So, accidentally posting a request for a list before I looked here, and found it here easily. On the other hand, the journal looks pretty sad — I'm thinking it's either because I rarely update it anymore, or because it's a free account and there maybe isn't such a thing anymore? I dunno.
From a similar source to the first one (which still hasn't asked me for money or cut me off), this is a good article on point of view — what the different ones are, pros and cons of using a given pov, and some examples. <a href="https://www.nownovel.com/blog/different-points-of-view-tips">find it here</a>
(Full confession, no less a writer than Ursula Le Guinn is a fan of omniscient involved narrators, so rather than rewrite everything I've ever written where I jump between pov, I think I can fix the ones that really bother me without doing anything that extreme. And I may do so, at least on my own laptop copies of the stories. Will I repost and/or edit the ones already archived? Probably not. But fixing them will be a great writing exercise for me and we all know how much the teacher in me loves finding things to use that way.)
So, I looked at something somewhere that was writing advice (may have posted a link here last week, I don't remember) and it seems that got me on a mailing list of some sort. The site or business is for those who are or want to be professional writers, and I would guess at some point they will want money for something or will insist I "join" the group. But, meanwhile, they are sending me links to some useful stuff. Which I'm sharing, cause, you know, useful stuff!
I'm not usually a big fan of writing advice because it's a creative art and really has no room for things like "never do this" or "always do that", but these two articles seem surprisingly free of that kind of insistence on following a pattern, so I think they are worth reading and considering.
If you are a complete newbie, very young, very unsure of yourself, or have received hurtful, unsolicited "con crit" (ouch!) these could provide some excellent guidelines, and I will continue to link to the ones I think are worth reading. If you've been writing for years and know you have admirers, and you are comfortable and satisfied with your own style, then the articles are still worth reading, but with an experienced eye toward your own successful comfort level.
There is now a Facebook group for Elysian Fields discussions that has some wonderful conversations, as well as a growing list of resources for writers that includes links to Victorian facts of life, some punctuation/grammar sites, fighting scenes, and lots of other places to research something you may want to use in your own writing. This link to that thread may or may not work, but if it doesn't, you can look for the thread on your own. If/when I have time, I may try to copy all the links and put them up here, but don't hold your breath waiting for it!
Who? Why? What can he/she see or know? This is a good article on pov — the various versions of it and some discussions of how to make first-person pov work. You can find it . <a href="https://thewritepractice.com/...ords/">Here</a>
My plan is to try to make this community a little more active again by posting other writing-related links, as well as updating some of the old entries. There are words to add to the homonym list, I just have to remember what they are or add them as I come across them somewhere.
So, if anyone is still hanging around or checking occasionally, feel free to add your own contributions or begin a discussion about something you'd like to talk about. And if you're new here, I hope you find something helpful. We are oriented toward the technical aspects of writing (grammar, punctuation, word usage — my thing, sentence structure) but have no rules against discussing more subjective issues like genres, tropes, and so on. Just try to keep it constructive and/or if it's opinion, be sure to state that it is only your opinion or preference.
PS: looks like LJ has changed the way I do links. I'll have to figure out what that is, but it looks like this one will work, it just is showing its parts.
Yay? LOL Below is a link to an entry on AO3 that provides a list of commonly-used terms that are different in the US and UK. Should be helpful for writers on either side of the pond (British term - see what I did there?). Even if you just glance down it, you may see something that surprises you and you'll know to go back and check if you're in doubt. I only had one quibble, which was the word "heels" for shoes with, you know, high heels. I've never used the word "pump" in my life, although I am quite aware that it is the official term for dress shoes with a heel of any height, but I also don't bother to say "high heels". Just "heels" has worked fine for me my entire life, without any influence from abroad. :) No doubt you will find your own personal issues with it, but I believe it is pretty comprehensive and worth taking a look at.
Even better, IMHO, would be a list of different phrases that skew heavily American or heavily British. (Xander saying he's just going to "pop round to the..." would be an example of what I mean by phrases that skew British. I'm sure my British friends can find just as many examples of things Giles has said in fics that make them roll their eyes. I may find myself working on something like this for RRU with assistance from my British friends who can provide a list of phrases Americans get wrong.
There are so many things to consider when writing someone else's characters and their dialogue. In addition to the words and phrases that make up an "accent", there is the cadence of the character's speech, his/her level of education and attention to proper grammar, and even the way the character structures their sentences. Interesting side note: I find that I can sometimes tell how an author feels about a particular character by the words they put into the character's mouth....
So, here's a new wrinkle - LJ asked me to approve or disapprove the latest post in the community. It was not originally set up as a moderated community, so I don't know what that's all about, but shouldn't be a big deal since they send me a notification when it happens. But just in case anyone posts something and you get told it has to be approved, that's apparently the case now. Perhaps it's an attempt to keep spam away or something. Anyway, I'll be checking regularly, so no worries.
In the interest of renewing interest in this community, I'm going to be throwing things out for discussion as and when I see them. Probably not every day (okay, let's get real. Definitely not every day. lol), but I'm going to shoot for once a week. Sometimes they will be things from fanfic, sometimes they will come from stories I've worked on (examples will be heavily disguised so I don't get fired), sometimes from things I've read other places - magazines, short stories, or even from actual, you know, books. And I'll add a few not-so-daily-doozies at the end of each post because some things bear repeating...
Betas, even not-so-good ones, can be difficult to come by and difficult to keep. People's lives change, they move on to other fandoms, they just lose interest, lots of stuff happens. So, even if you have or have had a wonderful beta, you may find yourself having to do a lot of self-editing. (Which, FYI, you should be doing anyway, but authors who think "beta" or "editor" means they don't have to do any work themselves... well, that's a rantsubject for another day.)
We may or may not have done this before years ago, and I know there's an entry on here somewhere with comments that offer some of these, but just in the interest of adding something of interest or use to any newbies there may be, here are some suggestions for self-editing:
of sorts - Haven't had time to play with the changes a paid account will make (if any). What I did re-learn (I'd forgotten, I guess) is that if you are set up to have the entries appear in your own settings, everything is there. All the tags, visible posts, etc. If you just go to riters_r_us without that, you see the lovely banner, but not much else. Each post is only shown with its subject line which must be clicked on to see the actual post. Useless, even for me, never mind anyone who may be visiting the community for the first time. That will be one of the things I hope I can fix now. The tags are absolutely necessary if anyone is to find a particular discussion or entry (the easily-confused words list, for instance).
This sudden flurry of interest was brought on by the discussions going on at the Elysian Fields shout (chat) box, which made me realize that none of these relative newbies (relative being the important term there. LOL Ten years is a lifetime in fandom) has any idea we even exist, and some of them have a great deal to contribute.
So, conversations on the EF shout box had me remembering that this community exists, and that I've not done doodleysquat (anyone have a clue how doodley is spelled?) on it for for a very long time. Which, given what I've been doing for past several years and what I've learned there is very negligent of me. I'm also thinking I may make this a paid account which should help it be easier to read and allow me to make tags or links. I dunno. Worth a shot probably.
First item of business is to be sure the community is actually still here and available, and then I'll work on making it more useful and better.
Okay, I've been told RRU has been attacked by this morning's spam bots, but I'm not seeing it? I guess TPTB at LJ have found a cure? On the other hand, I'm not seeing much on my RRU main page and I don't remember what the explanation for that was last time it happened. If I click on comments, I can see the posts, so not the end of the world, just annoying.
Because I've seen this twice lately (at least - maybe three times?):
The flunky who runs and gets things for someone (goes for....) is a "gofer". It's a common job on movie sets, but is also used to describe someone who gets everything from a cup of coffee to an expensive suit. He/she "goes for" things the boss wants or needs. :)
An excellent article on why we continually make typing mistakes when we obviously know better. (And why everybody needs a beta!) It's referring mostly to on-line responses, but goes on to mention other times these things happen and why they do. You can find it here I hope. If not, I'll try to find time later this evening to copy/paste it on here.
