Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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maestrowork

Re: Slush

I have a line like this in my novel:

1:
Instead, the woman staring at me in horror is not someone I know.

I could have writen it this way:

2:
Instead, the woman staring at me in horror is someone I don't know.

But version 1 sounds better. And there's a slight difference in meaning.
 

pina la nina

Re: Slush

On the inability to self-judge competence: reminds me of one of our grad students (who thinks he's sooo smart, of course) who took an exam last month. I asked him how it went. "All right," he said, "At least Professor X's question was really easy." Sure enough - he passed, but barely, having bombed Professor X's question.

Maybe when something feels too easy - it just might be.



Maestro - I hate to go way OT here but I'm confused about why you picked #1 over #2. To me they are both confusing, I think its the "instead" that makes my brain tired reading them. With double negatives I feel like I'm unravelling a logic puzzle.
 

wwwatcher

Re: The House Analogy/Practice

Great Comment Karen

I would guess many of the things we struggle with in writing could be worked out by considering this relationship with the reader... what are they expecting... what do they need to know... how are they going to take this, etc.

To Maestro

I was thinking... a man-eating rose by any other name is still a man-eating rose. It's not a man-eating daffodil or a man-eating tree.

To Prometheus

Dear Prometheus during some of my greatest crisis' in life I have frantically tried to contact every one of my friends and relatives to help me out and found none of them home. These were the times I was meant to deal with it alone. When I finally realized there was no one to help me and I was left to my own devices, I found that within myself I had everything I needed to deal with it. These situations built my self-confidence when that is what I needed most.

I ignored your post because I wanted to give you the same opportunity. As a writer, particularly, you'll find it a very useful life experience.

Take Care,
Faye:clover
 

qatz

take it like a man

ray, that phrase has roots but standing by itself it is one of the least cool things you've said lately. why it is preferable to taking it on the chin escapes me. i'm not saying your writing sucks but i am saying you can be injudicious in your phraseology, for circumstances vary and words are meant to communicate a meaning. i say this as your friend. i'll not degrade myself enough to take on the author of the unbelievably ugly so-called word "tighttush" any more. but for you, because you have somehow impressed me, here's this offer: send me 5 K of your best words, and i'll tell you whether they suck, and if so how. you know how to get ahold of me if you want. let's see if you have the guts to do so.
 

qatz

thek

the not un-something construction is used for a purpose. it has a particular sound. what is it exactly, precisely, you're saying? how does the sound work? how will the meaning play out?

otherwise, i agree with Jim. Q
 

James D Macdonald

Slushpile Bonfire

International Slushpile Bonfire Day

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>New York -- One of the most onerous tasks in the magazine and book trade is the sifting of the slush pile. Slush piles, the collection of unsolicited and unagented manuscripts sent to publishers by beginning or would-be authors, are sometimes the source of future literary successes, but more often than not are the source of headaches and indigestion. Many editors privately complain and scream about the uselessness of slush piles, but fearing a backlash from beginning writers who already assume conspiracies keep their work from being printed, very few speak out about the quality and quantity of the material received.

With this in mind, the international literary community announced a special amnesty day for those long-suffering editors forced to sift through manuscripts where everything but the name of the author was misspelled on the title page. April 31, 2002 marks International Slushpile Bonfire Day, where editors and publishers are encouraged to collect all of the unreadable or unusable manuscripts that have built up in their offices, in some cases since 1968, and burn them while drinking wine and singing songs. Since one of the worst offenders is the science fiction / fantasy / horror triumvirate, SF, fantasy, and horror editors are allowed to place the first documents and light the pile when complete.
<hr></blockquote>


And while we're at it: <a href="http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=14052002-055042-1541r" target="_new">Brilliant Sri Lankan Novelists Go Home</a>

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>NEW YORK, May 14 (UPI) -- Did you ever notice that the books in the airport reading rack -- the books that everyone actuallyREADS -- are never the books that are reviewed in the big Sunday book sections?<hr></blockquote>
 

MacAl Stone

Re: Brilliant Sri Lankan Novelists Go Home

oops . . . good thing my unpublished manuscript--chronicling a woman's search for a lyrical small-town full of wry insight--is sitting in a slushpile in New York! Hate for poor Joe Bob Briggs to have to read a review about it some day :tongue

Just read a really fabulous essay by Ursula Le Guin, "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown", (Language of the Night, Berkley 1985 edition).

Le Guin spends quite a bit of time discussing Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Brown"--reiterating what Jim and others have said, again and again, here. Novels are about people. When a novel tries to be about something besides people--technological gizmos, a GRAND THEME, a moral lesson--that novel fails, on a level, even if it's still somehow readable. Le Guin's mark of success for a novel is whether she can remember the characters' names some time later.

But she said something that intrigued me, and I've wondered about all evening, so I thought I'd ask.

Leguin talks about seeing a character in her mind, and she perceives the novelist's task is to get from where you sit to where the character lives. She said one of her worst short stories was about one of her most clearly perceived characters:
My first effort to catch him was a short story. I should have known he was much too big for a short story. . . . It was a really terrible story, one of the worst I have written in thirty years of malpractice.

She says a writer must develop an "infallible sense" for the proper framework--length--for the idea.

Is this just practice? Lots and lots of practice, combined with superlative intuition? What does it feel like when you have a sense, "this is a short story" versus "this is a mondo, whacking, multi-volume saga"?

Maybe I'm just asking, gosh, folks--d'ya think Robert Jordan had ANY freaking idea what he was getting into :ack

sorry. I should have resisted the Robert Jordan dig . . .

Mac
 

Karen Ranney

My thoughts on critiques

I'm a little odd in that I think the only person who ought to tell you if your work is good or bad is a.) an agent, or b.) an editor. Critque groups are all well and good but you can spend an inordinate amount of time driving yourself nuts trying to fulfill their idea of a good book. I feel the same about beta readers. They rarely help. Most of them don't want to hurt your feelings. Fellow authors are the worst, because they want to re-write your work to their specifications. (Whenever people ask me to read something, I pull out the old red pen. It teaches them not to ask a second time.)

Okay, that said, then how do you know whether or not you're good? You just do. Whenever you have an inkling that you need someone to tell you if you can write, re-examine what you've written. You're either afraid to admit it sucks or you want validation that you're the world's greatest writer. A clue - whenever you've written something that you consider brilliant, erase it. It's your ego talking.

New writers have to step out on that ledge. Believe it or not, that cringing uncertainty will help you in the end. In fact, I've never quite lost it, and it makes me try harder, stretch farther, and dare more with each book.

My opinion entirely.
 

nemron2004

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition

Hi James, I have gone out to buy your recommended books, just one question. I am living in the UK, should I buy 'Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition' which is american-english or buy one from the UK?

nemron :)
 

James D Macdonald

Re: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition

You're British, writing in Britain, presumably for British markets? I'd say a British dictionary should be your choice.
 

nemron2004

british

yeah, I shall look for a good Uk dictionary. Is it possible to submit to publishers in the US from Britain?

thanks

nemron :)
 

Kate Nepveu

re: british

Sure it's possible to submit to US publishers from Britain. I know someone who was bought out of the slush that way.

Do your homework as usual, of course.
 

ChunkyC

Re: My thoughts on critiques

New writers have to step out on that ledge.
And a scary one it is, Karen.

Personally, I think first readers, critique groups, etc. help the most early on, when a writer is still struggling with learning and incorporating the basic skills. Your point is well taken, that at some point, we each have to say to ourselves: damn them all, I know what I'm doing is right for me, and I'm just going to have to sink or swim with it.

I'm not there yet, but there are stirrings.... :grin
 

SRHowen

I agree

at the start those groups are the most useful, being with the same group for two years + I can say that in the beginning they were great, now i find myself often saying what the heck?

Once you advance beyond the other writers around you (those giving you advice) the group loses it's value. Luckily, several members of my group are also at the published or about to be stage, so I still get a lot of useful info.

But I also get a lot of fluff I don't need, but I need their input as readers. What do you as a reader think, and that helps me the most at this point--as really the only person I care about right now (opinion wise) is my agent.

Shawn
 

ChunkyC

Re: I agree

but I need their input as readers
Great point, Shawn. After all, once the book hits the shelves, it's not your agent or publisher who's going to be buying it.
 

James D Macdonald

Re: I agree

I reiterate:

If a reader tells you that there's a problem in your book at a certain point, he's almost invariably right. If he tells you what the problem is or how to fix it, he's almost invariably wrong.

<hR>

Some other toys:

<a href="http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon/" target="_new">Amazon.com without the BS</a>.

Want to obsess over your Amazon sales rank? <a href="http://www.junglescan.com" target="_new">This site</a> makes it easy.
 

ChunkyC

Re: I agree

Right on, Uncle Jim.

To use an analogy from cooking: you can follow a master chef's recipe to the letter, but if your dinner guests all spit your creation back onto their plates...who's right?
 

DBellamak

Re: My thoughts on critiques

Critque groups are all well and good but you can spend an inordinate amount of time driving yourself nuts trying to fulfill their idea of a good book.

This was my experience and it lead to much confusion and more frustration than I wanted to manage. I found I kept most of my writing to myself.

I don't always catch my own mistakes or in recognizing them, don't know how to go about fixing them. Feedback, for this reason, is helpful to me. However, wading through rivers of personal opinion to get to honest insight can be so tedious.

Happy writing to all,

Diann
 

aka eraser

Junglescan

I was addicted to tracking my book's numbers on Amazon via Junglescan, especially when it broke into 4 digits. It is fun seeing the graph take shape over weeks/months but I'm over it now.

Pretty much.
 

Karen Ranney

Re: Readers and Jim's Links

An addendum to my earlier post about critique groups. I always pay attention to readers, and if I notice a trend, I really pay attention to that. However, I don't give a lot of credence to reviewers. Everyone has a bad day and just because they failed to recognize brilliance when they see it...(tongue in cheek there, in case it wasn't spotted).

And Jim, you have the greatest links. Amazon lite? Too funny. Now I have something NEW to obsess about. Oh joy. :snoopy
 

ipsda

Question about names of ships

I was wanting to know the proper to state the name of a ship in a manuscript. I have a ship named The Sea Dream, what is the proper way to put this in the manuscript.

The Sea Dream
or
'The Sea Dream'

Which is the correct way. Is the same way used for the name of something like a diner.

Garrett's Diner
or is there another way to do this.

Thanks for any help.
Bruce
 

qatz

bruce

ships' names are capitalized. The Bon Marie.
i don't think they're in quotes, at least not formally. i think you can do that if you want. "Princess Jenna." But what do I know, anyway?

diners, like other businesses, are capitalized. Joe's Bar.
 

Beaver

ships names

The last book that I read with ship's names in it - James Clavell's Tai Pan (Great book by the way) - had the ship's name in italics. Thats how i've been doing it for one of my stories.

Beaver ;)
 

qatz

ships' names

were not italicized formally, as a general rule. i have seen it from time to time. Clavell italicizing his was a matter of style, and not half bad. you know,more i think of it, the unitalicized ship was more a nineteenth century thing. i lost my formbook but the modern formal practice may be italics for them. but, anyway, what do i know?
 
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