i dun made a book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ Jonathinia-Foundation-Society-Jonathan-Hargreaves-ebook/dp/ B00OV8F2UA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1414497948& sr=1-1&keywords=the+foundation+of+society
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=ZEwRBQAAQBAJ
buy eet
ID:1708831
 Oct 28 2014, 10:28 pm
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Lol just saw this. Thanks for your help
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Oh sheet, we can sell short stories on google? Time to compile my high school collection.
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'illuminate' is also a good word, although it doesn't give off quite the same vibe as 'lessen the darkness'
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I have a few words published in "A Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra", a book written by /lit/, pick it up if you have a chance.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
"Name?" a tall, skinny woman enquired.
You don't need a question mark here because you ended the sentence with "enquired", so the reader will already know it's a question. I think you do need a question mark. The question mark indicates that the speech is going up in pitch at the end. This practice then allows the author to leave the question mark out to indicate someone asking for a name in a flat tone, perhaps bored out of their mind.
"You wouldn't happen to have your level documentation to hand, would you; sir?"
There's no reason for the semicolon. Delete it. This is a little bit sketchy, but again I think the semicolon can be used to indicate the flow and tone of the speech. I read "would you; sir?" as if the speaker thought they would end at 'would you', until they realized the man was not paying attention or something. If that isn't what bumble intended then it should be changed... | |
Lugia319 wrote:
Oh sheet, we can sell short stories on google? Time to compile my high school collection. You can put them on Amazon too, and build hype over on Wattpad. I'd say Amazon is bigger on books though than Google with their whole "Kindle" tablets and whatnot. Amazon also has contests every now and then where they state some rules and then people have to submit their stories by the deadline. Whoever wins gets their book published and a cash prize. I tried to enter their contest last year but when I noticed it was going on, it was already almost over. | |
Magicsofa wrote:
I think you do need a question mark. The question mark indicates that the speech is going up in pitch at the end. This practice then allows the author to leave the question mark out to indicate someone asking for a name in a flat tone, perhaps bored out of their mind. I'm not sure what you mean here. That speech information you're referring to is already conveyed when he ends the sentence with "enquired" or when the question mark is used within the quotes. It's the same as if I wrote:
"Get out of my house!" the man exclaimed.
The exclamation mark already indicates that the man is exclaiming, so ending the sentence with "exclaimed" is telling the reader the same thing twice for no real reason, also known as redundancy. And iirc, in one of the other sentences around that paragraph he went into detail about the mannerisms of the woman anyway, so it didn't need to be specified in this particular sentence. | |
Yeah, I'm not the king of lit or anything, I just wanted to make a story lol.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
The exclamation mark already indicates that the man is exclaiming, so ending the sentence with "exclaimed" is telling the reader the same thing twice for no real reason, also known as redundancy. Okay, so what would you write instead? | |
Magicsofa wrote:
EmpirezTeam wrote:
"Get out of my house!" said the man.
If I want to use "exclaimed" in this sentence, I'd remove the exclamation mark out of the quote. In a longer discussion where it's obvious who's talking, I remove it completely: "Can I stay for a little while longer" asked Dennis. That latter snippet is a matter of preference. It's not incorrect to continuously type "said the man" and "said Dennis" but I always like to assume my readers have half a brain and that when a long discussion is going on between only two characters they can figure out who's saying what. For example, I'm sure you knew who was Dennis and who was "the man" in that conversation even after I stopped indicating it. | |
"But does it not seem untidy to use a full stop instead of a question mark when a character is asking a question." asked Bumblemore.
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dis shit b tight
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Bumblemore wrote:
"But does it not seem untidy to use a full stop instead of a question mark when a character is asking a question." asked Bumblemore. I agree with this, and with Magicsofa. For one, it just looks better with a question mark at the end of the quote. For two, there are potentially many cases where you won't read the sentence with the proper change in tone if you don't see the question mark there. By the time you read the words "inquired the man" it is too late to change how you read the sentence without going back and re-reading it. It sounds silly, but it's perfectly plausible and easily fixed by a simple question mark. It's not redundant because a question mark tells you instantly how to end the sentence in your brain. The stuff after the quote is meant to fill in the gaps that the quote didn't fill itself, such as stating the name of the person speaking (ie "asked Frank") or telling how it was asked (ie "he asked with a gasp"). Therefore, both the question mark and the explanation after it are necessary for the reader to understand the sentence perfectly in any situation. It has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with the ease of the flow of thought -- which anybody, no matter how smart, can appreciate in good literature. | |
Perhaps if you're writing for a much younger audience.
Like I said, I write assuming my readers aren't full retards. It's kinda like that Egoraptor Megaman video where he complained about game developers designing games in a way that made it seem like they thought gamers didn't possess the common sense required to know simple things, i.e. "If you jump onto a pile of spikes, you're going to take damage." I assume my readers know that "!" means exclaiming. I assume my readers know "?" is a question. I assume that when two people are in a conversation, people can distinguish who they are without me constantly pointing it out. I also assume that if I end a sentence with "asked", they'll know that whatever was said in the quotes was a question without me putting a question mark within the quotes. And even if all of those assumptions are incorrect, it would still count as redundancy on my part. | |
Fugsnarf wrote:
It's not redundant because a question mark tells you instantly how to end the sentence in your brain. Once again, you're talking as if people don't have a brain to begin with. It's actually pretty insulting to say that the average person can't figure out that the following sentence:
"Will you go to the dance with me" asked Dennis.
Was a question up until the point they read "asked". Most questions typically start off the same way, and by the time you finish reading the quote you can already get a feel if something was a question or statement. It's the same with exclaiming. Say a character is being chased by a dinosaur.
"Oh my god, someone help me" exclaimed Susan.
Even before you get to exclaimed, you can already figure out that if a woman is being chased by a dinosaur, she's not going to say "Oh my god, someone help me" in a calm, sweet tone. | |
That one is simple. I can't necessarily think of a good example, but a more complex sentence might not be so cut and dry. Personally, I'd rather not make your assumption and risk ambiguity.
I just thought of a simple example: "Hey, guys. I went to the store and bought some soda." "And you have it with you" Susan asked. "And you have it with you?" Susan asked. Compare the two, and the second one is clearly more readable. It's perfectly plausible to make a question with no clear indicators of it in the sentence, especially if you're writing what is meant to be normal speech. Complex and longer questions might also fall into this category of ambiguity. Good writing is about being as clear as possible. It's possible that your method would not be completely clear to your readers immediately, so why risk it? | |
It's because most English teachers don't really go into detail about redundancies. You wrote redundantly just now.
Fugsnarf wrote: Personally, I'd rather not make your assumption and risk ambiguity. There's no reason to begin that sentence off with "personally". Even if you left that out, I'd still be smart enough to know that's how you felt. Starting sentences off with "Personally", or "I feel", or "In my opinion", are all redundancies. You wouldn't be saying it if that wasn't the way you felt personally, so you can just leave that out and start your sentence off with "I'd". My AP English teacher was pretty anal about redundancies ( which is probably where I get it from ) but it makes a ton of sense. | |
I wrote how I talk. Nothing wrong with that. You're dodging my point anyways, so I'm out of here.
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"After all, he was going to be something different, something unexpected, and as those shuttle-shaft doors opened..."Then you wrote on page 2:
"Those departing at Level Four should now leave the shuttleshaft."When you go back and forth between using a dash in "shuttle-shaft" and not using a dash, it starts to look silly, so make sure you make up your mind on how you'll write it and stick with it throughout the entire book.
One of the main things I try to avoid when I write is redundancy. I found an example of this on page 5:
"Name?" a tall, skinny woman enquired.You don't need a question mark here because you ended the sentence with "enquired", so the reader will already know it's a question.
While there's nothing wrong as far as spelling and grammar goes, this is simply not a good sentence ( page 5 again ):
The streets were lit with blue strips of light, presumably to light public walk ways during night cycles.For one, the fact that you used "light" back to back in this sentence just looks lazy, and then you use the word "lit" again 4 sentences later, which will start to give the reader the impression you don't have a large vocabulary. I would've written:
The streets were lit with blue strips of light, presumably to lessen the darkness around public walk ways during night cycles.You should chill out with the semicolons. You use them way too often, and in spots where you don't need them. For example, page 6:
"You wouldn't happen to have your level documentation to hand, would you; sir?"There's no reason for the semicolon. Delete it.
Your use of "till" isn't incorrect, but it's still the nonstandard, "old" way as opposed to writing "until". As I mentioned before, consistency is important when you write. If you're going to use what is considered "old English" then you should have a lot of old English. When you go back and forth and have half of your book written in modern words and then the other half written in older, less formal English, it's just bad. I'd change it to "until" for consistency purposes but it's still technically correct either way ( page 6 I think, I'm losing track of pages at this point ):
There were still fifteen minutes till Albert was due at his interview, going by the tram timetable's electronic clock."Passersby" is all one word, so delete your space here ( last page ):
My page numbers may be incorrect because I'm looking at it on the Google sample pages but all of what I critiqued can be found on the sample pages here. I hope you know that my proofreading services are not free, and that you now owe me $200. If I don't see a payment of $200 from you in my Paypal account within the next 24 hours, my "associates" will be at your doorstep, and believe me, you don't want my associates at your doorstep.