I can't delete the first comma in the sentence since that would cause a misread.
Although it took years for Caligula to be recognized for his brilliance among the many side effects...
I can't delete the first comma in the sentence since that would cause a misread.
Although it took years for Caligula to be recognized for his brilliance among the many side effects...
Comma question. Is the second comma (after epithet) required? I think it doesn't belong because the name of the epithet, Bastardus Minusculus, is mandatory for understanding which epithet is being referred to. Or am I applying the wrong comma rule?
Although it took years for Caligula to be recognized for his brilliance, among the many side effects is that the epithet, Bastardus Minusculus, which had tormented Caligula throughout his youth, became an honorific awarded for extraordinary accomplishments in any field, similar to the coveted Noble Prize of the late second and early third millennia.
Thanks
Dirk
Chapter 37 of v3, entitled Caligula!, is up. It's all minor changes from v2. However, I previously borrowed from this chapter to write v3 of the act I chapter Attack on New Bethlehem, primarily regarding the how the starlanes work. It needs rethinking. I like star-hopping as a concept and the natural interconnectedness of stars, but not the way the starlanes are described for the reader. I'm leaving it to v4 to properly define the starlanes and remove the redundancy that currently exists between this chapter and the aforementioned battle in act I.
Only four chapters to go in v3!
Quick, go read!
Dirk
I decided to take a break from investigative/CSI research and watch an action film recommended by Netflix. I've already forgotten the title, but it starred Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, and James McAvoy. You'd think with that cast, I would be entertained, but no dice. I turned it off after an hour. I don't remember the last time I saw an action movie that I enjoyed. Maybe the early Terminator films. I binge watched 13 Reasons about bullying and teen suicide. They're out with a second season. Boy that is hard to watch. I had to watch episodes of Friends in between episodes of 13 Reasons because it's so dark. I would not recommend it for young teens, even though they would benefit from a lot of it. There are other ways to talk to kids about bullying and sex than that show.
NJC, is photobucket free to use, or do you have to pay for storage?
That is really good, njc!
Here's my opening line:
“Battle stations!” Vice Admiral Alexis St. James cried from the bridge of the Realm of Stars destroyer, the RSS Almighty.
I'm almost certainly going to self-publish, so I take the editor's comments with a huge grain of salt. He says prologues suck, but it's okay to have flashbacks. Same damn thing in my opinion, just organized differently. The advantage of the prologue is that it comes at the beginning, before the main story starts, and then you're done with the past. Flashbacks require forcing your reader into the past one or more times in the midst of the main story. Both have their uses, but I prefer the former.
I'm a member of a blog written by an experienced book editor. His list of rules of how NOT to open a story includes:
Prologues suck.
Do not start with a character who is going to die.
I guess I'm not going to use him to edit my story. :-)
What not to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2016/11/how-to-start-a-novel/
What to do: https://thejohnfox.com/2017/03/30-super … h-writers/
Kill me now. Countless hours of boring crime/investigative shows and only four pages of notes to show for it.
Never mind. I finally found it.
Hi. I've maxed out on groups and would like to leave one. Can someone please tell me how to leave a group?
Thanks
Dirk
Well, I'll be damnare! Amazon Canada has finally added video and music to its prime membership. It includes the latest seasons of CSI. I was hoping for the early seasons with the original characters, but it's a start. I have 30 days to cancel, so we'll see what else they've got. No Law & Order or Big Bang Theory, so those are strikes.
My comma separates two thoughts. My teachers always said (Paraphrased) "toss in a comma if you want the reader to pause, even if there wouldn't normally be a comma".
That said, I would normally strike out that comma in a revision
My teacher always said, "Toss in a comma until Seabrass flags it as an error."
But then we have this from a grammar website: A DEPENDENT CLAUSE ALSO HAS A SUBJECT AND A VERB, BUT
LACKS INFORMATION NECESSARY TO CONVEY A COMPLETE IDEA.
Note the comma and the word 'but' in the above sentence. The coordinating conjunction 'but' is used with a dependent clause, all preceded by a comma. This usage matches what Kdot did.
I wouldn't place a comma there, no matter what the fughazi stylebooks change. See my lecture over in Premium.
Your lecture was mind-bending. I couldn't follow it. I'll just assume you're correct. Kdot, shame on you for generating so much palace comma intrigue.
I ran this through Grammarly and ProWritingAid, and they had no objections: Tia thought, they might have more, landing areas, closer to, the center, but couldn’t, make any out.
Bzzt! The second clause is dependent, so I'm not used to seeing it written with a comma, regardless of whichever conjunction you use.
To me, it's the ideal vacation getaway.
Just found Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer on Netflix. The killings take place in Australia. Queen Aussie lives! Just when I had decided to punt her from Galaxy Tales.
Thanks. No Dexter up here either. I'll start with what I've got. Worst case, I can always buy a few DVDs of CSI or Criminal Minds. Surprisingly pricey up here. Obviously, the distributors still make too much off DVDs to bother with streaming. There are similar shows on Netflix, though, so I'll plow my way through them first.
Could somebody parse this, please?
To celebrate his book's arrival on the New York times best seller list Dirk and his twin brother Dallas spent the night drinking and carousing as if they were back in college.
Is it too late to go back to Norm d'Plume?
Tomorrow I have to begin binge-watching murder/CSI-style shows to get up to speed on writing a compelling supernatural serial killing. Unfortunately, CSI (the series), Criminal Minds, and Law & Order are not available on Netflix in Canada. Found a bunch of stuff that looks promising, though. One revolves around the FBI and another around a new special team assembled in Europe to fight crime across borders in the EU.
If anyone knows of any good serial killer series or films, please let me know.
Sol, are we allowed to edit our posted entries before the contest ends?
Thanks
Dirk
This week's episode of Gilligan's Island involved quite a few quirks. First, Ginger was cutting the Skipper's hair. He had on one of those capes to keep hair off his clothes. More interesting, though, was that Ginger was wearing a barber's jacket that fit her perfectly. The shit they carried on that boat never ceases to amaze me.
This week was all about oranges. The Skipper was surprised to discover he was so weak he couldn't lift a log that Gilligan could lift with one hand. The professor ran some tests using an island-crafted version of a stethoscope and blood pressure monitor. He eventually diagnoses vitamin C deficiency due to insufficient citrus fruit. Apparently, because the Skipper was the biggest person on the island, he was most affected. Turns out, the bigger you are, the more quickly you're affected. I'll let Amy deal with that one. In what was impeccable timing, Gilligan shows up with the last orange on the island. It's also the first orange seen in the show. As they stand around arguing about who should get it, the sun dries it out until all that remains is the skin and the seeds.
Their solution is to plant the seeds and grow orange trees. They set up two-foot-high torches to keep the seeds warm in the ground. I never knew torches could warm the ground from two feet up. Perhaps they should have relied on the fact that it's 90+ degrees on the island. They made a big show how cold it was at night.
Gilligan stands watch to keep the torches lit. You would think they'd learned after 2+ years that Gilligan should never be on watch. Naturally, he falls asleep and they act out Jack & the Beanstalk in his dream. The beanstalk is actually an orange tree. The Skipper is the giant, and he had crates full of oranges in his castle, along with a goose that lays oranges. In a cute scene, the Skipper chases a "tiny" Gilligan around the stacks of oranges. They used a really young boy dressed as Gilligan, so the Skipper would look much bigger. If I remember correctly, the boy was Bob Denver's (Gilligan's) four or five-year-old son.
Eventually, Gilligan wakes up, the torches had gone out, and the orange seeds were ruined. Shocking! Fortunately, the Professor shows up with a large supply of grapefruits and lemons that he found on the island. Like the oranges, none of these fruits ever appeared on the island outside of that episode. Turns out Gilligan knew about the grapefruits and lemons all along. He just didn't know they were citrus fruits.
A fun episode, actually.
In this case, the comma is irrelevant as it is a prepositional adjectival phrase that modifies the noun, 'apprehension'
I'm so old, I don't think they had those when I was in school. :-)
Thanks for the info.
Dirk