mandatory, there will be a standardized sig block.</p>\n\n<p>My recommendation for your case is to change your signature block a little (if that's permissible) to fix the apparently duplicated lines containing just your name. I'm thinking like:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Dear Prof. Bar,\n\n Please explain how Lagrange multipliers help to find minima of functions.\n\nSincerely,\n\n-John Doe\n\n--\nAddress: John Doe at Acme Widget Company\n 123 Elm Street, Metropolis, ST 00000, USA\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>At least you're not using one of those totally unenforceable disclaimers that foist some supposed compliant behaviors on the recipient.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10272, "author": "virtualxtc", "author_id": 7903, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/7903", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<h1>Get rid of it!</h1>\n<h2>Clear communication is easiest when you have a high-signal-to-noise ratio; your signature is noise.</h2>\n<p>Caveat: if you are certain the person you are emailing actually needs it.</p>\n<h2>If in doubt, link to your company's page: <a href=\"http://ginkgobioworks.com/about.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">contact</a></h2>\n<p>Or, link to your professional <a href=\"http://lnkd.in/_4Ag3x\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">profile</a>.</p>\n<h3>If inadequate, create and link to a private <a href=\"http://npdoty.name/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">hcard</a> or text file.</h3>\n<p>This is best done via a service like Dropbox or Google drive's <code>share via private link</code> feature and coupled with a custom URL shortener.</p>\n<h3>If you must use a URL, ensure it is small but obvious</h3>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/in/jhfuller\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">linkedin.com/in/jhfuller</a> vs <a href=\"https://tinyurl.com/ljhtn7o\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://tinyurl.com/ljhtn7o</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4376", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/228/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4487, "author": "John Smithers", "author_id": 99, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/99", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You are right. \"ibid\" is short for \"<a href=\"http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ibidem\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ibidem</a>\", meaning \"in the same place\". It is used to not repeat the same title again and again.</p>\n\n<p>Also have a look at this question:<br>\n<a href=\"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3352/vancouver-system-citing-multiple-sentences-from-the-same-book\">Vancouver system, citing multiple sentences from the same book</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4488, "author": "Kate S.", "author_id": 1579, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1579", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Be careful, though. \"ibid\" is considered, at least in some circles, to be old-fashioned, even archaic. What citation style is your girlfriend using?</p>\n\n<p>ETA: Unless someone <em>in authority</em> advised her to use it, I don't think she should. You're using it as correctly as possible, but it's still not likely to be a popular choice in this day and age.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4486", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2891/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4566, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's sort of an anti-<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjambment\" rel=\"nofollow\">enjambment</a>. I have no idea if it has a formal name. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4570, "author": "Steven Drennon", "author_id": 2343, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2343", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know that there is any formal name or style associated with this. One of the unique things about poetry is that it can ultimately be whatever the author wants it to be, and it can take on whatever shape the author wants as well. There was a point in time where people tried to categorize poetry according to meter or rhyming patterns, but that doesn't seem to be the case so much any more. For the most part, I would suggest just writing your poetry and leaving the classification to your readers! </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4572, "author": "Craig Sefton", "author_id": 1624, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1624", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would suggest that this is a hybrid form of <a href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/495734/refrain\" rel=\"nofollow\">refrain</a>, which is a \"phrase, line, or group of lines repeated at intervals throughout a poem, generally at the end of the stanza\". The usage you demonstrate isn't your typical refrain, since your example repeats a phrase from the previous sentence, and does not repeat it again. A repetend, which is a type of refrain, may be a better match, but again, it's not exactly the same thing, since a repetend is an irregular repetition of the same word or phrase throughout the poem.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4594, "author": "Sean Vikoren", "author_id": 2951, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2951", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This looks like an example of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect\" rel=\"nofollow\">Haiku</a> poetry. </p>\n\n<p>Even though in the West, the 5-7-5 pattern of syllables is more strictly observed, even masters of the form do not always adhere to this exact restriction.</p>\n\n<p>It could also be considered a Haiku with a nod to <a href=\"http://www.terramedia.co.uk/fisherscircle/poetry_handbook_verseforms.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">Common English Hymn Metres</a> which follow an 8-6-8-6 syllable rhythm.</p>\n\n<p>As for the repetition; though it is uncommon in Haiku, <a href=\"http://www.tempslibres.org/tl/en/textes/essai05.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">there are some</a> that welcome the technique into the tradition.</p>\n\n<p>Notice the syllables:</p>\n\n<pre><code>6 - So, are you missing me?\n8 - Missing me so much that you crave,\n6 - crave to meet me right now...\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>An example of 5-7-5 Haiku:</p>\n\n<pre><code>5 - Whitecaps on the bay:\n7 - A broken signboard banging\n5 - In the April wind.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>~ Richard Wright (collected in Haiku: This Other World, Arcade Publishing, 1998)</p>\n\n<p>Please recall the question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What is this form of poetry called?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Answer:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect\" rel=\"nofollow\">Haiku</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4603, "author": "Lockjaw", "author_id": 2987, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2987", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not aware of any term for it, but I would suggest that it's a bad idea. Unless the consistent repetition occurring at the end and beginning of every line is arguing, somehow, for some kind of legitimately <em>emotional</em> refrain -- and spastic urgency is the only thing that suggests itself offhand -- then the device is going to scream <em>gimmick</em> and whatever emotional effect you were seeking is going to be trumped by an annoying, textual stutter, one that immediately becomes predictable.</p>\n\n<p>With forms that mandate repetition of various kinds, such as the sestina or villanelle, the form itself also incorporates variety and allows for the poet to play with how that repetition is read. It's probably better to avoid something like this, especially with such short lines, and let the words simply express the core argument and figuration, viz., trust your language.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4610, "author": "Mallory", "author_id": 2991, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2991", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Wouldn't this be considered a type of anadiplosis?--though anadiplosis is typically the repetition of a single word. It doesn't seem to be an actual poetic form, but more of a stylistic device. </p>\n\n<p>There's a Wikipedia article on it <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadiplosis\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4563", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2971/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4638, "author": "Alan Gilbertson", "author_id": 2775, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2775", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The simple approach is to give all of your subsection text a left indent, and possibly a right indent, to set it off slightly from the main section text. Any text starting at the normal left margin would then be identifiable as belonging to the main section.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4668, "author": "Peter Grill", "author_id": 3015, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3015", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You could label the section <code>Conclusions</code> add a divider that separates it from other sections. See this question on <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/38578/4301\">long underscore to divide sections of text</a> on different options. This should sufficiently differentiate from the other <code>\\subsections</code>:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/m6K9j.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4636", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3003/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4739, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Roughly speaking, it means if you have to pay alimony, you have to earn money. Writing is not a way to earn money (for most of us). He's suggesting that it's insufficient income for an alimony payment, so a writer would have to take on some other work to earn enough money to make the payment, thus cutting into writing time.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, you do have to suffer to write, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. ;) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4746, "author": "Zayne S Halsall", "author_id": 16, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, and without any reference to support it, I've always believed the quote meant that those dedicated to a writing career often cannot also effectively support a long-term, committed relationship. Which leads to divorce. And alimony.</p>\n\n<p>Hence the curse. And Kris' reference from TJ Smith citing Mailer's six wives seems to confirm he suffered from it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4837, "author": "Dr9", "author_id": 3141, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3141", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>That if you take a writing class you'll want to become a writer, and your wife will leave you. Worse still, as a writer you won't make enough money to afford the alimony. [That last part is subtle, if money were not scarce than paying it wouldn't be so much a problem]</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4738", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/252/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5566, "author": "Goodbye Stack Exchange", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>People generally speak with \"um\" and \"huh\" peppered throughout their speech. Their meaning can be defined in a general sense, but that meaning may not always be consistent, and some of their meaning will be encoded in body language. (Nods, facial expressions, gesticulations, and so on.) </p>\n\n<p>For example, see <a href=\"http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/huh\" rel=\"noreferrer\">this definition of \"huh\"</a>: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>—used to express surprise, disbelief, or confusion, or as an inquiry inviting affirmative reply</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In my experience, it can also indicate agreement (if accompanied by a nod). So that's five possible meanings. </p>\n\n<p>Similarly, \"uh huh\" means agreement - in a vague sort of way - but it can mean sarcastic agreement or emphatic agreement, and the writer would have to indicate this very well. For example, what does this mean? </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Uh huh\", she said, shaking her head. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course, context within the text will help. But many writers omit these in dialog, employing them only occasionally for effect. Including them all the time or too often looks odd or makes people look stupid. Making people look stupid will also reflect badly on the writer, since it can come across as a cheap shot. </p>\n\n<p>I won't say to never use them - that'd be silly, users are used to them to a point - but I'd reserve these words for when you want to indicate, um, confusion or indecision in a character who's already been established to the reader. </p>\n\n<p>Indicating body language helps. It makes the reader work harder, but it <em>can</em> be used to good effect. Just don't overuse the technique, like any special effect. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5567, "author": "Jed Oliver", "author_id": 3496, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3496", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My advice: Try not to use them. Instead, try a more creative solution first. </p>\n\n<p>Maybe something like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Paul shambled into the kitchen at around noon on Sunday. The coffee\n was, thankfully, still warm. \"Apartment Fire Kills Seven in Columbus\"\n said the paper that his wife read as she took heavy drags on the first of many\n afternoon cigarettes.</p>\n \n <p>\"That asshole boss of yours making you stay late again, Paul?\"\n questioned Mary as she flicked ashes into her empty cup. Paul grunted\n affirmatively as he sipped his coffee, black.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Compare that to:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"That asshole boss of yours making you stay late again, Paul?\"\n questioned Mary as she flicked ashes into her empty cup. \"Mmm-hmm,\"\n said Paul as he sipped his coffee, black.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I think the first sample is more easily read. In the second one, the onomatopoeia of the \"Mmm-hmm\" gets in the way when reading. Granted, it's not a huge difference; it's just that the first one is a much smoother read. </p>\n\n<p>But sometimes you will really want to or need to use a transcribed grunt. If you want to use them effectively, then there should probably be some ground rules on how to write them in a proper way.</p>\n\n<p>Fortunately there's <a href=\"http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W00-1004.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this article</a> from Nigel Ward at the University of Tokyo entitled \"Issues in the Transcription of English Conversational Grunts\". (Yes. Really.)</p>\n\n<p>Among many other helpful suggestions and observations it provides the following \"Phonetically Accurate Schemes\":</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hesitation Sounds: Use \"uh\" or \"ah\" for hesitations consisting of a\n vowel sound, and \"um\" or \"hm\" for hesitations with a nasal sound,\n depending upon which transcription the actual sound is closest to. Use\n \"huh\" for aspirated version of the hesitation as in \"huh? [other\n speaker responds] um ok, I see your point.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>. . .</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Yes/no sounds: Use \"uh-huh\" or \"um-hum\" (yes) and \"huh-uh\" or\n \"hum-um\" (no) for anything remotely resembling these sounds of assent or denial\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>. . .</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Another scheme (Lander, 1996) lists several \"miscellaneous words\",\n including: \"nuh uh\" (no), \"mm hmm\" (yes), \"hmm mmm\" (no), \"mm\n mm\" (no), \"uh huh\" (yes), \"huh uh\" (no), \"uh uh\" (no)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>While this does codify the matter, I think that it minimizes but does not eliminate the possible ambiguity from using \"conversational grunts\" in writing. I believe that the best thing to do is to creatively avoid using words like <em>uh-huh</em> and <em>huh-uh</em> as much as possible, using them sparingly and <em>only</em> as a last resort. Mmm-kay?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5569, "author": "Nathan C. Tresch", "author_id": 3523, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3523", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Dialogue is the only place that it's appropriate to use informal language like this, in fact, if your character is someone who is generally informal and they are likely to speak like this it would seem incongruous in many cases if a character were to enunciate \"Yes\" or \"no\" clearly. Further, as to \"nuh\" being a word or not, who cares? In America, \"nuh uh\" is uttered frequently by children and adults who speak like children. Dialogue should reflect the way your character would actually speak, regardless if a prescriptivist would say that those words aren't real. Twain was the first american to write speech the way people actually spoke, it was considered groundbreaking at the time, and even now a great many authors don't do it. Your characters will seem more alive and real if they are seen to speak in the manner of real people, and the personal connection between your reader and your characters will be that much stronger.</p>\n\n<p>Conveying the intention of the words to the reader is easy, as the person being spoken to will hopefully understand the intention, and so their reaction will clue the reader in to what was meant by the grunts. Personally I do my best never to pander to my readers and hit them over the head with explanations of every detail, and instead I rely on clues that allow me to \"show them, not tell them.\" If a person in your book speaks like this often, you can start by spelling out \"uh-huh\" a few times, and then showing the reaction of the person being spoken to, then you can lead the reader in stages of less and less description, \"Joseph grunted in the affirmative,\" \"Joseph nodded yes and grunted his response,\" \"Joseph grunted his usual affirmitive reply\".</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/5565", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/300/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5754, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If I'm understanding you correctly, I think what you want are <em>case studies</em> to demonstrate your points.</p>\n\n<p>So you put forth one of your arguments &mdash; \"switching to the individual bucket version reduces problems A, B, and C\" &mdash; and then you put in a section with an actual real-life example:</p>\n\n<p><hr />\n<strong>Case Study: Acme Widget Coders Amalgamated</strong></p>\n\n<p>AWCA had been using centralized bucketing for many years, but it was causing production bottlenecks whenever the buckets were all dumped into the same coding trough at the end of a widgeting session. Switching over to individual buckets was a huge boost to efficiency. Programmers had more flexibility, errors were caught much earlier in the process, and there were fewer holes in the buckets, dear Liza, dear Liza.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<p>If you do this for each facet of your argument (or each problem which your trendy technique purports to solve), then your reader will see that you're not just lusting after the latest sparkly vampire of coding solutions, but rather presenting something which is useful and has been field-tested to produce significant results.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5758, "author": "Kit Z. Fox", "author_id": 2074, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2074", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The key is to establish a strong foundation first. Someone who is resistant to change will need to see why change is necessary, how it can be accomplished easily and cheaply, and <em>then</em> feel the pressure of &quot;all the cool kids are doing it.&quot;</p>\n<p>If you don't establish the reason why change <em>must</em> happen, then social proof will look like flash-in-the-pan.</p>\n<p>I would suggest first demonstrating the advantages of the new over the old, and then the benefits of adopting the new practice which comes at the modest expense of a tiny little paradigm shift.</p>\n<p>Once you've established a sensible and strong argument for the adoption of the new practice, <em>then</em> you can leverage social proof as additional support.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>CVCS has been the standard since it became necessary to do something other than copy material to a dated folder in the &quot;Backup&quot; file. However, methods of software production have changed since CVCS was introduced 20 years ago, resulting in performance bottlenecks and cranky people wasting time on the nets while waiting for their code to be ready. DVCSs solves the classical frustrations of CVCSs, such as avoiding merging hell and commit races. The adoption of DVCS creates a versioning environment that is more natural for workers, resulting in geometrically increased productivity and infinitely scalable cooperativity. Training workers to use the new format takes less than a week, and once adopted, it quickly becomes intuitive. They can version in their sleep.</p>\n<p>Many sensible, knowledgeable, and successful people have already recognized the genius of this plan. They shag frequently with beautiful, famous, and wealthy people. We recommend you adopt this practice as well, since everyone will be doing it in the future.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>What you want to do is establish why this is a good practice, how it can be adopted especially by people who are familiar with the old practice, and then give a little peer pressure. That way, the reader will feel more like they will be on the cutting edge rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5764, "author": "dukeofgaming", "author_id": 3610, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3610", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think I've found another way to leverage social proof as such: the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">hype cycle</a>. Pasting from Wikipedia:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Technology Trigger\" — The first phase of a hype cycle is the \"technology trigger\" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.</li>\n<li>\"Peak of Inflated Expectations\" — In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.</li>\n<li>\"Trough of Disillusionment\" — Technologies enter the \"trough of disillusionment\" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.</li>\n<li>\"Slope of Enlightenment\" — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the \"slope of enlightenment\" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.</li>\n<li>\"Plateau of Productivity\" — A technology reaches the \"plateau of productivity\" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The 5th stage called the plateau of productivity can demonstrate (to a certain degree; it can be deemed unscientific) that a technology has become mature and stable.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/P6tz3.gif\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>This could be partly demonstrated with <a href=\"http://www.google.com/insights/search\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Google Insights for search</a> and the correct search terms:</p>\n\n<pre><code>dvcs +distributed +git +mercurial -nike -\"mercurial vapor\" -FIFA\nscm +distributed +git + mercurial -nike -\"mercurial vapor\" -FIFA\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/clbDx.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>(Should give them more tries, as these are biased)</p>\n\n<p>In the paper I think I can give historical proof of each phase and as such give an historical overview of version control systems. For the plateau of productivity I can use the case studies Lauren Ipsum suggested.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/5752", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3610/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6082, "author": "John Smithers", "author_id": 99, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/99", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Focus on your main goal: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>It should be readable and intuitive</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The other two goals make your life easier, but not necessarily the lives of your readers. Your readers come first.</p>\n\n<p>So screenshots of a directory structure would be easy to comprehend. But if you have stress and have to finish the book because of some deadline, what will suffer most? Yes, revising the screenshots. Are they still correct? Do they correspond with the text? Is it easy to miss important things in a hurry? Yes. If they were easy to change, they would serve your readers better.</p>\n\n<p>You see, I fooled you in the beginning, but that had it purpose: focusing.</p>\n\n<p>\"Looking professional\" is an odd term, much overused, seldom defined. Care about the look later, or in between, but not at the beginning, you can change things.</p>\n\n<p>So, you do not like</p>\n\n<p><pre><code>|-myproj\n |-WEB-INF\n |-classes\n |-libs\n</pre></code></p>\n\n<p>Then make it simpler. What about</p>\n\n<p><pre><code>-myproj\n -WEB-INF\n -classes\n -libs\n</pre></code></p>\n\n<p>Directory structures are hierarchical structures. Show the hierarchy and you are fine. Don't overstress showing some lines pointing from parent to child, just indent. That should be fine.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6083, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I do something similar to your ASCII implementation, but instead of an ASCII block I use compact bulleted lists (with sub-lists). File/directory names are still styled as they would be in running text. In addition to conveying the structure, this also gives me a handy place to add explanations where needed, which is particularly important when (from the user's point of view) the information is new. For example, my approach would let you explain what WEB-INF is for. (In that bullet: \"<code>WEB-INF</code>: explanation.\" Typography distinguishes name from explanation.)</p>\n\n<p>Screenshots are usually a bad idea in my experience; they have to be edited/updated separately so they might rot (as @Piotr said), and if the document isn't WYSIWIG but, say, HTML, the author of the document might not see the screenshot \"inline\" while editing. Not seeing the screen shots in your (say) text editor can lead to text-screenshot mismatches. Further, screenshots aren't as visually accessible as text; they don't work with screen readers (unless you also type everything is alt text) and readers can't style the page for font sizes, colors, or contrast. This doesn't mean never use screenshots or other graphics; they're an important part of many documents. It <em>does</em> mean to not use them when they're not necessary. In this case, you have a text alternative that provides the same information, so you should prefer that.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6086, "author": "coleopterist", "author_id": 3880, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3880", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would go with option 2. However, you do not need to manually build the structure. I instead recommend using a tool such as <a href=\"http://mama.indstate.edu/users/ice/tree/\">Tree</a> which should handle the pretty-printing for you as below:</p>\n\n<pre><code>$ tree -d /var\nvar\n|-- backups\n|-- cache\n| |-- app-install\n| |-- apt\n| | `-- archives\n| | `-- partial\n| |-- apt-xapian-index\n| | |-- index.1\n| | `-- index.2\n| |-- cups\n| | `-- rss\n| |-- debconf\n| |-- dictionaries-common\n| |-- flashplugin-installer\n| |-- fontconfig\n| |-- hald\n| |-- jockey\n| |-- ldconfig [error opening dir]\n| |-- man\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The script should be available as a package in your distro. I can confirm that it is in Ubuntu.</p>\n\n<p>I also suggest that you contact your editor to get his/her opinion. The publisher very likely has its own style guidelines for such matters (with layout in mind). If you do go ahead with a text representation, I recommend that you add a sticky somewhere reminding you to check the indentation in the final - whitespace often gets messed up when the book is laid out.</p>\n\n<p>P.S. ... and your editor will prefer a textual representation as well - saves ink ;)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6111, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Try\n<code>tree -d</code>\nat the CLI. Does pretty much what you want - automatically and should be easy to copy and paste into a document.</p>\n\n<pre><code>shelelia@halo:~$ tree -d installs\ninstalls\n├── bash_library\n├── dropbox\n│   ├── DEBIAN\n│   ├── DropboxServiceMenu-0.16.1\n│   │   └── dropbox-scripts\n│   └── kde\n├── HP\n...\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>It looks better on a terminal than in this post.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18519, "author": "user3276552", "author_id": 14789, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14789", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://atstp.github.io/wasabi/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wasabi</a> offers two approaches to it (you can find them both <a href=\"https://github.com/atstp/wasabi/tree/master/examples\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>)</p>\n\n<p>either <strong>indented</strong></p>\n\n<pre><code>root/ # entry comments can be inline after a '#'\n # or on their own line, also after a '#'\n\n readme.md # a child of, 'root/', it's indented\n # under its parent. \n\n usage.md # indented syntax is nice for small projects\n # and short comments.\n\n src/ # directories MUST be identified with a '/'\n fileOne.txt # files don't need any notation\n fileTwo* # '*' can identify executables\n fileThree@ # '@' can identify symlinks\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>or <strong>detailed</strong></p>\n\n<pre><code>root/\n this is a comment on 'root'\n\nroot/readme.md\n comments are indented under their entry this\n comment is for 'readme.md', a child of 'root/'\n it's specified by the full path\n\nroot/usage.md\n the detailed syntax is good for large projects\n and comprehensive commenting\n\nroot/src/\n directories MUST be identified with a trailing '/'\n\nroot/src/file.txt # some file\n</code></pre>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6078", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3871/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6169, "author": "Greg R.", "author_id": 2744, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2744", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Screenwriters don't specify shots or camera angles -- that's the job of the director and cinematographer. Since you know nothing about the actual production when you're writing the script, such information would be entirely hypothetical and largely useless. </p>\n\n<p>As the screenwriter, you <em>should</em> specify the setting and time in the scene's slug line, using INT. or EXT. for interior or exterior, a brief description of the setting, and DAY or NIGHT for the time of day. </p>\n\n<pre><code> INT. JOE'S GARAGE - NIGHT\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Sometimes it might be necessary to include some additional information, i.e. if it's important that the scene be taking place at dawn, include that. </p>\n\n<pre><code> EXT. ARIZONA DESERT - DAY (DAWN)\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Or, if it's a flashback you might need to include some information to indicate the change in set (if it's not obvious from the dialogue or action). </p>\n\n<pre><code>EXT. NEW YORK CITY STREET (1933) - DAY \n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Beyond those broad strokes, almost everything is a production decision, not a script decision. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10758, "author": "phindie", "author_id": 8490, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8490", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>if you want to own the story and dont want the director to change it in anyway, than you can put little camera angles not too much but if you dont mind changes on yo story then let the director do their job, dont include angles</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16407, "author": "user3063101", "author_id": 13106, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13106", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You cannot write a script without visualizing what's happening, so I say add what you have in mind. I've seen it done both ways (especially in animation). If you plan to direct the feature it can't hurt to add every shot, since everything can be modified later, and will be if it's worth a damn. And personally, I wouldn't want to read a script with some visualization. It's a visual medium. Show me what you're thinking. \nAnd to say that you can't call shots without being on the set is absurd. You think they only make story boards after being on set? Call the shots then stage accordingly.\nBottom line is: Do what you think is best for that story. The more information provided the better - you can delete things later...</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21849, "author": "Rhett", "author_id": 18762, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18762", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's a good question and I keep tripping over. </p>\n\n<p>I am a director writing my first original screenplay and I constantly go back and forth between including angles and not. One day I will put them in and the next day I will go back and remove them all.</p>\n\n<p>It's a tricky one. On one hand I want to show the way I visualise the drama unfolding photographically but on the other hand I don't want to bog down the reader with technical detail when they should be deep in story.</p>\n\n<p>As a first time screenwriter with the clear aim to direct what I am writing, I want industry people to see my flare for the way I will direct it as they read... but there is a big danger of over doing things.</p>\n\n<p>PT Anderson is an obvious example but also a good one for a guy who is probably an equal talent at writing and directing. Take a look at Boogie Nights, it has camera angles thorough it and it reads similarly to how it was directed and cut. So I think the script worked as a clear blueprint for the picture he wanted to make. When you read the script I think the visual style, tone and rhythm of the picture are clear but aesthetic ideas don't overpower the story.</p>\n\n<p>Then take a look at Magnolia which is pretty extreme. At that time New Line said they would give him final cut on whatever he wanted to do next and his dad had passed so he went balls out and wrote an epic script with an abyss of detail. Read the first 10 pages, sooooo much camera direction. I saw the film before I read the script but my feeling is unless you are someone who reads a LOT of scripts it could distract you away from the story. </p>\n\n<p>Perhaps if you read Magnolia without camera direction and PT just said \"it will have the intensity of Goodfellas in the way I direct it, that could have been enough to understand how it played out in his head. BUT the benefit for him at the time of writing was (because he knew what ever he wrote he'd direct) he could just create the blue print of exactly what he planned on doing. He's also said in early interviews that he does 90% of the work in the writing and then he doesnt have to worry too much about working it out later. Or something along those lines. To be clear I love both films, just a hand example in regard to writing.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand have a read of Pulp Fiction. An incredibly visual picture with almost no camera direction in the screenplay. It's more or less a talking picture so it's the right approach. BUT QT knew he's be directing and he'd work out the detail in pre-production, it's worth mentioning he spends a lot of time on that kind of detail leading up to shooting. He's the opposite of Woody Allen.</p>\n\n<p>Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid strikes a bit of a balance where by you know what you are looking at through the writing without William Goldman ever saying \"camera\" or \"angle\".</p>\n\n<p>Jeff Nichols did a great talk about it that can be found on the On Story podcast. You can find it via iTunes. His school of thought is more in the William Goldman zone whereby you speak visually though action and description and let that tell the reader where you see the camera without resorting to technical jargon.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps it is about finding the balance and doing what is right for the story you are writing? I find the best scripts are the ones I read straight through without tripping over superfluous detail.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, they are thoughts. I better get back to adding and removing camera details. Later. x</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29466, "author": "Amadeus", "author_id": 26047, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26047", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe you should only include angles if they are actually important to the plot; not if they are \"artistic.\" If you need to show a bee flying up Mark's nose, perhaps. But even then, aren't you considering the director and cinematographer morons if they can't realize this?</p>\n\n<p>The only example I can think of is, say we have two cops, Alex and Bill, at different ends of their cop car, on a road somewhere. From Alex's POV we can see the suspect hiding in a drainage pipe. From Bill's POV we cannot see the suspect anywhere.</p>\n\n<p>From Bill's POV:\nBILL: \"What the hell? I can't see him anywhere.\"</p>\n\n<p>Switch to Alex's POV. The suspect's shoes retract slightly, further into the drainage pipe. Alex glances stonefaced at Bill, who is peering down the road, perplexed.</p>\n\n<p>ALEX: \"Me neither. Ya wanna try down the road a bit?\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29509, "author": "Weckar E.", "author_id": 24863, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24863", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>No, that's the job of the <em>Shooting Script</em>, not the narrative script you're probably thinking of. </p>\n\n<p>However, you <strong>are</strong> allowed to point out <em>Points Of Focus</em>. This is particularly important in some genres such as mystery thrillers where clues not noticed by the characters should be noticed by spectators to facilitate story flow.</p>\n\n<p>Aside from the plot, the only thing you have any say in is information discrepency. Use that.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6164", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3421/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6297, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>That's not a bad opening. I might change it to \"Today we're going to talk about...\" to make it more inclusive, but there's nothing wrong with being straightforward. Another version might be \"Today I'd like to talk to you about...\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6298, "author": "Elena Mellor", "author_id": 4058, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4058", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>Hello everyone</em> should be alright. Make it natural, people won't care about the subtle way you greet them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6301, "author": "Jak Zodiac", "author_id": 4064, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4064", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What kind of information are you presenting? If you are presenting a weekly update to a board a normal introduction like the above will do just fine. </p>\n\n<p>However, if you are presenting something of import, or trying to persuade your audience on a certain subject I would say go with something more powerful. Start with a powerful argument, then introduce yourself. </p>\n\n<p>Mostly, be confident and knowledgeable in your topic. An introduction can easily be brushed aside if you know what you are talking about.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6306, "author": "Blessed Geek", "author_id": 3873, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3873", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Make the audience comfortable</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I believe everyone here is comfortable. We have water and beverages on the tables at the sides. Please feel free to saunter in the middle of my presentation to go there to get a cookie too, if the need and desire so arises. </p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Introduce yourself</strong> without self-aggrandisement. Attribute yourself as highly competent by saying that the people you work with are highly competent.</p>\n\n<p>I am Ally McBeal. I work with a team of experts in our company Caged Fish Wattle. Our company's expertise is highly focused on personal reputation and assets maintenance. With that expertise, we have amassed a wealth of skills, knowledge and experience in keeping <strong><em>your</em></strong> reputation, investments as well as real and virtual assets secure.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Introduce the modus operandi</strong>, without complicating details. Use illustrative words (not bombastic words) that would draw a picture for the clients with as brief a description as possible. Make the audience comfortable, seeing each one as potential client or existing client with potential for escalated relationship.</p>\n\n<p>We have a legal team, a team of finance and economic expertise, a cloud of computing hardware and the most hack-hardened network security and software experts. We even have a weather-forecast person who advises and issues reports to clients against any of <strong><em>your</em></strong> ventures having any potential of being hampered by geological and weather events.</p>\n\n<p>She happens to be with us here ... and here is Susan, the most pleasant colleague I've had the privilege to work with (Susan takes a slight bow and sits down). And, we are pleasantly surprised, that our chief technical officer is also here. George, the most intensely focused person I know. (George turns around smiles and waves slightly.)</p>\n\n<p>Our cloud resources has far and wide reaching capabilities to monitor and avert intrusions on your assets and ventures with speed and precision and a wide margin of pre-emption due to ever changing dynamic patterns that our technical capacity has been able to design and construct into our cloud, with constant and persistent adaptive reinforcement due to our legal and economic expertise. As well as weather forecasting expertise.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Your presentation</strong>.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr/>\n\n<p>Note the use of 2nd person pronoun \"your\", \"you\" (rather than \"their\" or \"they\") as often as possible, when addressing potential and existing clients.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6296", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4055/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6429, "author": "steve", "author_id": 4202, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4202", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The first half is a correct limerick.\nThe second, not so much.\nRemember the style/syllable construction of limericks.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6438, "author": "Kristina Lopez", "author_id": 4062, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4062", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The first limerick is fine. For the 2nd limerick, try these changes to the last three lines:</p>\n\n<p>\"Denied is our liability,\" has 2 too many syllables. Try:</p>\n\n<p>\"There's no liability,\" or \"Denied: liability,\"</p>\n\n<p>\" for damage, tort, or responsibility.\" has 4 too many syllables so try:</p>\n\n<p>\"for tort, damage, responsibility\" (you'll have to mash that last word a bit to make it fit but reversing tort and damage picks up a syllable)</p>\n\n<p>The last line has 1 too many syllables. If you can live with this, contract \"warranty\" (3 syllables) to \"war'n'ty\" (2 syllables):</p>\n\n<p>\"No war'n'ty express or implied.\"</p>\n\n<p>So, what I came up with is this:</p>\n\n<p>This work ‘as-is’ we provide.</p>\n\n<p>Therefore all claims are defied.</p>\n\n<p>Denied: liability,</p>\n\n<p>for tort, damage, responsibility.</p>\n\n<p>No war'n'ty express or implied.</p>\n\n<p>Phew! :-) Best of luck!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7185, "author": "alex", "author_id": 4682, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4682", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I'm tickled you've taking this poem further. All praise be to sharing! My intention, in classic recursion, is that the license is protected by its own terms but state that \"<a href=\"https://github.com/alexgenaud/Poetic-License\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Poetic License on GitHub\">Use of the license itself does not require its own notice</a>.\"</p>\n\n<p>As I understand, you are uncomfortable with \"We've done our best\" presumably concerned that the creators may not have \"done their best\". Let us then be honest!</p>\n\n<pre><code>This work 'as-is' I provide.\nNo warranty express nor implied.\n Just a geeky lug,\n did test and debug.\nYour computer's already fried.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The leading extra syllable in \"<em>To</em> use as is fit, free or for profit.\" renders the intended declarative verse grammatically incorrect. I myself was tempted to conform to the <em>Elements of Style</em> which advocates \"<em>For</em> free and <em>for</em> profit\" but this similarly chokes on verbosity and the divinity that inspired this stanza protested.</p>\n\n<pre><code>Permission is granted hereby,\nto copy, share, and modify.\n Use as is fit,\n free or for profit.\nOn this notice, these rights rely.\n\nThis work ‘as-is’ we provide.\nNo warranty express or implied.\n Responsibility\n and liability\nfor damages and tort, denied.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Cheers!\nAlex</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6428", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4201/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6865, "author": "user", "author_id": 2533, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2533", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I kind of doubt that there is a <em>standard</em> for it, at least. You might get away with using some marker that isn't used anywhere else, like <code>###</code>, to indicate a changed passage, but I'm not sure if that really qualifies as markup. In any case, it would have to be an agreement between the people involved which marker(s) to use and what they mean. Something like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Tracked changes look like ###this[WAS: these]###.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That said, depending on the technical inclination of the author(s) and editor(s), you might get away with something like setting up a GitHub account and uploading the text file there. Source control systems tend to be somewhat more geared toward programmers, but they solve your problem quite nicely: they allow multiple persons to work on a single text file (even simultaneously), tracking changes over time, displaying the differences between arbitrary versions, going back and forward between versions, and selectively rolling back any changes made.</p>\n\n<p>It may take a little getting used to for someone who isn't technically inclined, but if you are serious about doing this with only plain text files, it's a reasonably easy way forward once you get over the initial learning curve. And for writing, there's likely no need to deal with the more complex issues such as branching/merging and such; a linear history will likely work well enough.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6866, "author": "Goodbye Stack Exchange", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a good question. Unfortunately, outside of the programming realm, there's no system for tracking changes at the character level that I'm aware of. (If there is one, I'd love to know about it!) I suspect there are many, many such systems that have been cobbled together by individuals, however. </p>\n\n<p>This comes up often when blogging: Do we use Word files with their awesome change tracking features and then deal with all the garbage they produce before posting (possibly introducing errors)? Or do we work in plain text from the start, cobbling together some sort of change system like the one Michael suggests? </p>\n\n<p>If you absolutely need something like this, I recommend using marks that are catch the eye. [[[triple brackets]]] or ***lots of asterisks*** or ###other such signs###. (If you're working on source code or HTML, this could cause problems later. And, as you can see, sometimes <strong><em>lots of asterisks</em></strong> render as bold-italic text, indicating yet another problem.)</p>\n\n<p>Rather than embedding changes in the text itself, is it possible you could simply use versioning and the name of the person? For example, SampleFile_EditorNF_v1.0.1.txt may have meaning if you and your colleagues have agreed on a system. You could then use the compare revisions of a robust editor (such as BBEdit) to compare versions and see the changes. </p>\n\n<p>Another option is to use commenting to describe the changes. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6867, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've never used Notepad, but can it create PDFs? Or at least print to PDF?</p>\n\n<p>Because <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Acrobat\" rel=\"nofollow\">Acrobat Pro</a> has a dandy set of markup tools which I use all the time for proofreading emails:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Highlights</li>\n<li>Sticky notes</li>\n<li>Callouts (with arrows, lines, squares, circles, clouds, text cross-outs, polygon)</li>\n<li>I think there's even a freehand pencil tool. </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6870, "author": "Fortiter", "author_id": 4332, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4332", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you want to mark-up a text then the obvious solution is to use a mark-up language. The best known example today is HTML but the power of XML is that you can create your own tags (and share them with your collaborators through a DTD).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>You can <code>&lt;suggest</code>>track <code>&lt;/suggest</code>> follow changes such as removing redundant <code>&lt;replaced</code>> unnecessary extra<code>&lt;/replaced</code>> words.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Note that Markdown interprets invented tags as mark-up even when it does not know what to do with them. To get the paragraph above to appear correctly, I have used the tick character as an escape on the eginning and end of tags.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6889, "author": "Kris", "author_id": 2868, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2868", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The earliest/simplest I had known and the one that survives to-date with enough support is the classic <em>was:</em> -- (it's already been mentioned in the passing by @Michael Kjörling in his answer). </p>\n\n<p>I do not know much beyond the near-horizon (spatially and temporally) what people did or are doing, but I still use it in config files and the sort. </p>\n\n<pre><code>PDL_NAME=devNAME \nUninstallLevel=1 \nPST_DEL=OFF \nAUTHORITYCHECK=ON \nCheckJobMonitor=ON [was: OFF] \nDelRestoreFile=OFF \n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Suggested changes similarly are indicated by a \"query\": </p>\n\n<pre><code>PDL_NAME=devNAME [? portNAME]\nUninstallLevel=1 \nPST_DEL=OFF \nAUTHORITYCHECK=ON \nCheckJobMonitor=ON \nDelRestoreFile=OFF \n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6890, "author": "David Krause", "author_id": 4514, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4514", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure. You could save the file as an html document and use the <code>&lt;!-- Hello --&gt;</code> tags to denote suggested changes. When I worked at a freebie weekly, we used the comment function in Windows Word to suggest changes. The changes were then added in using red text and strike through's. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7117, "author": "brianmearns", "author_id": 4562, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4562", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, I would use a simple version control system like mercurial: there's no need for a server, you just pack up the entire directory (which contains the repository with all the version history), and trade it back and forth in email, for instance.</p>\n\n<p>You could also use a simple text-comparison tool, like <code>diff</code>: save your original file and have your editor make all of their changes and save that to a different file. Then you can just run diff to compare the two versions and see what changed. The nice thing about this is that your editor could run diff and save the comparison to a patch file, and then add comments directly to the patch file to explain each change that was made.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 20508, "author": "Duncan McKenzie", "author_id": 16571, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16571", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's been a few years since the above question was posed. Now, there is at least one system, CriticMarkup, designed to give plain text writers functionality that is similar to Microsoft Word's \"track changes\" feature. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://criticmarkup.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://criticmarkup.com</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21366, "author": "Montag451", "author_id": 10460, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10460", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Instead of trying to find a markup standard you should stick to the methods utilised by the tool. They wouldn't deviate too much from general markup standards and most of the time they hide the markup from the editor and just display it when needed. There are gazillions of text editing tools out there. I'm using at least 3 or 4 different tools with probably different markup and/or versioning methods. I don't care for the details and just benefit from the output.</p>\n\n<p>In addition to the tools suggested by the commentators (criticmarkup, acrobat pro, xml etc) I can get down the tools I'm currently using or did use in the past which all are capable of marking, commenting, drafting and/or versioning content.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://draftin.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Draftin</a> is an online tool for just writing plain text in a collaborative setup and has a few extra markup features above the basic feature set.</p>\n\n<p>Currently I'm creating service and end user documentation in <a href=\"https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence\" rel=\"nofollow\">Confluence</a> which has many powerful collaboration, markup, versioning etc features.</p>\n\n<p>In the past I've used Redmine which again had many built-in (or extendable with addons) powerful markup and versioning features.</p>\n\n<p>I'm also using Microsoft's and Google's online word processing and spreadsheeting tools which have almost every feature for collaboration, versioning, commenting, or marking up content.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6864", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/61/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6912, "author": "Kathryn", "author_id": 4475, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4475", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Seek guidance from others\"? </p>\n\n<p>Or \"Seek wisdom from others\"?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 6916, "author": "Iucounu", "author_id": 4528, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4528", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think Kathryn's examples are good. I can't think of a better, more succinct phrase than \"from others\" to convey that part of the meaning. If an approach combining the help and informational aspects is possible, it seems you have some choices for the ideas of the request and what is requested:</p>\n\n<pre><code>[ Ask for | request | seek | solicit ] \n[ advice | guidance | insight | knowledge | wisdom ]\nfrom others.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>With respect to knowledge, the big difference from information, of course, is that knowledge is learned information, or information made useful. I would personally shy away from such terms as \"teaching\" and \"instruction\" unless that is the specific sort of help that is intended to be sought.</p>\n\n<p>I think an optimal choice depends on the reason for the structure of the proposed rule, \"Ask for help &amp; learn from others.\" Is it really that the reader should ask for help from others, as well as learning from others, and that these are just bundled together as actions taken with regard to others in service to conciseness? For example, if one is building a roof, should one ask others to help one hammer in the shingles even if one already knows how, but still do one's best to learn from them in that and any other contexts that might arise? Or is the help and the learning supposed to occur together, i.e. one should ask for help in the form of knowledge or guidance when one doesn't know what to do? </p>\n\n<p>If the latter, I think that something like \"Seek knowledge from others\" or \"Seek guidance from others\", depending on the specific context, might be most appropriate. But if you're just bundling together two things one should do with others, your original attempt isn't actually too bad, but I might try different variations on for size, e.g. \"Ask others for help and guidance\", \"Learn and seek help from others\", etc.</p>\n\n<p>The slight clunkiness of the wording at present is caused, I suspect, by the desire for brevity. It would seem more correct to convert \"learn\" to a gerund, but it sounds silly to \"ask for learning from others\". It would also seem a little more clear structurally to go with something like \"Ask for help from, and learn from, others\" despite the repetition, but of course that's just ugly; nor do I much like \"Ask for help, and learn, from others\", though it does resolve the issue of \"Ask for help and learn\" being scanned initially and perceived as asking for two things, one of which is a verb. Once you've decided exactly what you're trying to convey and chosen your terms, I'm sure it will be easy to juggle things up a bit and find an arrangement that's both short and sweet-- perhaps even more so than this entry.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6907", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4527/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 7209, "author": "Adra Elkins", "author_id": 4549, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4549", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>That's a good place to break, yes. \nConsidering it's such a long quote, you don't want to let the reader lose their focus.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7210, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You have broken and punctuated it correctly. But if you're worried about the <em>she continued,</em> then change it up a little:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Well,\" Antimony began, taking a deep, thoughtful breath, and\n stepping a little closer. \"If you fill the 5 pound sack, and\n then empty it into a 3 pound sack, you'll have 2 pounds\n left over. Then you can empty the 3 pound sack back into\n your barrel, and transfer the two pounds of lentils into the\n three pound sack.\"</p>\n \n <p>He watched her thoughtfully, but didn't interrupt. She continued. \"You can fill the 5 pound sack again...\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So you move <em>she continued</em> to the beginning of the sentence and add another few words of stage business, and that's enough of a separator that it doesn't look so odd. It also resolves the \"close-quote\" question, because if you're adding narration, even though she's the same speaker, you have to close and open quotes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7257, "author": "micapam", "author_id": 352, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/352", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Avoiding the problem (as per Lauren Ipsum's answer) is probably the best way to deal with this. But let's assume you don't want to change anything about your paragraphs. The answer is unambiguous: no close quotation mark. For two reasons.</p>\n\n<p>First reason is simple correctness: you don't want <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Modern_English_Usage\" rel=\"nofollow\">Fowler</a> to turn in his grave.</p>\n\n<p>The more important reason is clarity. If I - as an unsuspecting reader - came across the passage as originally quoted, I would be forced to re-read it, because I'm being given contradicting cues. The closing quote mark on the previous paragraph tells me there's two different people speaking, and the 'she continued' tells me that it's just one. There are times when you want your reader to be pulled up short and have to think about what they're reading; but this isn't one of them.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/7208", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4562/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 7301, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are two concepts in git that can help: <em>branches</em> and <em>tags</em>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Tags.</strong>\nThink of a <em>tag</em> as a name for a specific revision. Any time you want to remember a version, create a tag for it. For example, when you finish a draft, you can tag it like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git tag first_draft\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>When to use tags.</strong>\nTags are good for marking any version that you might want to remember later.\nI use them to mark the end of each draft.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Branches.</strong> Think of a <em>branch</em> as a series of changes. The default branch is called <code>master</code>. That's a good branch to use for your initial research and first draft. Unless you create a new branch, every change you make updates the <code>master</code> branch.</p>\n\n<p><strong>When to use branches.</strong>\nWhenever you want to start on a new series of edits, you have a choice. You can either continue on the the current branch, or create a new branch.</p>\n\n<p>Some possible uses for branches:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><em>Drafts.</em> You might start each draft by creating a branch for it. (I tend not to do this, but it may suit your needs.)</p></li>\n<li><p><em>Experiments.</em> Suppose you want to experiment with rewriting a few scenes to change from first person to third, or to change the POV character. You can create a branch and do your experiments there. Later, if you like the new POV, you can continue writing on your experimental branch. If you don't like the POV changes after all, you can switch back to whatever branch you were on before.</p></li>\n<li><p><em>Submissions.</em> Before I make a submission, I'll often create a new branch, add my cover letter, make any minor manuscript changes specific to that recipient (e.g. quirks of mss formats), and add a text file with notes about the submission. When I receive a reply, I can check out the branch and update my notes.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I tend to use branches more for experiments and submissions than for drafts. When I finish a draft, I'll tag it, then continue with the second draft on the <code>master</code> branch.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Creating branches.</strong>\nTo create a new branch, use the <code>git branch</code> command like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git branch charles_pov\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>When you create a new branch, the new branch starts with the same content as the branch you were on. If you're on the <code>master</code> branch and you create a <code>charles_pov</code> branch, the <code>charles_pov</code> branch starts with the current content of the <code>master</code> branch.</p>\n\n<p>Note that creating a new branch doesn't switch to the new branch. To switch to a branch, see below.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Switching branches.</strong></p>\n\n<p>You can change branches at any time by \"checking out\" a branch. To switch to your new <code>charles_pov</code> branch:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git checkout charles_pov\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>When you commit changes, git updates whatever branch you are on, and leaves the other branches unchanged. So if you switch to the <code>charles_pov</code> branch, your changes will update the <code>charles_pov</code> branch, and the <code>master</code> branch will remain unchanged.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Creating a branch and switching to it in one command.</strong>\nYou can create a new branch and switch to it in a single command, like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git checkout -b charles_pov\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>Viewing tags and branches.</strong>\nYou can see a list of all tags and branches with these commands:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git tag\ngit branch\n</code></pre>\n\n<p><strong>Checking out a tag (AND A WARNING).</strong>\nRemember that a tag is a name for a specific version.\nIf you've tagged each draft, you can check out an old draft like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git checkout twelfth_draft\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Yep, you check out a tag the same way you check out a branch.</p>\n\n<p><strong>BUT NOTE</strong> that when you check out a tag, you are no longer on any branch.\nAny changes you make end up in a floaty nebulous place that I don't know how to explain succinctly.\nGit does warn you about this.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The current branch.</strong>\nTo see what branch you are currently on, use this command:</p>\n\n<pre><code>git branch\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Git displays all of the branches, and marks the current branch (the one that will be updated when you make changes) with an asterisk.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 34289, "author": "JBiggs", "author_id": 25988, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25988", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just to play devil's advocate a little bit, I think a case can definitely be made for <em>not</em> using a software version control tool in writing. </p>\n\n<p>As a writer who also works in the software development industry, I have some pet theories about this, though I am still experimenting myself.</p>\n\n<p>In 1967, a computer programmer called Melvin Conway coined what has become known as \"Conway's Law\":\n\"Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.\"</p>\n\n<p>This basically means that a piece of software is very probably (or even inevitably) going to come to resemble the organization that created it. This happens because software (like writing) is \"soft\" and a piece of functionality can be achieved in many ways, so a software engineer is inherently more limited by the organization they work for than the tools they use. </p>\n\n<p>I have a corollary pet theory that the tools used in writing will inevitably influence the nature of the work produced with them. You might say \"so what?\" After all, version control systems designed for software development are wonderful and powerful tools that allow sometimes hundreds of engineers and developers to collaborate effectively. I would say \"exactly\". </p>\n\n<p>Good writing has a different end goal than good coding. (I'm not talking about technical writing or documentation, but prose). <em>Prose writing is intended to create an intensely personal, one-on-one experience between the author and the reader</em> (who is usually trying to relax and escape from a chaotic, fast moving world with a time consuming but enjoyable book). The product of the writer's work is <em>directly</em> exposed to the reader (or end user) unlike a piece of software where 99% of the time the code a developer writes is obscured underneath an abstraction layer of a visually-based UI (user interface). In almost any software application, the user's enjoyment of the application is totally unrelated to the quality of the code in the business layer. If the code is sufficiently well written for the application to be functional at all, the experience is the same to the user if it is incomprehensible spaghetti code or beautifully minimalist, well commented art. This is absolutely not the case for a writer. </p>\n\n<p>So the point of something like Git is to collect and preserve code and allow trace-ability and change control. It accumulates changes in code from multiple developers or a single developer over time and allows you to do things like deliver a change set, realize that you screwed up the whole application, and undo your change, or even integrate part of it. The point is to preserve the functional state of the application, not the cohesive \"voice\" of the code. Code doesn't usually have any cohesive \"voice\", particularly in cases where a large team has collaborated on a project. So if you use version control to write a novel, you will be encouraged by the tool to maintain multiple versions of the novel simultaneously, change parts back and forth between versions, keep every single word you have written somewhere and be able to reinsert them, and create an ever-expanding living document with no end state. A software application is continually being rewritten until it is abandoned. Every time there is a defect ticket, an update to something the application depends on, an update to a browser that uses the application, or any new delivery of functionality, there will be changes to code somewhere. The only static and unchanging software apps are dead abandonware. A novel is totally different. You have to edit the novel and shape it into a final, immutable form that will not change. Even though it is possible to have an ever-changing novel delivered to a device like a kindle, readers don't want that. They don't want to have to go back in a book they are already reading and find new changes back in chapter 2 and try to integrate them into their understanding of the story. Readers want a book to be finished and static before they start to read it. </p>\n\n<p>If your tool is encouraging you to be verbose, keep potentially infinite versions of a story, and never need to reach a finished state, I think a lot of writers, particularly less experienced ones who might have a tendency to be too verbose anyway would be more likely to write gigantic \"ball of mud\" novels that are ultimately unreadable. I say that as someone whose first novel fits that description. </p>\n\n<p>Writers have always had some connection to the tools they use, which is why people still associate novelists with clickety-clackety typewriters. The tools <em>constrain</em> us and force us to have our end state in mind before we put words on paper. Hemingway wrote long hand in an age of typewriters and plenty of more modern authors used typewriters in an age of computers. It isn't about being a Luddite, it's about the psychological impact of knowing that what you put on the paper is somehow immutable and can't be easily undone. It forces us to be concise, to choose words carefully, and do more writing in our brain and less in the tool. Version control encourages more writing in the tool and less in our brain. I think we have already seen an avalanche of bad writing in the age of word processors, and version control might be a step too far down the wrong road when it comes to prose. </p>\n\n<p>So to answer the question: Maybe don't.(?) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 47527, "author": "Jacob Lee", "author_id": 40872, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/40872", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I do not know whether the sophisticated functionality of git would be all that useful, unless perhaps if you are collaborating with another writer. However git does offer a couple of things that are potentially interesting or useful to the writer.</p>\n\n<p>The first, and somewhat trivially, is that it neatly does the book-keeping versions of your text for you, without bothering you about which names are which, or wondering if you are editing the correct version. So you could just stay on your master branch, commit your changes daily, but always deal with files like Chapter01.md. Its versioning without the clutter.</p>\n\n<p>More intriguingly perhaps, is that when you commit, you are invited to add a comment describing the commit. Programmers use it to indicate the nature of the change being made (e.g. 'Fix one-off indexing error'), but more pertinent to the writer might be a reflection on what was written, a sort of writer's diary that you keep as you go along.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/7299", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4718/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10064, "author": "hildred", "author_id": 6268, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6268", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you are on the right track. but I would omit the words Reissue edition, change Origional edition to First edition and add a note about translation so it would read something like \"(First edition 1998. Translated by Ralph McInery 19XX.\n Original Latin published around 1080)\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10340, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><s>USA</s> New York: Oxford University Press</li>\n<li><s>Reissue edition. Original edition 1998.</s></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Why delete that? No one cares if that book is an unchanged reissue. You only tell the reader if the book you quote from is a different <em>editon</em> (e.g. 2nd ed.), because that means that there have been changes to the text, and therefore it is important to identify the correct edition. In your case you have an unchanged reissue, and if someone wanting to look at your source text picked up the first edtion from 1998 he would find the same text on the same pages. <a href=\"http://books.google.de/books?id=hXXBBuJ2MocC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=%22Anselm%20of%20Canterbury%3a%20The%20Major%20Works%22&amp;hl=de&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=kfkAU-alOonTsgaj7oBA&amp;ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&amp;q=%22on%20truth%22%20%22preface%22&amp;f=false\" rel=\"nofollow\">Google Books shows you that the text is on the same page in the 1998 printing</a>.</p>\n\n<p>What you get is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Anselm. (2008). On Truth (R. McInery, Trans.). In B. Davies &amp; G. Evans (Eds.), <em>Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works</em> (pp. 151-174). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published around 1080).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you really and truly need this quotation to be perfect, ask on the APA style blog: <a href=\"http://blog.apastyle.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://blog.apastyle.org/</a> – they helped me with some complicated quote from a 19th century French text.</p>\n\n<p>Note that in text you should use the following citation:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(Anselm, 1080/2008)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>For an official example see no. 21 on page 203f. of the 2009 6th editon of the APA Publication Manual.</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Apart from a certain formatting style, the basic APA rule is to <strong>include everything necessary to clearly identify a source</strong>. You don't have to go beyond that.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/7912", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5197/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 7938, "author": "JSBձոգչ", "author_id": 78, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/78", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This is my sort of question, since I have basically the same setup as you do (except I use Vim, not Emacs.)</p>\n\n<p>My novel text looks like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>% Novel Title\n\n# Title 1\n\nText goes here.\n\n# Title 2\n\nMore text goes here.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This works fine for me, since Pandoc wants to convert the top-level section markers <code>#</code> into chapter breaks, exactly as intended. The only snag is that there isn't any easy way to indicate <em>scene</em> breaks, so I wound up using a literal <code>\\#</code> to mark scene breaks (since the <code>#</code> is the scene break marker in standard manuscript format). I pass the author information and other metadata as variables on the command line when I invoke Pandoc.</p>\n\n<p>Depending on how fancy you want your output to look, it may be worthwhile to get your text through an intermediate format such as RTF. The RTF format is human-readable (in theory), and Pandoc lets you create the RTF doc from a template so that you can specify your fonts, headers, etc. Note, however, that getting a good RTF template set up could take you several hours of experimentation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7939, "author": "Psicofrenia", "author_id": 5114, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5114", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I use LaTeX.</p>\n\n<p>It allows the use of any kind of text editor.<br>\nIt’s distraction free.<br>\nSince it’s based on classes, you won’t have to worry at all about what is the best way to format, since anybody who gets your manuscript will have it formatted — without changing anything — in the way they want.</p>\n\n<p>You will have a hard time converting it to docx, but it’s really simple to convert it to PDF. Most LaTeX editors already have a compiler.</p>\n\n<p>Besides, since LaTeX is written in plain text, you can use tools like Github or Bitbucket to keep track of all the changes you and your editor make.</p>\n\n<p>Here is <a href=\"https://github.com/efernandespt/Manuscript\" rel=\"nofollow\">a small LaTeX class I use in my documents</a>, just as an example.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/7936", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5233/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 8039, "author": "Darek Wędrychowski", "author_id": 4784, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4784", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can always make them relics of the ancient civilisation (Morrowind), or some stuff left by travelers from another planet (Roadside Picnic). People in your world can be smart enough to use them and to understand more or less of their technology, what leads to experiments.</p>\n\n<p>A sidenote: I think that blending sci-fi and fantasy shouldn't be considered as a bad thing. Many great books cover such schema without being unwieldy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8040, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Why does apparent technology have to actually be technology? Can't it be either mundane or magical instead, even if in our world we would call it science or tech?</p>\n\n<p>Strength and speed can be enhanced through medicine (and its cousin, magical potions). Hoverboards with mechanical motors/propellors/jet-packs/whatever aren't the only way to fly on a device; magic carpets are also available (if perhaps cliche). Separate the <em>effect</em> you're looking for from the <em>means</em>, and then look for <em>means</em> that fit within your fantasy world, whether they be mundane (fantasy worlds have medicine too) or magical (potions, flying carpets).</p>\n\n<p>Or, you might be able to combine them if that's important to you. Anne McCaffery's dragon-rider books looked like fantasy initially, until the spaceships showed up. I think you will probably fare better if you don't try to combine elements like that, but if you decide to try, you won't be the first.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8041, "author": "Psicofrenia", "author_id": 5114, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5114", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you are giving into the <em>temptation of explaining</em>. Sometimes you don't need to know how - or at least not for sure how - just to make it believable in your world.</p>\n\n<p>Take your real life laptop as an example. It has thousands of microchips compacted into a single CPU but, what is a microchip? What is a diode? What is an integrated circuit? People generally don't know... A few may, but the vast majority don't care as long it works.</p>\n\n<p>Many have heard that a laptop has a CPU and decided that the vague notions they have are enough to not care at all. If real life people are not interested in details, why over-detail a fictional world?</p>\n\n<p>Same thing goes for books or movies. In Back to the future you have a \"<em>flux capacitor</em>\" but you have no idea what it is, you just know it allows time traveling. It's magical but also scientific because nobody ever tried to explain what it is.</p>\n\n<p>It wouldn't be hard to create Back to the Future IV and say that some mystical being taught some weird magical ways to Doc, allowing him to create a magical device that could be inserted into a DeLorean. After all, nobody actually explained what the flux capacitor is and how it works.</p>\n\n<p>The same goes in your book. The flying carpet or hovercraft works based on magic or science (why not both together?) At the start, will anyone actually care? Will it make any difference to specify? If people already know it is science, they will assume some weird scientific means make it work; if people know it is magic, they will assume it's magical without asking for more explanations.</p>\n\n<p>Like I said in my previous answers, if you are not an expert in a field, just stay on the surface. It works here also. Don't try to explain what can't be explained, because that will close doors that could stay opened.</p>\n\n<p>For example, if you leave the way a hovercraft works open, you can in the future (maybe your next book) decide that in fact it works based on science, even being in a magical world. That may lead to new histories like one where the guy finds out that science exists and wants to uncover more about it and become the most powerful engineer of the world.</p>\n\n<p>If you already defined that the hovercraft is scientific, you won't be able to change that in the future.</p>\n\n<p>The exception is the history itself. If it's vital for your plot to have the way the hovercraft works, than you should define it. But if it's not vital, just leave it unexplained until some idea comes up.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8048, "author": "CLockeWork", "author_id": 5250, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5250", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Blending sci-fi and fantasy is actually quite easy, and can produce some excellent results; consider Steampunk for instance.</p>\n\n<p>There are definitely plenty of great examples out there of sci-fi/fantasy blending (across many media): Final Fantasy (particularity FF XII), Dishonoured, China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, The Scar and The Iron Council, Neil Gaiman's Stardust…</p>\n\n<p>Also, there's no reason why having advanced tech should allow guns, guns came to be because of particular discoveries, and it's easy enough for those to have not occurred.</p>\n\n<p>It's also worth remembering what Arthur C. Clarke said; \"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\" I have several stories where the science is closely guarded, so people see the tech as magic.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8138, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This isn't the only way to do what you want and the other answers are good, but I felt another perspective might be useful.</p>\n\n<p>Magic and Science are really just two ways of comprehending our world that come primarily from different levels of consciousness. (Explaining that in detail would take many pages, but it's been carefully done.*)</p>\n\n<p>If you look at the \"real\" world, you have scientists and engineers (and certainly gymnasts!) doing things that look quite impossible. On the other hand, you have yogis and other mystics who can do many things that defy scientific explanation. Both are coexisting here now, not just in imaginary worlds.</p>\n\n<p>The problem with putting the two together is that to do it well requires being able to form and hold a world view that subsumes both. Most people haven't done that and it's hard to write about what you don't know.</p>\n\n<p>Two of my favorite shows got it dead on. Star Trek TNG had tons of advanced magic/metaphysics in it - most thinly disguised as science - and Babylon 5 had technomages alongside clearly \"spiritual\" beings like the Vorlons, Shadows, and the First One.</p>\n\n<p>What I'm saying, in essence, is that it's not primarily a \"writing\" problem, but more of an issue of expanding the consciousness of the writer. The only way I know of to do that is using meditation or other techniques that allow you to directly experience things beyond our normal 3-dimensional reality. Most of what's really out there is a lot stranger and more wonderful than anything someone can just make up!</p>\n\n<p>If your work is based on that, then it will ring true with your readers (at least subconsciously) and will have a much greater effect on them.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The explanation I'm familiar with was by Bill Harris (if I can find a link, I'll add it here) several years ago in his Mind Chatter magazine (now blog).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I'm not sure where to find it now and I don't want to just add a link to his site because there's too much there to sift through and it might look like an ad.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8178, "author": "violet_white", "author_id": 5373, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5373", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This actually exists, this is called Arcanepunk <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanepunk\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanepunk</a>. It boasts such things as <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_(book)\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_(book)</a>, which I must say is an amazing read.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, this is the more general problem that writers have when choosing what world-building to explain. After all, the writer might often have the mechanism that something works by in their head, but if it does not play a specific role in the story, then the writer does not have to explain it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8202, "author": "Tannalein", "author_id": 4264, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4264", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One way is to have all your technology run on magic, instead of electricity and gas. Check out the movie <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343740/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Paradox</a> for an example of a \"modern\" world run solely on magic (the movie is crap, but the idea is interesting).</p>\n\n<p>Another way is to simply write <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy\" rel=\"nofollow\">Science Fantasy</a>. It's nothing new to mix scientific elements into fantasy, Science Fantasy exists for over half a century now. The trick is not to explain how things work, they just do. </p>\n\n<p>That's the beauty of fantasy, you can create any imaginable world. Technology, magic, everything is equally possible. In Science Fiction, on the other hand, you can't do that, your world needs to be scientifically possible, even if highly improbable.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8621, "author": "Tom", "author_id": 1904, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1904", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is an old debate. What is the difference between science fiction and fantasy? Or more precisely, what are the differences and similarities between science fiction, fantasy, and the real world we actually occupy. After all, all fiction is ‘made up,’ yet we intuitively understand that scifi and fantasy share the similarity that neither are the world we know. With equal certainty, we all feel that scifi and fantasy diverge, being somehow different, perhaps opposites. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Before I attempt to define science fiction and fantasy respectively, I\n think we can agree that both genres fail (including clever\n combinations of both) when they come to remind the audience of our own\n boring reality (the real world).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Similarly, no story is purely science fiction or fantasy, all have at least a little of the other. I think the three realities (scifi, fantasy, and real world) can be defined from two perspectives, each representing a kind of spectrum.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Mundane vs Mysterious</strong></p>\n\n<p>The real world is mundane because we know it so well - even for people leading fortunate, extraordinary lives. For clarity, we don’t have all the answers about the real world. What makes it FEEL mundane is that no answers are desired. I may not know how my TV works, but I don’t want an answer either. It is enough that I can turn it on. In contrast stands the mysterious. These are the things that I don’t know, but that I want an explanation for. What were those weird lights I saw in the woods last night?</p>\n\n<p>In a narrative, the audience will be exposed to much: world, people, and events. A story that confronts the audience often with mysterious elements will be understood to be a different world then our own. This even holds if the story (scifi or fantasy) takes place on “present day Earth.” Where the two genres diverge is how they address the audience’s need for an explanation. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Pure science fiction answers the audience’ questions in factual terms,\n clear and quantifiable. Pure fantasy either provides vague\n explanations or none at all.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Typical vs Rare</strong></p>\n\n<p>Ultimately mundane vs. mysterious addresses the audience’s perception of the story, but the audience perceives the story through the eyes of the characters, particularly the protagonist. How do the characters see their world? This largely comes down to whether a specific mysterious element is typical or rare. </p>\n\n<p>If everybody in a story world is a wizard and understands how magic works, then magic is typical. If nobody in a story world has ever seen a vampire, then vampires are rare. When elements, mysterious to the audience, are common to its characters, that is science fiction - the character’s mundane world. When the characters share the reader’s feeling of something being new or unknown, that is fantasy. All of this is doubly true of the protagonist. Often, the protagonist is a stranger in a strange land sharing the perspective of the audience, amplifying their feelings about it.</p>\n\n<p>Let’s look at some science fiction and fantasy that were both partially undone by feeling a bit too much like the real world (when the mysterious elements become weak).</p>\n\n<p><strong>Star Wars</strong> </p>\n\n<p>Star Wars is a science fiction story, but the Jedi knights are a fantasy element. Not because they fight with laser swords instead of laser guns, but because they are rare and mysterious. Everything in the movie is mysterious to the audience (space ships, aliens, other planets), but most of it is mundane to the story’s characters. On the other hand, neither the protagonist Luke Skywalker or population of the galactic empire have heard of the Jedi. Effectively, only Obi Won and Vader have heard of the them. </p>\n\n<p>Consider also, Obi Won’s explanation of the force, “The force is what gives the Jedi their power. It is an energy field, generated by all living things, that surrounds us and binds the galaxy together.” When you think about it, this isn’t really an explanation. There is nothing factual in the answer. It intends to keep the Jedi mysterious. The first three movies work fine even while combining fantasy and scifi.</p>\n\n<p>In contrast, consider that in the three prequel films, Jedi’s became typical, an ordinary element known to all of the story’s characters. This shifted the Jedi into a scifi element. Now the force could be reexplained, quantified with a midi-chlorian count. Technically, it still doesn’t make sense, but it’s presentation is factual and mundane. The Jedi had lost their teeth. And since so much of the rest of the star wars universe was familiar, it too lacked mystery.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Harry Potter</strong></p>\n\n<p>In the modern fantasy classic, magic is a mundane fact of life in the wizard world of Harry Potter, but not to Harry. Firstly, because Harry is from the audience’s ‘real world,’ so he knows nothing of magic. Secondly, Harry (and his friends) are kids, so while the adults (who are mysterious from the perspective of children) may know about magic, they don’t. Further, the antagonist Voldemort is totally mysterious. Everybody is so afraid of him, even adults won’t mention his name - the author’s device for withholding explanations. </p>\n\n<p>As the series advanced, I thought the fantasy grew less strong. Outside of Hogwarts, magic was so common, it became mundane to me. Every car, building, event, even the government was magical and yet they were the cars and buildings I was familiar with. It simply reminded me of modern life. Also, presenting so much detail of Voldemort’s life and childhood demystified the antagonist, the story’s most mysterious element. Here the fantasy didn’t shift to scifi, it shifted to real world. It became ordinary.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Advice</strong></p>\n\n<p>So at the end of this LOOOOOOONG answer, I would give this advice. The issue isn’t mixing scifi and fantasy, because that is done often and works fine. The danger is failing to understand the difference, and thus accidentally referencing the real world - the mundane reality known to your audience. Specifically, be careful with explanations for the mysterious elements you present and be mindful of how typical these elements are to your story’s characters.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9751, "author": "hildred", "author_id": 6268, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6268", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You might want to read Harry Turtledove's \"Case of the toxic spell Dump\" It is a mystery set in a high tech magic based world. It is a interesting blend of science fiction and fantasy, in that all the high tech elements are built on magic and that this creates a world much like our own.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 20234, "author": "dmm", "author_id": 5956, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5956", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Sci-fi and fantasy don't NEED to be fundamentally different. If the people in your fantasy world approach the magic that exists in their world in a \"scientific\" way, then your fantasy elements become soft sci-fi. That is, you are proposing a made-up world in which there are laws of magic that operate exactly like laws of science in our world. Then the only thing to decide is how advanced the magic and technology are in your world. You just have to keep both of them reasonable. For example, if teleporting and/or antigravity devices are commodity items, then people aren't going to have the same kind of transportation infrastructure that we have. </p>\n\n<p>Also, your world's history will influence the levels of magic and technology. They will tend to stunt one another's growth. If certain areas of magic were discovered early in history, then nobody would bother developing technologies in areas already covered by that magic (and vice versa for areas of technology discovered early in history). For all we know, our own real world IS magical, but our technology is so advanced that few people want to bother with magic in its primitive and unreliable state of development.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21743, "author": "Dark Word Dan", "author_id": 18646, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18646", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Sci fi and fantasy get shelved together in the bookstore because they are such interchangeable sub-genres of the one umbrella genre: speculative fiction. What would life be like if X happened or existed? You get one cool thing that doesn't exist for free; the rest you have to earn by telling a good story. </p>\n\n<p>Around 2003, I discovered D&amp;D. D&amp;D isn't so much a game as a TOOLBOX for playing games of the adventure type. They have stories, and you can draw on so many inspirations, both those mentioned in the published rulebooks, and those that aren't. D&amp;D is a game, and is one part dice rolling, one part statistics, and about a million parts storytelling. The setting is typically of the fantasy variety, but that definition is to writers what an arts degree is to a Starbucks employee. </p>\n\n<p>Telling a speculative fiction story is to pick and choose which <em>elements</em> to use, and which not to. What monsters, spells, hero types, gods, landscapes, types of societies, tech levels, etc do you WANT to use? Answer that and then go ahead and USE them. Stuff what the naysayers say - you can use ANY story or setting element you want, as long as you tell an engaging story. A painter chooses which colours, types of paints, brushes, surface, size, easel, and so on to use to create his or her painting. There are methods to achieving success, and there's a lot of art knowledge to help you understand what you're doing, but ultimately, it comes down to what you WANT to paint. It's the same with writing speculative fiction. </p>\n\n<p>Anyone who says you CAN'T have science in your fantasy fails to understand fantasy. Those who demand that all fantasy follow the same formula is missing the whole point of fantasy to begin with - anything goes! </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 58966, "author": "Mary", "author_id": 44281, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/44281", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>How does your magic <em>work</em>?</p>\n<p>This is the fundamental question. After all once upon a time, a woman gave you willow bark for a headache and told you to tie loosestrife to the yoke so your horses would pull together and they were both magic. Now that we know the bark works, we call it science. Obviously if magic works, that is no longer true, but if the loosestrife is to work and remain magic, you need it to operate by some fundamental rules that will make them distinct, and the feel you want them to have depends on how the rules contrast.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/8042", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5264/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 8488, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This surely depends on the specific tool that you are using. The only tool that I am familiar with that meets your description is Javadoc, so I want to be cautious not to make assumption about how other tools might work.</p>\n\n<p>But with Javadoc, there is a built-in way to describe parameters. The whole point of Javadoc is to have a consistent way to document an API, so I think that given the feature is there, you should use it.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, nine times out of ten I put absolutely nothing in the parameter descriptions. The code itself gives the data type, and I give the parameters meaningful names, and then in the general description block I describe how they interact.</p>\n\n<p>When there is something interesting to be said about a particular parameter, I put it into those parameter descriptions where it belongs. Usually this means that the name is not adequate to describe what it really is. Like I might specify that \"String customerName\" can be either the name of a person or of a company, or that \"int delta\" is the signed change in the voltage over the specified time period.</p>\n\n<p>In general, when the tool gives you \"slots\" to put specific data and then an area for a general description. I put as much in the specific slots as I can, to take advantage of the features that are there.</p>\n\n<p>I would definitely NOT create fake classes or functions solely for the purpose of eliminating redundancy in the docs. That violates my sense of esthetics to clutter up code just to fool the documentation generator into producing what I want. In real life, what I usually do in such cases is nothing. I fully document the parameters or whatever the first time I use them, and then just don't on further occurrences. Okay, that's sloppy. But Javadoc does give you the feature that you can link to the documentation for another class or function. (Umm, is it \"@link\"? I forget, it's been a while since I used it.) To take a simple case, if you have an overloaded function or similar case where parameters with the same meaning are used in multiple functions, I think the right thing to do is to fully document them in the function with the longest parameter list and then link from the other functions to that one, with some explanatory text like \"See foobar() for description of the parameters\". I say the function with the longest parameter list meaning that if there is one function that has all or most of these parameters, document them all there, in one place, and then link there, rather than documenting one here and one there.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8490, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Scan the documentation for the Ruby standard library, which includes numerous examples. I quickly scanned the <a href=\"http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.0/libdoc/psych/rdoc/Psych.html#method-c-load\" rel=\"nofollow\">some YAML parser classes</a>, and the idea seems to be to simply describe how a method will use its parameters. In many cases, the use isn't described, and mostly I can guess the use from the name of the parameter.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/8480", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 9563, "author": "hildred", "author_id": 6268, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6268", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've been playing around with odt2txt. It strips out all formatting, leaving just plain text, perfect for diffs, and an acceptable starting place for doing your markup, and if you combine it with @AnandaMahto's suggestion to use Pandoc to convert it back, I have some ugly papers to try this on.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9635, "author": "user2948537", "author_id": 6382, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6382", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Have you looked into <a href=\"http://writemonkey.com/index.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">WriteMonkey</a>? There doesn't seem to be a plug-in to do what you want, but it is a robust distraction free markdown environment.</p>\n\n<p>If converting to html and then to MD works, this might be the ideal editing environment for you. WriteMonkey will export MD to MS Word, which could then be opened in LibreOffice when you're done.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9963, "author": "Undespairable", "author_id": 6663, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6663", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Your first option is, really, <a href=\"http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Pandoc</a>, which was already mentioned. Its usage is quite straightforward. I've done some converting along these lines myself, and it's brilliant. It's included in Debian repositories, so I'd think acquiring an installation wouldn't be a problem.</p>\n<p>You indeed want to convert to HTML first:</p>\n<pre><code>pandoc OdtFile.odt -o HtmlFile.html\n</code></pre>\n<p>and then proceed to create markdown file the same way:</p>\n<pre><code>pandoc HtmlFile.html -o MarkDown.text\n</code></pre>\n<p>and yes, you could go back from markdown to odt the same way. You also could enforce your own style set by mentioning style template odt file, the README will tell you, how.</p>\n<p>You may also find it useful to <a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/a/62990248/2455413\">preserve paragraphs</a> with the flag <code>--wrap=none</code> - i.e. prevent pandoc breaking pars with newlines every 72 chars.</p>\n<p>To prevent odd HTML formatting (such as you get where the original doc has embedded links: pandoc endows those in the output markdown text with underline html tags), <a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/a/62963659/2455413\">specify the markdown version as markdown_github-raw_html</a> with <code>-t markdown_github-raw_html</code>. (Might be preferable to change the source doc's default link formatting in the Office app that created it, if you can).</p>\n<p>Another option is to forego markdown for some kind of TeX solution (to which format you also could convert your already written text with Pandoc), the advantages being the abilities to insert images, tables and math equations in text, though, I'm afraid, that will close the way back to odt.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 40313, "author": "Shaun Luttin", "author_id": 34191, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/34191", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To augment Undespairable's answer, these commands from the command line convert from markdown to HTML and then HTML to ODT.</p>\n\n<pre><code>pandoc .\\some-file.md -f markdown -t html -s -o .\\some-file.html \n\npandoc .\\some-file.html -f html -t odt -o .\\some-file.odt\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https://www.pandoc.org/getting-started.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.pandoc.org/getting-started.html</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9056", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5983/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 9094, "author": "Samuel Flint", "author_id": 5168, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5168", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd say that your current sounds fine, though you may want to prepare it as both, just to placate your adviser. Sed would be able to help you do this if you are using something like LaTeX to prepare it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9169, "author": "Hobbes", "author_id": 6022, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6022", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>As @Lauren Ipsum said, go for clarity. Remember that there are times when you don't see the context, for instance when using a cross-reference. \"See section 2.3.2, Terrestrial\" is not immediately obvious to the reader.<br>\nApproach this as a writer, not a mathematician. Writing section headings that make sense even when viewed in isolation, will help readers understand what you're writing and where they can find what they're looking for. Your audience will probably include people for whom English isn't their native language; giving them a complete expression to parse will make it easier for them to read your thesis.<br>\nAbout \"specific technologies\"; I'd use the word 'specific' only if you have a heading 2.1 or 2.2 that talks about \"general technologies\" so you have a juxtaposition. Otherwise the word is redundant. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9077", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5496/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 9091, "author": "M.Y. David", "author_id": 5328, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5328", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would suggest the following:</p>\n\n<pre><code>- SAILORS IN BOAT Hahahahahahaha\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The reason for this is that the sailors are already referred to in plural form (\"SAILORS\" as opposed to \"SAILOR\") and thus makes the \"in unison\" unnecessary.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9092, "author": "Barry Hammer", "author_id": 2927, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2927", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Do it in the description. Compare these two options:</p>\n\n<pre><code>SAILORS IN BOAT\nHahahahahahahaha.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This option tells the actors exactly what they have to say, and it looks clunky. </p>\n\n<pre><code>All the sailors in the boat start laughing in unison.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This option, on the other hand, gives a good short description of what the actors should do. You can also modify it a bit by having them all laugh exactly the same and/or stopping as soon as someone signals for them to stop.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9090", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5996/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 9168, "author": "Hobbes", "author_id": 6022, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6022", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The post you referenced has the basics: in FO, you can't change the hyphenation property for just part of a block. You may be able to change the hyphenation dictionary (add the words you don't want to be hyphenated), but this depends on the tools you use. <a href=\"http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.95/hyphenation.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Information for FOP</a> </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9203, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>With help from a coworker I was able to fix this by adding the following to the FO stylesheet:</p>\n\n<pre><code>&lt;xsl:template match=\"classname\"&gt;\n &lt;fo:inline hyphenate=\"false\"&gt;\n &lt;xsl:call-template name=\"inline.monoseq\"/&gt;\n &lt;/fo:inline&gt;\n&lt;/xsl:template&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And likewise for other elements that should get this treatment, like <code>methodname</code> and <code>literal</code>.</p>\n\n<p>This creates a wrapper around the native style, changing hyphenation only.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/PrintCustomEx.html#Hyphenation\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9166", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 9998, "author": "J.R.", "author_id": 3298, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3298", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>It's a poem; you can say anything you want, and you can make the lines however long you'd like. Whether or not the end result will be perceived as inspirational or corny is another matter.</p>\n\n<p>While it's true the invitation will need to contain certain information, I disagree with your assertion that you must \"use certain keywords, like <em>delivery</em>.\" There are many ways to get the point across, without using the word <em>delivery</em>. For example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>The newborn twins will first be seen<br>\n On January seventeen</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As for the varying lengths of the lines, I prefer consistency in that regard, particularly when there is rhyme involved. However, that's just my personal preference, and I don't think you'd be the first poet to end a poem with lines that stretch a little longer than the others. However, if you're trying to keep the poem consistent, and those lines are longer simply because you're forcing a rhyme, then I'd suggest working at it until your poem flowed a little more evenly. Just like in any other form of writing, the difference between a mediocre work and a very good work is often found in the amount of effort spent polishing and revising.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>May God bless them ever after<br>\n Filled with hope and love and laughter</em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10000, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The problem is that \"glorified\" is a sarcastic term. In means \"wannabe\" or \"dressed up attempting to be something else.\" </p>\n\n<p>If you put a big fancy necklace on a dog, it's a \"glorified collar.\" The thing actually is a collar, but you're dressing it up to try to make it more than that.</p>\n\n<p>A novel which has clearly been padded, stuffed, and overextended could be a \"glorified novella.\" (So it <em>should</em> be a novella if you take the fat out.)</p>\n\n<p>I would never read \"glorified delivery\" as \"a delivery full of glory,\" which what you intended. A glorified delivery is when the Publishers Clearing House people show up with balloons and TV cameras and a band to hand you an envelope which the mail carrier would have done without all the fuss. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9997", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4990/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10017, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's well done. But to me it reads like the aftermath of the opening.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10019, "author": "NE1HOME", "author_id": 6708, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6708", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a suggestion, why not open with the altercation itself? \nYou can use the fight to illustrate your protagonist. Is he short and slight? Tall and gangly? (Also think about how this might change as the story progresses.) \nShow his reaction to the dog's mistreatment as a way to provide insight into his internal motivations. Why is he fighting? Most especially, why is he fighting when he probably knows he won't win?\nGive a brief glance of who he is fighting. Is this a 'same-bullies-different-day' fight, or an unknown group? </p>\n\n<p>Painting a compelling snapshot of your protagonist (not just appearance, but his frame of mind, motivations etc.) right from the beginning emotionally invests the reader in who he is as a person and drives interest in who he might become by the end of the story. Beginning with the fight would, imho, be a strong entrance that is true to your theme. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10020, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like it a lot.</p>\n\n<p>I feel the part about falling down the steps is a bit unbelievable, because if he comes home with cuts and bruises every day, his sister must already know that he gets into fights. So I wouldn't have him try to evade the truth but let him tell it straight-away.</p>\n\n<p>Or, if you really want it, you could comment on it:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Nothing. I just fell down some steps.\" It's what I always said, since the first time, though by now we both knew I never fell.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or something like that. That way it does not appear contradictory (him attempting the same lie every day). And delete the \"There was nothing I could hide from her\". If this happens every day, there is nothing to hide anymore.</p>\n\n<p>Other than that I like it very much. Cool.</p>\n\n<p>I'd let it stand like that (with the little edits, if you want) and then work on the rest of the story and only come back to the beginning after you finished everything else. Because after you wrote your book, you will know if this beginning works for you or if you need to adapt it to what you found out while you wrote it. Don't try to perfect the beginning, before the book is finished! Since the beginning is the most important part, polish it last.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>A comment on the other answers (by NE1HOME and Dale Emery):</p>\n\n<p>You'll have to think about this yourself (and, as I said, I'd suggest you wait with it until you wrote everything else), but I don't think you need to start with a fight or any kind of action. It depends on the type of book you want to write. Is it a book about action? Then start with action? Is it more reflective, focussing on the inner strength of the protagonist, his personal growth, the relationship to this sister? Then I would start with those. Start with what the book is about. Not every book is a thriller. But if it is, you need to thrill in the beginning.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10023, "author": "XcisioN", "author_id": 6707, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6707", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I like it, it gripped me to read more and that's what makes me read and write in the first place. I would have rather started with the protagonist being in the fight to emphasize his current standing in his scenario and then merged into this segment you have here, but that of course is only a suggestion and how I would have done it.</p>\n\n<p>Keep at it, it's looking good :)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/10016", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6618/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10232, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Leading <code>http://</code>, no trailing <code>/</code>, monospace font.</p>\n\n<p>With modern domain names, without <code>http://</code> it may get confusing. Would you say <em>the.british.museum</em> is an URL at first glance?</p>\n\n<p>If this is to appear in an electronic format (even for offline reading) adding spaces between the braces and the URL is a nice user-friendly gesture making copy&amp;paste easier.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10237, "author": "DougM", "author_id": 6649, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6649", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you're including URL's inline, format them with the protocol (http://) and either a trailing slash or filename, plus any required parameters. Include any canonical items that appear when you click a link back to the site's home page, such as a leading \"www\".</p>\n\n<p>If you're writing a table of \"useful websites\" with the URL in a distinct column, you can instead omit much of the url and include only the optional subdomain, domain name, and TLD.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10249, "author": "Pravesh Parekh", "author_id": 5909, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5909", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When making something similar to a \"list of recommended websites\":</p>\n\n<p>Name of the source >whitespace&lt; description >whitespace&lt; link</p>\n\n<p>where the link can be specified as follows:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.acfonline.org.au/default.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.acfonline.org.au/default.asp</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.ourcoolschool.org/select/state/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.ourcoolschool.org/select/state/</a></p>\n\n<p>Of course, it is not a mandate to specify the description or even the name of the source. Some people may simply tend to create a list of the websites.</p>\n\n<p>In either case, there are two types of conventions seen when writing the URLs:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>If the page name does <strong>not</strong> explicitly end in an extension (for example, .com, .au, .org , .edu etc. then include <strong>/</strong> at the end of the URL. For example, <a href=\"http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/</a></p></li>\n<li><p>If the page name explicitly ends in an extension (for example, .html, .asp, .aspx, .php, etc.) then the trailing / is skipped and the extension is mentioned. For example, <a href=\"https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/write/fieldguide/index.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/write/fieldguide/index.asp</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Further, <strong>http</strong> or <strong>https</strong> is mentioned. So is the <strong>www</strong> following the //.</p>\n\n<p>The choice of the font in which it is written depends on the publisher. Usually, when the manuscript is being discussed, the publisher will provide a template. The template will specify exactly which font (and style) URLs need to be written in. If none is specified, you may choose to separate the URL from the main text by using a monospaced font (as recommended by SF) or else keep it consistent with the rest of the text. Certain others might recommend using main body font and italics (for example, <a href=\"http://oreilly.com/oreilly/author/stylesheet.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">O'Reilly</a> recommends this).</p>\n\n<p>List of sources for the answer:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Looking at several textbooks which have a \"Recommended\" list (apart from References/Bibliography)</li>\n<li>A paper (<a href=\"http://sisaljournal.org/archives/sep11/howard/\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>) I found which has a \"Recommended Website\" list</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://edu.thehotrock.org.au/index.php/more-hotrock-resources/recommended-resources/14-website-list-pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Hot Rock</a> list of recommended resources which uses a table type format for specifying list of websites</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If you want more details/sources, please comment. Hope this answer helps!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10259, "author": "John Smithers", "author_id": 99, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/99", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You set a bounty and wrote in the comment you want a \"credible and/or official source\". And I'm not sure what's the purpose of that. It's a matter of style. You got some decent suggestions. If you choose one than that's <em>your</em> style, and that should be \"credible\" by definition. Otherwise why do you write the textbook in the first place if you are not credible?</p>\n\n<p>There are several \"official\" styles out there and they contradict each other in many topics. So if there isn't a given style (e.g. chosen by your publisher), you can just pick your own. You even can <em>create</em> your own.</p>\n\n<p>But if you think that you need some sort of feeling safe, the APA Style suggests <em>http://</em> an the beginning and no slash at the end (<a href=\"http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-website.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-website.aspx</a>).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10303, "author": "Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt", "author_id": 7926, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/7926", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There has been a trend in print to supply minimised URLs such as ow.ly or tinyurl.com as this makes typing the link easier on the reader.</p>\n\n<p>However as style goes it is vital to find a way to be consistent yet remain within the technical understanding of the reader. </p>\n\n<p>Many news outlets create online portions that act as a gateway so that the links are all branded for example \"... you can find links to at www.oursite.etc/LinksToTopic ...\"</p>\n\n<p>What matters most here is clarity and consistency. Most professional manuals of style appear professional because they impose consistency and this creates familiarity. As URLs in print are still relatively new and most publishing groups (even the BBC) are still struggling to understand how to link to a source the standard is still something that has yet to be established. This allows the likes of you and I to decide what works best.</p>\n\n<p>I'd make the most of that freedom if I were you.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10395, "author": "unor", "author_id": 8050, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8050", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://tools.ietf.org/html/std66\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">STD 66</a> (which is <a href=\"https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">RFC 3986</a> currently) is the standard for URIs.</p>\n<p>It contains a <a href=\"https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986#appendix-C\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">section &quot;Delimiting a URI in Context&quot;</a>, in which it says (emphasis mine):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>URIs are often transmitted through formats that do not provide a\nclear context for their interpretation. For example, there are many\noccasions when a URI is included in plain text; examples include text\nsent in email, USENET news, and <strong>on printed paper</strong>. In such cases, it\nis important to be able to delimit the URI from the rest of the text,\nand in particular from punctuation marks that might be mistaken for\npart of the URI.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>It lists the following methods:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>within <strong>double-quotes</strong>:</li>\n</ul>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&quot;<a href=\"http://example.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://example.com/</a>&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>within <strong>angle brackets</strong>:</li>\n</ul>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&lt;<a href=\"http://example.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://example.com/</a>&gt;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>by using <strong>whitespace</strong>:</li>\n</ul>\n<blockquote>\n<p>     <a href=\"http://example.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://example.com/</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n<hr />\n<blockquote>\n<p>Is it more formal and professional to include or exclude &quot;http://&quot; and the &quot;/&quot; at the end?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You should definitely include the URI scheme. While currently most people and also tools like browsers assume <code>http</code>, this can change in the future. And even today, some Web pages might not work with <code>http</code> (e.g., <code>https</code> only), some documents might be available via <code>ftp</code>, etc.</p>\n<p>If the URIs don’t contain a path (e.g., <code>http://example.com/</code>), the trailing slash <em>can</em> be omitted. It doesn’t make a difference. However, a trailing slash in an URI path (e.g., the last slash in <code>http://example.com/foo/</code>) should definitely be included. If you omit it, the URI might point to a different (or non-existent) document (if not now, then maybe in the future).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/10229", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3375/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10502, "author": "Monica Cellio", "author_id": 1993, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Start with the <a href=\"http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/index-137868.html#styleguide\" rel=\"noreferrer\">style guidelines from Oracle for Javadoc</a>. While those guidelines are written for the Javadoc tool (and the Java language) in particular, the principles there apply to the corresponding tools for other languages. (I've seen this kind of documentation for C++, C#, and JavaScript APIs.) This answer augments that style guide.</p>\n<p>I'm going to critique your example as a way of illustrating some principles. Let's start with the description you wrote:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Finds the value for the given ID.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>For a method named <code>findValue</code>, this doesn't tell us very much. Especially when we can see from the signature that it takes an argument named <code>id</code> (which your documentation says is &quot;the item to look up&quot;). We could have figured all that out from the signature itself; this documentation doesn't add anything. <em>Don't expend effort writing documentation that's already obvious.</em></p>\n<p>So what should you write for the description? Start by clarifying what &quot;find&quot; means. Is this a lightweight operation that returns a value from an in-memory map? Is it making a database call? Is it calling a service on a slow connection? Don't reveal implementation if it's not part of the contract, but <em>do</em> give readers some hints about what to expect. For example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Fetches the value for the object of the given ID, either from a local cache (if previously fetched) or from a remote data store.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Here you've added information not obvious from the signature. You've told the reader that a first fetch may be slow but subsequent ones may be faster -- but you've made no specific promises, and you've implied that it still might be slower than a simple in-memory lookup. (Maybe that's why you named this <code>findValue</code> instead of <code>getValue</code>.) You've told the caller &quot;hey, maybe you don't want to make this call inside a tight loop that has to be really fast&quot;.</p>\n<p>But you're not done. You should be asking yourself some questions about this interface. What happens if the ID isn't recognized? What happens if there's no object mapped to that ID? What happens if you can't complete the operation for some reason (like the network is down)? Your <em>code</em> probably accounts for these cases, so <em>tell the reader what to expect</em>.</p>\n<p>Compare your documentation to the following:</p>\n<pre><code>/* Fetches the value for the object of the given ID, either from a local\n * cache (if previously fetched) or from a remote data store. \n *\n * @param id the item to look up (a positive integer returned from\n * createEntry)\n * @return the value of id if set, or null if there is no value, or\n * INVALID_ID if id is not recognized\n * @throws AccessException if the data could not be accessed; this is an\n * internal error that may require administrator attention\n */\n public String findValue(int id) throws AccessException {...}\n</code></pre>\n<p>First, you may have noticed that I modified your code to add the exception. That's because there wasn't a good answer for the question about what to do if you can't contact the database -- we hadn't thought of that problem and hadn't accounted for it. Ideally you're writing your documentation <em>while you write the code</em>, so you can catch issues like this and make the necessary changes before you release your code. If that wasn't the case here, then you'd instead need to write some more documentation to explain what happens in that case. (And obviously another writer shouldn't come along later and modify your code like this; I'm assuming in this answer that you have control over this.) <em>The process of documenting an interface can reveal problems in that interface, so start early.</em></p>\n<p>I added two things to your parameter description for <code>id</code>. First, that it's a positive integer; it turns out that in your code (which I hypothetically read while writing this answer), IDs can't be negative. The signature doesn't convey this (it just says it's an integer), so document it. Second, I said where IDs come from. (In the actual documentation this would be a link to the <code>createEntry</code> method documentation.) This isn't necessary but might be helpful, particularly if invalid IDs are a problem for your users.</p>\n<p>I added the information about invalid IDs and null values to the documentation for the return value. You could instead add it to the description of what the method does; there are reasonable arguments to be made for both ways. But explain it somewhere.</p>\n<p>Note that the documentation of the (new) exception says both what it means (without revealing implementation details) and what might need to be done about it. In this case the caller can't do anything to fix the error, but he might want to notify his user or log the problem. We leave that decision up to him.</p>\n<p>You were concerned about having to write a book to improve your API documentation, but all you really needed were another couple well-thought-out phrases. You don't <em>want</em> a book; good API documentation tells the reader all and only what he needs to know. This can be done concisely, and your readers will thank you for not making them read through a bunch of extra text.</p>\n<h2>Summary</h2>\n<p>Here are some key points to writing good API reference documentation:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Document the contract, not the implementation.¹</li>\n<li>Explain fuzzy verbs. What does &quot;find&quot; mean, versus &quot;get&quot;? Set users' expectations.</li>\n<li>Document restrictions on arguments or return values that aren't fully conveyed by the signature (like that an integer has to be positive, or in the range 1-100, etc).</li>\n<li>Cover failure and not just success. Can arguments be invalid? Can your code behave in abnormal ways even if the inputs are valid? How do you signal errors or other problems?</li>\n<li>Be thorough but not verbose. Don't repeat information that's clear from the signature.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>¹ To do this you need to determine what the contract actually <em>is</em> -- what promises are you making to your users? This is a large software-design topic beyond the scope of this question.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10986, "author": "Joe Malin", "author_id": 8755, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8755", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Ask your readers to point you to API documentation that they <em>do</em> find helpful.</p>\n\n<p>Get clarification from your readers. Do they mean that the \"javadoc\" is too vague? incomplete? poorly worded? Or do they mean that they can understand the reference doc, but it doesn't help them write an application using the API.</p>\n\n<p>Here's my edit of the original example. I had to add some assumptions:</p>\n\n<pre><code>/* Finds the [message string] for the given [message ID]. If the [message ID] doesn't\n * exist, returns an empty String\n *\n * @param id the [message ID] to find\n * @return the [message string], or if the [message ID] doesn't exist, returns an\n * empty String\n */\n public String findValue(int id) {...}\n</code></pre>\n\n<ol>\n<li>By substituting [message ID] for item, I'm trying to point out that the documentation\nshould be specific as possible. If you find that you're repeating the parameter's name\nin the description, then something may be wrong.</li>\n<li>Point 1 also holds for the return value.</li>\n<li>Ensure that the developer has handled the case in which there's no corresponding String\nfor [message ID].</li>\n<li>Finally, as a good API tech writer, you should watch for programming problems. When a\nmethod returns a String, it shouldn't return null if there's nothing to return. \nInstead, it should return an empty String. This simplifies testing the method's return\nvalue.</li>\n<li>If not finding the item is a really severe error, meaning that the application should\n<em>not</em> continue, the method should throw an Exception. This Exception should also be\ndocumented.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10997, "author": "Mike Hofer", "author_id": 8762, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8762", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a software developer (C#, .NET, yada, yada), Monica's answer resounded nicely with me. (I don't have enough rep yet to comment on it, so my additions have to go here.)</p>\n\n<p>I would add that I find great value in API documentation that is as explicit as it can be, but not overburdened with meaningless details. Further, it's very important to me that the documentation tells me what the API is <em>supposed</em> to do, not what it actually does. (Some will disagree with me about this; however, if the software doesn't do what the reference says it should be doing, that's a defect, requiring resolution.)</p>\n\n<p>For example, if the return type of a method is List, will the method return null, or is it guaranteed to always return a non-null reference of zero or more items?</p>\n\n<p>If a method takes a reference type, will it throw if the argument is null? If the argument is defined as out or ref, will it throw if the argument has not been initialized? If the argument is an array or list, will it throw if the sequence is empty? Does the method throw if a required configuration setting is missing or invalid? (If so, what configuration setting(s) does it depend on?)</p>\n\n<p>These are things of immense value to a software developer. Having to track them down by wading through potentially hundreds of thousands of lines of code wastes time and money, and increases risk and the chance that I'll make a mistake. </p>\n\n<p>Please, be as explicit as you can be, and no further.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11012, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a user, you use API for certain purposes. You have certain goals you want to achieve, and the API is a tool that should help you achieve them.</p>\n\n<p>Your problem is, how to achieve these goals.</p>\n\n<p>Think of API \"hardwareToolbox\", which is a common toolbox in your garage. There's a hammer, there's a set of wrenches, a screwdriver, there's a hacksaw and an electric drill. Each of them are classes that have their methods. You also have nails, screws, screw anchors, etc. (all provided by right Factory objects.)</p>\n\n<p>You want to hang a picture on the wall. You have no clue how to do it.</p>\n\n<p>The right procedure is to drill the hole in the wall, put a screw anchor in, using a hammer, and then screw a screw in. As the user you know you need a screw in the wall, but not much more beyond this.</p>\n\n<p>Now let's look at your documentation.</p>\n\n<pre><code> Class Electric_hammer_drill. Makes holes.\n @methods: drill, hammer.\n\n method drill: Makes holes in material that doesn't need hammering\n @params: tool, depth, direction\n @return: hole\n\n method hammer: Makes holes in material that needs hammering\n @params: tool, depth, direction\n @return: hole\n\n\n Class Hammer. Applies kinetic impulse to objects.\n @methods: hit.\n\n method hit: Applies kinetic impulse to object\n @params: object, strength, location\n\n Factory Screw_anchor: anchors screw to wall.\n @params: inner_diameter, outer_diameter, length\n\n Factory Screw: Binds things together\n @params: diameter, length.\n\n Class Screwdriver: Turns screws.\n @methods turn\n\n Method turn: Turns screw.\n @params: direction, rotations, hole, screw.\n\n ...and about 40 other tools and items you don't need.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Do you see where I'm going?</p>\n\n<p>The user will deduce: I need a screw in the wall. To move screw I need screwdriver. Screwdriver requires hole. To make hole I need the drill. By a lot of trial and error I discover wall requires hammering, and a masonry bit for a tool to obtain a hole. (or I just drill one with wood bit, cursing the inefficiency of the API.) Then I try to fit the screw and it doesn't hold, and I'm all frustrated.</p>\n\n<p>What you need is use patterns. Examples. PURPOSES.</p>\n\n<p>Think of this.</p>\n\n<pre><code> method drill: Makes holes in material that doesn't need hammering, like wood, metal or plastic. Check table@... for right tool for the material.\n @params: tool, depth, direction\n @return: hole\n\n method hammer: Makes holes in material that needs hammering, specifically concrete. Use masonry bit for a tool.\n @params: tool, depth, direction\n @return: hole\n\n Factory Screw: Binds things together. Requires hole of matching diameter in flexible materials like wood, threaded hole in metal, or a screw anchor of matching inner diameter in concrete.\n @params: diameter, length.\n\n Factory Screw_anchor: anchors screw to wall. Requires a hole of outer_diameter in concrete type material. Provides hole of inner_diameter in flexible type material. Should be installed using a hammer. Typical use is allowing installing screws in walls.\n @params: inner_diameter, outer_diameter, length\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Basing on such a documentation the user should be able to deduce the correct procedure for installing the screw for the picture frame. It contains purposes, actual practical requisites (as opposed to formal), hints on how to use given tools, when to use them, and if they have specific requisites in specific situations.</p>\n\n<p>Even better is to provide rich examples, but these are to appear outside the direct function documentation. Nevertheless, besides writing <strong>what</strong> a function does, write its <strong>what for</strong> (purpose - why'd you ever need that result), <strong>actual requisites</strong> (not just a list of params it <em>might</em> take, but params it absolutely <em>needs</em>, typical <strong>usage patterns</strong> (hammer concrete, drill all the rest, a screw anchor needs to be driven by a hammer) and <strong>caveats</strong> (screw won't hold in raw concrete, needs screw anchor.) </p>\n\n<p>Just telling <em>what</em> a function does is not helpful if I never know <em>why</em> it does it, and <em>how to get it to do it right</em>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/10501", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 10520, "author": "DougM", "author_id": 6649, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6649", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There isn't a standard syntax for this. I've had the same experience in my own writing, and have even seen a need for formal ambiguity in written text, such as a sci-fi \"translation\" from an alien language.</p>\n\n<p>The practice I use is parenthesis around the questionable content, which allows for a phrase to be inserted instead of just a single word.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10521, "author": "Dale Hartley Emery", "author_id": 272, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/272", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When I'm writing, I simply mark the word for later review. How I mark it depends on my writing tool: highlight by changing the background or foreground color, insert a note or comment, wrap in [square brackets], some other way.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10522, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Similar to Dale, I'd use square brackets and color the word magenta. The magenta is a crossover from my design job, where anything in magenta is placeholder text. Magenta in a writing context would immediately signal to me \"This item needs to be changed or replaced in some fashion.\" </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10523, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>For my editing markup I prefer a style that does not overlap and interfere with what might be part of the text I am editing.</p>\n\n<p>Since square brackets indicate comments or amendments in quotes in some editing styles, e.g.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Rogers found in his study that \"some [apples] are tasty\".</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>or destroyed text when transcribing manuscripts, I do not use them for anything else.</p>\n\n<p>A question mark in front of the word seems clear in its meaning to me in your context, but as a linguist I have been using the phonetic alphabet, and in this the question mark represents a glottal stop.</p>\n\n<p>For this and other reasons <em>I avoid using characters as inline editing markup</em>.</p>\n\n<p>When I want to mark a word or passage in a software, <strong>I change the background color</strong>.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/6g0O6.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>I do not change font color, because much of what is published on websites or in print magazines actually has colored text, so this could be misunderstood or overlooked by a second editor (or even myself), but I haven't yet had anything published with a single word or phrase with a colored background.</p>\n\n<p>A colored background seems the most unambiguous markup to me.</p>\n\n<p>Some software, like Word, allows the use of comments:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/nOAWH.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>What I like about this is that you can comment on the reason of your markup, make suggestions etc., but I rarely use these.</p>\n\n<p>If I ever need to mark a word or passage in plain text, I use the number sign:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>an elite ###cadre### of sewage treatment workers</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I always use three, because a single one might be part of the text, but I have yet to come upon a text with three before and after a word. Also I haven't yet written or edited a text that contained the number sign (but question marks are quite frequent), so they are easy to search (and replace) with grep, e.g.</p>\n\n<pre><code>###.+?###\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>finds everything between three number signs</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10536, "author": "dmm", "author_id": 5956, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5956", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>1) If the ? is for yourself, then use two in row, which would never show up in regular text. That way you can search for them before submitting.</p>\n\n<p>2) If the ? is for the reader, then I'd say never ever do that. It's the writer's job to find the right word or phrase! You don't put a placeholder there with \"punctuation\" to indicate that it's not right. Yuck!!</p>\n\n<p>Now, having said that, there CAN be situations where the right word to describe something is not what the people in the story would use to describe themselves. (For example, terrorists describing themselves as \"freedom fighters,\" or sewer workers describing themselves as an \"elite cadre.\") In those situations, you can either let your readers discover the irony themselves, or you can point it out. Example: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>These were not simply sewage treatment workers. No, they were an\n elite cadre -- or so they told themselves, as they slogged through human waste a foot deep.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/10519", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8220/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 11014, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Look at different <strong>psychological theories of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">personality types</a></strong>.</p>\n\n<p>From the beginnings of time, scholars have attempted to categorize human character (as well as body type, race, and so on). Most such theories have been shown to bear no relation to reality, but for character building they are as good or better as the morality based D&amp;D system.</p>\n\n<p>The currently most widely used and accepted <strong>general system of measuring personality dimensions</strong> is the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Five Factor Model of personality traits</a>, also called the \"Big 5\". There are many, many different systems, most developed for a specific purpose (such as selecting suitable applicants for a certain job), so it would depend on your story which would be most appropriate for you.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In a <strong>fantasy world building</strong> game, that focusses on crafts (woodworker, hunter, scholar, warrior etc.), <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Codes\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Holland's occupational themes</a> (often abbreviated to RIASEC and used in many career choice tests) might be useful.</li>\n<li>If your story deals with <strong>political intrigue and warfare</strong>, the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">dark triad of leadership personality types</a> might make sense.</li>\n<li>In a <strong>romantic story</strong> dealing with relationships and interpersonal interaction, the a variant of the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_circumplex\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Interpersonal Circumplex</a> will help you understand the relevant aspects of your persons character.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And so on. There are just too many systems to list, much less explain them all, here, but if you are interested in psychology and want to take the time, you can certainly find one or merge several and create your own. Just follow the in-text links and articles listed under \"See also\" in the Wikipedia article on <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">personality types</a>, to start.</p>\n\n<p>There is one character building software for writers, <a href=\"http://www.characterwriter.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Character Writer</a>, that has incorporated the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneagram_of_Personality\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Enneagram</a>. Another software, <a href=\"https://marinersoftware.com/products/persona/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Persona</a>, uses its own system. See my own question: <a href=\"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/8938/software-for-developing-and-organizing-characters\">Software for developing and organizing characters</a>. I find those software systems limiting and unflexible, though, and would rather use a different theory of my own choice for each kind of story.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 11030, "author": "corsiKa", "author_id": 1691, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1691", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Magic: the Gathering</strong> has built its entire platform around the five colors of magic, and each one of them has a very distinct set of characteristics that tell you what color or colors you are. The \"Guru\" of the \"Color Pie\" is Mark Rosewater, currently the Lead Designer of <strong>Magic</strong>, and is often asked on his blog to elaborate on the color identity of various fictional and real figures (usually comic book characters).</p>\n\n<p>Here's a brief rundown (from <a href=\"http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Color_Pie\" rel=\"noreferrer\">MTG Salvation</a>):</p>\n\n<p>White </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>White puts value in the group, the community, and its civilization as a whole. White's ultimate goal is peace, harmony, and perfection — a world where everyone gets along and no one seeks to disturb the bonds of unity that White had worked so long to forge. To govern and protect its community, White makes use of and puts value in a number of broad concepts; morality (ethics, grace, truth), order (law, discipline, duty), uniformity (conformity, religion), and structure (government, planning, reason).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Blue</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Blue is the color that looks on the world and sees opportunity. For Blue, life is a chance to contemplate oneself, and what is possible, and to bring about the best of both. Blue reasons that if it is to make itself better, it must become capable of everything it could be capable of, for that is to \"merely add\" to its own capabilities. Blue believes it can't possibly be bad to acquire the potential for any conscious action. Blue decides that it must understand everything; for truly, understanding can only improve one's effectiveness in any task. Since knowledge itself will inform every other decision, Blue forms its principle goal: omniscience, the knowledge of all.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Black</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Black is the color of self-indulgence, parasitism, amorality and unfettered desire for power. It believes that the world is made for its taking and that the weak exist to be exploited by the strong. The essence of Black is to see one's own ego<a href=\"http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Color_Pie\" rel=\"noreferrer\">1</a> as so supremely invaluable, that the prospect of enslavement, of subordinating that ego to another, is utterly inadmissible. So, to be in accord with its perceptions and beliefs, Black simply must discard all obligations but to acquire power for itself. It can be no less than the one supreme being who is subordinate to no other, the possessor of all power in the universe - it must become omnipotent.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Red</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Above all else, red values freedom of expression. It wants to do what it wants, when it wants, to whom it wants, and nobody can tell it otherwise. It believes that life would be much more fun if everyone stopped caring about rules, laws and personal appearances and just spent their time indulging their desires. This leads into red's other core value: chaos. Red sees order of any kind as pointlessly inhibiting, believing that only through embracing anarchy could everyone really be free to enjoy life to the fullest. Finally, red is the color of immediate action and immediate gratification. If it wants something it will act on its impulses and take it, regardless of the consequences.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Green</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Green is the color of nature, growth, interdependence and instinct. It believes that obedience the natural order alone is the best way to exist and thus favors a simplistic way of living in harmony with the rest of the world. This can often lead to it be perceived as a pacifistic color, as it does not seek to make conflict with the other colors as long as they leave it alone and do not disrespect nature. However, it is fierce when it feels threatened and can be predatory and aggressive if its instincts dictate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Now this isn't exactly a matrix, it's a wheel. And a wheel is really 1 dimensional (if you think about it, it all travels in 1 direction - the spokes aren't really used except to keep the track from collapsing on itself...) This wheel has what are known as \"allied\" and \"enemy\" colors. In the order listed, White - Blue - Black - Red - Green - White (with white being repeated because it's a wheel, that goes around... the pattern repeats forever) The two colors that surround a given color are considered allied colors. So Black is considered allies with Blue and Red, and enemies with Green and White. And indeed, the enemy philosophies are often considered conflicting. <strong>This is very close to what you're looking for in terms of a \"opposite character trait\" matrix</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>But a person is not always simply Black or White (or Blue or Red or Green!) Here's a couple examples that might help you flesh out how to slot people on the color pie.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Tony Stark (Ironman) - One of the world's greatest inventors, cares deeply about the advancement of science. Clearly Blue. (Note: he's Blue because he CARES, not because HE'S SMART.) But, he has no problem demolishing cities with collateral damage to achieve his goals. This chaotic streak labels him Red as well. Early renditions of him might be considered Black, as he can be considered quite selfish, but this appears to be disappearing over time.</p></li>\n<li><p>Oliver Queen (The Green Arrow) - Early Oliver could easily be considered Black Green. He is incredibly raw and rugged (even though his Billionaire-playboy alter ego was pretty Red, this changed when he became a superhero and is mostly just for show to divert attention from his true self.) He's also willing to go to just about any extreme to extinguish his enemies and has no concept of mercy. After the death of his friend, he reaches a new sense of honor and enlightenment and decides to actively abolish his Black past and transitions to a more merciful White course of action.</p></li>\n<li><p>Bruce Wayne (Batman) - Bruce himself is a very Blue White person. His curious nature as a tinkerer and inventor and pushing the limits of technology solidifies himself as Blue (much like Stark), but his motivations are simply to save a widely troubled Gotham City. He wants to eliminate crime and establish order, which is a purly White motivation. However, his persona as Batman appears Black. While he really isn't into slaughtering people (which would eliminate crime, but that's not how he wants to do it) he still instills fear in those criminals. So while he wouldn't actually slaughter them in cold blood, he certainly has no problems making them THINK he would, and using this fear to his advantage. This isn't exactly a Black trait, but it is borderline, and certainly could be characterized as Faux Black.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>There exists a world in the <strong>Magic</strong> universe called Ravnica that has ten guilds, one for each color pair, that also help to characterize one facet of that pair. (This isn't to say that a guild comprises all the characteristic-economy of that color pair, only to serve as one good example.)</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The Boros Legion - (Red/White) - A worldwide military/police agency, they keep order, using force where necessary.</li>\n<li>The Golgari Swarm - (Green/Black) - A sect emphasizing that death is an essential part of life, and that death and plague fosters regrowth and endurance.</li>\n<li>The Selensya Conclave (White/Green) - Zealous defenders of keeping life in balance, they hold true to the axiom that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.</li>\n<li>House Dimir (Blue/Black) - A network of assassins and spies, most common folk don't believe it even exists. \"There are nine guilds\" was a popular meme for some time (especially considering the other 9 guilds can be mapped to the 3x3 DnD alignment matrix).</li>\n<li>The Orzhov Syndicate (Black/white) - Religion in the front, mafia in the back, these extortionists control most of the spiritual and economic goings-on of the entire planet.</li>\n<li>The Izzet League (Blue/Red) - While their inventions keep the Ravnican technosphere afloat, they are more like mad scientists who have caused more than one fatal explosion.</li>\n<li>The Gruul Clans (Red/Green) - Not so much a guild anymore due to their savage nature, these clansman represent those who live outside the comforts of the world-spanning city that is Ravnica.</li>\n<li>The Azorius Senate (Blue/White) - The lawmakers of Ravnica, they protect the status quo at all costs. Their Blue comes from their pursuit of knowledge, which is immensely useful in politics.</li>\n<li>The Cult of Rakdos (Red/Black) - Just your every-day ritualistic-torturing, demon worshipping, murderous cult. Death isn't the objective, it's merely the end of the road of their true goal, torture and pain. I recommend politely declining party invites.</li>\n<li>The Simic Combine (Green/Blue) - Originally, the Simic wanted to protect the ever-shrinking natural population as the world-spanning city took over mile after mile of land. As resources dwindle, they must get more creative to keep their quarry alive, to the extent that the creatures they once wished to protect now bear little resemblance to the current population.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>There's plenty of further reading on the matter, with Mark himself writing <a href=\"http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/features.aspx?tag=color%20pie\" rel=\"noreferrer\">22 articles so far</a> on the matter in his weekly <strong>Magic</strong> column. It isn't perfect, but in writing especially, you can generally take any group of 5 characters and say which one is the Green one, the Blue one, the Red one, the Black one, and the White one. It's something that tends to happen naturally even without knowing the color pie. This just puts a little science behind that natural phenomenon. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/11013", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/68/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 12203, "author": "dmm", "author_id": 5956, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5956", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are textbooks for homeschooling that do exactly what you are saying. So, I'm pretty sure it isn't illegal or plagiarism. However, homeschoolers are an independent lot -- not representative of the general public. Also, even among homeschoolers the non-self-contained textbooks are used more by the \"hard core\" homeschoolers (who are becoming more and more of a minority as homeschooling spreads into the general public). Try a web search on <code>homeschool \"great books\"</code>.</p>\n\n<p>The nice thing about the type of textbook you describe is that it is cheap -- <em>assuming the user has access to a good library</em> (which isn't being laid waste by other users). Otherwise, the user has to buy and keep track of lots of books instead of just one. Most people find that annoying and/or troublesome. OTOH, when you're reading \"Huck Finn\" you only need to carry around one little paperback instead of a gigantic tome that contains 10 novels. </p>\n\n<p>Plus, if the books under study are all out of copyright, then you can get them all for free from the web and put them on an e-reader. That's super convenient.</p>\n\n<p>OTOH, a big advantage to self-contained textbooks is that notes and questions can be put right into the primary material under study. Students like that. It's super convenient.</p>\n\n<p>The best thing would be to have your textbook be an e-book, and have it link to stuff on the web (books, essays, movies, etc.) But you'd have to do that cheaply somehow, because people don't trust that those web links will last for years (therefore your e-book would have low [NO?] resale value). Linking to out-of-copyright stuff is fine. Any links to copyrighted stuff will require usage fees, which will add to the cost of your textbook.</p>\n\n<p>In summary, I think what you are proposing is the wave of the future, but people are still trying to figure out how to do it profitably.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 12225, "author": "Sylas Seabrook", "author_id": 9914, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/9914", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a workbook I can see this methodology working.</p>\n\n<p>Since you do not plagiarize the original works, you cite them, and refer the reader to them, I am not aware of any laws which would be in conflict (note: I am a US citizen and laws in other countries are something I know absolutely nothing about).</p>\n\n<p>If this were a textbook, as a student I would question whether it was appropriate. A textbook in my view is one which teaches/instructs. It does not present a potentially-biased summary, ask for a pre-judgement on the unknown, request the intake of that item, and then ask for my own judgement... how does such a process teach or instruct? It is impossible to know what every student will think beforehand and afterwards and then educate them based on their analysis, so how does one continue the segment afterwards? While exceptional cases may facilitate such a method, to do an entire textbook via such a method is likely to not achieve the goal a textbook is designed to achieve and could easily be replaced by a list of items to be read/viewed.</p>\n\n<p>Take, for example, John Gardner's \"The Art Of Fiction\". It cites many writings by numerous authors and very often includes excerpts. I am not sure if this is a textbook by raw definition (I bought it for non-formal education purposes). In each of the citings, though, an analysis is included as to how that particular passage establishes a point being made. Sometimes a contrast is made between two different passages in order to demonstrate the point. Such a demonstration serves a fundamental purpose in that it allows the author of the work to choose the examples and then specifically address areas of excellence or areas where improvement can be made.</p>\n\n<p>If we leave, as I gather from your question, the analysis up to the reader, we are asking only for self-reflection and providing little guidance.</p>\n\n<p>Now, perhaps you have found the key dmm has referred to in the answer's closing section, but it seems to me that the reason you do not see a plethora of such works at this time has nothing to do with legalty and is because highly-effective, proven methods of instruction are what authors lean toward (not that anyone is necessarily biased towards other methods such as you have suggested).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/12181", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3375/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 12684, "author": "Mark", "author_id": 10351, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10351", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Response from Scrivener Staff:</p>\n\n<p>I'm afraid that there are limits to how much headers and footers can be customised from within Scrivener itself and you've hit up against that. While Scrivener is capable of creating verso headers and footers (right and left), and it can create a different header/footer style for the \"first pages\" of the manuscript, it cannot create a separate header/footer for the first page of each chapter.</p>\n\n<p>I'm afraid this level of customisation would have to be done by compiling to Word and making the changes there.</p>\n\n<p><strong><em>Credits go to:</em></strong>\n<strong>Jeff</strong></p>\n\n<p>from </p>\n\n<p>Literature and Latte Support</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14680, "author": "Josh", "author_id": 10485, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10485", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Far be it from me to disagree with the Scrivener staff, but I have been doing this very thing with my PDF. Here's the basics of my setup.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>PDF output using <code>Printing</code> layout</li>\n<li>In the <code>Formatting</code> section, Level 1 folders are configured to always start on a recto page. (Under the <code>Section Layout</code> button, then <code>First Page</code> tab.)</li>\n<li>In the <code>Page Settings</code> section...\n\n<ul>\n<li><code>Header and Footer</code> tab\n\n<ul>\n<li>My desired header and footer are typed in the center boxes</li>\n<li><code>No header on first page and pages following page breaks</code> is checked.</li>\n<li><code>No header or footer on single pages</code> is not checked.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><code>First Pages</code> tab\n\n<ul>\n<li>I put a single space in the header and footer center text boxes</li>\n<li><code>Different first page header/footer</code> is checked.</li>\n<li><code>Page numbers count first pages</code> is checked.</li>\n<li><code>Start regular header and footer</code> is set to Page 4.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><code>Facing Pages</code> tab\n\n<ul>\n<li>Same header and footer text from the first tab is in the center text boxes</li>\n<li><code>Use facing pages</code> is checked.</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And here is how it comes out on mine...</p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/V5jAW.png\" alt=\"Chapter Headers\">\n<img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tq6Ne.png\" alt=\"No Chapter Headers\"></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/12614", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10351/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 18153, "author": "Praefervidus", "author_id": 14487, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14487", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Well if you don't have *nix, and you're not familiar with programming, then there is one way to do it, though it might be a little slow. Word does provide a find/replace where you can quickly just replace all words in a document/selection with a word you give it. It's quick to replace, the slow part is that if you are trying to replace a whole variety of words it may take a while.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if you don't mind learning to program, this is a something you could learn to code in probably a few hours if you're committed. Perhaps Java would suit your needs? <a href=\"http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19284, "author": "evilsoup", "author_id": 5765, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5765", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I suspect that the best answer for what I imagine is your use-case would be for someone to write a Word or LibreOffice macro, but I wouldn't even know where to begin with that.</p>\n<p>However, you could use Vim for this -- specifically gVim, which has a Windows version. This takes a little bit of setting up, but I think the results are worth it.</p>\n<p><strong>Note:</strong> While it's nowhere near as mind-bending as its critics would have you think, learning Vim <em>is</em> non-trivial, and beyond the scope of this answer. If you want, once you've installed gVim, you can use the Start menu to search for 'Vim Tutor' (without the quotes) to get an interactive tutorial of the basics. It's well worth learning, if you can get your head around it.</p>\n<h2>Setting up</h2>\n<p>First of all, download &amp; install gVim from <a href=\"http://www.vim.org/download.php/#pc\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a>.</p>\n<p>You'll also need the <a href=\"https://github.com/tpope/vim-abolish\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">abolish.vim plugin</a> for its <code>:Subvert</code> command. Quick installation instructions for this (once you've already got gVim installed):</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Create the directory <code>C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\vimfiles</code>, and then the directories <code>C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\vimfiles\\autoload</code> and <code>C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\vimfiles\\bundle</code></li>\n<li>Download <a href=\"https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Pathogen</a>, which is a plugin manager for Vim -- it's easiest to just grab the <a href=\"https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen/archive/master.zip\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">zip file</a> and unpack it in <code>C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\vimfiles\\autoload</code></li>\n<li>Download the <a href=\"https://github.com/tpope/vim-abolish/archive/master.zip\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">abolish zip</a> and extract it to the bundle directory</li>\n<li>Create a text file called <code>_vimrc</code> in <code>C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME</code>, and put the following lines within it:</li>\n</ol>\n<p>.</p>\n<pre><code>execute pathogen#infect()\nset encoding=utf-8\n</code></pre>\n<p>Now you need to create your cypher file. This will actually be a plain text file with commands for Vim. It should look something like this:</p>\n<pre><code>&quot;paste from the clipboard into vim:\n0put * \n\n&quot;The substitute commands\n&quot;Make sure you use %S rather than %s\n&quot;The 'silent!' prevents error messages\nsilent! %S/quick/varryn/g\nsilent! %S/fox/drugar/g\nsilent! %S/dog/foob/g\n\n&quot;delete the blank line which vim will have added:\n$delete\n&quot;cut the text into the clipboard:\n%delete *\n</code></pre>\n<h2>The Magic</h2>\n<p>Let's say you have the following paragraphs:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.</p>\n<p>'Quick!' shouted the dog, uncharacteristically, to the fox: 'Jump over me!'</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>...and you want to run your cypher over it, so that every instance of 'quick' will be replaced with 'varryn' and so on. First, copy the text from your word document (or whatever). Then, open gVim and type the following (pressing enter at the end):</p>\n<pre><code>:source C:\\path\\to\\cypher.txt\n</code></pre>\n<p>After this, you can just paste the paragraph back into your word document, <em>et voilà</em>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The varryn, brown drugar jumps over the lazy foob. The varryn, brown drugar jumps over the lazy foob.</p>\n<p>'Varryn!' shouted the foob, uncharacteristically, to the drugar: 'Jump over me!'</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You might not want to have to type out the full path to your cypher file; you could put the following line at the bottom of your <code>_vimrc</code>:</p>\n<pre><code>command Cypher :source C:\\path\\to\\cypher.txt\n</code></pre>\n<p>With this, you can simply type <code>:Cypher</code> (and press enter) without having to remember where the file is each time.</p>\n<p>Additionally, if you type <code>@:</code> within Vim, the previous command-line mode command (those starting with a <code>:</code>) will be repeated; so if you were translating multiple paragraphs, you would only need to type <code>:Cypher</code> the first time, and for all additional occasions (for as long as you leave Vim open) you could just use <code>@:</code>.</p>\n<h2>Note on the Cypher File</h2>\n<p>You stated in one of the comments that you already have a cypher set up. You can use gVim to transform this into the syntax needed here, rather than typing it all up again.</p>\n<p>I'm assuming your cypher is set up in a way similar to this -- if it's not, you can drop a comment &amp; I'll modify this accordingly:</p>\n<pre><code>quick varryn \nfox drugar \ndog foob \n</code></pre>\n<p>Copy the lines from whatever file they're currently stored in, and open gVim. Type the following: <code>&quot;*p</code> -- this will paste from your system's clipboard (rather than one of Vim's many internal clipboards -- called 'registers' by Vim).</p>\n<p>(If you're using non-English letters, some of them might not show up properly, because the default typeface is not very good. On Windows, you should have access to the excellent Consolas; type <code>:set guifont=Consolas:h10</code> (you can put this command in your <code>_vimrc</code>, or alternatively in a <code>_gvimrc</code> file, if you like).)</p>\n<p>Then type the following command (and press enter at the end):</p>\n<pre><code>:%s/\\([^ ]*\\) \\(.*\\)/silent! %S\\/\\1\\/\\2\\/g\n</code></pre>\n<p>It's quite a long one, so if you're afraid of mistyping it, you can copy it from this answer, and then type into Vim <code>q:</code> (which should bring up a little frame at the bottom of you gVim window), followed by <code>&quot;*p</code> to paste the command in, and then press enter.</p>\n<p>You should now have lines like this:</p>\n<pre><code>silent! %S/quick/varryn/g\nsilent! %S/fox/drugar/g\nsilent! %S/dog/foob/g\n</code></pre>\n<p>Next you need to insert the other commands needed to run the cypher. Type the following commands (pressing enter at the end of each one):</p>\n<pre><code>:0s/^/0put *\\r/\n:$s/$\\r$delete\\r%delete */\n</code></pre>\n<p>After these, you should have a file that looks something like this:</p>\n<pre><code>0put *\nsilent! %S/quick/varryn/g\nsilent! %S/fox/drugar/g\nsilent! %S/dog/foob/g\n$delete\n%delete *\n</code></pre>\n<p>Now you just need to save it:</p>\n<pre><code>:w C:\\path\\to\\cypher.txt\n</code></pre>\n<p>And exit gVim with <code>:q</code>.</p>\n<h2>Limitations</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Vim is a plain text editor -- it has no idea what 'italics' or 'bold' mean, so running rich text through it will strip away that stuff. There might be a way around this, if it <em>really</em> matters to you, but it will involve installing additional programs. (Or you could write your novel in markdown, like all the cool kids :V )</li>\n<li>There's no problem with single-quotes (<code>'</code>), but if you want to include the double-quote anywhere in your cypher text you'll have to precede it with a backslash (because <code>&quot;</code> is used for comments in Vim command files)</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/12942", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10703/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 14176, "author": "Alexandro Chen", "author_id": 1544, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1544", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Your sentences aren't in the present tense. This would be present tense:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The tree is so massive it even withheld the strongest storm.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Now, regarding your past-tense sentences:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The tree was so massive it even withheld the strongest storm.\n (Not lasting fact)</p>\n \n <p>The tree was so massive it could have withhold the strongest\n storm. (Lasting fact)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So yes, lasting facts should be written in the present tense (aside of few exceptions).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14177, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First of all, &quot;withheld&quot; means &quot;held something back from,&quot; as in &quot;she withheld the cookies from her child&quot; or &quot;he withheld the information from Congress.&quot; So it doesn't mean &quot;hold up to&quot; a big storm. The word you want is &quot;survive.&quot;</p>\n<p>Second, Alex <em>almost</em> has it right in his second example. You have a few options in the past tense:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>The tree was so massive it could have survived the strongest storm.</strong> (&quot;The strongest storm&quot; has happened, but we don't know whether the tree was exposed to it. If it was, then clearly it survived.)</p>\n<p><strong>The tree was so massive it could survive the strongest storm.</strong> (Hypothetical: &quot;The strongest storm&quot; <em>hasn't</em> happened. We project that the tree could survive it.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In present tense:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>The tree is so massive it could survive the strongest storm.</strong> (Hypothetical again. Even if we are in the present, the strongest storm is in the future.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/14175", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10938/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 14236, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Your question makes me come up with the following example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For twenty years I lived in the land of milk and honey - along with the bees and cows.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To me, this sounds better than:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><s>For twenty years I lived in the land of milk and honey - along with the cows and bees.</s></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I can't explain (though I find Lauren Ipsum's explanation in the comment below quite plausible), and others might disagree, but my gut feeling says that in this case <strong>it is better to reverse the order</strong>.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Following up on the comments, \"practicality and knowledge\" sounds better to me than \"knowledge and practicality\", because <code>/ˈnɑlədʒ/</code> has only one stressed syllable, while <code>/ˌpræktəˈkælədi/</code> has at least two (and more syllables overall), which creates two rhythmic patterns:</p>\n\n<pre><code>knowledge and practicality\n / x x / x / x x\n\npracticality and knowledge\n / x / x x x / x\n\n/ = stressed, x = unstressed; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The second rhythmic pattern (\"p. and k.\") has a distinctive finishing subpattern at the end (<code>/ x</code>), while the first pattern (\"k. and p.\") sort of \"peters out\".</p>\n\n<p>Which pattern works better in your context would depend on <strong>what kind of effect</strong> you prefer: a strong, finalising statement (\"p. and k.\") or a more uncertain, open almost-question (\"k. and p.\").</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14273, "author": "Kris", "author_id": 2868, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2868", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>First, they don't <em>have</em> to, a one-to-one correspondence is not mandatory. </p>\n\n<p>That said, they are two different narrative styles, the former simpler and faster to scan, the latter much superior literally, reflecting a creative twist added in. Occasional use of the latter can be enriching. (Also tests the reviewer's acuity.) </p>\n\n<p>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/14232", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1544/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 16078, "author": "Amanda", "author_id": 12801, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/12801", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>No, is not needed capitalize a word after a colon.\nSame as spanish.</p>\n\n<pre><code>I want the following: butter, sugar, and flour.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Read here the rules: <a href=\"http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/colons.asp\">http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/colons.asp</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 44543, "author": "user8356", "author_id": 8356, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8356", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Yes, it is necessary, if what follows the colon is a complete sentence. Punctuation that ends a previous sentence does not change the sentence capitalization rule.</p>\n\n<p><em>Here is an example of a sentence that needs to start with a capital letter: This is a complete sentence that contains a subject and a verb.</em></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16077", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5039/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 16099, "author": "Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt", "author_id": 7926, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/7926", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This sounds like an issue of fair use. For example naming the song should be fine especially as you are not saying anything bad about it and as titles are not subject to copyright (trademark might be a different issue if you, say, called your book by the song's title). The tricky part comes when you start citing lyrics. A few is okay sometimes depending on context but all of them is massively unlikely to be considered fair. The cut of point is... somewhere.</p>\n\n<p>The general advice is that if in doubt ask the copyright holder for permission.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>I found an article on the subject that might be of interest: <a href=\"http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/questions-and-quandaries/legal-questions/can-i-use-song-lyrics-in-my-manuscript\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/questions-and-quandaries/legal-questions/can-i-use-song-lyrics-in-my-manuscript</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><em>It should go without saying that I am not a law expert.</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16100, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. There is a concept in copyright law called &quot;fair use&quot;. This means that you can use short quotes from someone else's copyrighted work without permission. See here from the US Copyright office <a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20210605143659/https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Link</a>.</p>\n<p>Special deference is given to use for educational or literary purposes. Like one scholar can quote another to offer his own views on the others ideas. Or a critic can quote from someone else's work when giving a review. Neither of those apply to you, so you have to go to the next tier.</p>\n<p>Next thing is how much of the work you quote. If you quote the entire song you are on much more dangerous ground that if you quote one line.</p>\n<p>For non-educational use, the key criterion is: do you affect the market for the original work. If, for example, someone else wrote a poem, and you copy his entire poem into your book, then anyone who buys your book has no reason to buy a copy of his poem from him. You've hurt his potential sales. He would almost certainly win a copyright suit. A song is a little different, as someone could read the lyrics and say, Hey, I'd really like to hear the music that goes with this, and it might actually help his sales. But I wouldn't count on that.</p>\n<p>Short answer: Don't quote the entire lyrics of a song without permission. You can probably get away with a line or two as fair use. Leave it at that.</p>\n<p>The title of the song and the name of the group are not and cannot be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked, which is a whole different thing. Basically there the key is that you cannot attempt to confuse potential customers. If you decided to form your own band and called it Rage Again With Machines or Rage Against the Marines, you'd be setting yourself up for a trademark lawsuit. If it's an obvious parody, you can get away with it, but not if you are just trying to trick people into thinking you are the famous group. It's safe to use someone else's trademark in your book as long as you use it correctly and you use it to refer to them. Lots of books mention a character &quot;drinking a Coke&quot; or &quot;driving his Chevy&quot;. You do have to be careful to use a trademark correctly. Like Coca Cola's lawyers used to regularly send letters to writers who wrote &quot;coke&quot; with a small-c, and they threatened restaurants with lawsuits if someone ordered a Coke and they gave him some other brand. (So that now, if you order a Coke in a restaurant in the U.S. and they don't serve Coca Cola products, they are likely to say, &quot;Is Pepsi okay?&quot; or something similar.)</p>\n<p>Just BTW: I don't know the audience for your book. Are you sure that every reader will be familiar with this particular group and this particular song? Personally, I've only vaguely heard of the group and I've never heard of that particular song. Maybe I'm not the audience for your book. I've often seen writers fall into the trap of thinking that everyone thinks and acts just like them. Like &quot;Everybody reads this magazine&quot; or &quot;Everybody is in favor of X&quot;, when the reality is more like &quot;I and my close friends do this&quot;. Of course if it doesn't really matter, if you're just trying to set a mood that the character is singing along to a popular song, and exactly what the song is doesn't make much difference, readers who don't know will just say &quot;whatever&quot; and read on, then no problem. But if you're expecting readers to know the lyrics and this is important to the story, then readers who DON'T know the lyrics will be missing out.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16115, "author": "Michael Lorton", "author_id": 1125, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1125", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can quote copyrighted material so long as your quotation falls under \"fair use\". I am reasonably sure that if you got three intellectual-property lawyers in a room, you could get four and possibly five opinions on exactly what constitutes fair use, but the legal rule (in the US) is that four factors are to be balanced:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the purpose and character of your use</li>\n<li>the nature of the copyrighted work</li>\n<li>the amount and substantiality of the portion taken</li>\n<li>the effect of the use upon the potential market.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Your use: if you are reviewing a song for a web-site, a substantial quotation would be considered fair. If you are just writing another song, well, much less o.</p>\n\n<p>The nature of the work: if it's a best-selling novel the author spent his life writing, that is one thing. If it is a accidental exclamation, quite another. (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer\" rel=\"nofollow\">Todd Beamer</a>'s widow tried to claim a copyright on \"Let's roll\"; Donald Trump tried to copyright \"You're fired\". Neither had much luck.)</p>\n\n<p>The portion taken: three lines from an encyclopedia can be fair use; three lines from a haiku, probably not.</p>\n\n<p>The effect: if there is a big commercial market for the original work and your quoting it deprives the author of a significant part of it, that ain't fair use.</p>\n\n<p>Remember: IANAL!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16093", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/12797/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 16142, "author": "Paul A. Clayton", "author_id": 5232, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5232", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Happily since this is a practical question, one does not need to solve <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Theseus' Paradox</a> to provide an answer. The intent behind the rule is to provide distinctive work, i.e., no reader will think \"I have read this before.\" To determine whether a new work is too similar to a previous work, one should consider whether a reader would think the work had been read before from fallible memory of perhaps a year earlier.</p>\n\n<p>Trying to play lawyer with the definitions of \"same work\" and \"previously published\" will not endear one to editors. In fact, being upfront about the relationship — while also demonstrating that one is familiar with the submission guidelines and <em>does not expect special treatment</em> — may slightly increase the chance of publication.</p>\n\n<p>On the practical matter, if I were an editor, I would consider such minor changes to be revisions and quickly reject the submission (if I knew the previous work had been published). The two works are sufficiently similar that a reader who had read one a year after the other could easily think them the same. Both use substantially the same form, both have the same tone, both use the same imagery, and both cover the same subject (in this case made more obvious by the reference to \"The Road Not Taken\", which would make those aspects more memorable).</p>\n\n<p>Note that the rule about previously published is subject to the editor's discretion. For example, a mediocre work published in a poetry magazine with very low standards (e.g., some college poetry magazines) that was substantially refined such that it would be eagerly accepted for publication if it had not be previously published would typically be considered as if it had not been previously published. A typical reader would not think them the same work from memory (even if all the above mentioned traits were the same); in fact, a reader presented with both would likely think the earlier work a weak imitation of the latter. Furthermore, the obscurity of the earlier publication would make the editor feel that readers would be even more likely to appreciate the work as new. </p>\n\n<p>If one has some juvenilia that was \"published\" in a high school poetry magazine, one might be able to refine such works into what would be accepted as new by a poetry magazine with high standards. Similarly, if one took a well-written and previously published Shakespearean sonnet and revised it into a Petrarchan sonnet of the same or better quality, the modest difference in form and presumed changes in images and tone (a Shakespearean sonnet traditionally has a two line \"conclusion\", while a Petrarchan sonnet has a turn after the first eight lines) might be sufficient to be considered new. In that case, an editor might <em>appreciate</em> being exposed to both version (and <em>might</em> even desire to republish the earlier version to highlight the contrast).</p>\n\n<p>In general, it is not a good idea to submit a revision of work that has been previously published when the publisher requires that submissions not be previously published.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16146, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I doubt that there is a hard and fast line. I suppose a publication might say, \"If the revised poem has at least 50% of the words changed it is acceptable\". But I doubt they do. </p>\n\n<p>One could, of course, play games with this sort of thing. You could take a completely original poem and cry, \"Look! It includes the phrases 'undying love' and 'made for each other', just like this other poem over here! Obviously a copy.\" At the other extreme, I can't imagine that any editor would accept that changing one word in a five-page poem makes it a new poem.</p>\n\n<p>Any standard is likely to be subjective. Does it \"sound like\" the other poem? Etc.</p>\n\n<p>I have to wonder: Why do you ask? Did you write a poem, get it published, and now you want to publish it again? Or are you contemplating taking a book of poems by Shakespeare or Poe, changing a couple of words here and there, and submitting them as your own?</p>\n\n<p>I suppose if you wrote some poem that you consider your master work, that you are not confidant that you will ever be able to create something of this quality again, and you had it published in some obscure literary journal that six people read and you are now frustrated because you can't get it out to a wider audience ... well, I'd talk to the editor about that and explain your position. Otherwise, I think you'd be better to just write new poems rather than try to tinker with someone else's. Well, other than to produce a parody, like your example above is obviously a parody on Road Not Taken.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16148, "author": "FWE", "author_id": 10411, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10411", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Assumed you only regard changes of words within a text, f.i.., a poem. And each word should at most be changed once. Then the number of changes you could possibly make is equal to the number of words.</p>\n\n<p>Say w is the <strong>number of words</strong> and\nsay c is the <strong>number of word changes</strong>\n(so 0&lt;=c&lt;=w)</p>\n\n<p>The <strong>change rate</strong> r shall be equal to c/w\n(so 0&lt;=r&lt;= 1).</p>\n\n<p>Now intuitively if r is very small (near to 0) you might want to consider the texts being the same and in case r is big (almost 1) you will tend to consider the revised text to be new. When r is neither near to 0 nor near to 1 you could justify both, i.e., to call it a new text or to call it the same.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16141", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/12677/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 16483, "author": "dmm", "author_id": 5956, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/5956", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The short answer to your general question is \"no.\" If the subsection is titled the same as the section, then either one of them is named incorrectly or else your outline is incorrect. An outline is supposed to be like this:</p>\n\n<p>Title: Great Cities of the World</p>\n\n<p>I. American Cities</p>\n\n<p>A. Large Cities</p>\n\n<pre><code> 1. New York, NY\n\n 2. Chicago, IL\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>B. Historical Cities</p>\n\n<pre><code> 1. Philadelphia, PA\n\n 2. San Diego, CA\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>II. European Cities</p>\n\n<p>etc. etc. etc. </p>\n\n<p>In mathematical terms: Every subsection must be a <em>limited</em> subset of the section in which it occurs. </p>\n\n<p>Corollary One: A section must not be divided into subsections unless there are at least two subsections. </p>\n\n<p>Corollary Two: A section name is implicitly part of all subsection names beneath it. </p>\n\n<p>Corollary Three: If explicitly adding the section name to a subsection name would cause the subsection name to not make sense, then the subsection is in the wrong section.</p>\n\n<p>To answer your specific question: The subsection should be named \"Basic Properties.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16484, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You definitely want to avoid the kind of clash you're describing.</p>\n\n<p>Intuitively, the section is composed of smaller subsections, which expand on particular areas. So a clash feels like you're saying \"And now, within the topic of <code>(Topic X)</code>, let's talk about <code>(Topic X)</code>.\" Even if there's some kind of sense to it, it's confusing and should be avoided.</p>\n\n<p>The key to solving this is figuring out what the difference is between the larger section, and the subsection. If they're both talking about <code>(Topic X)</code> - in this case, about Partially Ordered Categories - then the subsection <em>must</em> be discussing a <em>specific</em> aspect of <code>(Topic X)</code> - otherwise, you wouldn't have any other subsections in the same category.</p>\n\n<p>Most often, if you feel like the names should be the same, it's because you're discussing a large topic, and at some point you want to formally define the topic. For example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ul>\n <li>Topic X\n <ul>\n <li>Introduction</li>\n <li>Motivation for Topic X</li>\n <li><strong>Topic X</strong></li>\n <li>Use #1 of Topic X</li>\n <li>Use #2 of Topic X</li>\n <li>Variations on Topic X</li>\n <li>Topic X in Popular Culture</li>\n </ul></li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In this case, the role of the subsection might be:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>A formal definition of the topic</li>\n<li>Basic facts about the topic</li>\n<li>A brief overview of the topic, which will be expanded upon in later subsections</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>...or other similar roles. You've got to figure out the particular role your subsection plays, in order to give it an accurate name.</p>\n\n<p>I'd suggest that the easiest way to do this is to try to make the title of the clashing subsection <strong>longer</strong>. If this subsection is talking <em>about</em> Topic X, but isn't <em>everything</em> about Topic X, then explaining (in as many words as it takes) what the subsection is about will give you a more specific title. </p>\n\n<p>For example, in your particular case, the relevant subsection contains only the formal mathematical definition. So if you'd describe the subsections in your own words, you'd say \"This subsection has <strong>the definition of Partially ordered categories</strong>, and then the next subsection introduces another concept that works with this definition.\" So you could use:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>3.5 Partially ordered categories</p>\n \n <p><strong>3.5.1 Definition</strong></p>\n \n <p>3.5.2 Dagger categories</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or even</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>3.5 Partially ordered categories</p>\n \n <p><strong>3.5.1 Definition of Partially ordered categories</strong></p>\n \n <p>3.5.2 Dagger categories</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and you'll be entirely clear.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16481", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2025/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 16514, "author": "Watercleave", "author_id": 8758, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/8758", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In my opinion, any answer looks messy. One \"sentence\" with capitals halfway through bugs me; so does a line starting without a capital.</p>\n\n<p>Personally, I would restructure the entire thing to avoid the issue entirely:</p>\n\n<h3>Example 1</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Currently, line 57 of <em>camera.py</em> looks like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25)\n</code></pre>\n \n <p>In this line, the parameter <code>quantization</code> needs to be replaced with\n <code>quality</code>, giving us this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25)\n</code></pre>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h3>Example 2</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Look at Figure 1 below. Our code currently contains line (1); we need\n to replace it with line (2).</p>\n\n<pre><code>(1) camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25)\n\n(2) camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25)\n</code></pre>\n \n <p><strong><em>Figure 1</strong> - Two versions of line 57 of the code in camera.py</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(Obviously I don't know your code file name, line numbers, or programming language. Substitute where necessary. \"camera.py\" can be replaced with Example 1 if you're taking that route.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16516, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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. Since you are continuing one sentence over several breaks, I wouldn't use capitals. </p>\n\n<p>I think Watercleave has another good solution if you can't settle on any combination of punctuation and capitalization. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16526, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>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. 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.</p>\n\n<p>Therefore, in my opinion, your <strong>second example</strong> is best.</p>\n\n<p>Example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When five year old Maude said: \"I am not interested in horse riding,\" what she actually meant was: \"I am afraid of horses\".</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Similarly:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Hence, the following code: <code>camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quantization=25)</code>, should be replaced with: <code>camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25)</code>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course you must <em>not</em> put commas inside the code quote, as English rules require for dialogue ('riding,\"'). When you put your code snippets on separate lines for better readability, the syntax, capitalization and punctuation remain the same.</p>\n\n<p>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. You can then refer to code by line numbers:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In line 21, <code>quantization</code> must be replaced by <code>quality</code>:</p>\n \n <p><code>21 camera.start_recording('foo.h264', quality=25)</code></p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 30199, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Do the simplest thing that works, which in this case is example 3. The rules of sentence structure don't really cover these kinds of things. That is a defect of the rules of sentence structure, not of the examples themselves. </p>\n\n<p>Remember that the first rule is clarity. Grammar rules and style guides exist to codify the practices that <strong>usually</strong> produce the clearest and least ambiguous result. They are a good guide most of the time. 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. </p>\n\n<p>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. As George Orwell said, \"Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 30210, "author": "Rachel", "author_id": 25513, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25513", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have to document code use on occasion and I prefer a clear cut structure, so I would simply say:</p>\n\n<p>The following code\n camera.start...</p>\n\n<p>should be replaced with:\n camera.start_...</p>\n\n<p>Programmers won't care about your grammar choices, they will only need to know what code to use. Just my two cents worth. Thanks</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16512", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13201/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 17377, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Poetry doesn't have to be as free-flowing and messy as you're implying. <em>Some</em> poetry throws out rules of form and function, but some adheres to them strictly.</p>\n\n<p>Think of the meter and rhyme demands of a sonnet, or the syllable rules of a haiku. If you don't follow those very rigid, precise requirements, you haven't written the poem correctly. </p>\n\n<p>Honestly, I think that's a pretty funny poem that you've quoted. It takes a bit of work on the part of the reader to understand it, but the thoughts expressed reflect the title well. Why couldn't you use mathematics to express subjective thoughts? </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17379, "author": "Craig Sefton", "author_id": 1624, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1624", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A number of philosophers and mathematicians do see a deep connection between poetry and mathematics. Betrand Russell put it thus:</p>\n\n<blockquote>Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.</blockquote>\n\n<p>Franz Kafka says that \"poetry is always a search for truth\". Likewise, mathematics can be described as searching for truth, albeit with numbers. The same beauty and elegance one strives for in mathematics is no different to that which a poet seeks with words.</p>\n\n<p>To answer your question about whether poetry would be constricted by the rigid rules of mathematics, it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of poetry is about rules and rigidity: meter, rhyme, form. Poetry strives for the same level of truth in beautiful, elegant, simple and minimal ways, very much like mathematics. It may seem counter-intuitive, but such rigidity in poetry frees oneself to be creative, forcing you to choose your words carefully, to say what you mean in the best, most succinct way possible.</p>\n\n<p>For a deeper look at the connection, I recommend the book \"Mathematics, poetry and beauty\" by Ron Aharoni, which attempts to connect the two domains. It notes that \"poets, like mathematicians, are hunters, engaged in the search for hidden patterns in the world\". Despite poetry being \"invented\", there are underlying truths that exist:</p>\n\n<blockquote><p>A metaphor that is on target reveals a similarity that is concealed, but that is out there. After all, \"on target\" implies that the target was already present. When the poet Yehuda Amichai writes:</p>\n\n<p>Careful angels passed fate within fate, <br />\nTheir hands shook not, nothing dropped or fell. <br />\n(Yehuda Amichai, \"Twenty New Squares,\" Poems)</p>\n\n<p>he expresses an existing truth: our fate is no more in our hands than the thread is master of its fate; there are forces that direct it, as the seamstress directs the thread. This is beautiful, not because it is an invention, but, mainly, because it is true.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17382, "author": "theFlyingDutchman", "author_id": 13888, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13888", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Possibly not being writer enough to answer this question, I consider myself mathematician enough to try to give an answer from the mathematical viewpoint. (If this is not a great answer by itself, I hope it is a useful addition to the others given.)</p>\n\n<p>What you say about mathematics, of rigor, validity, precision and rigid rules, holds true, to a certain extent. The elementary mathematics is boring to sit through at school and often not even relevant to anything encountered in real life, while the more advanced mathematics scares people with its unusual notations and complexity.\nBut if you learn to read it (like advanced literature and poetry), it can be beautiful. A well-written proof can read like a story, with characters making appearances, a surprising plot and a satisfying conclusion. Some proofs can even be considered poetry for their elegance (there's a book written about the most elegant proofs, \"Proofs from THE BOOK\", see <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK</a> ). \nAdmittedly, some proofs can be like abstract paintings for the uninitiated - unless you've read the title and had someone explain both the painting and the title to you (twice), you've got no idea what it's trying to tell you - but they are merely an annoying anomaly to an otherwise beautiful and terribly underrated science.</p>\n\n<p>Also, the 'rigid rules' thing works only one way; a mathematical expression has just one well-defined value, but there are often dozens and sometimes infinite other ways to express that same value. Most of these ways will not often be used, because they are unnecessarily complex or simply require more writing, but I don't think poetry is about the most straightforward way to tell the reader something. It is about the emotional content as well, and, if applied properly (as in your example), mathematics can do the trick.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17399, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's important to note this isn't actually a well-formed mathematical statement, it's a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry\" rel=\"nofollow\">typographical poem</a> that uses mathematical symbols for effect. It exploits the dual meaning of a symbol like \"!\" as punctuation indicating excitement, intensity or surprise with the fact that it also has mathematical usages.</p>\n\n<p>An actual well-formed mathematical statement could be beautiful, to a mathematician, but it probably wouldn't be considered poetry. Here, however, the mathematical definitions are just being used as a way to extend the expressiveness of the typography.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17415, "author": "heavyboots", "author_id": 13919, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13919", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think Lauren Ipsum's final sentence constitutes the most apt answer for this. Poetry is very subjective but, like mathematics, is up for the reader to scan and interpret on their own. There is economy or precision of language (down to letters and symbols) in both poetry and mathematics. This poem is conceptual. The poem's value lies in the scantion experience and the cognitive work done; the audience must scan and dissect the poem, and then parse it for meaning (synonymous with 'truth'). Users of mathematic formulas must also use the same task process to attempt to interpret formulas. The confusion brought on by attempting to posit the validity of the poem may be the \"tragedy\".</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/17376", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13880/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 17502, "author": "mwo", "author_id": 13822, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13822", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Try to give each character their own paragraphs.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Alice sits on the bench, silent.</p>\n<p>Eventually, I speak. &quot;What are we going to do?&quot;</p>\n<p>After a long pause, she responds. &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Note, I chose the period after 'responds'. 'Responds' isn't interchangeble with 'says'. For example, all these are valid...</p>\n<pre><code>she says, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\nshe whispers, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\nshe screams, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\n</code></pre>\n<p>these are awkward...</p>\n<pre><code>she speaks, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\nshe responds, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\nshe talks, &quot;I don't think we can do anything.&quot;\n</code></pre>\n<p>It's better to stick to 'says' and 'asks' if you are unsure of the difference.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17506, "author": "Michael B", "author_id": 13990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13990", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is the old adage that you should never use anything other than (she/he) said</p>\n\n<p>But I think it is more a case of being consistent, by having a consistent way of marking speech you produce a couple of benefits to the reader. </p>\n\n<p>Firstly, they can unconsciously ignore the 'who said' part, unless they need to clarify who said. If you know it is there, your brain skips over it and you can simply take in the flow of conversation. This makes for a much less jagged reading experience. </p>\n\n<p>Secondly, if your character suddenly 'shouts' a line, it will add a huge amount of emphasis amongst a sea of 'said' dialogue. Considerably more than if you have liberally scattered the contents of thesaurus's said page amongst your dialogue.</p>\n\n<p>So to actually answer the question! choose a simple style that the reader can learn and then ignore. I don't think it matters greatly what it is, just be consistent. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/17499", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 17547, "author": "Michael B", "author_id": 13990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13990", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't see any problem with the grammar of this. It is simply a collection of short sentences. However (personally) I would try to shorten it, to make the a little more quick fire. keep the syllable count similar for each sentence. </p>\n\n<p>(though I'm not entirely sure the question falls under the Q&amp;A style of stackexchange - but that's a different issue!) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17560, "author": "jm13fire", "author_id": 13938, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13938", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Grammatically, this is correct. Stylistically, I think it would have better effect if you replaced \"it\" with \"TV\". </p>\n\n<pre><code>TV has become the modern day babysitter. TV is raising our children. TV is dictating the cultural narrative and shaping future society. \n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That would make the \"it\" more clear and would hammer the point into your readers' heads: </p>\n\n<pre><code>What's the modern day babysitter? TV! \nWhat's raising our children? TV!\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>That is what you want readers to remember, not \"what is raising our children? It! But...what's 'it' again?\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17569, "author": "Lucina", "author_id": 14042, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14042", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The name of this construction is <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphora_%28rhetoric%29\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">anaphora</a> There are many examples on this wiki page to give you an idea. I agree with other answerers that the &quot;It&quot; can probably be replaced with something with a bit more punch.</p>\n<p>Example:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.</p>\n<p>— Winston Churchill</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You may also want to look into <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">zeugma</a> which may give the sentence a different effect.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Vicit pudorem libido timorem audacia rationem amentia.</em> (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, VI.15)</p>\n<p>&quot;Lust conquered shame; audacity, fear; madness, reason.&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/17543", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13849/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 18191, "author": "Michael B", "author_id": 13990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13990", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The answer would seem to be to remember the point of view of the narrator. If you are writing from the protagonists point of view, then write it from the language that the protagonist speaks. if (s)he goes into a shop and doesn't understand anything that is said, then say that they had to point at what they wanted etc </p>\n\n<p>If later on the protagonist learns the word for banana, then you can include that development. </p>\n\n<p>If the narrator has a different point of view, then describe / show what the protagonist is doing, there is no need to include language / speech in the story. </p>\n\n<p>TV is a visual / audio experience, they need to have people speaking because it is near impossible to show what a character is thinking. A story can do that very easily though, you don't need to show the reader the conversation, just tell the story </p>\n\n<p>As for changing the language, if I was reading a book where the character went to China and suddenly all dialogue was written in chinese, I'd feel pretty annoyed! Again it comes down to the point of view of the narration. If the narrator speaks that language then the narrator can translate for the reader. If the narrator doesn't understand what is being said, then neither should the reader. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18194, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>We have four variants of foreign language dialog in fiction and the corresponding solutions how we can handle this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+\n| | foreign language | foreign language |\n| | is limited to | makes up a major |\n| | short phrases or | part of all dialog |\n| | occurs only rarely | |\n+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+\n| the protagonist | translate the phrase; | translate (2) |\n| understands the | use typography (1) | |\n| foreign language | to signify foreign | |\n| | language | |\n+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+\n| the protagonist | give the original | describe that people |\n| does not understand | | speak ('Tik said |\n| the foreign language | | something and pointed |\n| | | at the sky.') |\n+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Notes:</p>\n\n<p>(1) Signifying translation typographically is optional. Usually the context makes it clear enough that if an American goes shopping in France, the clerk will speak French. Readers use their knowledge of the world to supplement the texts they read.</p>\n\n<p>If it can reasonably be assumed that the foreign person speaks the protagonist's mother tongue, typography can help make the difference clear. Explain the convention the first time you use it. E.g.:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Bob and his wife flew to France. When they arrived in Paris, the customs officer said to them in French: <em>\"Please show me your passports.\"</em><br>\n \"What did he say?\" Bob's wife asked.<br>\n \"He wants to see our passports,\" Bob answered and handed the passports to the officer.<br>\n <em>\"Thank you,\"</em> the officer said.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>What conventions you use will depend on your book design and your publisher. I have seen the use of italics, as in the previous example, and angle brackets:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>〈Please show me your passport,〉 the officer said.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Do not use markup or typography if foreign language dialogue is extensive (as in your book). In that case, just translate it and let the context make it clear which language is spoken.</p>\n\n<p>(2) Wether or not you translate foreign language dialog will depend on your readership. If you write for a highly educated audience, it is quite common to leave French or Spanish text untranslated in English fiction. But if you write for a more general audience, you should aim for a monolingual text. The exception is fantasy and SF, where Elvish and other fictional languages are often left in the \"original\" for effect.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18196, "author": "Bonbo4", "author_id": 14517, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14517", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Use angle quotes:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Speaking in English\"</li>\n<li>«Speaking in Portuguese»</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This also has the advantage of being actual (former) usage according to Wikipedia.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18197, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Most books set in a foreign country nevertheless give all dialog in the language of the intended audience. That is, if you are writing for, say, an English-speaking audience, you give all dialog in English, even if the story is set in France or on the planet Vulcan. For the obvious reason: if the reader doesn't understand the dialog, the book won't make any sense to them.</p>\n\n<p>Sure, you could write the dialog in French, and then translate. But what does this gain? It's a lot of extra text that the non-French-speaking reader is just going to skip anyway.</p>\n\n<p>The reader knows that people in France generally speak French, and will understand that the dialog is all intended to be a translation.</p>\n\n<p>I've read many stories where they say, \"Then he answered in French ...\" and proceed to give the text in English. The reader understands that he spoke French, but you are giving the translation.</p>\n\n<p>In most stories, the language doesn't matter, i.e. the story would be no different if everyone in France spoke English, so just translating everything doesn't cause any problems.</p>\n\n<p>If language differences are really important -- like if there are characters in the story who don't know the language -- that's different.</p>\n\n<p>If the hero doesn't understand the language -- say French to continue my example -- then you could give the dialog in French. But then a reader who DOES speak French will know what was said, while the hero doesn't, which could destroy important elements of the scene. You'd probably be better to just write things like, \"The policeman said something in French. George had no idea what he was saying. He tried pointing at ...\" etc.</p>\n\n<p>The only catch I see is if some important point in the plot hinges on something about the language, like two words sounding the same or a point of grammar. I've occasionally read stories where the text must be assumed to be a translation, but a character makes a statement that's some play on words or a rhyme or some such, and I've said to myself, \"Wait, but they all must be speaking in French. Does the French word for the big yellow thing in the sky sound the same as the word for a male child just like in English? If not, then there really wouldn't be any confusion here ...\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18201, "author": "Nomenator", "author_id": 14527, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14527", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Provide dialog in the language of your narration and use distorted spelling to indicate the accent of your character (and other poor speakers). You could also use distorted spelling to indicate the way your character mishears the foreign language.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>— Huts a dime.</p>\n<p>— Come again? — I asked, trying to make sense of the fluent speech.</p>\n<p>— What’s the time? — he repeated, enunciating clearly.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You could also use phrases like “Hearing English was relieving after all this time” to indicate a conversation in English. Normally you’d only have to indicate that a character speaks English a few times before the reader learns it and gets used to the fact that most other characters speak another tongue, but this one speaks the protagonist’s mother tongue.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18215, "author": "AndyT", "author_id": 14538, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14538", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am currently reading a book where the majority of characters speak one language (Japanese), but two characters additionally speak a different language (Latin). If a character is speaking in Japanese, it is written in normal English:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>You are beautiful</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>but when one of the characters wants to talk in Latin (so that no-one else can understand), the author uses archaic/flowery language:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Thou art beautiful to mine eyes</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>A reader of the book can therefore instantly tell what language is being spoken, but it is easy to read as it is actually all in English.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/18190", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14490/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 18394, "author": "Feralthinker", "author_id": 14708, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14708", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Writing a word in ALL CAPS might be frowned upon because it is considered a visual equivalent of shouting, but shouting is a spoken form of emphasis, so ALL CAPS might be just what you need.</p>\n\n<p>Internet tradition (dating back to list serves, etc.) has used the underbar as a signal for italics: I will <code>_never_</code> eat another steak. The underbar harkens back to typing and handwriting (remember that?), when underlined text indicated what in print would be rendered in <em>italics</em>. Some social sites, like Google+, will automatically render <code>_text bounded by underbars_</code> in <em>italics</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Likewise, the star or asterisk ( * ) has traditionally been used to bound text that should be considered <strong>boldface</strong>. </p>\n\n<p>So you might tweet:</p>\n\n<pre><code>*George R.R. Martin* is executive producer of HBO's _Game of Thrones_ because he wrote the books, but *George Martin* produced _Abbey Road_ and many other Beatle albums.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But the best way to emphasize words lies within the words themselves, but that's a topic for another day (or an exercise left for the reader).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18395, "author": "Michael B", "author_id": 13990, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13990", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In Winnie-the-Pooh (or something of a similar genre) there was a Habit of capitalising important words to emphasis its importance to the narrator. e.g. After all he really was A Very Important Bear. </p>\n\n<p>I think this works a lot more subtlety than all caps, which tend to jolt you out of the flow of reading. </p>\n\n<p>Capitalised words can be absorbed as part of the reading process, we are accustomed to seeing important places, names etc being capitalised. Lending that to words that wouldn't normally be capitalised can make a subtle yet powerful impact. </p>\n\n<p>Whereas writing in all caps breaks the reader from the flow of words, you tend to have to consciously read what is said rather than it being an automatic process. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18397, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think the short answer is, Put the word in all caps.</p>\n\n<p>The criticism of all caps is when you write your entire text in all caps. Indicating that one WORD should be emphasized is perfectly reasonable. TRYING TO EMPHASIZE EVERYTHING YOU WRITE BY PUTTING WHOLE SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS IS USUALLY DISTRACTING AND COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Well, if you are writing a ten-page article and put one or two sentences that are particularly important in all caps, that could be fine and good. But where it gets annoying is when you put the whole text -- the whole post or letter or whatever -- in caps.</p>\n\n<p>By the way, the <em>same</em> is <em>true</em> for excessive punctuation!!! </p>\n\n<p>Sometimes we need to emphasize a word to clarify the meaning of a sentence, and that's fine. But if people don't believe what you're saying or they don't think it's true, saying it louder or writing it in bigger letters rarely helps.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18529, "author": "Amanda", "author_id": 14773, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14773", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>An alternative to using _underscores_ to stress a word in a case where you'd normally use italics is to wrap the content in /slashes/. If nothing else, it's less likely to cause a miscommunication of its meaning than \"quoting\" and less likely to cause an unintentional emotional effect on the reader than USING ALL CAPS. It may be preferable if the other content you are writing contains underscores already, like website usernames:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Jeff87, pretty_pretty_princess, and Buffalos_Rule /all/ logged out.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But if you're writing something with a lot of slashes in it anyway, maybe _underscore_ or *asterisk* would cause less confusion.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I've never been there/seen it/done *anything* like that!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I suppose if you were going to include any asterisked disclaimers* you'd have to similarly choose what characters you want to use for emphasis carefully.</p>\n\n<p>For me (and understanding that this is totally subjective), slashes have a similar effect as I read to italics -- causing emphasis, but somewhat gentler than underscores (my brain makes an extra pause around the word when I see those), asterisks (which I associate with a word being bolded), or all caps (which, depending on the context and how many words are capitalized, is like a more intense bolding or outright yelling). </p>\n\n<p>* such as this one</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 18641, "author": "Jack Lynch", "author_id": 14905, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14905", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If I want to emphasize, I cap the first letter of the emphasizes word. Italics seem a bit cheesy to me.</p>\n\n<p>For example: You ate the Red biscuit?!\n You Ate the red biscuit?!\n You ate The red biscuit?!</p>\n\n<p>Of course there are issues when the word would be capped for other reasons (name, start of sentence). But that's what I do.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/18388", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/6845/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 18853, "author": "Jordan Lee Burnes", "author_id": 15099, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15099", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would stray away from saying aerial view. Maybe something more like, from above the man could be seen following the criminal, or, from the eyes of a crow one could see the man tailing the criminal, etc. While I cant tell you it is wrong to say aerial view, for writing is individual to the person, I feel as if something like this would be more appropriate, unless you were trying to mimic actual camera movements in your story, such as a screenplay.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19190, "author": "esoterik", "author_id": 13022, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13022", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Unless you are also directing the film, <strong>DO NOT</strong> put camera directions in!</p>\n\n<p>The best way to handle this is to write the scene in a way that evokes the image and movements into the readers mind.</p>\n\n<p>Remember, the first rule of screenwriting is \"show don't tell!\" <em>Aerial view</em> is on the line of acceptability for a screenplay; if used in a <em>showing</em> way it could be fine, but if one is trying to use it as pseudo-camera direction that is <em>telling</em> and not <em>showing</em>. </p>\n\n<p>Be careful with sneaky camera directions a professional reader might consider it as bad or worse than an explicit camera direction, and might reject your screenplay as a result.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/18852", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14344/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 19142, "author": "S. Mitchell", "author_id": 13409, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13409", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Ballads, as far as I am concerned usually do the following.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>They tell a story -- yours does.</li>\n<li>They have the same number of lines in each stanza (there can be verse and chorus with different lengths) -- yours does.</li>\n<li>They have lines with the same number of syllables in each pair (first and third can be different in length to second and fourth) -- without counting them all, yours appear to do this.</li>\n<li>There is usually a rhyme scheme where the second and fourth lines rhyme -- except for 'old' and 'own' yours does.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This pretty much fits my definition. I'd call is a ballad.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19611, "author": "KeithS", "author_id": 15580, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15580", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A ballad is a very loosely-defined form of poetry. Most rigorously, it is essentially nothing more or less than a narrative set to music (or that is intended to be). Tave's answer runs in a specific direction with this, by enforcing a syllable structure and rhyme scheme that would make the lyrics suitable for setting to a predefined musical style, specifically folk or popular styles that use a fixed repetitive melody for several verses.</p>\n\n<p>Your song, because it tells a story and is rhythmically inclined due to its structure, is a ballad, but it could still be so if it weren't so rigorously structured, as long as it could adequately serve as the \"lyrics\" to a piece of music, either a standard tune or a custom-written piece of music. If you wanted to label this poem a ballad in its published form, methinks nobody would argue the point too strongly.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19734, "author": "Steven Drennon", "author_id": 2343, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2343", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Technically, a ballad is a collection of four-line verses that follow a specific rhyming pattern. These can be any of the following:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>abac - first and third line rhyme</p>\n<p>aabb - first and second line rhyme, and the third and fourth have a different rhyme</p>\n<p>abcb - second and fourth line rhyme</p>\n<p>abab - first and third line rhyme, and the second and fourth have a different rhyme</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Sometimes you may see a ballad with six or eight-line verses, but the four-line verse is by far the most common.</p>\n<p>Another distinguishing factor of the ballad is the meter that is used in each verse. The easiest way to understand meter is the natural rise and fall of the emphasis placed on each syllable or word. Here is an example I created with the emphasized words or syllables in bold font:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I <strong>wrote</strong> a <strong>po</strong>em <strong>yes</strong>ter<strong>day</strong></p>\n<p>To <strong>show</strong> how <strong>it</strong> was <strong>done</strong>.</p>\n<p>I <strong>did</strong>n't <strong>have</strong> too <strong>much</strong> to <strong>say</strong>.</p>\n<p>I <strong>did</strong> it <strong>just</strong> for <strong>fun</strong>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This particular example uses a 4-3-4-3 meter, which means that the first line has four emphasized points, the second has three, the third has four, and the fourth has three. Another form of ballad might have a 4-4-4-4 meter, which means that each line has four points of emphasis.</p>\n<p>As long as your poem is structured in this way, with four lines in each section and each section following the same rhyming pattern and the same meter, then you have a properly formed ballad. From a technical perspective, your poem is a properly formed ballad.</p>\n<p>Getting a ballad structured properly can be a fun challenge, but the real challenge is getting the words to flow naturally so that the reader doesn't think about the rise and fall within each line. You were doing fine until you got to the third line in the next to last verse: &quot;the memories he had consumed&quot;. A lot of people will read &quot;memories&quot; as two syllables instead of three, so I felt a little tripped up there. When I read it again and forced the three syllables it worked, technically, but it didn't have the natural flow.</p>\n<p>If you can structure it properly and get it to flow naturally, then you can go from having a properly formed ballad to having a really good ballad.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/19135", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15349/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 19643, "author": "Ricky", "author_id": 15812, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15812", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Parenthetical remarks are used to describe the attitude, tone, or action for the actor who is speaking. Stage direction describe whatever's going on on the stage in general. There's a bunch of different \"standard\" or \"accepted\" formats used to accomplish it. </p>\n\n<p>The name of a character who is speaking should be capitalized and centered, just like in a screenplay. A parenthetical remark should follow it immediately (single space). </p>\n\n<p>Stage directions should be indented more these days, 4.25\", and double-spaced before and after. </p>\n\n<p>Just like in a screenplay, should the same character continue speaking after a block of stage direction, it's a good idea to type their name again and put \"(Continued)\" next to it. </p>\n\n<p>Your \"on the phone\" is the only true parenthetical remark in your text. The rest are stage directions.</p>\n\n<p>Dialogue is the only element that is not indented and runs all the way from the left margin to the right.</p>\n\n<p>Musicals are formatted differently, but the differences are subtle and not immediately apparent.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 39023, "author": "Laura J Tabor-Huerta", "author_id": 33230, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/33230", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not true, \" should be capitalized and centered,\" it should be left side.\nCharacter names appear in all caps, indented 4 inches from the left edge of the page.\nOnce the character name is typed, there is never a double space that follows... the next\nline after a character name is never blank. The next line after a character name is either\ndialogue or a brief stage direction if needed. See the example pages. \nfrom this page:\n<a href=\"https://ptfaculty.gordonstate.edu/lking/CPF_play_formatting2.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://ptfaculty.gordonstate.edu/lking/CPF_play_formatting2.pdf</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/19604", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10834/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 19609, "author": "Stu W", "author_id": 15736, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15736", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Here, we see that the egocentric camera is being compared with either the static camera or the dense sensor placement.\" You can also add \"Please note that this is not a comparison between the static camera and dense sensor placement. Such a comparison is inappropriate because ...\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19613, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The clarifier you want is \"respectively.\" It's fine in running copy, or even as a caption, but clunks as a header. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Comparison of egocentric camera against static camera and dense sensor placement, respectively</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>For a headline, you might try emphasizing the idea that there are two comparisons with some redundancy:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Comparisons of Egocentric Camera vs. Static Camera and vs. Dense Sensor Placement</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/19606", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15798/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 19627, "author": "Josh", "author_id": 15582, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15582", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>I think that in the context of the blog you linked you can drop \"I would argue\" without losing anything.</strong> It's already implied that what you're writing about are your own thoughts and opinions. However, if you spend some time in a post citing scientific findings or other hard facts <em>and then</em> give your own opinion, \"I would argue\" is useful for transitioning between the two.</p>\n\n<p>Also worth noting is that when you control the medium where your words appear (as you do with a blog), formatting can be just as powerful as word choice.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For example, you can offset anything that <em>isn't</em> strictly your opinion in a manner such as this,</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>which will tell your reader that such text comes from a source other than you. Again, given the context of your blog, I think offsetting what <em>isn't</em> just your opinion is fine, but if you're worried about it, you may develop a more detailed style in which, for example</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>external quotes are formatted in one manner</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>and</p>\n\n<pre><code>those opinions which you would normally qualify with \"I would argue\"\nare formatted in another.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If you go this route, you might want to add a page to your blog explaining your formatting conditions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19658, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Some statements are obviously opinion, and any identification of them as opinion is superfluous. To take an extreme, \"Strawberries taste better than bananas\" or \"Red is a prettier color than blue\". Any reader would take it for granted that you are expressing an opinion and not some scientifically-proven fact unless you clearly said otherwise. And if you're thinking, How in the world could you possibly prove scientifically that one color is prettier than another?, that's exactly my point.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, other statements sound like statements of fact and would be interpreted thus unless you said otherwise. Like, \"The population of Britain is larger than the population of France\" or \"The surface temperature of Venus is over 400 degrees.\" </p>\n\n<p>Of course there are statements that are at least theoretically provable but which are subject to debate. Like, \"President Roosevelt's economic policies backfired and lengthened the Depression by several years.\" A reader would expect you to either say that that was your opinion based on very general theories or ideological considerations, or to provide some hard evidence.</p>\n\n<p>I think statements about \"the best way to meet people\" would normally be understood to be opinion, and so don't require qualification. </p>\n\n<p>In any case, if you make a statement about a controversial or debatable subject without offering any evidence beyond \"sounds plausible to me\", rational readers would take everything you say with a grain of salt. I've read plenty of articles that, for example, state as fact that if such-and-such a politician is elected that his policies will destroy the country without offering any evidence, and I don't conclude, Oh, well, if some guy I never heard of before says so in his blog, it must be true.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/19615", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14366/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 20751, "author": "Duncan McKenzie", "author_id": 16571, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16571", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The current fashion in screenwriting is to avoid mentions of camera angles and focus on storytelling, but you can certainly mention POV. Some people do this with a slugline. </p>\n\n<pre><code>INT. BEDROOM—DAY\n\nBILL'S POV\n\nBill fixes his hair in the mirror.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But if you're going to do the trick where a mirror image turns out to be the real one, you don't need to mention POV at first. </p>\n\n<pre><code>INT. BEDROOM—DAY\n\nBill smiles. \n\n BILL\n You mean everything to me. Everything. \n I love you, and I'd do anything for you. \n\nA WIDER ANGLE shows Bill is talking into the bathroom mirror.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>As a general rule, write it whatever way it works best for a reader. This is more important than making the details clear for a director (who will ignore it anyway). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 20755, "author": "Marv Boogie", "author_id": 16744, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16744", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Never put camera angles/shots in your screenplay, it screams amateur. </p>\n\n<p>You can however cheat to create visual clues. Example:</p>\n\n<p>INT. PRISON - DAY</p>\n\n<p>A pair of shackled FEET shuffle down the hallway. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21284, "author": "J Presper Eckert", "author_id": 18167, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18167", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Screenwriters who put in camera direction label themselves as amateur. OTH, do NOT leave out the time of day at the end of the slugline. CONTINUOUS is meaningless, and rarely useful. DAY/NIGHT is crucial and must not be inferred; time of day must be explicitly stated. DUSK/DAWN require a short page count because there is a very small amount of shooting light for true Dusk or Dawn. Transitions should be CUT TO: when necessary, ignored otherwise. Leave out suggestions of DISSOLVE:, SMASH CUT:, JUMP CUT: and other meaningless phrases the director will ignore anyway.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/20750", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16741/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 34602, "author": "Secespitus", "author_id": 23159, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23159", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<h2>Not quite, you can add Drop Caps to the CSS of the ePub file that Storyist generates for you</h2>\n<p><a href=\"http://storyist.invisionzone.com/index.php/topic/2020-editing-epub-files/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This Storyist forum</a> gives an example of how to modify the CSS for your .ePub file (which is just a zip that you can unzip to see the individual files) to add Drop Caps:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Adding drop caps to the start of a paragraph</h3>\n<p>Another popular modification is to add drop caps to the first letter in a chapter. There are several ways to achieve this. If you're targeting iPad, the simplest way is to use the first-letter pseudo-class CSS selector as follows:</p>\n</blockquote>\n<pre><code>h1 &gt; p:first-of-type::first-letter {\n font-size: 5em;\n float:left;\n line-hight: 0.5;\n}\n</code></pre>\n<p>As the author mentions you should be comfortable with manually overwriting the CSS from the ePub file and you should check the result on the different readers where you intend to publish your work.</p>\n<p>This is basically a workaround to change the standard layout in a not-intended way to match your specific preferences.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>But beware that this seems to be discouraged by the community. See for example <a href=\"http://storyist.invisionzone.com/index.php/topic/2775-creating-files-for-upload-to-kdp/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this Storyist forum</a> (emphasis mine):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Unlike a print book with a set interior design, the point of eBooks is to be easy for the readers to manipulate for themselves. So the best eBook &quot;formatting&quot; is, in fact, doing as little hard formatting as possible—don't embed fonts, <strong>don't use drop caps</strong>, all the things that you' do in print. Keep your eBooks clean. Because not only does every reader like things differently, but different eReaders display things differently, too. So my Kindle Paperwhite uses a different font than iBooks, etc. And that's okay.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<hr />\n<p>The standard doesn't allow this. There is no documentation for Storyist that would suggest that there is an in-built feature to change this setting and this StackExchange question is the first thing I can find when I google &quot;Storyist Drop Caps&quot;, which suggests that there is not a high demand for this sort of workaround. Use with care.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36198, "author": "robertcday", "author_id": 31570, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/31570", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's tozzin' a way to find out whether you can add Drop Caps to a manuscript in the Storyist program:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Go to the <a href=\"http://storyist.com/support/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Storyist Support Site</a></li>\n<li>Search for an answer using key words</li>\n<li>If you can't find an answer then 'open a support ticket by sending mail to [email protected]'</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Support will try to get a reply to you in 'one business day'.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/20867", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16514/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 21169, "author": "M Lizz", "author_id": 16350, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/16350", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There isn't a \"standard way\" to explain technical concepts to those who wouldn't understand, at least to my knowledge. I do, however, have a few techniques that you might be able to try when you have to write up a technical report in a simple way.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Break up your report into clearly divided sections. This allows for the reader to more clearly understand what they're looking at.</p></li>\n<li><p>Define everything in easily understood words. Personally, I dislike looking at footnotes; it makes the document look more difficult or complex that it actually is. But the decision on where to define words is up to you.</p></li>\n<li><p>Generalize. If you can give a small description of how something works without going into great detail, then give it as an overview.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you can, use analogies and/or diagrams. Your tables probably help a lot, but make sure that they're big enough to easily read and see. Many clients likely don't want to have to think too hard about what a table is showing.</p></li>\n<li><p>Get help. I often pretend I'm explaining things to my mom and that helps me use smaller vocabulary and generalize technological functions.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Unfortunately, this is something that might always plague tech developers. I do have one last suggestion, although it might not be the most ideal.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Keep your client on a partial \"need-to-know\" basis. Give them all of the information, but for the technical sections, leave it as complex and lengthy as it needs to be to share the information. Give them a general overview of collection methods/etc, but if they can trust you to develop a product that will achieve the intended objectives and meet the given requirements, then your job will be much easier. Offer to meet with them and go into more depth if they'd like/if you're able to, but if they won't understand it then they don't need to.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21173, "author": "Simon White", "author_id": 13337, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13337", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>That table is not client-ready. I understand the technical terms like “dropdown” and “textarea” but those words should never be put in front of a client. Except for the rare exception who has some programming experience, at best the client will get nothing out of it, and at worst, they will have a really uncomfortable experience and resent you for it.</p>\n\n<p>I recommend you don’t use tables to explain these interfaces to your clients — instead, use an illustration. It is very standard to use illustrations in technical writing. When I wrote technical books, they were 1000 pages with 500 illustrations. If not for the illustrations, they would have been 3000 pages.</p>\n\n<p>Even the most non-technical client has very likely used a Web form. So all you have to do is show them something that looks somewhat like a Web form, and they will see a Web form:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/npvFd.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/npvFd.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n\n<p>I made that illustration with <a href=\"http://graphic.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Autodesk Graphic</a> in about 5 minutes, tops, including placing it within this article. It is just a few rectangles and a few text objects. The hardest part was looking up a list of alphabetical US states that I could paste in there. Even if you don’t have any experience with drawing tools, it will still likely take you less time to make an illustration like this than it would to make a table or write a description.</p>\n\n<p>You might want to put a caption “for illustration purposes only — not a final layout” on your illustration to prevent the client from thinking that is really what the final form will look like. It is meant to simply be a step up from the table you made, not to be a layout. But an additional advantage beyond better client comprehension is less ambiguity for the person who makes the final layout. The table version could be accidentally misinterpreted, but it is pretty hard for a Web designer or programmer to misinterpret an illustration like this.</p>\n\n<p>So illustrations improve your specification for everybody.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/21139", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13278/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 21145, "author": "mwo", "author_id": 13822, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13822", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If it's a spec script and breaking it down into multiple scenes would be unnecessarily burdensome on the reader, you may simply write:</p>\n\n<pre><code>INT/EXT. - MONTAGE \n\nTVs around the world, in bars, homes, and storefronts relay the same news story.\n\n REPORTER\n\n You join me live at Houston Mission\n Control where we await contact from\n the brave astronauts...\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Then relate the story as if it were happening on a single screen. </p>\n\n<p>In a later production draft it might get broken into individual scenes for the sake of scheduling, or it may not. This could be filmed outside the main production schedule, in which case it might have its own documentation and not rely on the script for a clear breakdown. </p>\n\n<p>Expanding a bit now I'm on a proper keyboard:</p>\n\n<p>If you want to add a little more colour into each of your locations, or you want to use any of the cast characters it's safest to break up into different scenes.</p>\n\n<pre><code>INT. BOSTON BAR -- DAY\n\nIn a Boston bar, six alcoholics stare at the TV through glassy eyes.\n\n REPORTER\n\n You join me live at Houston Mission\n Control...\n\nEXT. HARRODS LONDON -- NIGHT\n\nAn old couple hold each other tight watching the same report on a TV in the window.\n\n REPORTER (cont'd)\n\n ...where we await contact from the \n brave astronauts...\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Some scripts will use CONTINUOUS as the tag on the second scene. eg.</p>\n\n<pre><code>EXT. HARRODS LONDON -- CONTINUOUS\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But in this example, doing that hides the fact the second scene is at night, which is likely to be far more useful for a reader to know. The fact the scene is continuous should be obvious already.</p>\n\n<p>Note you may need to add the \"cont'd\" manually to the dialogue since your screenwriting software will not do this automatically across scenes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21194, "author": "Brent C Dill", "author_id": 18074, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18074", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>According to <em>The Hollywood Standard</em> by Christopher Riley (2nd Edition, pages 54-56), the simplest way to set up montages is with a scene heading of MONTAGE or SERIES OF SHOTS followed by the content separated into paragraphs. (Or including dialogue as follows):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>KEVIN'S APARTMENT - MONTAGE</p>\n \n <p>Kevin makes the bed.</p>\n \n <p>KEVIN (V.O.)<br/>\n There's something about cleaning that calms me down.</p>\n \n <p>He dusts the bookshelf.</p>\n \n <p>KEVIN (V.O.) (CONT'D) <br/>\n It relaxes me.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or, if you don't think that looks very organized, you may include scene headings for each shot.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>KEVIN'S APARTMENT - MONTAGE</p>\n \n <p>A) INT. BEDROOM - DAY</p>\n \n <blockquote>\n <p>Kevin makes the bed.</p>\n \n <p>KEVIN (V.O.)<br/>\n There's something about cleaning that calms me down.</p>\n </blockquote>\n \n <p>B) INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY</p>\n \n <blockquote>\n <p>He dusts a bookshelf.</p>\n \n <p>KEVIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)<br/> It relaxes me.</p>\n </blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Notice that the action is indented to the level of the heading and not flush with the left edge.\nOf course, the dialogue is still formatted the same way as normal.</p>\n\n<p>A note about \"CONTINUOUS\":\nContinuous is ONLY used when you are following the character through to a new location. Do not use it when you are indicating something is happening at the same time in a different location. If your character walks outside and we follow, then it is continuous. If he or she walks outside and we stay inside for a moment before cutting to the character, it is not continuous. (This is something that gets misused a lot in screenplays.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21290, "author": "J Presper Eckert", "author_id": 18167, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18167", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Something like this:</p>\n\n<p>INT. BAR - NIGHT</p>\n\n<p>The USUAL CROWD watches NEWS on TV.</p>\n\n<pre><code> TV NEWS WOMAN\n Breaking News: Mayor Doyle arrested\n for drunk driving after crashing into…\n\n CUT TO:\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>INT. SMITH FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT</p>\n\n<p>The broadcast continues as the 3 Smiths and Fido all watch the same broadcast.</p>\n\n<pre><code> TV NEWS WOMAN( CON’TD )\n …into Grant’s Tomb, knocking over the\n 150 yr old statue of the General. The Mayor’s \n car burst into flames shortly after the Mayor \n was pulled from the wreckage by…\n\n CUT TO:\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>INT. LAST TV STORE IN AMERICA - NIGHT</p>\n\n<p>Metropolis CITIZENS watch the broadcast through the store window. </p>\n\n<pre><code> TV NEWS WOMAN( CONT’D. )\n Superman! The Caped Crusader was unavailable\n for further comment. The Mayor, however, called\n a four hour news conference to blame the car maker,\n the bartender, the liquor company and the statue.\n</code></pre>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/21142", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18028/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 22129, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Each field has their own formatting habits, and each university/school/department their own. Most often, you number them separately so that you have:</p>\n\n<pre><code>1 Introduction\n\n 1.1. Aims of the Research\n\n 1.2 Theoretical Background and Primary Works\n...\n...\n3. Aspects of Femininity in *Frankenstein*\n 3.1 [a title]\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And so on... The conclusion would be the last, before any appendixes (that's where your acronyms, bibliography, etc should be)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23934, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I really don't think there is a reliable way to do this visually in the text simply because whatever visual cues announced to the reader that they have started Part II have long been forgotten before they get to the end of it. You can always do things like devoting an entire right page to \"Part I\", \"Part II\" and \"Conclusion\" but that is no guaranteed that the reader will recognize their significance when they encounter them so many hours apart.</p>\n\n<p>Also, at the semantic level, it is unlikely that they are holding a hierarchical structure in their heads as they read. Even if we organize a long work hierarchically, this is more for our convenience than for the readers. It may help them get an initial sense of the work from the TOC, if they bother to read it, but when they are actually reading, the will read linearly. They will experience one thing after another, not one thing inside another. </p>\n\n<p>If you want to make sure they they know they have arrived at the conclusion of the whole work, the most reliable way to do it is to announce it in the opening of the conclusion itself.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In Part I we looked at some topic. In Part II we looked at another topic. To sum up, some topic and another topic both lead us to the conclusion ...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And after all, this is the job of the conclusion, to remind the reader of the larger structural and logical unity of the argument, which they will likely have lost track of during the long read.</p>\n\n<p>In short, don't rely on visual clues to guide the reader as to the structure of your text. Do it in the text itself. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24301, "author": "Stu W", "author_id": 15736, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15736", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although different fields will assuredly have variation in formats, doctoral candidates are expected to design their own research protocols and report them in a meaningful way. As such, I don't think there's a wrong answer per se as long as it doesn't put off your Primary Investigator or thesis committee.</p>\n\n<p>You've already decided to give Part I and Part II their own title pages; you should consider staying consistent and give the Conclusion it's own title page in the same format. This is assuming your conclusion takes up a few pages.</p>\n\n<p>However, I think I'd leave out the clever ideas and separate page from the bibliography.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/22126", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19098/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 23256, "author": "Ken Mohnkern", "author_id": 7986, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/7986", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm a volunteer reader for a literary journal, so I read and evaluate a ton of stories. (Very few are \"terrible,\" but terrible usually shows up in the first sentences.) Of course, the purpose of the story and the needs of the reader/publication both come into play, but I can come up with a few things that make a story less than great (for me). (I'm guilty of this stuff myself, and have to fix it in editing.)</p>\n\n<p><strong>An excess of stuff that doesn't go anywhere.</strong> Many early drafts include a lot of \"throat clearing.\" We see the characters meet and exchange pleasantries and talk about Aunt Mary's goiter for a page and a half until they finally say the thing the reader needs to hear. We don't need to read the entire conversation; just give us the important bits. We don't need to see the character wake up and get dressed; just get him out the door. We don't need detail about every knick knack in the room; just set the scene and get the characters doing something. <a href=\"https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/elmore-leonard-10-rules-for-good-writing\" rel=\"nofollow\">Elmore Leonard said</a>, \"Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.\"</p>\n\n<p><strong>A lack of action.</strong> I don't mean car chases, but just human action. What is the character doing as she talks? Making coffee? Changing a car's oil? Fidgeting? Little actions break up the dialog and, when done well, show the character's state of mind. \"Henry's hands shook so much that he dropped the spoon.\" That reads better than \"Henry was nervous.\" and <em>much better</em> than \"'I understand,' Henry said nervously.\"</p>\n\n<p><strong>Keeping secrets from the reader.</strong> This irks me so much. All the characters know what's going on, but the author is keeping it from the reader in order to spring it on them at the end. That comes across as manipulative. If your story needs a big reveal, then make the reveal to one of the characters, not to the reader. </p>\n\n<p>My advice to avoid this stuff is to (1) get yourself some good readers, (2) do enough revision, and (3) read a lot. A LOT. Pay attention to how your favorite authors write.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23259, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The great difficulty here is that <strong>there are no absolutes</strong>. The same piece could be achingly poetic or achingly dull, depending on whether it's part of a literary drama or a high-octane adventure.</p>\n\n<p>That makes it very difficult to give \"specific criteria\" for evaluating. There's no rubric that covers hard SF <em>and</em> slipstream.</p>\n\n<p>Nonetheless, you <em>can</em> evaluate fiction, and justify your evaluations. I've got some experience both as a beta reader and as a reviewer, and I've got two insights I think will address your question.</p>\n\n<h2>The best evaluation you can give is your own reaction.</h2>\n\n<p>Precisely because fiction is so subjective, and has so many different shapes and forms, you don't really want to say \"This piece was terrible.\" You want to say \"This piece was terrible <em>for me</em>.\" What you want to get across is not how the story fails, but how it failed <em>you</em>.</p>\n\n<p>The reason this is helpful is because your response is subjective, but it's also factual. It may be wrong to say \"This is boring,\" \"this is ludicrous,\" \"this is heavy-handed,\" because other people may react differently -- but it is perfectly correct, and indeed unarguable, that <em>you</em> found it boring, or ludicrous, or heavy-handed.</p>\n\n<p>The better you are able to describe your own reaction while reading, the more helpful your feedback will be. Consider, just as an example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>At the beginning I was interested in how Sarah's relation with the stepmother would develop. Then when Sarah's friend won the lottery it was funny at the beginning, but then I got tired of it as it dragged on. Then when the stepmother stole the lottery ticket, that really jarred me, because it didn't seem to me like something she'd do; it didn't fit in for me with why the conflict was interesting to begin with. That kind of threw me out of the story; I don't have many reactions to the final climax because by that point I just didn't care about Sarah and her stepmother any more. </p>\n \n <p>You had a lot of references to downtown Miami that I thought were really well done; I recognized a bunch of them and I think you nailed them.</p>\n \n <p>The little brother was really annoying; I don't know if that's what you were going for, but I just wanted him <em>gone</em> every time he showed up.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As much as you're capable of, <strong>be specific</strong> on what you're reacting to and what the reaction is. \"The stepmother stealing the lottery ticket felt out-of-character to me\" is much clearer than \"I felt like the stepmother's character wasn't consistent and bounced all over the place.\"</p>\n\n<p>The clearer you are, the more specific you are, and as long as you focus on your own reaction, you will find that your feedback is helpful and also avoids being insulting. You're not dismissing the person's work or ripping it apart, you're keying onto particular details and reacting to them naturally.</p>\n\n<p>This kind of criticism also makes it very clear how in one story you can say \"OMG this car chase is absolutely AWESOME I am LOVING IT\" and in another you can say \"The car chase was very energetic but felt detached from the rest of the story, and I was frustrated because I was really waiting to find out what happened to Dianne.\"</p>\n\n<h2>The criteria to evaluate by is \"did this piece achieve its intended goal.\"</h2>\n\n<p>The reasons there are no hard-fast rules is because different stories are trying to do different things. \"I didn't connect with the characters\" may be irrelevant if you're going for zany satire; \"There's no plot\" might be the whole point of naturalistic literary fiction; \"This isn't scientifically accurate\" may not be an actual issue to the author's intended audience.</p>\n\n<p>For every story you're evaluating, you must first answer the question: <strong>What is this story trying to do? What is it trying to be?</strong></p>\n\n<p>Once you can answer that question, <em>then</em> you can start asking \"Does it accomplish that?\".</p>\n\n<p>That's you're specific criteria: Identify the goal. Then ask whether it achieves that goal, how it succeeds and how it fails.</p>\n\n<p>(If you cannot identify the goal, that's an important criticism in and of itself. The questions \"Where is this going? Why am I reading this?\" are important ones, and often missed.)</p>\n\n<p>You can break this down - identify the goal for a particular scene or snippet:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The opening of <em>The Force Awakens</em> is obviously trying to draw us into the novel. It opens on Leia, introducing her as being in a precarious position and desperate for Luke's support. <code>&lt;-- This is the snippet's goal.</code></p>\n \n <p>It took me a few read-overs to realize that we're meant to identify Leia and Luke. To me, this felt really generic and bombastic - broad statements like \"she needed him\" and \"the New Republic stood on the verge of implosion\" don't really set a scene for me; they just seem like McGuffins whose details will be filled in later. \"She needed X,\" \"something bad is happening to Y\". I'd much prefer opening on strong specifics that ground me in a scene, or speak about concrete action rather than broad, vague \"Save the New Republic.\"</p>\n \n <p>On the other hand, the trick of figuring out who's being spoken of is nice - slotting the beloved characters into new positions, letting that click.</p>\n \n <p>Let's be honest; nobody who reads the first page of a Star Wars novelization is going to put it down at the first page. This sets the scene, establishes tension, re-introduces characters we know. I don't like the vagueness, but you're probably fine as long as you bring us to a concrete scene soon. <code>&lt;-- This is your evaluation - it does an OK job of getting the reader to turn the page, which is all it's meant to do.</code></p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/23254", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10723/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 23562, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This might depend on your field (or department/school/institution guidelines), but at least I simply insert the epilogue (because that's what it is) at the end of the last subsection. If your writing is coherent enough, it shows.</p>\n\n<p>For instance:</p>\n\n<pre><code>1. Main section\n... In chapter 1 I will talk about a, b, c, because of this and that, and it's important because, blah blah\n1.1 \"a\"\n...blah blah\n1.2. \"b\"\n... blah\n1.3 \"c\"\n...blah blah blah\nAs I have demonstrated in this chapter, the elements of a, b, and c are important because. I will further examine the importance of d in chapter 2.\n\n2. \n...blah\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23565, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Indentations.</p>\n\n<pre><code>1.1 Main section (starting)\nLorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n\n 1.1.1 Sub section 1\n Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n\n 1.1.2 Sub section 2\n Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n\n 1.1.1.a.\n Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n\n1.1 Main section (ending)\nLorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This makes it very easy to follow. Granted, if you have <em>too</em> many subsections you're going to have a left margin which is half the page, but that's an organizational issue. </p>\n\n<p>If you have access to header/footer text, you can also put <code>1.1.2 Ri meliora dies</code> in the header, so the reader can look up and see what section the copy is in. Transitional copy like \"As noted in § 1.1.1 above...\" certainly won't hurt either. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23566, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There really is no convention for indicating the end of things in text. You are asking for a way to move up the hierarchy of the document without a title to indicate the change. There really isn't a reliable way to indicate that to a reader. Titles indicate the beginning of things not the end of things.</p>\n\n<p>What there is a convention for is creating a subjection that is a summation of the entire chapter. The name of that subsection is generally \"Conclusion\". A concluding section is not really returning to the main level. The reader is too far removed from what they read in the main level for it simply to resume. Rather, the concluding section is a subsection that reviews the subject matter of the whole chapter.</p>\n\n<p>This is not a perfectly symmetrical or hierarchical design, but then text is not really hierarchical at all. It really is linear. The reader cannot receive it in any form other than linear, and in many texts, headings do not occur in a strict order of hierarchy. Rather, the act more like road signs: a large sign to announce you are entering a large town; a small sign to indicate you are entering a village. </p>\n\n<p>So don't think of a text as a hierarchy, but as a sequence with sign posts which may or may not follow a hierarchical sequence. Your concluding section, which summarizes the argument of the whole chapter, deserves a heading that announces it as such. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 42398, "author": "Cyn says make Monica whole", "author_id": 32946, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/32946", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Don't think of it as moving back to the main section. Instead, create a new subsection.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>1.1.3 subsection 3</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Or create a section called Conclusion. Better yet, make the part you call the main section into an introduction. In other words, make everything equal in the hierarchy. It makes it a lot easier.</p>\n\n<p>I've used basic numbering in the below outline. If it doesn't work for you, change it. This is merely an example. I have no way of knowing if this is the entirety of your essay or just a piece of it. So I don't know what other numbers there may be. If it's all of it, I would say, don't number everything \"1\" and go from there. Change the top level numbers too.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ol>\n <li>Introduction</li>\n <li>Section 1</li>\n <li>Section 2</li>\n <li>Conclusion</li>\n </ol>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/23561", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 23811, "author": "paulzag", "author_id": 19655, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19655", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Watch any of the reality TV shows in the documentary theme that are currently \"popular\" like </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Pawn Stars</li>\n<li>American Pickers</li>\n<li>Tiny House Hunters</li>\n<li>Any of the home renovation/flipping/decorating shows</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Pay attention to how they summarize and cut between acts. Also some of them like Pawn Stars start a story (say someone wants to sell a stuffed buffalo) but they don't resolve it straight away. They cut to another seller (say selling a diamond), and intercut some conflict between the family. Then back to the Bullalo. Back to the Diamond. Back to conflict.</p>\n\n<p>Even if not for TV, a TV hour (43 minutes) is 4-5 well defined acts.</p>\n\n<p>To cut between story arcs make sure you leave each story on a question or cliff hanger, like </p>\n\n<pre><code>ACTION SHOWING\n\nThe team nearly folded in 1919 when scandal rocked the dressing room.\n\nFADE OUT:\n\nCommercial break\n\nFADE IN:\n\nACTION SHOWING\n\nMeanwhile in 1968 the team lost it's third finals series in a row.\nNewspaper reports of the day started reporting the \"Ghost of \nthe Dressing Room\" had cursed the team. \nA voodoo priestess was called in to exorcise the evil spirits.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Using graphics is almost essential if you are going to split the narrative without a narrator.</p>\n\n<p>But remember am English language narration can often be dubbed or subtitled for other markets.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23864, "author": "Sridhar Sarnobat", "author_id": 13987, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13987", "pm_score": 1, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Thanks to Bookeater for this recommendation:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'd use music to unify an arc. Out there usually human leads are used to tag arcs as people easily identify with them.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This also answers another question I hadn't yet crossed yet - how many different soundtrack songs should I use in my show (anything from one for the whole show, to one for every scene). One per story sounds like a good way to go.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 23865, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Stories are the way human being make sense of life. They are an attempt to impose order on the chaotic stream of events that we experience day to day. </p>\n\n<p>History is the interpretation of the stream of past events as a set of stories. As such, those stories will overlap each other in the time scale. When telling multiple stories, you need some way to keep them distinct. TV ensemble dramas typically split their casts up in small groups to tell separate (though possibly intersecting) stories. The viewer knows when you have switched to a different story because the cast changes. </p>\n\n<p>In history, dividing up the cast does not often work so neatly, so it is quite common to separate the stories out, tell one all the way though, and then hop back in time to tell another. Stories told later can reference ones told earlier, so it is important to tell them in the right order. </p>\n\n<p>Whichever approach you choose, the key is to remember that stories are always artificial imposition of order on the chaos of events, and as such the logic and continuity of the story trumps all other threads, including linear time.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/23810", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13987/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 23954, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>My beloved <a href=\"http://literatureandlatte.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scrivener</a> does the job beautifully. Paste your text in and then go under Project —> Text Statistics and it gives you the list you're looking for. </p>\n\n<p>Other people on this board have recommended <a href=\"http://www.supermagnus.com/mac/Word_Counter/download.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Word Counter</a> (Mac) and both <a href=\"http://www.primitivezone.com/primitive-word-counter.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Primitive Word Counter</a> and <a href=\"http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">yWriter</a> (Windows), but I cannot speak to their utility as I've never used them. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24010, "author": "Joe", "author_id": 2821, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/2821", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you have access to Linux or Cygwin on Windows, you can get it to tell you just about anything you want to know about your text with a few lines of shell code. <a href=\"http://doofussoftware.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-linux-one-liner-to-count-unique-words.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here's</a> one approach.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/work-shell-counting-words-and-letters\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here's</a> another article which explains the process in more detail.</p>\n\n<p>In this case, you would probably first have to copy your text from its native format and then paste it without formatting into a text file so the internal formatting codes, etc. don't interfere with the logic.</p>\n\n<p>The advantage of an approach like this is that, with a little effort, you can get your tool to report anything you want in exactly the format you want it in.</p>\n\n<p>Microsoft is also talking about adding such shell capabilities into an upcoming release of Windows 10.</p>\n\n<p>If you're on a Mac, you probably already have all of the necessary tools installed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24025, "author": "Brōtsyorfuzthrāx", "author_id": 10606, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10606", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Notetab Light (and the paid version, too) for Windows offered this feature the last time I used it. It's an older text editor with loads features that I used before converting to Linux, which happened in 2007 or so.</p>\n\n<p>I use an editor I made myself, now, with that feature and lots of others I like.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24058, "author": "Gottfried William", "author_id": 13168, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13168", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Most Tex and LaTeX editors how text analysis that give you a number of uses of each word in a block, in a table, and so on.\nFor example TEXstudio is a popular one.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/23952", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/18990/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 24255, "author": "Max Williams", "author_id": 31126, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/31126", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This totally isn't a question about the English language, but you could indent the continued parts like so:</p>\n\n<pre><code>+----------------------------------------+\n|Peter Turner |\n|code burner |\n|PHP, perl, python, object pascal, css, |\n| javascript, html, sql, yml, java, |\n| c++, c, tex, actionscript, bash |\n| and tsch |\n|are his niche | \n+----------------------------------------+\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24256, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I venture to say that there is no such thing as a \"hip HR\" person, but you've asked a question about punctuation, which is a matter of style. In such matters, you are best guided by your chosen manual of style. Naturally, in this case it would be best if you chose the manual the HR person uses, but that would likely be hard to determine.</p>\n\n<p>I use the <em>Chicago Manual of Style</em>, which says this for quoted poetry:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If more than one line is run into the text, the end of a line of\n poetry is marked by a solidus (/), with equal space on either side.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It should be clear enough for your original work of poesy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24257, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Not really a question about English, but here's a go at it:</p>\n\n<p>Use a back-slash, \"\\\", at the end of each line that is continued on the next. Many parsers I worked with would interpret it as a continuation character and so would a human reader familiar with shell coding.</p>\n\n<p>|PHP, perl, python, object pascal, css,\\ |</p>\n\n<p>|javascript, html, sql, yml, java, c++,\\ |</p>\n\n<p>|c, tex, actionscript, bash and tsch | </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24258, "author": "JEL", "author_id": 21203, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/21203", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Two forms for long-line poetry line 'turnovers' (sometimes 'dog-leg turnovers'), or 'runovers', are conventional. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>One is as indicated by a previous answer: left indentation or double-left indentation of the turnovers. The second of those, double-left indentation, is best used where single indentation is already used as a signifier in surrounding textual material. The double-left indented form for line turnovers is a familiar convention for academics, and so is supported by, for example, <em>The Chicago Manual of Style</em> (14th, 10.23), with reference to block (that is, <em>not</em> in-line) poetry <em>quotations</em> in academic works. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>10.23</strong> In a work containing quotations from poems with lines too long to be centered on the page, such as Walt Whitman's \"Song of Myself,\" all poetic quotations may be set with a uniform, short indentation&mdash;two or three picas from the left, for example&mdash;with any runover lines being further indented....</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>For verse typography and design, <em>Chicago Manual</em> also weighs in, but only to punt the question to the designer and author:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>18.59</strong> Works such as poems and verse plays differ from prose in that the length of a line is determined by the author, not...by the designer. The designer must try to reproduce the author's intention.... </p>\n \n <p><strong>18.60</strong> The size of type and the width of the type page should, wherever possible, accommodate the longest line...if more than a few lines must be run over, the shape of the poem may be lost. </p>\n \n <p><strong>18.61</strong> .... Blank verse and poems characterized by a preponderance of long lines are generally not centered but are given a standard indentation. No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down here; each book must be considered with its own characteristics in mind.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>The other form is a convention adopted by some authors, such as Auden. In this form, the 'turnover' line is aligned under the right end of the line so extended. A practical discussion of this convention is available at <em>Little Star Journal</em>, in an article titled <a href=\"http://littlestarjournal.com/blog/2011/11/all-poets-bulletin-help-us-make-a-poetry-style-guide/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">\"All Poets Bulletin: Help Us Make a Poetry Style Guide\"</a>. The article quotes Edward Mendelson, \"expert in both poetry and typography\".</li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The ‘turnovers’ should be set on the right, indented so that the first word of the turnover is somewhat to the left of the end of the last word of the first part of the line. </p>\n\n<pre><code>This is a line that is going to be turned over\n like this.\n</code></pre>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of the two conventional forms, the best choice is yours, as the author and designer receiving the <em>Chicago Manual</em> punt. However, the 40-character constraint seems to me to favor double-left indentation, that is, twice the indentation of any paragraph or other significant indentation found in the surrounding text.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24259, "author": "J.R.", "author_id": 3298, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/3298", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Max Williams has given the best workaround with that indentation suggestion. However, one other possibility is to rearrange the items in the list, thereby producing more couplets that fit into the 40-character-line limit:</p>\n\n<pre><code>+----------------------------------------+\n|Peter Turner |\n|code burner: |\n|perl, python, PHP, |\n|java, tex, bash, and c, |\n|object pascal, actionscript, |\n|yml and javascript, |\n|c++, html, |\n|object pascal, yml. |\n|All of these are his niche – |\n|did I forget to mention tsch? |\n+----------------------------------------+\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>(Of course, it's no longer a clerihew, so I've broken convention there, but I still couldn't help but wonder if those might fit into some more conventional prosodic form.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/24254", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/715/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 24645, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Telephone</strong> dialog is usually formatted like normal dialog, with some description in text explaining which speaker is speaking over the phone:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"Then I went to—\" Sarah was interrupted by the phone ringing. \"Sorry, that's my mom. Yes?\"<br>\n \"Hey, honey.\"<br>\n \"Hey, mom. Look, I can't talk now. Can I call you back later?\"<br>\n \"Sure, honey.\"<br>\n \"Just talk to her, Sarah,\" Heather interrupted, \"I have to go anyway.\"<br>\n \"Thanks, Heather. I'll see you later, then.\"<br>\n \"Bye, Sarah. Give your mom my regards.\"<br>\n \"Okay, mom, I'm back. We can talk now.\"<br>\n \"Wonderful, honey. Who was that with you?\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You have to realize that a person speaking to another person and a person speaking into a telephone are speaking in the same way and will sound the same to someone listening, so there is no reason to mark up their speech differently. The voice heard over the phone on the other hand has a different quality, or is not heard at all (because it is too quiet to an observer), so sometimes it is not reported at all (think of the above conversation with the mom's parts missing) or marked up in italics, similar to voices from a tv or radio. See my answer <a href=\"https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/17142/5645\">here</a> for more details.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Chat</strong> is often printed in a different font.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>John turned on the computer and went into chat.</p>\n\n<pre><code>John: Hey everyone.\nPeter: Hey John.\n Bob: Glad you're back, John.\n</code></pre>\n \n <p>John sipped his coffee and settled into his chair, looking forward to spending time with his friends.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The difference is not really very visible here, and there is a different color background under preformatted text here, but I hope you get the idea.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Email</strong> and letters are often set off as a block quote:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>John opened the email and began to read.</p>\n \n <blockquote>\n <p>Dear John,</p>\n \n <p>I'm glad to hear that you are well.</p>\n </blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sometimes there is no indent to the left and right and the email is only set off from the surrounding text by an empty space above and below. But you can also use a different font like for chat protocols:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>John opened the email and began to read.</p>\n\n<pre><code>Dear John,\n\nI'm glad to hear that you are well.\n</code></pre>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You could use one font (or color) for chat/IM/SMS and another for email, if you needed to differentiate them more clearly.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Symbols</strong> such as those often found on websites and in application icons, are another option, perhaps:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WuCaG.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/WuCaG.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n\n<p>These are common symbols for email, text messages, and telephone, respectively. But you can also use the envelope to signify actual letters and use the \"@\" for email and speech baloons for spoken words:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/iXjLF.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/iXjLF.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n\n<p>An example of these symbols in text could look like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sarah was just about to turn off her computer, when a new email came in.<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> Sarah, can you come over?<br>\n Joan! Now what did she want that couldn't wait till tomorrow?<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> What's the hurry?<br>\n Sarah was just hitting \"send\" when her phone rang.<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> What?<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> Sarah! Can you come over to Joan's now?<br>\n Huh? What was Barbara doing at Joan's?<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/aNGku.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/aNGku.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> Hey Sarah, can you please come over to Joan? It's really urgent. xo Mom<br>\n Now this was getting really weird. What was her mom doing with Barbara and Joan?<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEUor.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> Sarah? Are you there?<br>\n <a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> Please just come over quickly.<br>\n Sarah felt dizzy.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As you can see, this quickly becomes confusing not only to Sarah but to the reader, too. You might have to add some identifiers (such as \"<a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/p1DWc.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a> [From: Joan] Hey!\"), just as senders and recipients are identified in software.</p>\n\n<p>There is no standard for the usage of these symbols in fiction, and while it makes sense to use them with the meaning they commonly have on the internet and in applications, how exactly you employ them – and how you will keep your readers from becoming befuddled – will be up to your creativity and that of your book designer.</p>\n\n<p><strong>No markup</strong> is the final option. Let's revisit our last example and tell it in the way novels have told of communication for hundreds of years:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sarah was just about to turn off her computer, when a new email came in.<br>\n Sarah, can you come over? it read.<br>\n Joan! Now what did she want that couldn't wait till tomorrow?<br>\n What's the hurry?, Sarah typed back. She was just hitting <em>Send</em> when her phone rang.<br>\n \"What?\"<br>\n \"Sarah!\" Barbara's voice said. \"Can you come over to Joan's now?\"<br>\n Huh? What was Barbara doing at Joan's?<br>\n Then her mobile phone beeped, telling her a new SMS had arrived. She picked it up with the other hand, still listening to Barbara's impatient breathing on the phone in her right. Hey Sarah, the SMS read, can you please come over to Joan? It's really urgent. xo Mom<br>\n Now this was getting really weird. What was her mom doing with Barbara and Joan?<br>\n \"Sarah? Are you there?\" Joan impored.<br>\n Another email arrived: Please just come over quickly.<br>\n Sarah felt dizzy.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'm sure you can write this much better than I did, but you get the idea. With some ordinary description you can quite easily convey the complexity of communicating on multiple channels, without confusing the reader at all. Italicizing chat messages (and maybe email) will make it even clearer. More isn't needed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 24648, "author": "Jay", "author_id": 4489, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4489", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am not aware of any &quot;standard&quot; way of representing different communications modes.</p>\n<p>Note this is not a totally new problem brought on by 21st century technology. There have been multiple modes of communication since the beginning of recorded history, including speech, sign language, and writing. You probably need to distinguish a written letter from a sign or something engraved on a building. Etc.</p>\n<p>In the 1800s people added telegraph. In the 1900s they added telephone, radio, teletype, and toward the end of the century fax and email. Etc.</p>\n<p>Traditionally, writers have made the distinction by simply introducing a communication with brief text describing it's nature. Like, &quot;Bob opened the letter from Sally. 'Hello, Bob', it read. 'I heard that you are now ...&quot; etc. Or, &quot;Jared picked up the telephone. 'Is that you, Jared?' the caller asked ...&quot; And so on.</p>\n<p>You COULD use symbols. But because pretty much no one else does it, if you do it, it would look strange. Maybe readers would figure it out if the symbols were intuitive enough, but more likely you'd have to explain. You MIGHT succeed in starting a new convention. But probably not.</p>\n<p>I think you'd still end up needing text to introduce each new communication or your story would sound very choppy and abrupt. Like: (let me just use parenthesized words to represent the symbols, I don't want to bother digging up icons.)</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Juan arrived back at his office. He didn't realize how long he had been gone.</p>\n<p>(email) Todd: Did you finish the Paradigm report?</p>\n<p>(email) Juan: No. I'll have it for you today.</p>\n<p>Juan walked to the window.</p>\n<p>(text message) Jane: Don't forget the party tonight.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Etc. That seems really choppy to me. I think you'd need to say things like, &quot;He sat down at his desk and opened his email&quot; and &quot;His phone beeped, indicating he'd received a text message. He pulled the phone out of his pocket. &quot;Jane&quot;, the caller ID said.&quot; Etc. And once you do that, the text makes it clear what the communications medium is and you don't need to introduce additional symbols.</p>\n<p>Yes, sometimes there are scenes where you want to convey that something is happening rapidly, and writing, &quot;he looked at his cell phone on the desk and saw that a message had arrived ...&quot; could break the flow; it might make it seem like there's more delay than you want your reader to perceive. Still, surely you could find conventional ways to express the idea. &quot;Then he got a text from Jane: Don't forget ...&quot; If you want to convey a truly rapid-fire set of messages in multiple media, like someone at the disaster crisis headquarters in a whirlwind of texts, phone calls, emails, whatever, you could just put a word or to to identify the medium:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>George was caught in a whirlwind of panicked messages.</p>\n<p>Text: There's a fire on Cromwell Street!</p>\n<p>Email: Reporters of riotors downtown!</p>\n<p>Another text: Wild animals rampaging through the streets!</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Etc.</p>\n<p>In general, I'd avoid creating a new notation or format or whatever unless you really, really need it. A new notation that the reader is not familiar with is going to distract from the story. The reader has to figure out the notation instead of just reading the story. And even when they figure it out, it's going to be jumping out of the page at them, because it's unfamiliar.</p>\n<p>If there's some reason why the communications medium is vitally important and you WANT it to jump out at the reader, if the story is about different communications mediums and how they affect our perception of the communication, maybe so. Otherwise, I'd stick with more conventional means.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/24644", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/21505/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 25340, "author": "Lew", "author_id": 19606, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19606", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>not infrequently</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>is not a double negative, (ok, it might be) but it does convey an exact meaning, even in slightly convoluted way.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I don't have nothing</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>is a textbook double negative, where one part of the statement cancels the other one, basically leading to the exact opposite meaning: \"I have something\".</p>\n\n<p>The use of former is the matter of style, the latter is grammatically wrong. Or semantically. Or just bad English.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25342, "author": "Thomas Reinstate Monica Myron", "author_id": 10394, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10394", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p><code>Not infrequently</code> is a double negative, and is therefore technically grammatically incorrect. <code>Not</code> is obviously the first negative. The prefix <code>in-</code> is considered to be negative, as it means <code>not</code>. The same holds true for similar prefixes, such as <code>im-</code> and <code>un-</code>. </p>\n\n<p>That being said, a negative prefix is far less obvious than a whole negative word. Authors will sometimes use the style you have found. It is likely that the author you are reading is just trying to sound more eloquent by adding more words with more syllables. It's a matter of taste and personal style. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25343, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>English is not a programming language and negatives are not minus signs. They do not automatically cancel each other out. Double negatives are idioms and, depending on context, the second negative may cancel, weaken, or strengthen the first. </p>\n\n<p><code>not infrequently</code> is a case where the second negative weakens the first but does not cancel it out. <code>not infrequently</code> does not mean <code>frequently</code>, it means something between <code>frequently</code> and <code>infrequently</code>, so <code>occasionally</code> might be a good interpretation. </p>\n\n<p>Compare this to a sentence like <code>I am not unfamiliar with copyright law.</code> Here the speaker is saying that they know something about copyright law, but they don't want to claim to be an expert. If you said, <code>I am familiar with copyright law</code>, that would imply that you are an expert. If you said <code>I am unfamiliar with copyright law</code>, that would imply that you knew nothing about it. <code>I am not unfamiliar with copyright law</code> means that I know a fair bit about it, but I don't claim to know all the ins and outs and details. It say, \"I can give you general information, but don't mistake my word for professional advice. </p>\n\n<p>But it can also be used ironically. If Mark Zuckerberg tells you that he is <code>not unfamiliar with social media</code>, he would of course mean that he is perhaps the world's greatest expert on the subject. Here the second negative not merely cancels the first but overshoots, emphasising the positive rather than the negative. </p>\n\n<p><code>I don't have nothing</code> is a common idiom (and in no way grammatically incorrect). It, and similar formulations, are a case of the second negative reinforcing the first. <code>I don't have nothing</code> may be semantically identical to <code>I have nothing</code>, but it has an additional emotional overtone, giving further emphasis to the speaker's destitution, and expressing their despair over it. </p>\n\n<p>But this can also be to express disinterest or indifference to a subject. \"What's your take on the decline of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives?\" \"I don't got nothing.\"</p>\n\n<p><code>not infrequently in the myths and the popular tales</code> is a case of the second negative softening the first. Therefore it very specifically does not mean that the call unanswered occurs frequently in the myths. It is, however, denying that that is is rare. In short, it is equivalent to <code>occasionally</code>. It is saying that a sufficient number of cases of it can be found to support the writer's point.</p>\n\n<p>Another use of the the double negative can be to separate two meanings that might otherwise be read as one. For instance, <code>I am not unappreciative of the party you threw for me</code> means that the speaker appreciates that you thought of them and wanted to throw them a party, but that they did not enjoy the party itself and would rather you did not throw them one in the future. Compare this to <code>I appreciated the party</code>, which would imply I liked the party itself, and <code>I did not appreciate the party</code> which would imply that you are not grateful for the thought and the effort that went into it. </p>\n\n<p>Double negatives, are, in short, and instrument of nuance. </p>\n\n<p>They are never ungrammatical because they are a matter of semantics, not grammar. But their semantics is not that of simple or uniform negation. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25360, "author": "Nikki", "author_id": 22344, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22344", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>@Thomas I agree.It indeed is matter of personal taste and style either to sound eloquent or to lay emphasis on what is being said.\n'I don't have nothing', had me confused but re-reading it over and over it can mean that the author is trying to lay stress on the fact as-\n'I don't have anything and\n'I 've got nothing'. Combining these sentences we get: 'I DON'T HAVE NOTHING'.'</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/25339", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22338/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 25516, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm pretty sure that the answer at the technical level is no. But this is really a question that needs to be addressed another level up. </p>\n\n<p>The thing about structured writing is that it factors out certain aspects of the final publication, which then have to be factored back in by algorithms when it comes time to publish. The reason for factoring these things out is so that you can apply different algorithms to produce different kinds of outputs. </p>\n\n<p>Different structured writing systems factor out different elements of a publication, and thus support different types of algorithms for producing different types of content. </p>\n\n<p>The thing is, for the algorithms to work reliably, the writers have to get the structures correct. An editor with a fixed format like Word, FrameMaker, of Flare bakes the structures of those languages, and their representation, into the GUI. The GUI is based on the structures of those languages, and it will not fit other languages that have different structures. </p>\n\n<p>DocBook and DITA, therefore, require different interfaces that expose their structures to the writer. Adopting a different language means adopting a different interface. </p>\n\n<p>That said, DITA and DocBook are big complicated languages. You can build interfaces for them that only support a small portion of the structures that the full languages support. These may be easier to use, but they don't support all the features of the language. You can think of these interfaces as being related to DITA and DocBook the way MarkDown is related to HTML. Markdown is much easier to write than HTML, but it does not support more than a fraction of the HTML language. </p>\n\n<p>Almost any writing formats in existence can be converted to DocBook. The result will be a valid DocBook document, but it won't take advantage of all the features of DocBook. Converting other formats to DITA is harder because of the topic architecture. But even where it works and produces a valid DITA file, it will not take advantage of all the features of DITA. Flare content could probably be converted to either DocBook or DITA, but the content would only contain those structures that are supported by the Flare interface. You would not get the full capability of Flare or DITA. </p>\n\n<p>The point is, both DITA and DocBook support creating content structures that can be manipulates with a range of algorithms. But if your tool does not support the creation of the structures that those algorithms require, you won't be able to run them successfully, even if your source file is technically in DITA or DocBook. </p>\n\n<p>In other words, you have to work back from the algorithms you want to run on your content. The algorithms you want to run require certain content structures to run reliably. So you have to choose a language that supports those structures, and then you have to choose a tool that lets authors create those structures clearly and easily. </p>\n\n<p>If the tool you are using now does not support the algorithms you want to run, chances are it will not support the creation of the structures you need to run those algorithms. You need a tool that fits the format that supports the algorithms you want to run.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26745, "author": "Kirasha", "author_id": 10153, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10153", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>DITA is one of the output options for Flare. You can create a new DITA target right alongside any HTML or PDF targets. We don't use it at my company, but I've played with it a bit to see how it works.</p>\n\n<p>I'm not sure how extensively the DITA structure is supported. In my brief experiments, I've seen that madcap's <strong>keywords</strong> are translated to <strong>indexterm</strong> element tags in the DITA output. Variables are wrapped in <strong>ph</strong> element tags with <em>conref</em> attributes in the DITA output and a mcvars.dita file is included in the output's Resources folder. That file lists only the variables selected in the Flare Target file for the DITA Output.</p>\n\n<p>To illustrate, this is an small example of the DITA output from Flare:</p>\n\n<pre><code>&lt;?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?&gt;\n&lt;!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC \"-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN\" \"topic.dtd\"&gt;\n&lt;topic id=\"Get_Help\"&gt;\n &lt;title&gt;Get Help&lt;/title&gt;\n &lt;body&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;\n &lt;indexterm&gt;Get Help&lt;/indexterm&gt;\n &lt;indexterm&gt;Customer Service&lt;/indexterm&gt;Get Help&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;\n &lt;ph conref=\"Resources/mcvars.dita#mcvars/variableId2\" /&gt; is committed to providing a variety of helpful resources to support your needs.&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;Online Help&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;From anywhere within &lt;ph conref=\"Resources/mcvars.dita#mcvars/variableId1\" /&gt;, click Help to browse our Online Help Center, where you'll find a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for quick answers to common questions.&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;/body&gt;\n&lt;/topic&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>And, for comparison, the same topic as seen in Flare's text editor:</p>\n\n<pre><code>&lt;?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?&gt;\n&lt;html xmlns:MadCap=\"http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd\"&gt;\n &lt;head&gt;\n &lt;/head&gt;\n &lt;body&gt;\n &lt;h1 class=\"NewPage\"&gt;&lt;MadCap:keyword term=\"Get Help;Customer Service\" /&gt;Get Help&lt;/h1&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;&lt;MadCap:variable name=\"Text.Brand\" /&gt; is committed to providing a variety of helpful resources to support your needs.&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;h2&gt;Online Help&lt;/h2&gt;\n &lt;p&gt;From anywhere within &lt;MadCap:variable name=\"Text.AccountPage\" /&gt;, click &lt;strong&gt;Help&lt;/strong&gt; to browse our Online Help Center, where you'll find a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for quick answers to common questions.&lt;/p&gt;\n &lt;/body&gt;\n&lt;/html&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The output uses .ditamap and .dita filetypes and Madcap's <a href=\"http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare12/Content/DITA/About_DITA.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">help site</a> for Flare makes note that you can't edit in the DITA structure natively:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>As DITA takes on a bigger role in technical communication, more and\n more tools are becoming available to create this type of structured\n content. In this version, you cannot use Flare to edit DITA content\n natively. However, you can use a third-party tool (e.g., XMetal) to\n create your structured DITA files.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, after doing a bit of research, I found this <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13s_NkSg5pA\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">youtube tutorial</a> on how to create custom DITA elements by using the <em>mc-dita-type</em> attribute on paragraph classes in Flare. For example:</p>\n\n<pre><code>p.Note\n{\n background-image: url('../Images/Icons/noteicon.png');\n mc-auto-number-format: '{b}{color #9EB515}Note: {/color}{/b}';\n mc-dita-type: quicktest;\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>After building the DITA output, that <em>mc-dita-type</em> attribute becomes a <strong>quicktest</strong> element tag in the topic file.</p>\n\n<p>Conditions, however, do not work seem to in DITA output. Any text in the topic is included, regardless of condition tags used.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/25515", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 25820, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can write anything you please.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25821, "author": "Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum", "author_id": 553, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/553", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Sure, why not? Get it on paper, kick it around a bit, and then hand it off to an editor to see if it worked.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25822, "author": "Featherball", "author_id": 15545, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15545", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd be surprised if it was impossible to write something.</p>\n\n<p>You've just got to <em>write</em> it. See how it goes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25823, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<pre><code>GLENDOWER \nI can call spirits from the vasty deep. \n\nHOTSPUR \nWhy, so can I, or so can any man; \nBut will they come when you do call for them?\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>-- Henry IV, part 1 | Act 3, Scene 1 </p>\n\n<p>In other words, \"Can I do ...\" is always the wrong question. \"Will anyone want to read ...\" is the right question. </p>\n\n<p>And if you can't think of a dozen widely read books where the author does [something or other] then the answer is no. </p>\n\n<p>Storytelling is the most ancient of arts. It neither needs nor rewards innovation. It is all about excellence of execution. If you are spending your time and energy on anything else, you are wasting your time. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25824, "author": "raddevus", "author_id": 10723, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10723", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You <strong>may</strong> write a novel. I'm not sure if you can or will though. :)</p>\n\n<p>If you do write a novel -- a fiction of an acceptable length to be considered a novel -- no one truly has the authority to tell you it is wrong or bad.</p>\n\n<p>For a novel is anything fiction of a certain length that someone considers a novel. So if you'll simply consider it a novel yourself, you will be successful.</p>\n\n<p>And, if it's <strong>really out there</strong> but a publisher picks it up then you can say you've created <em>art</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Like <a href=\"http://amzn.to/2p8ObsI\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski - amazon link</a> :)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 25828, "author": "Standback", "author_id": 1046, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1046", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You almost certainly can. At very least, if this is a project that appeals to you, then you can try, and see how it goes.</p>\n\n<p>There have been stories and novels written in second-person future tense, written without the letter 'e', written in the form of a series of exercise and relaxation tapes, written from the viewpoint of a sentient pregnancy test. <strong>There is probably <em>nothing</em> quite so outlandish or restrictive that it could not <em>possibly</em> be written well.</strong></p>\n\n<p>The question is not \"Can it be done.\" The questions are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Why do you want to?</li>\n<li>Is it worth the effort?</li>\n<li>What will you do to make it work?</li>\n<li>Does it work?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>Why do you want to?</h2>\n\n<p>There are a few main reasons to try to do something very unusual:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Because you want an unusual result.</strong> That's fine. This means you're experimenting, and deliberately creating something odd. The question isn't \"can it be done,\" it's an experiment. It may not work out, or the unusual result may not turn out to be a good piece of fiction -- but you're not going to write unusual fiction without spending some time writing weird stuff and seeing what works.</li>\n<li><strong>Because it sounds like a challenge.</strong> That's fine. Just bear in mind that the fact that something is challenging to write, doesn't mean it's interesting to read. Try it, see if it gets your creative juices flowing or if the challenge is enjoyable to you, and if it's not doing that, you can stop.</li>\n<li><strong>Because it's necessary for the specific story you want to tell.</strong> These can be very challenging to write, but what helps is that you have a specific goal in mind. Knowing where you're headed goes a long way towards helping you overcome the difficulties you've taken on; it gives you a way to constantly check yourself, see that the story is doing what you want it to be doing, even if what you want it to be doing is fairly unusual.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2>Is it worth the effort?</h2>\n\n<p>Once you know <em>why</em> you're trying to do [this or that], you can make up your mind on whether it's actually worth your time and effort.</p>\n\n<p>If you're doing it just because it sounds hard, <em>you</em> are the sole arbiter of how hard you want your writing to be, and how hard for <em>you</em> doing [this or that] actually is.</p>\n\n<p>If this is some huge constraint imposed by your story, you're the only one who really understands what it is you're trying to accomplish, and how the story might work even under such constraints.</p>\n\n<p>And so forth.</p>\n\n<h2>What will you do to make it work?</h2>\n\n<p>This is going to be the really tough one. Because you've made up your mind, made your choice, and now you're trying to write something <em>very</em> unusual.</p>\n\n<p>OK. That's fine. It's a hard problem. Maybe you've cut yourself off from some easy answers.</p>\n\n<p>The point is, deal with <em>specific</em> difficulties, concrete individual phrases or characters or plot points you can grapple with. Don't leave it at \"Doing [this-or-that] sounds hard\". It's not a yes/no question; it's a series of \"How do I solve <em>this</em>?\".</p>\n\n<h2>Does it work?</h2>\n\n<p>A lot of the time, there's no real way to tell if you're doing well until you're <em>done</em>.</p>\n\n<p>That's when you can look at the story or the novel as a whole, and see if, <em>as a whole</em>, you've managed to make the hard thing work well.</p>\n\n<p>You can look at it. Beta readers can look at it. You can get meaningful feedback and opinions, based on <em>how well you did the hard thing</em>.</p>\n\n<p>And then you can adjust. If you didn't get it right, maybe with the entire thing in hand, you can tweak and edit now so that it <em>does</em> work. Or, maybe now you come to the conclusion that you <em>don't</em> know how to make it work. That's fine too; plenty of stories and books come out poorly, even the ones that weren't Herculean tasks. <strong>Having written something that doesn't work is not a failure</strong>, unless you're already under contract. You stretched yourself; you tried something new; you experimented. That's how you get better, and find interesting stuff.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>And that, I think, is as close to an answer as you'll get.</p>\n\n<p>Nothing is impossible to write. Lots of things are hard to write. (Almost anything, really.) You may or may not have the skill, at this point, to write something really difficult that you want to write.</p>\n\n<p>Weigh your options. Be aware of the choices you are making. Accept that some of writing is experimenting, and it's absolutely fine if plenty of it doesn't come out very well.</p>\n\n<p>And good luck. :)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/25819", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26225, "author": "Lew", "author_id": 19606, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19606", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I achieve a similar effect by using \"custom\" text separator option (insert your four asterisks there) and adding the necessary number of blank lines (filled with a couple of spaces, otherwise they might be ignored while compiling) at the beginning and at the end of each \"scrivening\" (text chunk).</p>\n\n<p>Not ideal, but works.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29483, "author": "Tyler Jones", "author_id": 23120, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23120", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have researched this as much as I can. The only way I can find to handle this during compile, is to create an image that has the space the carriage returns would normally fill, then add that image to your project, then add the image to the text separator field, using an image tag.</p>\n\n<p>The image tag will look like this:</p>\n\n<p><code>&lt;$img:separator-file-name&gt;</code></p>\n\n<p>Replace <code>separator-file-name</code> with the name of the image you imported into your project. </p>\n\n<p>The <code>text separator</code> field can be found by selecting <code>compile</code> then going to <code>separators</code>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 33990, "author": "user30027", "author_id": 30027, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/30027", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another option :\nIn compile, select formatting. The \"page padding\" allows you to select any number of lines to be inserted before each text.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 55529, "author": "AFK", "author_id": 49463, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/49463", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You could set a &quot;Replacement&quot; in the Compile section that will replace <code>&lt;$blank&gt;</code> with a single space (e.g., &quot; &quot; - sans the double-quote marks). Then, where you want to see your text separator, you'd type in the following:</p>\n<pre><code>&lt;$blank&gt;\n&lt;$blank&gt;\n****\n&lt;$blank&gt;\n&lt;$blank&gt;\n</code></pre>\n<p>When you compile, you'll end up with 2 carriage returns, a line with 4 asterisks, then 2 carriage returns.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/VXWVd.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/VXWVd.png\" alt=\"Scrivener placeholder\" /></a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 63534, "author": "AlistairLW", "author_id": 56732, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/56732", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am new to Scrivener -- just started on the weekend. After much trial and error, I was able to achieve the desired effect. I did so by duplicating the standard &quot;Ebook&quot; format, then modifying the duplicate copy. As far as I can ascertain, the key modifications were as follows:</p>\n<p>[Note: my book structure is Chapter &gt; Scene. I want the scene breaks (* * * or whatever) to appear with one blank line above and below, though this could be adjusted to 2 lines above/below, as per the original question. In my case, the Scenes are assigned a layout called Section Text. You will need to substitute the name of the layout you are using, if it isn't Section Text.]</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Define the Section Text separator. In the Compile Format Designer left pane, select Separators, then in the middle pane, under Section Layouts, select Section Text. In the right pane: uncheck &quot;Use default separators&quot;. set &quot;Separator Before Sections&quot; to &quot;Single Return&quot;. Set &quot;Separator between sections&quot; to &quot;Custom&quot;, then enter the separator you want. Uncheck &quot;Override separator after&quot;. Check &quot;Ignore black lines using styles.&quot;</li>\n<li>In the left pane, select &quot;Section layouts&quot;. In the right pane, scroll through the list of Section Layouts and select the one you're using for Scenes (in my case, Section Text). Click the Prefix tab and enter a single carriage return.</li>\n<li>Click Save. This will return to Compile Overview dialog.</li>\n<li>In the right pane, make sure each of the sections has is set to Section Type = Scene.</li>\n<li>In the middle pane, click &quot;Assign Section Layouts...&quot; to open the &quot;Assign Section to Layout&quot; dialog. In the left pane (Section Types), select &quot;Scene&quot;, and then in the right pane (Choose Layout for Scene Documents), scroll through the options and select &quot;Scene Text&quot;.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>You should now be good to compile. As I said, I'm new to Scrivener and found this through hours of trial and error, so I hope it works for others! If not, I'm not sure I can explain it any better.</p>\n<p>But there is also one big caveat: how this actually behaves in the e-book depends very much on which device (Kindle, Kobo) or e-book reader you use. They are not consistent. I tried three: the reader built into Calibre, an app called FBReader, and a Kobo.</p>\n<p>Calibre displays exactly what I want.</p>\n<p>The Kobo ignores the space above the separator.</p>\n<p>FBReader ignores the spaces above and below the separator. It also misinterprets other markup (the list is too extensive to go into here).</p>\n<p>I have found a way to make this work correctly in both Calibre and the Kobo (though not FBReader). Unfortunately, it takes a little knowledge of editing the CSS and e-book code using the Calibre e-book editor.</p>\n<ol>\n<li>If you have added the e-book to Calibre already, find it there and open it in the editor. If not, find it in your File Explorer, right-click Open With... and choose &quot;The Calibre e-book editor&quot;.</li>\n<li>With the book open in the editor, in the File Explorer (top panel, left pane) select a file that you know contains a chapter which has section breaks.</li>\n<li>In the File Preview (right pane), scroll until you see a section separator and double-click it. This will take you to relevant code in the middle pane.</li>\n<li>Observe the surrounding code (everything between the text before and after the separator). In mine, it looks like this:</li>\n</ol>\n<pre><code>&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n&lt;p class=&quot;ps2&quot;&gt;* * *&lt;/p&gt;\n&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n</code></pre>\n<p>This codes one blank line, then the separator, then two more blank lines. Note the name of the class for the separators: in my case, <code>ps2</code>.</p>\n<p>Next steps:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the left pane, under Styles, double-click 'stylesheet.css' to open it in the middle pane. A tip: the coding produced by Scrivener is quite messy. Before going any further, I recommend selecting 'Beautify current file&quot; in the little toolbar at the top of the middle pane (hover over the toolbars until you find the right one). This will make the next step so much easier to follow.</li>\n<li>Scroll through the code until you find the separator class you noted above. In my case, it is &quot;ps2&quot; and it looks like this (after beautifying it as described above):</li>\n</ol>\n<pre><code>.ps2 {\n margin-left: 0rem;\n text-align: center;\n text-indent: 0rem;\n}\n</code></pre>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>Press Enter at the end of the last entry (<code>text-indent: 0rem;</code> in my case) to start a new line, and then enter:</li>\n</ol>\n<pre><code> line-height: 4rem;\n</code></pre>\n<p>The number you type will determine the total space occupied by the separators, measured in 'root ems' (multiples of the base point size in your document). You may need to play around with this value to get it the way you want.</p>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Finally, remove the extraneous blank lines from the code, as they are no longer necessary. I did this using the Find and Replace fields at the bottom of the coding window. (refer to code provided earlier) I replaced:</li>\n</ol>\n<pre><code>&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n&lt;p class=&quot;ps2&quot;&gt;* * *&lt;/p&gt;\n</code></pre>\n<p>with</p>\n<pre><code>&lt;p class=&quot;ps2&quot;&gt;* * *&lt;/p&gt;\n</code></pre>\n<p>It's best to copy and paste these strings directly from the code window.</p>\n<p>Then I replaced</p>\n<pre><code>&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n&lt;p class=&quot;br&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n</code></pre>\n<p>with nothing.</p>\n<p>Save the file (if it has gotten messed up, you can always re-compile from Scrivener and start again). It should now behave as expected in both Calibre and he Kobo. I can't vouch for other readers (except to note that FB Reader has a mind of its own).</p>\n<p>One final note: I can't find a way to make Scrivener simply produce the code as I want it, directly from the compile function. It may be possible, I don't know. In the meantime, if your book is not yet finished (you are basically testing it and will need to update it), you can test this out to make sure it works, then wait until your book is finished before going through it again.</p>\n<p>I hope all that made sense and helps you out. Cheers!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26200", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23120/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26368, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What I have seen is not <code>*sniff</code>, but <code>*sniff*</code>, which, I believe, comes from <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Markdown</a> (which is <a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/editing-help\">used on this site</a> as well), where text framed by asterisks is rendered as <em>italic</em>.</p>\n\n<p>The other common markup for onomatopoeia is, in fact, italics.</p>\n\n<p>As I see it, the conventions are:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How sad. <em>Sniff.</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<pre><code>How sad. *sniff*\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>I have never seen <code>*sniff*</code> in print and would use it online only.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26372, "author": "Featherball", "author_id": 15545, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/15545", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd like to add some information in addition to what's answer.</p>\n\n<p>Firstly, it is commonplace to use italics to convey onomatopoeic sounds:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The rock fell down with a <em>crash</em>.</p>\n \n <p>With a deafening <em>whack</em>, the saucepan man was hit over the head by his saucepan.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, I wouldn't use it for <strong>verbs</strong> that imply <strong>sound.</strong></p>\n\n<p>For example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The saucepan man grunted.</p>\n \n <p>The saucepan man was cold, and he sniffed every two seconds.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I would advise you not to use things like *sniff or (sniff) because you are writing a blog, and not chatting in an online game :).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26366", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/21083/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26499, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I really think people are much too obsessed with not telling. Many of the novels I enjoy most, tell. Lots.</p>\n\n<p>If you have, for example, a group of characters recovering from a fight, just friggin' say so:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Really, please don't show me three weeks of recovering! I don't want to know what they ate and whether they brushed their teeth. Make it one sentence and be done with it. Thank you.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Re: Your edit</p>\n\n<p>If something happens during the three weeks, you summarize (\"tell\") the week until that something happens, then narrate what happens as expansively as you do the rest of your novel (\"show\") and then summarize the remainder again.</p>\n\n<p>Think of it this way: You constantly summarize uninteresting periods of time, but you probably don't notice it yourself. For example, when your characters are sleeping you don't \"show\" that but simply leave it out: <code>The next morning...</code>. But if a character wakes up during the night you continue your narrative in the middle of the night in stead of the next morning: <code>I woke up around midnight...</code>.</p>\n\n<p>Your problem, as I see it, is that you think of that long period in your novel as a whole that you want to summarize, but have some things happening during this \"summary\" that you want to show in more detail, but don't know how. The solution is to stop thinking of the whole period.</p>\n\n<p>Your think:</p>\n\n<pre><code>--------------long period of time------------------\n event A event B\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You should think:</p>\n\n<pre><code>---period A---event A---period B---event B---period C---\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>What you have is not one long period that you summarize and have to break out of, but a normal narrative with three unimportant periods (like nights) that you summarize.</p>\n\n<p>Like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds. In the second week, one morning John was torn from his lazy revery by... The next week all was quiet again, until finally everyone was healed and itching to fight.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If your characters <em>do not act</em> (that is, do not break their inactivity) but only <em>observe</em> certain things, then you don't need to break your summary (\"telling\") and can simply tell what they saw:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds. During that time we saw the villagers raise unfair taxes and many other injustices, and they all served to steel our resolve to overcome Lord Dark. So when we were finally healed and ready to fight again, we...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course this is just a quick example, and you can go into much more detail in such a summary. There is nothing wrong with a few paragraphs of it. That's no different than taking some time to describe the setting or to provide a character's backstory.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26531, "author": "aparente001", "author_id": 13494, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13494", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are drawing a house, and you want to convey a sense of the texture and detail of the building material used, you can draw three bricks in the middle of an expanse of wall. You don't have to draw all the bricks in the whole wall.</p>\n\n<p>Pick out the bricks you want to draw; talk about them. You can situate them in time rather vaguely. You don't have to spread the events or incidents out uniformly. In other words, you don't have to put one incident in the first week, the second in the second, etc. Some possible adverbs are: During this time, as time wore on, one day, one morning.</p>\n\n<p>A totally different possible approach is to have separators between vignettes. The separator could be a chunk of blank space, or a little squiggle or other symbol. I've seen whole books written this way.</p>\n\n<p>Even if you don't want to use this approach in your final version, you could at least use it for your first draft. Once you've written the vignettes as separate sections, it may be easier to connect them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 27805, "author": "EvilSnack", "author_id": 24623, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24623", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm currently re-writing a story that was originally a screen play as prose. Two parts of the screen play are montages, each depicting the development of a stage in the relationship between two of the characters.</p>\n\n<p>After giving it due consideration, I decided to rewrite each montage into a continuous narrative.</p>\n\n<p>Now that I think about it, I suspect that montages are the live action equivalent of \"telling\" in prose, a way of saying, \"this sort of thing happens here.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45487, "author": "P.G. Sundling", "author_id": 39467, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39467", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In The Internet President: None of the Above, I create the equivalent of montage as a series of short chapters to cover campaigning for president. I enter each scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible. Leave a taste and let the reader's imagination fill in the rest. This worked for me because my book was written in a terse cinematic writing style. If your pacing is slower, this technique may not work as well.</p>\n\n<p>I use one chapter per scene, even if it's a one-page transition. If you're using multiple scenes in a chapter with separators, then put a number of short vignettes in a chapter. Summarize what you can. Beowulf reflected fifty years in a single sentence. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45488, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My usual approach is a change of format to a periodical:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>journal entries</li>\n<li>newspaper headlines</li>\n<li>computer logs</li>\n<li>teacher's notes</li>\n<li>emails with progress reports</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Sometimes, I may go with multiple 1-2 short paragraphs <code>* * *</code> section breaks, especially humorous. Often using \"blind dialogue\" (no speaker tags, who says what, letting the reader guess the speakers from the context - recognizing them by their failures.) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64417, "author": "Didu Tasev", "author_id": 57817, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/57817", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I approach it as if it were a film montage, literally.\nMy protagonist is a firefighter who just got divorced and is reorganizing his life and getting ready for a legal battle over the child custody, while preparing an exam for another job, so he can spend more time with his kid. The thing is, usually a couple of months pass between the demand for a divorce and the first meeting with the judge (at least in Spain). I cannot just skip those two months, as there are scattered events that do matter. So I ended up with something like this:\n&quot;...he studied for the exam; he fought against a forest fire for 3 nights, he presented himself to the exam exhausted and went out no sure if he would pass it; he dedicated his day off to visit flats to rent, but found nothing suitable for raising a kid; he studied for his next exam; he looked for a layer and met one, he blablabla...&quot;\nAs you can see, it leaves the feeling that time is passing, that weeks are passing.\nNOTE: I have only included plot related elements!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64418, "author": "Philipp", "author_id": 10303, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10303", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Do a time skip to a later point in time where a summary of the events that happened during the skipped period come up naturally.</p>\n<p>You can do that in form of an internal monologue where a character muses about the events of the past years, or you can do it in form of a dialog between two characters where they talk about the past events.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26497", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23013/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26499, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I really think people are much too obsessed with not telling. Many of the novels I enjoy most, tell. Lots.</p>\n\n<p>If you have, for example, a group of characters recovering from a fight, just friggin' say so:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Really, please don't show me three weeks of recovering! I don't want to know what they ate and whether they brushed their teeth. Make it one sentence and be done with it. Thank you.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Re: Your edit</p>\n\n<p>If something happens during the three weeks, you summarize (\"tell\") the week until that something happens, then narrate what happens as expansively as you do the rest of your novel (\"show\") and then summarize the remainder again.</p>\n\n<p>Think of it this way: You constantly summarize uninteresting periods of time, but you probably don't notice it yourself. For example, when your characters are sleeping you don't \"show\" that but simply leave it out: <code>The next morning...</code>. But if a character wakes up during the night you continue your narrative in the middle of the night in stead of the next morning: <code>I woke up around midnight...</code>.</p>\n\n<p>Your problem, as I see it, is that you think of that long period in your novel as a whole that you want to summarize, but have some things happening during this \"summary\" that you want to show in more detail, but don't know how. The solution is to stop thinking of the whole period.</p>\n\n<p>Your think:</p>\n\n<pre><code>--------------long period of time------------------\n event A event B\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You should think:</p>\n\n<pre><code>---period A---event A---period B---event B---period C---\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>What you have is not one long period that you summarize and have to break out of, but a normal narrative with three unimportant periods (like nights) that you summarize.</p>\n\n<p>Like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds. In the second week, one morning John was torn from his lazy revery by... The next week all was quiet again, until finally everyone was healed and itching to fight.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If your characters <em>do not act</em> (that is, do not break their inactivity) but only <em>observe</em> certain things, then you don't need to break your summary (\"telling\") and can simply tell what they saw:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For the next three weeks we stayed in camp and recovered from our wounds. During that time we saw the villagers raise unfair taxes and many other injustices, and they all served to steel our resolve to overcome Lord Dark. So when we were finally healed and ready to fight again, we...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course this is just a quick example, and you can go into much more detail in such a summary. There is nothing wrong with a few paragraphs of it. That's no different than taking some time to describe the setting or to provide a character's backstory.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26531, "author": "aparente001", "author_id": 13494, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/13494", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are drawing a house, and you want to convey a sense of the texture and detail of the building material used, you can draw three bricks in the middle of an expanse of wall. You don't have to draw all the bricks in the whole wall.</p>\n\n<p>Pick out the bricks you want to draw; talk about them. You can situate them in time rather vaguely. You don't have to spread the events or incidents out uniformly. In other words, you don't have to put one incident in the first week, the second in the second, etc. Some possible adverbs are: During this time, as time wore on, one day, one morning.</p>\n\n<p>A totally different possible approach is to have separators between vignettes. The separator could be a chunk of blank space, or a little squiggle or other symbol. I've seen whole books written this way.</p>\n\n<p>Even if you don't want to use this approach in your final version, you could at least use it for your first draft. Once you've written the vignettes as separate sections, it may be easier to connect them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 27805, "author": "EvilSnack", "author_id": 24623, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24623", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm currently re-writing a story that was originally a screen play as prose. Two parts of the screen play are montages, each depicting the development of a stage in the relationship between two of the characters.</p>\n\n<p>After giving it due consideration, I decided to rewrite each montage into a continuous narrative.</p>\n\n<p>Now that I think about it, I suspect that montages are the live action equivalent of \"telling\" in prose, a way of saying, \"this sort of thing happens here.\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45487, "author": "P.G. Sundling", "author_id": 39467, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/39467", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In The Internet President: None of the Above, I create the equivalent of montage as a series of short chapters to cover campaigning for president. I enter each scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible. Leave a taste and let the reader's imagination fill in the rest. This worked for me because my book was written in a terse cinematic writing style. If your pacing is slower, this technique may not work as well.</p>\n\n<p>I use one chapter per scene, even if it's a one-page transition. If you're using multiple scenes in a chapter with separators, then put a number of short vignettes in a chapter. Summarize what you can. Beowulf reflected fifty years in a single sentence. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45488, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My usual approach is a change of format to a periodical:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>journal entries</li>\n<li>newspaper headlines</li>\n<li>computer logs</li>\n<li>teacher's notes</li>\n<li>emails with progress reports</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Sometimes, I may go with multiple 1-2 short paragraphs <code>* * *</code> section breaks, especially humorous. Often using \"blind dialogue\" (no speaker tags, who says what, letting the reader guess the speakers from the context - recognizing them by their failures.) </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64417, "author": "Didu Tasev", "author_id": 57817, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/57817", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I approach it as if it were a film montage, literally.\nMy protagonist is a firefighter who just got divorced and is reorganizing his life and getting ready for a legal battle over the child custody, while preparing an exam for another job, so he can spend more time with his kid. The thing is, usually a couple of months pass between the demand for a divorce and the first meeting with the judge (at least in Spain). I cannot just skip those two months, as there are scattered events that do matter. So I ended up with something like this:\n&quot;...he studied for the exam; he fought against a forest fire for 3 nights, he presented himself to the exam exhausted and went out no sure if he would pass it; he dedicated his day off to visit flats to rent, but found nothing suitable for raising a kid; he studied for his next exam; he looked for a layer and met one, he blablabla...&quot;\nAs you can see, it leaves the feeling that time is passing, that weeks are passing.\nNOTE: I have only included plot related elements!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64418, "author": "Philipp", "author_id": 10303, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10303", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Do a time skip to a later point in time where a summary of the events that happened during the skipped period come up naturally.</p>\n<p>You can do that in form of an internal monologue where a character muses about the events of the past years, or you can do it in form of a dialog between two characters where they talk about the past events.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26504", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19246/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 26983, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Arguments modify the behavior of a program. Running it without arguments means you get is default, unmodified behavior. So the help should describe the default unmodified behavior first, in the body of the description. </p>\n\n<pre><code>$ foo -h\nfoo [OPTIONS...]\n\nFoo does X. For example:\n\n foo\n\nX happens.\n\nTo make foo do Y, use the -y option. For example:\n\n foo -y\n\nX happens with a shot of Y.\n\n\nArguments:\n\n -h --help Show this help\n -v --version Show package version\n -y Make Y happen\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26984, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Usually, your first line takes care of that:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Do FOO in the most awesome way possible\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Square braces for <code>[OPTIONS]</code> imply all options are optional.</p>\n\n<p>If arguments modify the behavior, give the default behavior in absence of an argument.</p>\n\n<pre><code>-f filename Perform FOO on file given, instead of standard input.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>If parameters were not optional, you put them in <code>&lt;&gt;</code>. </p>\n\n<pre><code>foo [OPTIONS] &lt;URL&gt;\n\n Process FOO of the URL in the most awesome way possible.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>In this case, if this use is standard, but you may allow <em>exceptional</em> use without the URL, you detail this in the last line, apart from the options:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Called without arguments, foo displays this help, same as -h.\n</code></pre>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26994, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I must misunderstand your question, but it seems to me that the function call without argument is already explained in the function description:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qIvbh.png\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qIvbh.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26982", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/14004/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 27712, "author": "James", "author_id": 24517, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24517", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure about your second question, but I can answer your first.</p>\n\n<p>This involves some linear equations. Many companies use it to determine the cost of their products, and this is no different for ISBNs. Think of the equation <em>y=mx</em>, where, in this instance -</p>\n\n<p>-<em>y</em> = the cost</p>\n\n<p>-<em>m</em> = the increase in cost compared with increase in no. of ISBNs</p>\n\n<p>-<em>x</em> = the no. of ISBNs</p>\n\n<p>(note for fans of linear graphs: <em>c</em> is not applied as it would equal 0)</p>\n\n<p><em>m</em> is known as the gradient - how steep or gradual the slope of the equation is. If <em>m</em> is different in the equations for Australian cost and American cost, then one will be cheaper than the other until you order a certain number of ISBNs, where the lines meet and the one that was cheaper will become more expensive. Currency conversion has little to do with it. If you still don't understand, search <em>linear models</em> on Google or your preferred search site.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28270, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>(1) One word: monopoly.</p>\n\n<p>(2) See above.</p>\n\n<p>(3) Oh, all right, details:</p>\n\n<p>The previous answer (involving math) is substantially correct, in a competitive environment. The producer factors in the costs of production, distribution, and service, along with a profit target. Competitors ensure that the values are reasonable. If a particular supplier cannot make a profit, then that supplier will exit the line of business.</p>\n\n<p>The price to the customer can be broken down to a setup fee (possibly high) and a per-unit cost once setup is completed (in this case, very low). So, it could be possible to say, \"$250 to sign up, then $0.10 per unit.\" Or, the same amount of money exchanges, with \"$350 for the first 1000 units, then $100 for the next 1000 units.\"</p>\n\n<p>The US supplier has chosen the second approach, by incorporating the setup fee into the cost of units sold. Apparently the AU supplier does not entirely incorporate the setup cost into the early units.</p>\n\n<p>However, the linear equations approach is only valid in the case of competition. In the case of a monopoly, which is what we have here, the price is not necessarily calculated that way. Certainly it is calculated to cover costs and allow for profit. But unless there is some prevailing law or regulation against it, the supplier may choose a pricing strategy intended to reward some and penalize others. There is no market correction.</p>\n\n<p>It seems that small do-it-yourself types assume that they are being penalized. That may be true, or not, since I don't know the cost factors.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28272, "author": "Surtsey", "author_id": 24878, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24878", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the modern era there no is formula by which corporations calculate a market price based on cost. Product prices are primarily based on \"What is the maximum the market will stand?\"</p>\n\n<p>Gas prices will typically be more expensive at the 'last gas station for 50 miles' than where there are four gas stations on the same city block.</p>\n\n<p>Capitalism fails with scale. The US has the most advanced capitalist system and it is there you can find the most evidence of its inherent corruption: (Why's US Healthcare amongst the world's most expensive?). Companies like Bowker are bullied by the big 4 publishers and Amazon. Bowker will set their prices according to Amazon and co's demands else (in an extreme scenario) Bowker will find themselves bought out . . . and there will be no more Bowker.</p>\n\n<p>Globalism is a game of strategy. Companies like Bowker are permitted to make profit in certain markets at certain times. Import and Export levies prevent true global competition (Why can't you buy prescription drugs from Canada).</p>\n\n<p>The ISBN system is particularly prone to corruption as the system is a national monopoly. Bowker are the authorised suppliers for the US and Australia but when those contracts are renewed those contracts could be awarded to Neilson if Bowker are not doing as they're told. </p>\n\n<p>In summary: there are several factors as to why any particular pricing schedule is calculated that way at that time; politics, market forces, personal whims. It's not something you can work out on a spreadsheet.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 29662, "author": "Bob says reinstate Monica", "author_id": 26180, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can't usually save money by shopping around for ISBNs from different countries, which is a shame because in some countries they're free. For example, both Canada and Sweden have free ISBNs, provided through <a href=\"http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/Pages/isbn-canada.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Library and Archives Canada</a> and <a href=\"http://www.kb.se/english/services/isbn/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">National Library of Sweden</a> respectively. In both cases you have to have a publication address in the respective country to qualify for an ISBN.</p>\n\n<p>It would be interesting to know how much it costs the Swedish and Canadian governments to provide their publishers with ISBNs, and how much profit companies like Bowker in the US and Nielsen in the UK make from providing the same service.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/27704", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/9888/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 28459, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I advise you to avoid the slang spelling, unless it will be commonly understood. There is no particular criterion for this.</p>\n\n<p>For the example you gave, my answer is a firm \"maybe.\" Would your target readership grasp that? If so, OK. If not, then substitute something such as:</p>\n\n<pre><code>He mumbled, \"The usual,\" in that childish manner designed to irritate me.\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But this works both ways. My suggestion is rather formal, which might not be sytlistically compatible with its surroundings.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28631, "author": "Jeffrey Rosenthal", "author_id": 25332, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25332", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Go for it. It's better to show, not tell. Don't describe accents, include them in your dialogue. Just be consistent with spellings and try to get them as close to the standard spelling as possible. Of course the challenge is balancing that with clarity for the reader. </p>\n\n<p>Don't use three 'o's if you are emphasizing the 'yoozh' as a short form. Extra vowels convey length. </p>\n\n<p>If your character is going to say 'usual' the 'yoozh' or 'yuzh' you could explain it the first time it's encountered. </p>\n\n<p>Perhaps something like this: \n''What are you up to?''</p>\n\n<p>''The usual,''pronouncing it <em>the yoozh</em>, in that youthful affectation.<br>\n''Like what?''</p>\n\n<p>''Chilling, Facebooking, just \n<em>the yoozh</em>. Sup?''</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28633, "author": "Surtsey", "author_id": 24878, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/24878", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't recommend phonetic spelling of slang. There are two issues (1) The validity of the word (2) The sound of the word.</p>\n\n<p>The urban dictionary contains a comprehensive list of slang. I recommend you consult it. </p>\n\n<p>Your conversation would probably read:</p>\n\n<p>\"Wassup?\"\n\"Same ol'\" </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28644, "author": "FraEnrico", "author_id": 21768, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/21768", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Non-english speaker here. I would go for it. If the pronunciation is easy to get, the reader would immediately understand the sound, and therefore the meaning, even if he never heard the term. Either the sound would sound like something he knows, either it will remind a slang he's aware of.</p>\n\n<p>Once I read about kids in a novel repeating \"I dunno\" all the time. I had never heard the slang for \"I don't know\" before, but after few times I got the meaning. It's better to add some \"colour\" than to go over heavy exposition (<em>\"I don't know\", he said, in his typical accent</em> - a very bad choice in my opinion).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 35793, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There's no hard and fast rule --you want to make it as readily recognizable as possible. Sometimes there's an accepted slang spelling. If so, find it and use it. If not, if you can construct it out of known words, do so. If not, give the simplest phonetic rendition (rather than the most accurate one).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"kewl\" (for \"cool\", it's a well-known written variation)<br>\n \"adorbs\" (for \"adorable\", since it's easy to break the real word in half)<br>\n \"the yoosh\" (for \"the ususal\", since \"ush\" doesn't help phonetically or lexically)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In general, use it sparingly, for color and flavor. Slang is inherently distancing by nature, and readers will easily tire of too much of it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/28454", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25214/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 28977, "author": "ggiaquin16", "author_id": 23200, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/23200", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You are still missing the point of free writing and many of our suggestions in your previous questions. The whole point of free writing is not to kill your flow. Think of it this way... you are watching a movie... someone comes in and talks to you so you pause it. Play it for another 5 minutes, someone else comes in and talks to you so you pause it. Then you play again. Again someone interrupts you and you got to pause the movie again. You can't enjoy the flow and pacing of the movie if you are having to pause it every 10 minutes. You also have to spend time trying to remember where even you left off and what just happened.</p>\n\n<p>I understand you want to slow yourself down. This still causes the main issue of stopping yourself after every sentence. <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Free writing</a> does not necessarily mean you rush through your writing with every first thought in your head. It simply means that you allow yourself to turn off the editor/revision mode in your mind and allow thoughts to be put to paper without critique. You can do this as fast or slow as you want, but the key is to not allow yourself to go back and edit or think if the sentence needs to be changed before writing.</p>\n\n<p>That seems to be your biggest struggle because you want to control and force your words a certain way. It is hard to build rhythm and flow and elegance if you are trying to take your foot and jam it in. That's what it feels like you are trying to do to me. You need to let go and relax and stop looking for perfection with your first try. </p>\n\n<p>I feel like, in your situation based on the questions you have asked, you would really benefit from free-writing and it should not be avoided. Especially if you want to learn how to build rhythm.</p>\n\n<p>It's like playing an instrument. Just let it flow man, if you make a mistake keep going, you don't see musicians stop if they make a mistake. Often it is hard to hear mistakes when it is live because they keep the flow going. Imagine if you were listening to a live concert and every time someone in the band messed up, they would stop and redo the song. Concerts would be the whole day. Some times, you need to look past the minor mistakes, the minor issues, to build the overall flow and then go back and change the couple of words you feel are out of place.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28981, "author": "CloudspotterSupine", "author_id": 25584, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/25584", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For most, that sort of deliberation is best done later, in edits or second drafts. However, if you'd like a way to force yourself to maintain a slower pace and think over words more before the first time you write them down, I've found that writing by hand is very valuable for that. It slows down the pace of your writing so that your mind can think of more different permutations of the words you have yet to write down. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28987, "author": "SC for reinstatement of Monica", "author_id": 22074, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22074", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I shall go against the flow and say that some people do not work well with free-writing.</p>\n\n<p>Ggiaquin does a great job explaining why it is a helpful technique and, especially when trying to get over a writer's block, I'd quickly suggest it.</p>\n\n<p>However, I understand the OP's point. My writing is very much driven by the character's emotional state (whether they're cool headed or in the throes of melodrama). The narrator's voice must always strike the right voice. If, for some reason, the sentences come off slightly out of character or if the emotion conveyed isn't quite right, then that is an equivalent to someone interruptiong me. It kills the flow.</p>\n\n<p>What I do, in order to get the right voice in my head so the writing flows quickly and in character and also in order to get the right emotion, is to stop writing and to play the scene in my head a number of times. I go over the emotion, the actions, the words. I become the main character of the scene and repeat it over and over (doing so while doing a completely physical activity, like vacuuming, can help). Then I get inside the other characters and make sure their actions and reactions are also in character. Finally I can sit down and write because the voices and the emotions are just right. I have written over five thousand words in a sitting after doing this preparation. The later editing comes down much more to just spelling and getting a few synonyms, because the events and the emotions usually come out right from the start.</p>\n\n<p>In a way, it's also a form or free writing in ggiaqin's sense - it allows to write without being interrupted, whether by your inner editor or by a feeling that something is off which kills your progression. Just prepare yourself until you've got the right tone for your thoughts. Or perhaps just go over your thoughts without writing them in order to improve them, to help them evolve into the right idea. Once you feel the right idea booming inside you, you'll be able to write non-stop, fed by that feeling.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28991, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is story development and there is narration. You need to compose a story before you can narrate it. Some people are naturals at story development. For them the story flows so naturally that they can focus on narration from the moment they start writing. </p>\n\n<p>Some people struggle with story development. Some address this with planning and outlines. Some do the story development in their heads before they start narrating. And some start scribbling down whatever comes into their heads and hope a story thread will emerge from it. This is what so called free writing is about. </p>\n\n<p>Some people are naturals at narration. For them, the narrative flow emerges more or less intact in the first draft. For others, constructing a working narrative is a laborious process of many revisions. Don't expect your free writing story development to produce a great narrative. And don't confuse that process with the behavior of people who are both naturals at story and naturals at narration and can get a good first draft done first time out. </p>\n\n<p>If free writing is your method for story generation, then don't worry about the writing details because this is not you first draft of the narrative, it is merely story generation. Be prepared (indeed, work with the full intention) to throw the entire thing away once you have found your story shape, and then begin the task of narration over from the beginning. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/28978", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/1993/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 30116, "author": "SF.", "author_id": 4291, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/4291", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Rule of thumb: ellipsis for trailing out (or in), em-dash for turns and interruptions.</p>\n\n<p>The ellipsis is usually more sedate, like when you run out of thought and are not sure what to say next. Em-dash is more intense pause — you got interrupted, you change the subject rapidly, you want to say the next thing but can't.</p>\n\n<p>These rules are not set in stone. The two are often interchangeable, providing merely a slightly different emphasis on the nature of the pause.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 30119, "author": "paulzag", "author_id": 19655, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/19655", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>John August talks about em-dashes and ellipses in <a href=\"https://johnaugust.com/2012/scriptnotes-ep-51-dashes-ellipses-and-underground-monsters-transcript\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Scriptnotes Ep.51</a> where basically he calls them interchangeable and go with the style you like. However as scripts are written in mono-spaced fonts the convention is to use a double dash for an em-dash.</p>\n\n<p>SF.'s answer is grammatically right on the money, in that an ellipse is a trail-off but an em-dash is a hard break. But such a hard distinction is too pedantic for show business.</p>\n\n<p>However I would caution you to</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Never use ellipses</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This assumes you want to sell your screenplay instead of make it yourself. If you're writing for your own production, have at it. It's your baby. In all other cases I think it's lazy or bad writing.</p>\n\n<p>In <a href=\"http://www.doctormyscript.com/2010/10/screenwritingmistake2ellipses.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Screenwriting Mistake #2: Ellipses</a> Phil Dyer points out that ellipses are ubiquitous. Read enough un-produced screenplays and you'll cry at the environmental destruction they've wrought just in page count and toner/ink wastage.</p>\n\n<p>You would not use a parenthetical before every line of dialogue to instruct the actor how to deliver the line. Therefore isn't 99% of ellipsis use a direct note to the actor on how the line is delivered?</p>\n\n<p>Even Shakespeare does not tell actors how to perform or deliver their lines.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/30114", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26431/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 30311, "author": "Chris Sunami", "author_id": 10479, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/10479", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I would use caution, and be sparing. Keep in mind that slurs register very differently to the people they are directed against than to everyone else, so it can be hard to judge a slur if you aren't a member of the group being slurred. What reads to you, the author, as authenticity, might strike the informed reader as a transparent reflection of your own prejudices, especially if you aren't in a position to accurately judge your own authenticity. For instance, you say <em>tranny hooker</em> is \"accurate to ghetto talk.\" But is it really? To me it sounds, if anything, old-fashioned and hopelessly outdated, even as a slur. But I'm not really in a position to judge, and, I suspect, neither are you.</p>\n\n<p>In general, the further you are from the group you are describing, the lighter you should tread --the more likely your notion of authenticity is likely to actually be a conglomeration of stereotypes. For example, white audiences loved Tarantino's <em>Pulp Fiction</em>, but black audiences found it hard to stomach the scene in which the director cameos as a white man with a startling fondness for dropping the \"N\" word.</p>\n\n<p>If you want the edge of offensive language without the risk of actual offense, why not coin your own near-future slurs? J.K. Rowling was very successful in making \"Mudblood,\" a wholly invented slur, feel very offensive in context. As far as I know, however, it didn't offend any actual readers, since it doesn't mean anything in <em>our</em> reality.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36789, "author": "Amadeus", "author_id": 26047, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/26047", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I see nothing wrong with it; as long as you know it turns some readers off, and may get your book in the not-suitable-for-(work, kids, the devout religious). </p>\n\n<p>IMO such words are a fact of life; we use them, particularly joking with friends, with lovers in the heat of sexual activity, and in extreme anger. If they are used in a plausible context, it increases the immersion and realism of the world.</p>\n\n<p>Cursing is part of the human experience, as far as I am concerned. In fact, to me they can be necessary in writing, few things break my suspension of disbelief quicker (and cause me irritation for doing so) than watching a movie censored for TV to replace \"fuck you\" with \"duck you\", or \"bitch with glitch\" or whatever they are doing. It is so out of place it is jarring and ruins the tension, or payoff, or whatever was good about the scene. </p>\n\n<p>And to me, the recent trend on cable to allow \"fuck\" and \"shit\" makes the shows better, the writer's know when they should be used and fit. It may be space opera, but if anybody thinks we won't be cursing up a storm in space they've got another think coming. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36793, "author": "Rick", "author_id": 31746, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/31746", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Edginess and the YA market go hand in hand. Seems like you can get away with some topics there that would struggle to get across in the adult market.</p>\n\n<p>Other than that ...</p>\n\n<p>GRR Martin seems to have gotten away with an amazing amount of violence (sexual and otherwise) against women in his novels, but anyone else would be pilloried for it and called a misogynist (and in this current environment you don't want that). If you can figure out why he gets a free pass, you may be able to use all the naughty words you like if you can duplicate his 'get out of jail free' card.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36796, "author": "GGx", "author_id": 28942, "author_profile": "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/28942", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Richard, your question popped to the top of the queue following your edit and it immediately raised a caution flag for me. </p>\n\n<p>I think you have far more potential for problems with your treatment of your transgender character than you have with the word cunt. Madelaine Dickie won the TAG Hungerford award in Australia for TROPPO and they didn’t have a problem with her using cunt (though she uses it sparingly).</p>\n\n<p>Please set me straight if you are part of a transgender community and know anyone even vaguely similar to your character, but I don’t know a single transgender woman who would call herself by a male name, refer to herself with a male pronoun, or be okay with anyone else referring to her by a male pronoun. Would you be okay if everyone you met insisted on calling you ‘her’ because it made <strong>them</strong> feel more comfortable?? This character disgraces the transgender plight by trivialising her own gender. And I’d say you’re opening yourself up to a world of grief writing obtusely about men and women who are fighting tooth and nail to be recognised and respected for the true gender they were born as. </p>\n\n<p>I am a straight, middle-aged, married woman but I find it offensive, so it isn’t only the LGBTQ+ community that you need to worry about. It raises far more alarm bells for me than cunt does.</p>\n\n<p>There’s a reason that ‘write what you know’ has become an adage, because writing about things you know little or nothing about, particularly subjects that target an already massively maligned community can leave you in a mess of hot water. </p>\n\n<p>I say this a lot: it really depends on why you are writing this and who you are writing it for. If it’s just for yourself, you can write what you like, who gives a crap? But if you intend to submit this, I would say that agents and publishers won’t touch it with a barge pole if it has the potential to embarrass them.</p>\n\n<p>Using derogatory terms like tranny and the N word are okay if used cautiously and if you as the author distance yourself from the character using them by bringing in other players who make it clear that that character is a pretty despicable human being. Look at American History X, it’s one of the most confronting and challenging films ever made.</p>\n\n<p>If I wanted to write a transgender character, the first thing I would do is talk to as many transgender women as I possibly could and ask them about the shit they put up with on a daily basis. You can inform your novel and your readers of transgender issues (by other characters calling her by the wrong pronoun, for example) but if she denies her own sexuality, plight and prejudices through your misrepresentation, the shit is going to fall straight on your doorstep. The reader won’t believe this character, they’ll just think the author is ignorant and prejudiced. I’m not saying don’t create this character — do — as you say, writing should make one question society. But do it with your eyes wide open.</p>\n\n<p>Having said all that, I think your premise is excellent and so interesting. It had me completely engaged and I think it has real potential to be a saleable novel that will be snapped up. So don’t ruin your chances by landing yourself in hot water for the sake of being edgy. Tread carefully and you could have one hell of a novel on your hands, it’s really exciting.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/30257", "https://writers.stackexchange.com", "https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/22690/" ]