network profile
| bio | website | johansens.us |
|---|---|---|
| location | Michigan | |
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 5 months |
| seen | 21 hours ago | |
| stats | profile views | 3 |
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Apr 10 |
comment |
Is a glossary needed in a novel? Speaking just of the U.S.: We have the word "hall" as a place where people gather. I think the term "village hall" would be readily understood. I think the kind of role you are talking about was often performed by churches here: in very small communities especially a local church (or THE local church) would often serve as the community gathering place. Less so today than 200 years ago, but it's still very common. Americans also have many clubs that own or rent halls where they gather socially: the Rotary Club, Lions Club, Moose Lodge, Optimists, etc. They probably peaked about 100 years ago... |
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Apr 9 |
answered | Is a glossary needed in a novel? |
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Apr 9 |
answered | Tenses I should use in a translated-novel |
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Apr 9 |
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1st person story, but the main character will die in the end and some of the story needs to be told after his death. How to solve this problem? I think any of these techniques could work if properly set off from the rest of the text so as to avoid confusion. Like starting the final chapter with someone saying, "George is dead", and then going on to discuss the aftermath. Also, years ago I read a novel called "The Sunbird", forget the author, that ended with the two main characters entering a dangerous situation, and then this was followed by a couple of newspapers stories reporting on their deaths. It wasn't a great book but that part was fairly well done. |
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Apr 9 |
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1st person story, but the main character will die in the end and some of the story needs to be told after his death. How to solve this problem? Wait, Patrocles dies? Well look, please just don't tell me where Helen ends up. I haven't gotten to that part yet. |
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Apr 9 |
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1st person story, but the main character will die in the end and some of the story needs to be told after his death. How to solve this problem? Ok, you say it's a joke, but to take that last sentence seriously: This won't work if the story is set in an atheist universe. Just like having a story end with the hero leaving town on a jet plane won't work if the story is set in a medieval fantasy world, but works fine if set in the modern world. I could certainly see how adding a supernatural touch at the end of a story could be jarring if the story before that point had a certain tone. But like almost anything in fiction, it all depends on how it's done. |
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Apr 8 |
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How to avoid specifying the gender in English when the original text does not specify it? ... so what? It has not been accepted English grammar for a long time. And if it does become accepted, I think English will be the weaker for it because we will have lost a useful distinction. Just as I think English is weaker for loss of "thou", as is evidenced by the fact that people are struggling to invent a plural version of "you", like "y'all" and "you guys". |
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Apr 8 |
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How to avoid specifying the gender in English when the original text does not specify it? To say that "you" is "misused as a singular" because hundred of years ago English had different conventions is a pretty odd take. A quick web search tells me "thou" fell out of use around the 17th century. Similarly, okay, I find some sources that say that "they" was used as a singular hundreds of years ago. The examples I see quoted are mostly indeteterminate group words "everyone ... they", "somebody ... they", etc., where people today often are not sure whether these call for singular or plural verbs, nevermind prounouns. But supposing this was accepted two or three hundred years ago ... |
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Apr 5 |
answered | How to avoid specifying the gender in English when the original text does not specify it? |
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Apr 4 |
answered | Strange ungooglable symbol. What does it mean? What is it called? § |
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Apr 3 |
answered | What exactly is the “five (consecutive) word” plagiarism rule? |
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Apr 2 |
answered | How can I consistently distinguish among tables, fields, and records in a database? |
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Apr 2 |
answered | How can I translate my poems in English that it doesn't sound odd/non poetic for English speaker audiences? |
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Apr 2 |
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Tips for writing sentences like a native speaker Why do you say PBS rather than some other network? |
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Apr 2 |
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Words in author's native language? @JohnM.Landsberg It's possible that the target audience is multi-lingual. For example, someone writing for Mexicans living in the U.S. might assume not too unfairly that they know both Spanish and English. In general, of course, assuming your readers know any given language besides the primary language of the text would rarely be justified. |
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Apr 2 |
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Words in author's native language? @jwpat7 I recall a friend of mine from China whose English was good but not fluent once included Chinese ideograms for days of the week in a note she wrote. When I asked what these meant, she was surprised and said, "Oh, doesn't everyone use those?" So yes, it happens that people get confused and forget that this word is from their native language and not some other language they're trying to write. |
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Apr 2 |
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Words in author's native language? You've listed mostly good reasons for including a foreign word. I'd mention that writers also sometimes include foreign words for bad reasons, like to show off their knowledge of foreign languages, or to make the writing seem "more sophisticated". |
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Mar 27 |
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Is it acceptable practice to use contractions in a fictional first person narrative for children? I can understand the school's position. Yes, it makes sense to say that text that is supposed to be the narration of an uneducated person would often include poor grammar. But from a school's point of view, they're trying to teach proper grammar, perhaps more than they're trying to teach engaging, creative prose. And that's not irrational: while there are many good reasons to break the rules, a student needs to learn the rules before he can learn when to break them. But in any case, contractions aren't "bad grammar", they're perfectly legitimate. |
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Mar 27 |
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How are citations formatted in serious non-fiction (proposals)? I'd seek direction from the specific publisher rather than generic suggestions, as their requirements vary. If you're sending out cold query letters and don't want to reformat for each publisher, any format that is reasonably readable should be adequate. If the publisher is interested, they can ask you to resubmit in a format they like better. I've done that a couple of times. |
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Mar 27 |
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How are citations formatted in serious non-fiction (proposals)? Very late follow up: APA style involves in-line citations like your example. MLA style calls for footnotes, I don't think there's a provision for such in-line citations in MLA. Yes, it's true that publishers generally want very simple formatting, I presume because getting the text from the form submitted by the author into their typesetting system is not always clean and direct, and any formatting may cause more trouble than it helps. When I used to write for magazines, they would typically have a style sheet that said how they wanted such things. ... |
