http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com ~THE CORNER BAR ~ 60 Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:30 GMT http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5839324 <B>Scene at writing workshop:</B><br><br>Member: <I>Reads his or her work for review by peers.</I><br><br>Other Member: "Okay, first of all. Who is your audience? Who are you writing for?"<br><br><I>Exacerbated discussion ensues in which other member pretends to know what every member of every conceivable kind of audience is thinking and uses this as a justification to tear down what everybody else does.<br><br>Repeat the preceding two or three times.</I><br><br>Organizer: <I>Hears this question asked three or four times, then explodes with</I> "Who the (*@#$ cares!? People write what they want to write and if anybody else wants to read it, then fine!"<br><br>Discuss. <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5839324 Thur, 10 May 2012 21:00:34 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5818356 Every now and then, Cracked has something interesting for writers blended in with their usual assortment of scatology and superhero jokes. <b> Be warned</b>, this is not safe for work! If you are offended by foul language, then this will offend you!<br> <br><a target="_blank" href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-commonly-corrected-grammar-errors-that-arent-mistakes/"><a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-commonly-corrected-grammar-errors-that-arent-mistakes/" target="_blank">http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-commonly-corrected-grammar-errors-that-arent-mistakes/</a></a><br><br>It's funny that the guy who wrote this used "the fact that" in the lead-in paragraph, because that is one of the most meaningless, useless, and unnecessary things that could be written; specific mention is made of it in Strunk &amp; White's Elements of Style as a phrase that should never be used. I stick with un-split infinitives out of habit, but I know that rule has few practical justifications. (The best one being that the most common infinitive-splitting word is an adverb and those are pretty cheap anyway.) However, I think he's dead right about everything else in the article. <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5818356 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:45:11 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5807145 This one is old (at least, in Internet scales of time), but I thought I'd post it anyway. There is always so much doom and gloom whenever people talk about writing and publishing so here is a counter to it all (or at least to some of it).<br><br><a href="http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/02/6-reasons-for-writers-to-be-optimistic/" target="_blank">http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/02/6-reasons-for-writers-to-be-optimistic/</a><br><br>I can't argue with her first four points, and only minor quibbles with the last two. Yes, people still read and the Internet is the main reason for that; but now that so many other things that people find to be of more immediate interest are available free, online, and in bite-sized portions that they can read quickly; there might be less interest in reading full books. And yes, there are more publishing opportunities than ever before; but that's because just about anybody can become a publisher, whether or not they have the business sense to make such a venture work in favor of the writers.<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5807145 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:02:04 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5795519 <a href="http://robin-d-laws.blogspot.ca/2012/03/disorienting-exposition.html" target="_blank">http://robin-d-laws.blogspot.ca/2012/03/disorienting-exposition.html</a><br><br>Nutshell version: you have an amazing imaginary world in your head, and your want your story to take place in it. You know the world, so do your characters, but the readers don't. How do you reveal it to them?<br><br>This blogger suggests the best way to do it is through character interactions with the world, rather than direct, overt description. <br><br>I favor that, as long as one cardinal rule is followed: a scene is not a scene unless something happens in it; lengthy description is not action.<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5795519 Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:30:25 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5786973 The title is "Balancing Story and Prose," the premise being that storytelling is as important as the quality of the writing that is used to tell it, and that good prose can be used to further the story.<br><br><a href="http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/04/balancing-story-and-prose/" target="_blank">http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/04/balancing-story-and-prose/</a><br><br>I wanted to share it with people here because I thought it was helpful and interesting. I will note that her instruction to end every sentence and every chapter with a "power word," while following Strunk &amp; White, is very hard to do consistently and if it is overdone, it can make writing look amateurish. <br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5786973 Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:01:05 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5775664 We all know plot holes when we see them: something happens that couldn't have happened, based on what was written before; or, something happens, without the obvious consequences affecting further events.<br><br>What are some of your favorite ones.<br><br>Mine range from the sublime to less than totally sublime.<br><br>Sublime: In the Bible (specifically <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=GEN4:17&amp;version=KJ21" target="_blank">Genesis 4:17</a>), Cain meets his wife. The trouble is, he is the only surviving son of the first two people ever created. Where did she come from. In an added literary twist, this plot hole was mentioned in Inherit The Wind.<br><br>Less Than Totally Sublime: Near the end of Tom Clancey's The Hunt For Red October, another Soviet submarine captained by one Viktor Tupolev attempts to sink the books eponymous sub and fails. Instead the Red October rams Tupolev's sub, killing everyone aboard it. One question remains: how come nobody in Moscow took note of the loss of Tupolev's vessel and the loss of the 100+ hands aboard? This is never addressed anywhere else in the book, nor in any of the subsequent books that Clancy wrote with the same timeline and characters.<br><br>In the first case, something happened that events leading thereto made said happening difficult to explain. In the second case, something happened without its obvious consequences being addressed.<br><br>Anyway, those are two that come to mind.<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5775664 Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:16:57 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5765334 Stop me if you've heard this one before.<br><br>A writer is showing you a draft that has an improbable situation in it, that makes no sense in the context of the story, and does not seem to add anything useful to the narrative. There isn't even much of a buildup to it; it just happens.<br><br>You ask the writer why it is there, or comment that it needs to be changed; either fix it so that there is a buildup to it that explains its significance to the conflict that is being established by the plot, or get rid of it because it is distracting the reader from everything else in the story that does this (or that could be doing this once it gets fixed, but that's a side issue).<br><br>The writer pleads to you: "but this really happened!" This asserts that the passage cannot be changed because the writer wants to express something that is true to life, wants to have a certain cathartic release, or thinks that the incident was so pivotal in his or her life that it must be laid bare for all to see.<br><br>Here's the thing.<br><br>One's own personal experience is not all that special. If that was the only thing that mattered in life, we would not value such things as education, professional certification, or research effort. We'd give PhDs to people for just being past a certain age, since after all, experience would matter just as much as any other form of knowledge. There is nothing bad about having experience, but generalizing from it is often a weak induction at best and a wild guess at worst. As far as writing is concerned, there is a very good chance that the readers (or the slush readers, acquisitions editors, and agents who the writer is courting) will have experiences that diverge from the writers, will not be able to relate to the passage in question, and in consequence be underwhelmed by it. I will risk making a monstrous generalization by saying that one's goal should be to not underwhelm any readers.<br><br>Here is the other thing about experience: there is a good chance that it didn't happen the way you remembered it. How many times has someone told you a story, even in conversation, about something that you were there for yourself; and you recalled details that contradicted much of what you heard from this person? How many times have you had a "remember when?" conversation that was interrupted by your friends calling BS on you, even though you believed that what you said really happened? There is nothing wrong with embellishing, changing, or outright falsifying the nature of an actual event for the purpose of making interesting fiction. That's a fiction writer's job, for crying out loud! All this is to say, then, that there is no reason to render a "real" recalled incident exactly as it is remembered because there is a good chance that it didn't happen that way anyway.<br><br>The readers are the center of the equation, not the writer. What might have been fascinating, compelling, or life-changing in a profound way to the writer can be mundane to the person reading it. Everybody's gone to school, fallen in love, met some eccentric person, or experienced a situation that left them flabbergasted at least once in their lives. Writing about the same thing as you recall it having happened to you is not enough; chances are that somebody reading it will have experienced something similar, yet more vivid and think "so what?" You still need to work it into the plot so that it reflects the conflict and theme and to write about it in a way that makes it interesting to the readers. Otherwise, nobody will care if it really happened to you.<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5765334 Thur, 22 Mar 2012 23:04:59 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5754974 I know a budding writer who has what can be described as a fixation on Microsoft Word's <a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/test-your-document-s-readability-HP010148506.aspx" target="_blank">readability calculator</a>. He aims for the grade 4 reading level. I toyed with this function in my own writing and in some of the submissions I've received, just to see what the results would be and I found all of it to go way above that level.<br><br>For me, this function and similar readability tests are bunk. If it looks and sounds good (the latter is important I read a lot of stuff out loud) to me, it's because it feels right in a way that I do not think a computer algorithm can very well express.<br><br>Has anybody here toyed with this function? Does anybody here use it on a regular basis?<br><br>Incidentally, there are web sites that do this to, <a href="http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/" target="_blank">like this one</a>. I ran this post through it and the result was grade 10 on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_test" target="_blank">Flesch-Kincaid scale</a>.<br> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5754974 Thur, 15 Mar 2012 22:35:07 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5744797 The US Department of Justice is planning to sue Apple, Harper-Collins, and other players in publishing over price fixing. They object to the practice of not allowing publishers to sell e-books from one online vendor at a lower price than they do to another vendor. Such stipulations affect self-publishing authors as well. Here is the link to the whole article.<br><br><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html" target="_blank">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html</a><br><br>What made me jump when reading this was the part about how many publishers "deeply disliked" Amazon's strategy of selling top titles at $9.99 because if customers got used to cheap e-books, the publishers wouldn't be able to sell expensive ones later on. They don't seem to understand that pricing their e-books inexpensively lends itself towards quick, effortless, impulse-buying and that taken in quantity, this can add up to a lot of money for them. It's not like the inventory is costing them anything.<br><br>Of course, if they reserve the right to jack up the prices and exercise that right to their hearts' content, the typical consumer will do one of three things.<br> <br> Pay $35 (or whatever) for an e-book, and not consider it to be ludicrous to spend one-tenth (or thereabouts) of the money on an e-book that the consumer spent on the hardware being used to read it.<br> Go to the local book store and buy the hard copy, since it's not a whole lot more expensive than the electronic version.<br> Just download the e-book illegally, and to hell with the publisher.<br> <br>I am being only slightly sarcastic here. The whole idea of having the hardware to read e-books is the convenience of carrying a library in one's pocket. Price e-books (which have a marginal cost of zero) out of the range of impulse-buying or convenience, and the consumer will take the path of least resistance and punish publishers for their arrogance. <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5744797 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:48:31 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5734815 <div><B>Note:</B> The comic I am linking to below is NSFW (at least in the last frame). Moreover, there is language in there that some people might find offensive (same frame).</div><div><br></div><div>That having been said, it has a lot to say about why people download stuff illegally and even though it's about a TV series, every single part of it can apply to e-books as well.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones" target="_blank"><a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones" target="_blank">http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones</a></a></div><div><br></div><div>Imagine, for instance, if an e-book that you really, really wanted, was only available through Amazon. Given that they are the biggest purveyor of e-books, this should apply to a lot of titles.</div><div><br></div><div>Piracy is wrong, though some of the practices of some vendors can make reasonable people think it's justified. E-book purveyors need to learn from Apple's iTunes Music Store: a good price combined with &nbsp;convenience is the best way to minimize the potential damage of piracy.</div> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5734815 Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:52:42 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5718311 <div>...unilaterally.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/" target="_blank">http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/</a></div><div><br></div><div>The above is from the blog of a successful author, who self-publishes some e-books and who also has a number of books published through ordinary means.</div><div><br></div><div>The summary is that Amazon decided to reduce the list price of one of his titles from $2.99 to $0.99; without letting him know in advance, let alone asking him or giving him a reason. His royalty has gone down accordingly, from $2.09 to $0.35. <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/" target="_blank">Amazon's Kindle And Direct Publishing Terms And Conditions</a> grant Amazon the right to do this. To wit:</div><div><br></div><div><div align=center><div style="width:90%;text-align:left;"><div style="margin-bottom:2px">Quote:</div><div style="border:1px inset; border-bottom:1px solid #E8E8E8; border-right:1px solid #E8E8E8; padding:6px; spacing:3px;"><B>5.3.2 Customer Prices.</B>To the extent permissible under applicable local laws, we have sole and complete discretion to set the retail price at which your Digital Books are sold through the Program. We are solely responsible for processing payments, payment collection, requests for refunds and related customer service, and will have sole ownership and control of all data obtained from customers and prospective customers in connection with the Program.</div></div></div></div><div><br></div><div>This is something that ordinary publishers, be they major or small press, often have the privilege to do. It is impossible (or unwise) for self-publishing writers to ignore Amazon because doing so would cut them out from most of the e-book buying market. This means that people have to accept that this can happen to them. All they can do is make their work available through other online sources at prices (and royalties) that they favor and hope that enough of their readers know about those sources through the writers' blogs and will choose to buy from there instead; but the consumer is an inherently selfish animal, and will gravitate towards buying at a price that is favorable to them, without regard to the consequences for the writer.</div><div><br></div><div>One of the advantages of self-publishing is that the writer can set the price and by extension, the royalty. I have to ask, then, that if Amazon which is arguably the number one enabler of self-publishing retains the right to set the price, then is this really self-publishing?</div> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5718311 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:37:43 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5716067 <P>Hi, I am new here.&nbsp; I have been trying to find others who are having problems connecting with River City Publishing, Montgomer, AL, and thought I would try here.&nbsp; I am a new, unpublished author, who submitted a manuscript to RCP for their Fred Bonnie Competition last August.&nbsp; The closing date was 10/31/11.&nbsp; In November, I called the publisher and was told that they would make a decision in January.&nbsp; At that time, the web site said a decision would be made in "October 2009," and when I brought that up to the person I talked to, he said it was a "typo."&nbsp; This was removed just recently and all emails on the contact page but one were also removed.&nbsp; When sending an email to the publisher, it bounced back because&nbsp;her in-box was full.&nbsp; Subsequent phone calls are picked up by an answering system that does not even identify RCP.&nbsp; I have left a voice message and have not received a call back.&nbsp; Since it is now almost March, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to connect, move on, find out what has happened to the entries, etc.&nbsp; I should also point out that my check for the entry fee was deposited.&nbsp; Thanks so much if anyone can help.</P> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5716067 Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:37:36 GMT Soup http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5713132 I think all of the anxiety that people are expressing over the advent of electronic books and other new technologies can be broken down to one thing. The real fear is not of online piracy or of self-publishing upstarts defeating corporate publishing; it is in the shift of market control from the producers to the consumers. I think this is a good thing. It forces publishers to be as honest as possible and it forces writers and editors to think of the readers in everything they do.<br> <br>The consumer is selfish, as selfish as anybody ought to be when it comes to their money and what they want to do with it. The consumer does not owe loyalty to any writer, publisher, or vendor. This has always been the case, but before we had social media, it was possible for those who own the means of production to monopolize the discourse about the entertainment products that they buy. Reviews, interviews, advertisements everything about the latest book was found in major media outlets that were tied to the publishers; either through advertising dollars, or through simply having the same corporate structure as them and thus, being able to communicate with each other through normalized channels. The major retail chains are no different; neither are the major online retailers.<br> <br>It's different now. It is easy to find consumer-generated buzz about something online; people will flood forums, blogs, twitter, and whatnot with their own $0.02 about anything they want to, especially popular culture, including the books that they read. The volume of this is greater than what publishers, agents, and other "official" marketing sources can do; they can spend all the money in the world that they can afford to spend, but they cannot outweigh the consumers.<br> <br>What this means for everyone is that the consumer is at the center of the equation. Everything that we create and publish has to be somehow relevant to a consumer's experience and need. I am not talking about the need to escape or the need to be entertained because as important and as obvious as these things are, they are too general. Writers need to ask: what kind of reader will be able to relate to this book? What needs will the characters and the things that they do in the story satisfy for the readers? What kind of reader has these needs? Agents, editors, and publishers all need to know this too. It is not practical to market a product as if it is for everybody, by screaming out about it to the public as if it was an undifferentiated faceless mass. (At least, it is not practical for everybody to do this for all products; some companies still have the money for this sort of thing.) Every book has to be thought of in terms of the individual needs that they fulfill. <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5713132 Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:21:23 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5702097 <div>A market research and "audience analysis" company did a survey about "tech envy"; specifically, the attitudes that people have towards tech that they did not own at the time that they took the survey. Some of their findings are relevant to e-readers.</div><div><br></div><div>The survey's executive summary is here: <a href="http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-report-summary" target="_blank">http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-report-summary</a></div><div><br></div><div>Here are the raw results:</div><div><a href="http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-press-release" target="_blank">http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-press-release</a></div><div><br></div><div>And here is everything summed up in a neat little infographic:</div><div><a href="http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-infographic-2" target="_blank">http://officepulse.captivate.com/techenvy/tech-envy-infographic-2</a></div><div><br></div><div>Some of the highlights:</div><div><br></div><div>People are more likely to be envious of tablet and e-reader owners than they are of those who own HSTVs or smart phones, on the order of 37% (I'm rounding here) vs 24% or 11%. Moreover, seeing a co-worker who has an e-reader or a tablet is very likely (39% to 59%) to make someone want to know more about them. (The same section, however, says that the typical respondent to the survey saw, on average, 3.6 people with smart phones per day. I see twice that number of people using smart phones on public transportation every time I ride it.)</div><div><br></div><div>Yet, 73% of the respondents said that the smartphone was their favorite technology (out of smart phones, tablets, e-readers, and HDTV).</div><div><br></div><div>The most common places for the use of tablets and e-readers were at home, while commuting, and at their desks at work. The laundromat gets honorable mention.</div><div><br></div><div>The top brands were not very surprising: for tablets, it's the iPad; for e-readers, it's the Kindle.</div><div><br></div><div>Women lead the way in e-reader use, and they prefer the Kindle. Of the people who desire an e-reader, 59% of them want a Kindle and 20% of them want a Nook.</div><div><br></div><div>What this all means is that tablets and e-readers are still a growth market, since it is evident that more people who do not already have them, want them; it follows that electronic books are a growth market as well, since you have to use those devices for something (accepting that, of course, tablets are useful for more than just reading e-books).&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The large portion of respondents who use their tablets and e-readers at work suggests that a good way to tap into that core market would be to publish more books that are immediately useful to people in the workplace. This favors non-fiction. However, the large proportions of users who use such devices at home and while commuting doesn't favor any kind of book over any other.</div><div><br></div><div>Now, I will couch all of this with the usual caveat about statistical research. It is only as good as the sample (that is, the people who took the survey). They polled 580 people, which is large enough to be considered a statistically reliable sample. I would shy away from reading too much in differences under 5%, however (that's the basic variance when you have a sample of 400, if my memory of my college stats course serves me right). All of the people polled live in "major metropolitain centers" across the US and Canada; this does not represent the entire population very well, if "major metropolitan center" means a city or cluster of adjoining cities with 1 million or more people in it. Also, the survey was done entirely online; drawing from a pool of 4,000 people who regularly respond to surveys made by this company; this is not a random sample. The survey company seems to focus on what could be called "office culture" for companies who market to that particular demographic.</div><div><br></div><div>It is a very interesting look at one specific demographic of people who use devices that are used to read e-books. If e-reader and tablet use is growing among them, then it is more or less safe to assume that it is ripe to grow within the general population at large. It would be nice if they did this about physically printed books one of these days so we could compare.&nbsp;</div> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5702097 Thur, 09 Feb 2012 23:33:30 GMT Another_Editor http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5691739 <div><img src="http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comics/2010-01-04-GWS849.jpg"></div><div>(<a href="http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-849/" target="_blank">Link</a> if you can't see it in your browser)</div><div><br></div><div>Take the time to proofread. You never know when it matters the most...</div> <p>Forum: <a href="http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/?forum=22363">The White Wolf Bar and Grill 2</a> http://georgiegirl.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5691739 Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:04:04 GMT Another_Editor