DISCUSSION -- February 2015 75-word Writing Challenge

Dusty,
Thanks for straightening things out once again, my fault. I don't check in or check my emails often enough. Was a time when emails came in all day long, now with all the other options my computer mostly just gathers dust.
As for "sneaky", wrong choice of words again, but if I had said, I squeaked one through, that would make me a "squeaky fellow", can't seem to win. Thanks for all your help.

Bob
 
Hi, I'm pretty sure it is ok, but having read Bob's earlier post I thought I should check

in my story I have two people talking and I have written it as the person's name followed by a colon e.g

Moonbat: Is this ok?
Moderator: Hmm, I'm not sure, let me check
Moonbat: Ok thanks.
Moderator: Ok Moonbat we've discussed it and then thriller came on in the staff room and we've been dancing like zombies so we don't have an answer but we are all feeling very funky.

In the above situation I am hoping that the colon doesn't count as a word, so the first line is only 4 words and the whole thing would be 49?

Just want to be sure before I post as I'm right up against the word limit.
Thanks
 
For me, a colon is definitely punctuation, no way it can be pronounced. Like commas and full stops, and even ellipses. Whereas an ampersand is a word (and), and is pronounced as one if you say Hurlings & co., say.
 
Yep. I'd agree with chrispy (and HB) -- the colons are punctuation and therefore don't count as words.

And, on a different note: argh, Cul. What a story.
 
Luiglin said:
Damn MS Word counts ellipses as words ... really annoying.
Click to expand...

The way I see it is that it counts it as letters. If there's no space between the ellipsis and the adjoining word, it'll count it as part of that word. So if there's no space either side, it'll count the two words and the ellipsis as a single word. So you can either have an over-count, a correct count, or an under-count, depending on the spaces.

Which is why it's always a very good idea to check the count by eye.
 
But aren't you sorry you wasted those extra words you could have used? ;)

Just to be clear to everyone, ellipses never count as words. No punctuation does. But symbols pretty much always do, if they mean a word or phrase (i.e. if you speak a word when you read the story aloud.)
 
I use Scrivener to write everything and it counts words intelligently. It always comes up with the same count as my manual one (yes, I suppose I have trust issues which defeats the purpose!) and seems tailor-made for the challenges.

pH
 
Tywin said:
Its a good thing that this is a writing forum and not a mathematics forum.

I think we'd all be screwed.
Click to expand...

Proper lol.
We should have a haiku contest or something, just for laughs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
elvet February / March 100 Word Anonymous Challenge 2024 Discussion Workshop 100
Christine Wheelwright DISCUSSION THREAD -- February 2024 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 150
elvet February / March 100 Word Anonymous Challenge 2023 Discussion Workshop 107
The Judge DISCUSSION THREAD -- FEBRUARY 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 138
Peter V DISCUSSION THREAD -- FEBRUARY 2022 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 196

Similar threads


Back
Top