Jun 28, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora, Writing
When writing fantasy, we often have to describe fight scenes. Swordfights, in particular, make for great descriptions. But we often forget one crucial aspect of fighting: when it comes to life or death, everyone cheats. Even the good guys, as Martin Lloyd points out...
Jun 23, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Writing
I was reading an interesting answer on Quora about Mongol strategy when a battle description caught my eye: Seeing this, the archbishop spurred his on his horse and gave them chase. Eventually, they reached a marshland and they crossed it swiftly. The archbishop did...
Jun 5, 2020 | Quora, Writing
One of the trickiest things about freelance copywriting work is confirming to each blog’s or publication’s standards. For example, how to capitalize your titles. I’m sharing here what I’ve learned so far in the hopes that some of you may find...
May 23, 2020 | Entertainment, Writing
No, Tom Swift is not a person. A Tom Swifty is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. The standard syntax is for the quoted sentence to be first, followed by the (humorous) description of the act of speaking....
May 3, 2020 | Entertainment, Writing
Atlas Obscura recently had published an interesting article on mistranslation—specifically, menu ones. Emily Monaco, a culinary translator, was explaining how challenging menus can be to translate, from the odd but understandable “ink fish” in place of squid to...
Apr 23, 2020 | Free Stuff, Writing
You may recall how I recently followed a great workshop by Rayne Hall organized by OIRWA. Now, Rayne is offering a special free seminar aimed at self-isolating writers who wish to take advantage of the pandemic downtime to hone their writing skills. Course...
Apr 7, 2020 | Publishing, Writing
A couple of years ago I wrote about the Choose Your Own Adventure books. In the books—for those not familiar with them—you read until you come to a decision point, which prompts you to flip to another page, backward or forward. They invite you into an exciting,...
