Write a story about a screenwriter. He’s written a movie about an actor who plays villains, and after the actor’s latest role he went and did the nefarious deed his character did. The screenwriter who wrote the movie (who, remember, is himself a character in your story) is then framed for doing the same nefarious deed (or did he actually do it?). See if anyone wonders if you’re planning on doing the deed after your story is published.
If a computer magazine publishes a roundup of word processors, the central piece of that article will be the “feature matrix,” a table showing what word processing programs have which features. With just a glance, the reader can quickly see which word processors have the richest sets of features, and which have the least features.
The next time I write a review of something, I’m going to make a feature matrix that looks like this:
| Windows | Macintosh | Linux | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did the job | X | X | x |
| I liked it | X | X | |
| Would not kill development team if I met them | X | X |
This is one of the most awesome things I have ever seen.