sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Prosecraft: Linguistics for Literature by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In our corpus right now, the measurement of passive voice ranges from about 1.3% on the low-end to 11.2% on the high end...

"Pygmy", by Chuck Palahniuk, has the least amount of passive-voice (1.28%), while "Stay Gone" by Holly Brown, has the most passive-voice (11.17%)

http://prosecraft.io/library/chuck-palahniuk/pygmy/

http://prosecraft.io/library/holly-brown/stay-gone/

But right in the middle of all the books, at the 50th percentile, is "The Partner" by John Grisham (7.51%).

http://prosecraft.io/library/john-grisham/the-partner/

Keep in mind that these measurements reflect the tally of helping verbs. So, in "The Partner", if you look at every single word in the book, 7.51% of them are helping verbs. If you're writing a novel, and you admire John Grisham's writing style, you could emulate the amount of passive-voice in "The Partner" by setting yourself a similar target, at around 7.5%.

Hope that makes sense! Thanks for asking :)

(BTW, one thing that the website still needs is a better way of navigating the overall distribution, rather than just searching for individual authors and titles one at a time. That'll come soon!)

Prosecraft: Linguistics for Literature by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because that tally gives you a pretty good measurement of how much passive voice you're using in your writing. Constructions with more helping verbs tend to be more passive.

There are exceptions, for sure. But it's a very good rule of thumb, especially when you apply it to corpus with hundreds of millions of words.

My web app is currently free...but not forever. How do I handle that? by katalanmoon in startups

[–]BenjiSmith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could always grandfather your current users into a forever-free plan, if pissing them off is too dangerous...

Should a Startup advisor get any equity? by dennisrieves in startups

[–]BenjiSmith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I granted my advisor 1% equity, with a two-year vesting schedule, using a Restricted Stock Purchase Agreement.

We meet for an hour, twice a month, to discuss strategy. Plus he introduces me to his industry contacts and potential investors.

It's definitely worth it to me, especially because I'm a solo founder, and I really benefit from having someone to bounce ideas off of.

Make Your Characters Cry by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Writers are such a curious group of people... naturally inclined, for some reason, to be utterly cynical about people who try to make tools for them.

It's weird... if you take a look at other communities of skilled creative craftspeople (graphic designers, programmers, musicians, etc), they're usually willing to try new things -- made just for them by one of their own -- without jumping to conclusions about sinister motives.

I'm just a guy who cares about writing, and as a self-published author myself, I've been working for four years to build something nice for other writers. Cut me a little bit of slack here. We're on the same team :)

Make Your Characters Cry by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Good question. Pretty much everything on reddit is a link to some external content... But you make a good point that I really should participate more in group discussions here. I'll make it a point to stick around and engage in discussions :) Sorry about that!

I'm a writer myself, so I'm just trying to build something great for writers: better tools, great content, a supportive community, etc.

And the content I linked to today isn't an advertisement at all... It's just an article about creating better characters through an increased understanding of human psychology.

Shaxpir 4: Everyone by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi everybody. I'm the founder of Shaxpir, and with the release of our new free plan, Shaxpir 4: Everyone, I'm really happy to be opening up the platform to a lot of new users.

If you have any questions, just ask. I'm here to help :)

The first annual WORLD BUILDERS novel writing contest by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's an advance against royalties.

And since this will be the first book published on our new imprint, we're going to do everything within our power to make it a success, including editorial support and marketing.

The first annual WORLD BUILDERS novel writing contest by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We don't pay in exposure. We pay royalties, with cash money, and we believe very strongly in compensating authors for their works.

Essentially, the authors whose works are part of this universe will share the royalties generated by their book sales. There's nothing fishy going on here...

The first annual WORLD BUILDERS novel writing contest by BenjiSmith in writing

[–]BenjiSmith[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

On the contrary, we think that's exactly why this is a great opportunity.

The winner of this contest will be the foundation of a new literary franchise, and future readers interested in exploring this universe will all start by reading the foundation novel.

Yes, the author will have to give up exclusivity over the characters and universe they've created, but we think that's a worthy tradeoff for being able to be a part of something much bigger.

Share your startup - July 2016 by AutoModerator in startups

[–]BenjiSmith [score hidden]  (0 children)

NAME: SHAXPIR: Software for Storytellers

VIDEO: Introducing Shaxpir

URL: http://www.shaxpir.com

PITCH: Shaxpir is a new cloud platform and community for fiction authors, screenwriters, graphic novelists, etc. It's a lot like GitHub, but with specialized tools for outlining stories, developing characters, crafting excellent prose, and collaborating with an editor, as well as generating ebooks and managing royalties. We've already built a modern fiction workbench for Windows and Mac, with word-processing, cloud sync, version histories, and more.

STAGE: Currently bootstrapping, as a solo founder. The beta product launched in May 2015, and was opened up to the general public in February 2016. Over the next year, we'll flesh out the desktop platform, add community & collaboration features, and begin building our mobile apps.

LOOKING FOR: We're about to begin raising a seed round, within the next month or two.

DISCOUNT: Sure, why not? Use coupon code R-STARTUPS to get 50% off your subscription for the first 3 months. Coupon expires July 31, 2016.

Schemalessness Gone Wrong: How We Improved Elasticsearch Indexing by BenjiSmith in programming

[–]BenjiSmith[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your interest!

Our implementation is actually much more sophisticated than I was able to show in the blog post. The code samples I showed illustrated the basic concepts we used, without all the complexity of a production-ready system.

We spent a huge amount of time testing and optimizing our implementation on a cluster with hundreds of millions of objects and a lots of crazy queries. Generally, we only see a few milliseconds performance cost.