Decisions, by hester1 · 11:26pm Jul 5th, 2013
Sometimes I take a chance and choose one story off the front page from an author I haven't heard of before. Sometimes it pays off, like with Decisions by brand-new fimfiction member hester1. It's tagged sad, but it isn't the kind of story that leaves you saying "Oh, the feels!" It's mostly low-key, told from the point of view of a waiter watching the story's real protagonists. It's partly about how we have to make difficult decisions, and that there is no simple feel-good advice that reliably helps in those situations, and a little bit about whether it's better to succeed, or to make your own decisions. I like that the waiter gave Sparkler the advice that you typically give people in situations like that, and it backfired, maybe.
This is not a story for people who like clear messages. Its purpose, I think, is just the opposite: to suggest this is a question without an answer. The theme is not as clear as I usually prefer, but I really like the story's structure, style, & pacing. Also, that it's short. hester1 is an author to keep an eye on.
(Do you capitalize an uncapitalized name when you start a sentence with it?)
The story can't be featured, due to the new "no featuring stories below 4000 words" rule.
No, you don't. conantheimp likes to remain uncapitalized, unless you just refer to him as Conan. Conan is fine with capitalization.
Thanks for the recommendation, that was interesting. Pretty decent first showing for the author.
kingtiger666 doesn't know or care, so long as he can keep talking in the third person.
Sounds interesting.
I think since the letters being lowercase is defining part of their user name (especially if misuse could lead to confusion with someone else), plus since names from cultures have different lexicons to force them to fit into the English language framework is offensive (and Boring) at least to me.
I'm not convinced there's any proper rules on this, most people just go with personal preference, the only helpful advice when I poked around online seemed to be to rearrange the sentence so the problem does not arise, cowards.
Seems like I have seen a story in the feature box with less than 4k words.
I do not think you should capitalize them.
Also, I love >4000 word recommendations. Both because it helps get around the feature box's stupidness, and because the worst thing that happens is I waste 10 minutes of my time I probably would have spent picking my nose anyway.
That rule doesn't apply. There were a number of stories that feature without 4k words. The Strongest There Is is one such story
I wouldn't capitalize it. Though I have a habit of doing so anyways.
Also, there was a story with between 2000 and 3000 words that hit the top of the featured box recently. It was a Hulk crossover.
1190503>>1190504 The 4000-word rule:
MYTH
blog.oktopost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/myth-busters.jpg
BUSTED
My gut reaction is to capitalize the first word of a sentence regardless of preexisting capitalization.
Upon further reflection, however, I can think of such exceptions as "snRNPs make up spliceosomes" and "'a' is the first letter of the English alphabet". So there is a precedent for this rule-breaking.
In AP style, "iPod" is capitalized when it begins a sentence[1]. Of course, AP style also calls for the capitalization of "internet", so it might be a bit outdated. As of its 16th edition, CMOS allows brand names to retain lowercase letters, even at the beginning of a sentence[2]. Pop grammaticist Grammar Girl confirms these findings, adding that you can rewrite sentences to avoid the issue altogether[3]. This practice strikes me as lazy and ultimately unhelpful, though.
Apple does not capitalize its products' names at the start of a sentence[4]. reddit's stylization uses lowercase for many headings, including the site name[5]. "XKCD" is a formal alternative to the preferred "xkcd"[6].
A 2009 article of the respected NYT column "On Language" protests the increasing popularity of CamelCase[7]. "Steep is the descent into orthographic antinomianism."
I will respect brand and user capitalization preferences from now on, but I dread the day when a company decides to name itself "superAwesome!'ADVERTISING'co(lol):".
Oh, you think that's funny, do you? It has already begun! I can only hope that Yahoo! dies before others start learning from it.
darf, I find your application of artistic license entertaining but mildly irritating. Even Cummings forwent his eccentric punctuation outside the realm of poetry.
...I miss you, Safire.
As to your question, no. A name, say a brand like iPad, is as much a logo as it is a name. The lowercase 'i' in iPad and similar apple products is part of its image. It was not the result of a lazy designer, the company likely spent more than you and I make in a year researching it. It has meaning.
1190503 1190504 1190784
Interesting. The rule must have changed again, because I guarantee that at the time I posted that blog it was in place. (See e.g. Knighty's comment to my post.) After Everfree I'll ask my sources what happened.
1192152 Maybe it only applies to stories marked "complete".
1192152
it was recently reconfigured because knighty is a cool dude. right now it's meant to scale down the heat threshold/count for stories below 8k, i think?
probably still needs some tweaking, but it means that long and short stories should be on more equal footing in terms of popularity.