201

(12 replies, posted in Literary Fiction)

rhiannon wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

You took what I said out of context. I said amateur writers cannot accomplish the feat at all - they either put dialogue tags at every exchange or leave them off in such a way to make it impossible to discern who said what.  I also think there are some professional (and published TNBW) writers who are too keen to omit tags for too long - especially, as I noted, when there is no marked differences between the manner of speech between characters.  I've never read anything by Sayers because I don't like old-style mysteries (before TV, basically) other than Sherlock Holmes, but she was also a playwright and therefore -- and British authors generally are best at this -- probably marked different speech patterns among the characters.

It takes skill to write anything, and if you can write, you can use all sorts of techniques, or strategems, that bad writers need to steer clear of.  Of course, that raises the issue of what counts as bad writing.  Edgar Rice Burroughs was inspired by reading the writers of his day--he thought he could write at least as bad as they could.

Did you read part two of this topic? Bad writing:

Jill hit Jack with a spoon.
How dare he say vanilla ice-cream tastes bad.
"What did you do that for?"
"You're mean!"
I need to play hard-to-get.

202

(12 replies, posted in Literary Fiction)

rhiannon wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Moreover, too often neglected by amateur authors is a bit of action interspersed with the dialogue and sometimes through dialogue tags


Just read some Dorothy Sayers where there was a whole page of dialogue, no tags, no 'bit of action interspersed.'  I think most of us would be happy to be as amateurish as she was.

You took what I said out of context. I said amateur writers cannot accomplish the feat at all - they either put dialogue tags at every exchange or leave them off in such a way to make it impossible to discern who said what.  I also think there are some professional (and published TNBW) writers who are too keen to omit tags for too long - especially, as I noted, when there is no marked differences between the manner of speech between characters.  I've never read anything by Sayers because I don't like old-style mysteries (before TV, basically) other than Sherlock Holmes, but she was also a playwright and therefore -- and British authors generally are best at this -- probably marked different speech patterns among the characters.

203

(3 replies, posted in Literary Fiction)

max keanu wrote:

https://twitter.com/brianseltzer?ref_sr … r%5Eauthor

Thanks Charles.

With the italicized words I was attempting a modern day Greek chorus intrusion on the reader, or maybe a flash back of the narrator. Need to sort that out.

|||| - just thought they looked cool.

You needed to have created a voice/character with separate identity from author/first-person narrator to express those thoughts NOT IN ITALICS.  For the reason why this TNBW meme of italicizing IM is destructive to communication and incorrect grammar (an illogic that cannot be foisted on readers by author's preference) please read my Unaffixed Dialogue posted here. You could set off that extra-personality narration with those four vertical bars, but before that, you would have to give the reader the secret code of your communicative style at the start - a hard thing to do and maintain a good story-arc flow.

I created a modern-day Greek chorus intrusion on the reader in Chapter 12 of Remembrances and Reconciliation (A World of Her Own Making) by mimicking Aeschylus' chorus with a "character" called Choro, and the reader ought to have learned my secret code of communication (e.g., Joan = Helen) of the entirety of that chapter by understanding the character, Joan, who is the "her" of her own making. As a rule, when I as an author go off into a la-la land of subjectivist writing I tether--objectively--the reader to my thoughts and style with a simple and ordinary declarative statement: Joan stepped out of the house into a world of her own making.  If I had started the chapter with next sentence, “Come, Helen, leave here. It is not safe,” the old man said. I am being a wholly subjectivist uncommunicative author. You and John Hamler write that way, with secret codes to the reader you give no key.

204

(3 replies, posted in Literary Fiction)

max keanu wrote:

Events of the past 15 months have slowed my writing to a stand-still. Trying to get going again and I ask you for a review of this piece for the contest. Thank you,
https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/postin … love-23102

(1) Supposing there are two criteria for literary fiction, how do you challenge the reader (a) to read outside the norms and (b) to think outside the norms? The subject is an uncomfortable one but one that has been hashed out in all the media for at least fifty years.

(2) Your first paragraph introduces four characters (or five, depending on who is the unknown caller, or six, if "Mom" is not one already named) only to be sorted out later, and "Randy" and "Marky" are androgynous names to add a bit to confuse.

(3) Using one of the contest words as a surname is uncreative. Is "Seltzer" even a real surname? 

(4) The technique of italicizing internal monologue in first-person narrative is as ridiculous as it is redundant - it acts as an annoying author's intrusion, as if you are really, really, really trying to emphasize some thoughts beyond what the reader cares to consider.

(5) What is  the purpose of the four vertical bars?

(6) I like the last line, and it is  the only one that should be in italics.

205

(4 replies, posted in Writing Tips & Site Help)

C J Driftwood wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
max keanu wrote:

Way into a short story I have this line:

Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.

Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator

Tanks~ max

"Statued" is not a word. If you mean to say "statuesque", "frozen and statuesque" is a redundancy, and I would recommend simply "frozen composure." You also create an allusion to artistry trying to make a statute from a statue - which is silly.

And delete the ellipsis.   "Melancholic" is the correct spelling but also not the best word to use with "frozen" unless to the extent of a catatonic state (that is not "melancholy" which operates at a level above clinical depression) - perhaps "listless"

Frozen and statuesque is not necessarily redundant. Statuesque means attractive, tall and dignified. A thing of beauty, which is what Max is going for (a beauty that the finest artists try to capture. Frozen means unmoving. Without "statuesque" the meaning changes.

I'm sorry, one cannot be statuesque without being "frozen" but one can be "frozen" without being statuesque, so if Max wishes to convey some beauty that accompanies being statuesque then he should use "statuesque" alone. However, there is something ugly about that word -- sort of technical, actually, and I don't agree that the word connotes beauty but rather a formal dignity that is of a particular beauty, perhaps, but not the sort of beauty that most people think of as "beautiful" - unemotional (no tears), mentally depressed, and listless/unmoving.

206

(4 replies, posted in Writing Tips & Site Help)

max keanu wrote:

Way into a short story I have this line:

Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.

Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator

Tanks~ max

"Statued" is not a word. If you mean to say "statuesque", "frozen and statuesque" is a redundancy, and I would recommend simply "frozen composure." You also create an allusion to artistry trying to make a statute from a statue - which is silly.

And delete the ellipsis.   "Melancholic" is the correct spelling but also not the best word to use with "frozen" unless to the extent of a catatonic state (that is not "melancholy" which operates at a level above clinical depression) - perhaps "listless"

njc wrote:

The key is the definition of 'publish'.  Submiting a work to a closed community for critique should not fall under the definition.

Having been satisfied that TNBW does not present a problem, I have expanded the discussion to anything that may have been seen on the web -- ever -- except for short excerpts, perhaps, especially a truly self-published Kindle book.

j p lundstrom wrote:

Yes, we have discussed this topic before. I was satisfied that posting on tnbw didn't come under the description of open publication, but recently a magazine (both print and online) to which I have contributed changed the wording of their submission requirement. They now require the work be
• original, so previously unpublished online or in print (so that includes authors’ websites and blogs)
This is a direct quote.
So I guess things are changing. Has anybody else noticed this?

I think there is a growing distinction between 'original", never seen in public, and 'reprint,' ever seen on the Web, and paying less for reprints.

njc wrote:

Not published.  Workshopped.

And when you 'publish' the parts of the work to make it visibe, you must NOT publish 'to the whole web',  or you'll be exposing it ro non-members, which would make it available to anyone, without restriction (i.e. freely).

I thought that to be the case, but I have never seen it work that a non-member can read something on TNBW without being a member first. I have not tried it on anything mine 'to the whole web' because Google can't find anything I have published 'to the whole web.'

rhiannon wrote:

Sol looked up the legalities and shaped the site accordingly.  Posting to a private writers' workshop is not considered to be published or freely available.  You are ok.  We all are.  In fact, a lot of publishers won't consider works from writers who don't have agents, unless they have workshopped their material.

Oh.  So it would be wise to mention the book has been published on TNBW? In point of fact, I can see how that would be better for an unpublished author than having been merely represented by an agent.

Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:

I'm not sure about selling access per chapter. [...]  Why not ask the publisher your considering without naming the piece in particular.

It's too defensive to start by admitting the book exists (unsold) elsewhere, but what about an ebook you've put up on Amazon without an e-publisher - it is not that hard to do actually, but essentially pointless without marketing - the book is "freely available" without being free?  So, you've sold Amazon Kindle books only to your mother and five friends, that could hurt by demonstration of un-commercial value of the book -- but really only that nobody knows about it in order to have considered it for purchase. I can't see the requirement to have no such internet presence prior to publication, so long as there is no competing presence after it is published, unless it is to provide the publisher a loophole in its favor to dicker over royalties. Bringing this up in solicitation I guess is not a good thing to do.

Randall Krzak wrote:

Two different publishers informed me that writing sites such as Scribophile and TNBW don't fall into the category freely available on the web since they both charge a subscription fee. I can also use snippets of my work in my blog as long as I don't post entire chapters as the snippets are considered promotion.

Okay, that makes sense, like the 30-second rule for music.  So "freely available" means that one sets a web page up for anyone to read the book. But what if I were to sell access per chapter, for example?

njc wrote:

I don't think money is the issue.  This is free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer.

But membership in TNBW includes an agreement to respect copyright.  The key is that the work is available to members, but NOT to everyone on the web.  If it is available to everyone on the web, then it's been released publicly, not to a private, copyright-respecting group.

In that connection I have wondered how the optional designation of "available on the internet" for a published TNBW piece works. In a google search, does the piece show up, but in order to read one has become a TNBW member? I've never been able to google anything of mine, but I can't be sure of the keywords to use.

I believe this topic has been brought up before, but I'm not sure on the timing of a work's existence on TNBW submitted for publication.  In the following guideline the words “cannot have been freely available on the web” are used which I take to mean that if a novel, poem, or short story had been on TNBW prior to submission, it is not within the guideline regardless of its removal prior to publication or even prior to submission for consideration to publish.

Our guidelines clearly state that we don't accept previously published fiction, and any reprints we may solicit cannot have been freely available on the web.

The publisher and/or editor who claims to appreciate/publish literary fiction, that:

1.    Is valued highly for its quality of form and creative use of language;
2.    Involves social commentary, or political criticism, or focus on the human condition.

… but says:

1.    We are always looking for stories with memorable characters; and more than simply memorable--characters who are well-drawn out, who we can empathize with, and who are well-suited to leading us into the story with them;
2.     Every editor, no matter who he/she is, has his own personal tastes, and often times we reject a story just because we don't really like it that much.

… is looking for genre commercial fiction that can be tagged literary fiction because of  existing (not innovative or diverse) criterion like kitschy present verb tense narration {*}, whether or not such technique has any particular value to the story, or currently politically-correct social commentary. A differing style, as,  for example, one that includes a main character with whom the editor/publisher cannot empathize—that ‘misogynist’ who exists in the story in order to comment on society or to provide political criticism—might be a cardboard character because all archetypes (not to say stereotypes) are ideal representations, not real and nuanced and believable.

* We are in Rouen, France with William, Duke of Normandy in 1066 [...]

Something hard to remember (if you ever learned it):

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000043.htm

Capitalize the first word in a quotation if the quotation is a complete sentence or if it is an interjection, an incomplete question, or fragmentary response

Correct: He said, "Why did you come back?"
(Quotation is a sentence by itself.)

Incorrect: She replied, "you wanted me to."
(A fragmentary response, you need a capital.)

A quotation is not capitalized if it is not a complete sentence and is part of the larger sentence.

Correct: I believe it was a "far, far better thing" to have confessed the crime.
(This quotation from Dickens is part of the larger sentence and is not a complete sentence in itself.)

217

(19 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

corra wrote:

And Homer would consider you a fuddy-duddy in love with a long-dead civilization rather than accepting the up-coming new one. When you vote, you should thank Achilles, not Hector.


He doesn't realize he's from the past, though. If he read about World War One he'd wonder how such an event could POSSIBLY illuminate his poetry. And certainly the goings-on in the States today would have no bearing on his epic. I wouldn't dare suggest this to him, though. Every great poet likes to think that his work is only relevant in its own era. And the wisest thinkers omit all past affairs from their assessment of current events.

Caroline Alexander in The War That Killed Achilles, for example, claims otherwise.

"Today, headlines from across the world keep Homer close by," she states in her note to reader. She ends her book with: "A hero will have no recompense for death, although he may win glory."  Hector lost his life in a stupid war defending an ignoble brother, vainglorious father, an insipid wife, and an ungrateful civic population. Achilles lost his life for love.

Life is more precious even than glory. Achilles never wavers in this judgement. It is not, after all, that he sacrifices for glory but for Patroklos.
Caroline Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles p. 224

218

(19 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

j p lundstrom wrote:
Norm d'Plume wrote:

According to this article http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/ … forgo.html
forgo, forgone, and forwent are not the same as forego, foregone, and forewent, but have evolved to the point where they are used synonymously.
!


I did have occasion to use this knowledge once in a review. I suppose I overdid it, since it appears to be acceptable to use the two interchangeably. I enjoyed reading the article, until I go to the ending and read the quote.

Hector: I am unarm’d; forgoe this vantage, Greek.
Achilles: Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.

Damn! I hate that Achilles. I always rooted for Hector. He was the one who was wronged. Stupid, impulsive, arrogant brother, and stupid, hot-headed, vengeful opponent. He didn't have a chance.

The article is a good example of a screwy ass-backwards argument in which its own facts do not substantiate its conclusion. The historical facts do not mean it is acceptable to use the two words interchangeably at all. You cannot argue that homonyms  which have different meanings and spellings are "interchangeable."  Consider too and two.

And Homer would consider you a fuddy-duddy in love with a long-dead civilization rather than accepting the up-coming new one. When you vote, you should thank Achilles, not Hector.

219

(19 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Norm d'Plume wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

So many people think what a wonderful thing that language evolves not understanding that it is because too many people are ignorant or at least softly unknowledgable of what the language is.

I had had baked beans for dinner, but I forewent foregoing dessert since my diet had ended.

According to this article http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/ … forgo.html
forgo, forgone, and forwent are not the same as forego, foregone, and forewent, but have evolved to the point where they are used synonymously.

It is primarily a spelling issue between the two words which is not helped by Webster's jumbling all the spellings and meanings into one entry. Forgo and forego are two different words with two different spellings and two different meanings. I have never used, or heard or seen used forego except in the expression foregone conclusion. I was thinking he went without a week's vacation "to forgo a week's vacation" in the past tense: "he forgoed that vacation" --no-- "he forwent that vacation" --huh?-- so I said "he had forgone that vacation", but also in that context I cannot have meant "to forego" = "to go before" but the best I could hope was the person listening might understand  he had forgotten to take his vacation and have the same effect without conveying the same meaning, and it worked. However, when I corrected myself, mostly speaking to myself, "he forwent..." I got nothing but a blank stare from a college grad.

He forwent foregoing the vacation schedule means he went without going ahead of the vacation schedule which put him forgoing his vacation until he was suppose to take his vacation on schedule. At least, with the two different spellings for two words that have different meanings, it is possible to derive correct meaning from the written form, but in speaking, it sounds like a double negative "to forgo forgoing" - to keep to the schedule which is still what I mean!

220

(19 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

j p lundstrom wrote:
Norm d'Plume wrote:

JP, are you saying that people are using past pefect when they should be using simple past? I seem to be the exact opposite. I prefer simple past for a few of the questions where past perfect is the "correct" tense. Language evolves, and I write the way I speak, which is pretty gooder.

Did anyone notice the missing comma before the coordinating conjunction in question 3? tongue

Don't mess with me.
Dirk

Yes, I'm saying that people are using past perfect in place of simple past. For example: My mother had gone to the store instead of my mother went to the store.
In my opinion, it's safer to use the simple past. We should remember to KISS, not over-complicate.
(I hate to admit it, but I got two wrong, myself. I have a tendency to answer questions too quickly. In my defense, I don't understand number 10 at all. It didn't make a bit of sense to me. I guess whoever wrote the test didn't use a proofreader.)

10 is an attempt at humor.  When people speak they don't always include all of their thoughts. Thinking: "I snuck into the house after my mother had gone to store," but in answer to the question: "Did your mother go to the store?" the respondent might say: "My mother had gone to the store" while still thinking, but not offering the information: "before I snuck into the house."  Something like that. Apparent bad grammar like verb mismatch in speaking is sometimes incompletely expressed thoughts.  On the other hand, the correct form of so-called irregular verbs does not always come to mind while speaking.  I was stuck the other day trying to come up with the past tense of forgo while thinking it could not possibly be forwent so I said "had forgone" because it did not sound as ridiculous only to realize the person to whom I was speaking did not even know what forgo, forwent, forgone means. So many people think what a wonderful thing that language evolves not understanding that it is because too many people are ignorant or at least softly unknowledgable of what the language is.

ronald quark wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
ronald quark wrote:

Does anybody take this guy serioulsy^ or do ya'll just keep him around for laffs? Maybe Sol could boot him off. I think he's one of those bad hombres Trump talks about.

Thank you, Ferengi, for the opportunity to clarify two things.

First, I intended to point out that:

denisef wrote:

It is my knowledge that a query letter is a little more than a blurb to get the agent interested along with the name, genre, word count and any awards you've received pertaining to what you are pitching. A synopsis is longer maybe 3-5 pages and this is more like an outline, with the struggles of the main characters and including the ending. Any agents I have ever dealt with do not like cutsy or familiar. They want a well written business approach. Hope this helps as it can be very confusing...

is good advice, not otherwise.

Second--- and I allow myself here a rare moment of impoliteness--- your contribution to the topic was awful.  Please remember the 112th Rule of Acquisition: Never have sex with the boss's sister.

While I may be a nuisance to some, though never to stray cats and old women, I am a high-class nuisance, and you, well, are a nothing, and a low-class nothing at that.

Charles, I don't know you. You don't know me.

Certainly the fun to me of virtual social networks is to distance myself from morons and nincompoops, and the fun to you is to surround yourself by them in a birds-of-feather arrangement. And you should know, but tiny egos haven't the capacity to absorb such information, that if you hit someone, if that someone is anyone, he will hit back harder.  Make America Great Again!

Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:

I do remember reading this way back when. Research which agents/publishers go for a story with as much eroticism as I remember being in this story. Send out half a dozen queries and see what kind of response you get. And remember the query should be one page single spaced. And make sure the query is free of grammar nits. No agent or potential publisher wants to fix grammar. If you can't write a query without mistakes, they'll just say, "No thanks."

Suppose I promote my Remembrances and Reconciliation as a story of Sex! Hot, hot sex! Homosexuality, bi- and heterosexual adultery, and transgenderism, too, and create a 'Strongest Start' 3-5 pages of irrelevant material to show the agent.  Well, it is about sex (and love and death), but it is a lamenting satire on the whole rather necessary business, and without romance that is always what it is. A reader has to read the whole damn book--and carefully--(what a concept!) to get that, of course.

I don't quite get the comparison. If you marketed your book like that, you would be dishonest to yourself.

Plainly dishonest to anyone. But then isn't it a little like stealing money from a thief? There is no gain in the end as I would be "found out." However, it is truthful that synopses of 10 out of 14 chapters can contain descriptions of actual, possible, thwarted and past sex couplings, but none of it erotic -- save  to pervs who might find sex between a priest and a boy erotic.  The horse of melding porn into decent literature and calling it "erotic" left the barn a long time ago.

ronald quark wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Gack! or Ack! Dog food is still dog food.

Does anybody take this guy serioulsy^ or do ya'll just keep him around for laffs? Maybe Sol could boot him off. I think he's one of those bad hombres Trump talks about.

Thank you, Ferengi, for the opportunity to clarify two things.

First, I intended to point out that:

denisef wrote:

It is my knowledge that a query letter is a little more than a blurb to get the agent interested along with the name, genre, word count and any awards you've received pertaining to what you are pitching. A synopsis is longer maybe 3-5 pages and this is more like an outline, with the struggles of the main characters and including the ending. Any agents I have ever dealt with do not like cutsy or familiar. They want a well written business approach. Hope this helps as it can be very confusing...

is good advice, not otherwise.

Second--- and I allow myself here a rare moment of impoliteness--- your contribution to the topic was awful.  Please remember the 112th Rule of Acquisition: Never have sex with the boss's sister.

While I may be a nuisance to some, though never to stray cats and old women, I am a high-class nuisance, and you, well, are a nothing, and a low-class nothing at that.

Janet Taylor-Perry wrote:

I do remember reading this way back when. Research which agents/publishers go for a story with as much eroticism as I remember being in this story. Send out half a dozen queries and see what kind of response you get. And remember the query should be one page single spaced. And make sure the query is free of grammar nits. No agent or potential publisher wants to fix grammar. If you can't write a query without mistakes, they'll just say, "No thanks."

Suppose I promote my Remembrances and Reconciliation as a story of Sex! Hot, hot sex! Homosexuality, bi- and heterosexual adultery, and transgenderism, too, and create a 'Strongest Start' 3-5 pages of irrelevant material to show the agent.  Well, it is about sex (and love and death), but it is a lamenting satire on the whole rather necessary business, and without romance that is always what it is. A reader has to read the whole damn book--and carefully--(what a concept!) to get that, of course.

Norm d'Plume wrote:

My apologies, Ronald. I was trying for a bit of cultural humor from the Bloom County cartoons. Turns out, Bill the Cat says ack, not gack. My bad.

Gack! or Ack! Dog food is still dog food.

Not enough here are providing real advice.

denisef wrote:

It is my knowledge that a query letter is a little more than a blurb to get the agent interested along with the name, genre, word count and any awards you've received pertaining to what you are pitching. A synopsis is longer maybe 3-5 pages and this is more like an outline, with the struggles of the main characters and including the ending. Any agents I have ever dealt with do not like cutsy or familiar. They want a well written business approach. Hope this helps as it can be very confusing...

If your query letter is only one word: "Vampires" and vampires are hot and the agent likes the first 3-5 pages of your sample writing, he will not be rude and neglect to return with even so much as a form rejection letter. Such people are not interested in creativity or any other kind of inventiveness, they are there to sell dog food that can be packaged as steak.