Tips for aspiring writers from someone who needs them (Peter Kapitola).
How it feels
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How nice would it be if we could somehow transfer the story directly from our heads into a computer file? Maybe one day the technology will get there. Who knows...
It's good to remind yourself that the story in your head is actually a lot less complete, developed, and coherent than you think. Your imagination glosses over the gaps without you realizing it. This makes it easier when it comes to writing it, because you don't get as disappointed over how much work is still required to make sense of it all.
This is a chart I created to explain the various tenses, aspects and moods in English. I have seen a large number of these around, but all of them were only subsets of this chart. This one seeks to combine as many as practical. I hope you find it useful. :) (Note - some avid redditors have pointed out a couple of errors related to the subjunctive tense. I will be fixing these shortly). For the PDF, click here .
After winning a bid at work recently, a company director congratulated me and my team for “working this one through to the keeper!” I don’t play a lot of sport, but even so I don’t know of any games where you want something to go to the keeper. This seemed like a good catalyst to write about mixed metaphors. Metaphors, visual imagery and idioms are important elements of fiction. Without them, we are stuck in the stark, white hospital room of completely literal descriptions. Wait… without them we are stuck in the stark, white place… we are stuck… without them our writing is very boring. But what happens when you drop two or more metaphors in close proximity? It’s inevitable that readers are going to combine them in their heads. This can have a variety of effects, both good and bad. As always, the important thing is whether the author gets the effect they were after. Incongruous Some mixed metaphors are just so incongruous, strange or contradictory that they make for a confusing...
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