Rob Bignell's Blog, page 292

Writing Prompt: Change the world

If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be? What could you write that might help facilitate this change?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Toledo, Ohio, or a small town like Gnaw Bone, Indiana, I can provide that second eye.

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Editing client���s screenplay named finalist

A screenplay by a recent editing client of mine has been named a finalist in the 2015 Alaska International Film Awards. Jana Meador���s ���Cul-de-Sac��� is a throwback 1980s-style comedy about two idiots ��� with good hearts ��� running a pirate radio station, and equally idiotic bureaucrats trying to shut them down. Only 17 finalists were named out of hundreds of entrants. You can learn more about Jana���s play and her novels
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Omaha, Nebraska, or a small town like Duckville, Tennessee, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Inspiration: Help, don���t help

Once you know your dream, to live it you must get your priorities in order. List at least three activities that don���t help you achieve your dream (such as watching movies every night, or posting pictures on Facebook) that you might pull back from. Next, list three activities (specifically ���write, write, write���) that would help you achieve your goals. Cut from your daily life the activities on your first list and replace them with those on your second list.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Lakeland, Florida, or a small town like Hygiene, Colorado, I can provide that second eye.

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Three ebook formatting tips, part IV

Ebooks follow different formatting rules than books printed on paper. That���s because a book made of ink on paper is a different platform for presenting information than a book made of digital bits on an electronic screen. Even though the same content (your book) is being presented, the platforms will need to be handled differently, just as certainly different production methods are used for a play presented on stage and on a television screen.

Because of that, there are a number of things you might do when formatting a paperback but never would do when constructing an ebook. Following are three tips about what to differently.

Headers
Don���t place text ��� such as the book���s title or a page number ��� within the header section of a word processing document. Typically this information won���t show up in an ebook, making your work for naught. Sometimes (and worse) it will show up, placing text where it shouldn���t appear in the ebook. Remember, ebooks don���t use page numbers, and most automatically will place the title of your book at the top of each screen page that the reader of you ebook sees.

Images
Limit the size of photographs appearing in your ebook. Most ebook publishers restrict the size of the manuscript that is uploaded, and large photos will quickly push you over that watermark, leading to rejection. Since photographs need not be larger than most ereader or tablet screens, it never should be more than five inches wide by five inches deep in actual size (and probably can be even smaller, depending on who you are publishing your book with). Make sure the photo���s resolution is in 300 dpi. In addition, the image quality usually can be reduced to a six on a scale of 1-12.

Indentation
Don���t indent the first line of each paragraph by either using the tab key or the space bar. Doing so usually will result in one paragraph beginning so many spaces from the left margin and the next paragraph at another spot. This occurs because most ereaders automatically distribute your text evenly between the margins and ignore the word processing program���s instructions to begin at a specific location relative to the left margin. Instead, use block paragraphs in an ebook, just as you would if designing a web page. This means no indentations but a blank line between paragraphs.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Ventura, California, or a small town like Big Ugly Creek, West Virginia, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Quotations about Writing as Self-Discovery

���What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end--that is what you must be able to attain.��� - Rainer Maria Rilke

���Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.��� - Leo Rosten

���Reading and weeping opens the door to one's heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one's soul.��� - M. K. Simmons

���Writing is thinking on paper.��� - William Zinsser

���If a story is in you, it has to come out.��� - William Faulkner

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Greenville, South Carolina, or a small town like Cocklebiddy, Washington, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Writing Inspiration: Avoid the Distractions

One cause of distractions is having them in your line of sight. Setting aside the laundry is difficult to do when there���s a basket full of clothes before you. Find a place that you can write each day where whatever distracts you isn���t visible.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Miami, Florida, or a small town like Normal, Illinois, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Appeal to sense of sound when writing

When writing descriptions, one of the five senses that you can appeal to is sound.

We���re surrounded all day by sounds, though most of it is tuned out. When we do hear something out of the ordinary ��� an alarm, the crunch of metal when cars collide, the annoying repetition of a water drip ��� it stands out.

Likewise, most authors use sound in the same way in their stories: the sensation is often implied but only used at a moment when it can most contribute to raising dramatic tension or add to a description of an important object in the story.

Matthew Johnson does this in his short story ���Lagos��� (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov���s Science Fiction). The story, about a Third World worker named Safrat who vacuums other people���s houses by telepresence, never describes the sound of the vacuuming in the opening paragraphs, but as we learn about a day in Safrat���s life, the reader almost can hear the changing whirs as the type of vacuuming performed changes. It isn���t until the 13th paragraph arrives that the sense of sound is directly appealed to, when Safrat laughs when her brother tells her in her sleep ��� in the language of the wealthy people whose houses she vacuums ��� about taking a vacation. The sound points toward the poignant irony of such a dream. As the story nears its climax, the number of times the sense of sound is used increases.

One way to insert sound into your story is through the use of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia occurs when words are spelled like the sound they make, such as buzz, whoosh, beep. Again, such sounds shouldn���t be inserted into a description for the sake of having sound in your story but instead to generate dramatic tension or to show some important characteristic of an object.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or a small town like Boring, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing inspiration: Alter the world

Rather than consume something, when writing we make something. The very act of writing then is a choice in how we���ll live and treat our planet. In what other ways does your simple decision to write alter the world around you?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Syracuse, New York, or a small town like Hicks, Alabama, I can provide that second eye.

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Don't miss this tip: Sound bite vs. sound byte

Do you remember a day before computers were everywhere? Then you probably know which of the following two spellings ��� sound bite or sound byte ��� is correct.

Sound bite is right. The term was first used in 1980 to describe quick, clever statements, often made by politicians, that could be played in a few seconds on the evening news. In those days when computers weren���t commonplace, the term played off the notion that viewers��� preference for such news was like taking a bite of a meal rather than fully consuming it.

Sound byte does make sense in that a byte is a small unit of information in computing. Perhaps one day this spelling will overshadow the original and become commonplace.

For the time being, though, when writing just remember this snippet: Use i not y.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Colorado Springs, Colorado, or a small town like Big Chimney, West Virginia, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Prompt: Make the impossible happen

Suffering from writer���s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: ���Impossible��� is merely a state of mind. The only reason something is ���impossible��� is because we lack the knowledge or experience of how to do it (Remember that a little more than a century ago, human flight was deemed ���impossible.���). As a writer, you are tasked with explaining why something is possible (How does warp drive work? How were some Jews smuggled out of wartime Nazi Germany?). List five things that are widely considered ���impossible��� then write about how they could occur.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Charleston, West Virginia, or a small town like Frog Eye, Alabama, I can provide that second eye.

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