We’ve now wrapped up a long series with Cindy Martinusen Coloma on her “Puzzle Method” of writing a novel. I’ve gotten permission from Cindy to put all those together into one long article, which I will post on this site soon. That’ll give us all a permanent record of what she said, and of course it’ll give me a chance to put my imprint on it, because I’ll insert some comments and structure.
A few of you had comments today:
Gerhi wrote:
And now a question (and possibly an idea for what to cover next Randy – hint): In my novel I have scene that takes place in the toilets of a Mall.
But I’m not sure toilets are the right thing to call them. Loo’s doesn’t seem right, lavatory is worse. Is it Men’s and Ladies or what.
We used to talk about the little boys room and the little girls room.So, the question in two parts: what do you call a public loo in America, and how do you deal with these regional language anomalies?
Randy sez: These are usually called either bathrooms or restrooms in America, although there are rarely baths in them, and anyone who tried to rest there would likely be arrested.
Regional language anomalies happen all the time. A classic example is this one: What do you a carbonated drink? Some people call it “soda”. Some call it “pop”. Others call it “coke” (even if it isn’t Coca Cola). It really depends on where you’re from. Different regions call it different things. You can find a map showing the regional variations here.
What do you call it? I’m particularly interested to hear what it’s called outside the US.
Robert asked (regarding the two domains I posted yesterday):
Those are fun web addresses! Technical question on this … what method do you use to forward them to your advancedfictionwriting.com site?
I’ve been confused on whether you do it “temporary” or “permanent”, and if permanent, what method. I’ve heard you can be dinged by the search engines because they think you are posting duplicate content when you actually are not.
Randy sez: I bought both domain on GoDaddy and pointed them at this site. I don’t remember if they’re permanent or temporary. I don’t know exactly what the method is. I don’t think I’m being hurt much by search engines for duplicate content, because this site has at least 42 keyphrases that rank in the top ten on Google. (I learned this by fiddling around with the very cool site at www.SpyFU.com.)
In other news, the parachute of the famous hijacker D.B. Cooper may have been found recently, and it’s only a few miles from where I now live. Some of the money he had when he parachuted out of an airliner in 1971 was found in 1980, also a few miles from where I live, but in a different location from the newly found parachute. So who knows?–he may have survived. Now if only the rest of the money were sitting somewhere on my property . . .
We’ll begin a new topic tomorrow. I haven’t decided what it will be yet. Tune in tomorrow to find out.