Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 236
April 3, 2018
To clarify your sentences, put the subject first
Not infrequently, I find myself trying to help students see that their sentences are not clear. Yes, we see a great many comma splices. True, we see frequent incorrect word choices (too to two; their there they’re, etc). However, all other faults pale before an essential lack of clarity.
It seems to me that the single tidbit of advice that is most helpful in this regard is to have a clear subject and put the subject first. That won’t fix everything — I wish it would! — but it simplifies a whole bunch of writing advice that you often see, for example here at this randomly chosen university writing center website. (Not quite randomly chosen; it came up near the top in a google search about clear sentences.)
Writing advice offered by this writing center (all examples are theirs):
Use active voice:
Passive: It was earlier demonstrated that heart attacks can be caused by high stress.
Active: Researchers earlier showed that high stress can cause heart attacks.
Use active verbs:
Nominalization: An evaluation of the procedures needs to be done.
How to fix it: We need to evaluate the procedures.
Reduce prepositional phrases:
Unnecessary prepositional phrase: The opinion of the manager
Correction: The manager’s opinion
Reduce expletive constructions:
Expletive: It is inevitable that oil prices will rise.
Correction: Oil prices will inevitably rise.
Avoid vague nouns:
Vague: Strong reading skills are an important factor in students’ success in college.
Precise: Students’ success in college depends on their reading skills.
So five of the nine categories of advice at that link could be boiled into one: Choose a clear subject, and put the subject first.
When trying to write in an erudite style, students are especially likely to go for expletive constructions. When using long introductory clauses, students are apt to get lost and throw a period in at random, producing a long fragment. When an instructor comments about lack of concision or lack of clarity, this one principle — clear subject, first thing — can help a lot.
Just thought I’d mention this in case any of you, or your students, or your own children, find it helpful.
Now, if only there were some super-reliable easy advice that would simply help students recognize when a sentence of theirs is complete nonsense. I’m talking about sentences like this: “Numerous people immunizations focusing on disregarded sicknesses in low- and center-wage communities.”
Putting the subject first is good advice, but it won’t help with something like that. If you have a tip for helping with that, please, please share it with me.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Descriptive phrases that are especially helplful —
A heartbreaking novel of family tragedy.
A beautiful, heartbreaking novel of love, loss and hidden tragedy.
A voluptuous magical realism that takes root in the darkest corners of human behavior.
Brom weaves together gloomy prose and horrifying adventures in this macabre fairy tale.
It’s not that I’m totally opposed to heartbreaking tragedy in a novel. There are three — wait, four — reasons I might pick up a book that’s described as heartbreaking:
a) I have a lot of trust in the book blogger who’s recommending the book.
b) It’s a romance. If it’s a romance, I know it has a happily-ever-after ending, so it’s not likely to be THAT heartbreaking.
c) I’m in the mood for a tragedy. Hey, that happens. About once every other year or so.
d) I TOTALLY trust the author. Elizabeth Wein falls into this category. Not sure who else.
On the other hand, I am totally turned off by horrible screwed up family relationships that the characters struggle against through the entire book on their way to ultimate tragedy. If anything in a book’s description suggests a novel falls into that category, nothing could make me pick it up, no matter how reviews rave about how the writing or the book is “beautiful” or “lyrical” or “ultimately heartwarming” or “raw and honest.”
Book descriptions that hint at that sort of thing are extremely helpful. I just deleted Amazon’s latest “Free for Prime” email about new titles because every single book on the list seemed to fit the category of toxic-family-tragic-ending. (None of them were the titles I linked above, btw. I was just looking for books with certain phrases in the description.)
This is why there’s no point in trying to make a description appeal to every single reader. You can’t. “Heartbreaking” means I will instantly recoil. “Gloomy prose” will make me back away rapidly and really extreme phrases such as “desperate and ultimately futile” means I’ll leap away so hard I wind up practically in the next county. But those types of descriptive phrases must appeal to a subset of readers or they wouldn’t get used. If that’s the subset that will actually enjoy your book, the description is doing its job.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Available for Pre-Order —
Beyond the Dreams We Know went live on Amazon yesterday!
I am still revising, but every story has been completed. The book is about 330 pages, nearly 110,000 words, so it’s definitely a real book. It contains four novellas and three short stories.
In the world of City in the Lake, entering the great forest may lead you to your heart’s desire . . . but the one certainty is that the forest always has its own desires, and might very well tilt anyone’s quest to its own ends.
***
In the whole history of the Floating Islands, no girl has ever put on wings and taken flight. Now a special audition has just been announced, and despite her responsibilities, Nescana isn’t sure she can resist at least trying to make a new life for herself among the kajuraihi.
***
The Lord of the Delta is a busy man. But every now and then, Bertaud manages to take an afternoon away from his duties. Just one afternoon for himself. What could possibly go wrong?
***
Erest’s family knew they might risk unknown dangers when they first chose to build their home in the shadow of the Kieba’s mountain, but she hasn’t seemed offended by their presumption . . . yet. When disaster strikes, could Erest dare turn to the Kieba for help?
***
In a world much like our own, no one expects mysterious, beautiful dragons to begin emerging from earth and stone. But even when mystery and magic isn’t concerned with us at all, it can change our lives . . .
***
Rediscover four worlds and explore new ones in Neumeier’s latest collection of short fiction.
Please Feel Free to Share:
April 2, 2018
Forgetting how to read, really?
Turning, one evening, from my phone to a book, I set myself the task of reading a single chapter in one sitting. Simple. But I couldn’t. There was nothing wrong with my eyes. No stroke or disease clouded my way. Yet – if I’m being honest – the failure was also not a surprise.
Paragraphs swirled; sentences snapped like twigs; and sentiments bled out. The usual, these days. I drag my vision across the page and process little. Half an hour later, I throw down the book and watch some Netflix.
Out for dinner with another writer, I said, “I think I’ve forgotten how to read.”
“Yes!” he replied, pointing his knife. “Everybody has.”
“No, really,” I said. “I mean I actually can’t do it any more.”
He nodded: “Nobody can read like they used to. But nobody wants to talk about it.”
For good reason. It’s embarrassing. Especially for someone like me. I’m supposed to be an author – words are kind of my job. Without reading, I’m not sure who I am. So, it’s been unnerving to realize: I have forgotten how to read – really read – and I’ve been refusing to talk about it out of pride.
This is interesting for two reasons: the purported phenomenon being discussed, and the author’s assumption — extremely common in such essays — that a personal problem is universal, or nearly so. Nobody can read like they used to.
This is not, I think, the case. In fact, it can’t be, or platforms like Wattpad would disappear, destroyed by the variety of minute-long posts on Facebook and the endless array of YouTube videos and who knows what.
I wonder if the author of this post — Michael Harris — is familiar with the readers of, oh … Romances. Fantasy. Thrillers. All kinds of YA. I would personally bet that the immersive, page-turning compulsive reading experiences offered by genre fiction prevent the kind of disinterest in reading described in the article, and that readers who enjoy genre fiction are not included in the “Nobody can read like they used to” category.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Hugo nominees 2018
As you may know, Hugo nominees were announced this past weekend. Passover/Easter weekend seems like an odd and rather inconvenient choice, and I believe there was a certain amount of pushback about that. Certainly I’d think a new tradition of announcing the nominees on, say, the first Monday of April seems like it would be better.
Anyway, finally got a chance to look up the nominees this morning. I’m not going to WorldCon this year and I don’t expect to buy a voting membership, but I’m still somewhat interested and you may be too, so here are the categories that interest me:
Best Novel
The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin
Best Novella
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells
“And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey
Best Novelette
“Children of Thorns, Children of Water,” by Aliette de Bodard
“Extracurricular Activities,” by Yoon Ha Lee
“The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer
“A Series of Steaks,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” by K.M. Szpara
“Wind Will Rove,” by Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story
“Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim
“Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde
“Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata
“Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon
“Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience
,” by Rebecca Roanhorse
Best Series
The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells
The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire
The Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan
The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson
World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Overwhelmingly a Usual Suspects kind of list. Basically all the same names as the last few years. Not completely, obviously, but I’m must admit that I’m not super-keen that so many of the same authors always get nominated over and over. I expect people just pick up Scalzi’s latest with the expectation that of course they will nominate it; same with McGuire; same with some of the others. Yep, not really likely to buy a voting membership this year.
Except! I might, just to vote for Martha Wells in both her categories, especially the novella category. Not that I’ve read the other nominees, and “And Then There Were N-One” is such a great title I would hope to love that story.
For Series, it would be hard to choose between the Raksura series, the Lady Trent series, and the Five Gods series. Tough choices there! Though I believe I would go for the former on the grounds that I’ve always read each Raksura novel the same week it was released and I’ve loved all of them, whereas I’m two years behind now with the Lady Trent series and did not really love the third Five Gods book.
Of course if I do buy a voting membership, I would have to read the nominees in all these categories so I could actually vote knowledgeably. Quite a commitment.
If you’re interested, here is a complete list of all the nominees in all the categories.
Please Feel Free to Share:
March 28, 2018
Five of the creepiest monsters in SFF
Here’s a post by Aliette de Bodard at tor.com: Five of the Creepiest Monsters in Fantasy Fiction
By an amazing chance, I’ve actually read every one of her five picks. That doesn’t happen very often when checking out these top-five and top-ten lists.
These are good choices, though I could go back and forth about several. Stiletto wasps, sure, but bugs like that (and worse) are pretty common in SFF, yes? At least, it seems to me Swarming Bugs That Sting are everywhere. Granted, Scott Lynch is a great writer who evokes the horror of that kind of swarm pretty effectively.
The Hunter from The Book of Atrix Wolfe … I felt so sorry for everyone caught up in this spell-gone-awry after I understood what had happened, so I can’t remember now whether I found the Hunter especially creepy the first time I read the story.
Let me see, creepiest monsters in SFF … not like there’s a shortage, really … but I find myself inclined to pick a handful who strike me as psychologically creepy rather than biologically icky. That would include, oh —
1) Cersei in Game of Thrones. Her special brand of narcissistic paranoia makes her worse to read about even than Jamie. And that’s saying something.
2) O’Brien, from George Orwell’s 1984. There’s a reason I hate adult dystopias and the victory of evil is it. O’Brien personalizes that kind of victory.
3) The Master of the Wild Hunt in Kate Elliot’s Spiritwalker trilogy. His inhuman detachment and casual cruelty are totally creepy. In contrast, we also see, in the same trilogy, James Drake, who is just an appalling person the reader comes to loathe, but not creepy. So this trilogy is great for distinguishing between creepy monster villains and bad guys who are really bad, but not in such a disturbing way.
4) The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair in Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norril. His complete lack of empathy is quite terrifying.
5) And, you know, while we’re on the subject of villains who completely lack empathy, Lilianne from The City in the Lake. She’s not fae, and she is certainly more ambitious than the Gentleman with Thistledown Hair, but she is similarly lacking in the slightest understanding of and compassion for ordinary people.
Please Feel Free to Share:
March 27, 2018
Saving an island’s ecosystem
This is exceptionally good news:
It’s very rare for people to manage to eliminate a dangerous introduced species from an island before the island’s native fauna is utterly devastated. This may be the first time anybody managed it. This was a kind of mouse that was destroying bird chicks and eggs, invertebrates, and plants. Eradication took five years.
Million Dollar Mouse, part-funded by a public crowd-funding campaign, aimed to continue the work of other eradication projects around New Zealand, and involved a team setting up camp on the islands, air drops of pesticides from three helicopters, culminating in a month-long search involving trained dogs for any remaining pests, Radio NZ says.
According to a Stuff.nz feature on the islands, the mice likely arrived on ships belonging to sealers, and drove at least two local species to extinction. If the project hadn’t tackled the rodents they “would have spelled doom for many of the species there.”
They sure would. I’m sure these mice were about as dangerous to the native fauna and flora as rats, which are the very worst species to introduce to islands.
New Zealand is feeling its oats after this success:
New Zealand’s government has pledged to rid the country of all invasive species by the year 2050, and Million Dollar Mouse has now become a model for this hugely ambitious programme to clear predators island-by-island.
The Predator Free 2050 project has been backed by both government and conservationists alike, and seeks to rid the whole country of stoats, rats and possums within the next three decades.
Wow. Hugely ambitious is right. Good luck to them.
I don’t know which single invasive species I would most like to remove from the Americas, but if anyone wanted to crowd-source an effort to eradicate starlings, I’d contribute.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Answering the important questions —
Would a Borg Cube be any match for a Star Destroyer if the two ever met in battle?
On the Devastator’s bridge, Vader was for the first time in years startled as seven figures materialized in shimmers of light from the very air, figures which proceeded to walk calmly toward various consoles and inspect them. Several disappeared and reappeared in the crew pits, shouldering crewmen aside to examine their consoles. The black-clothed, gray faced figures were generally humanoid but had one or more limbs replaced with whirring, clicking prostheses that looked like parts of droids. As the security teams attempted to engage them, the figures sprouted strange temporary angular shields that deflected stun and then blaster bolts easily. Attempts to engage them physically were easily brushed aside, injuring several pit officers.
Vader again reached out to them with the Force but felt nothing- the figures might as well have been droids. His apprehension finally turned to outrage. These strange droids, these Borg, would invade his ship and challenge him, would they? He would show them. He could not affect minds that weren’t there but his Force-borne telekinesis had no such limitations. …
Hard to know which team to root for in this match-up.
Please Feel Free to Share:
March 26, 2018
Third vs First Person Narratives
Here’s a thought-provoking post on third- vs first-person narrative styles: Using Third Person vs First Person Novel Narratives
This post is not about how to handle first versus third well, and it’s not about the reasons first-person is challenging even for many experienced writers (though I think it is challenging). Here’s a snippet from the middle of the post:
…anyone who’s read many manuscripts knows that a great many first-person novels are thinly-disguised autobiographies, usually espousing some recently-learned political or social philosophy, or, if not that, their imitation of some current (or just-over) line of bestsellers. At present, this includes vampire or zombie opuses, or invincible characters who look suspiciously like Jack Reacher but have different names.
Another reason many choose a first-person narrator is that it seems easier to newer writers. Many (many!) first novels are written with characters saying and thinking things the writer him- or herself thinks in their own minds. Novels that are fiction in name only; primarily many are just vehicles to assign the writer’s own thoughts to in a loosely-degenerative plot.
I’ve never read through an extensive slushpile, but this seems plausible. The author of the post, Les Edgerton, does note that the most common reason inexperienced writers sometimes reach for first-person narrative styles is that they feel this is more intimate. Edgerton then goes on to point out the benefits of close-third-person for providing that feel, and provides an interesting snippet written in first a distant third person style, then first person, then close third. This is all well worth reading.
His point that a more distant (he uses the term formal) third person can easily be switched to a closer third person by simply substituting personal pronouns for nearly all the instances where the character is referred to by name … not so sure! But I’m tempted to try it.
CJ Cherryh is said to write in a close, very limited third-person style. I may open up a book of hers and take a look, with this post in mind.
I will also add that in general I suspect that most book-length works will “feel” best if the author shifts back and forth from a closer to a more distant third-person style depending on what is going on in the narrative at the moment. I suspect if you pull most third-person books off the shelf and read them carefully, that’s what you’ll find happens. The ability to move closer than then farther away from the protagonist is one of the many advantages offered by third person and unavailable to the author writing in first.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Life lessons from Tolkien
From Kristen McQuinn at Book Riot: LIFE LESSONS FROM TOLKIEN
I missed it when this post came out, but I’m willing to declare March 25th Middle Earth Day.
Happy March, friends. I like to call it Middle Earth March. I specifically look forward to March 25th each year. In the Tolkienverse, it’s the Gondorian New Year, the day Sauron fell, the One Ring was destroyed, and the beginning of the Fourth Age of Gondor. It’s often celebrated as Tolkien Reading Day, the theme of which this year is “Home and Hearth: the many ways of being a hobbit.”
Second breakfast does spring to mind as a delightful way of being a hobbit.
McQuinn makes lots of good points in this post, all drawn from Tolkien quotes:
“DARKNESS MUST PASS. A NEW DAY WILL COME. AND WHEN THE SUN SHINES, IT WILL SHINE OUT THE CLEARER.”
Be hopeful. Do you know the unimaginable shit Tolkien endured in his life? He was put through the wringer and still managed to believe that everything isn’t just hopeless bullshit. I don’t think he could have written an epic about good triumphing over evil without a large element of hope living in him.
Click through and read the whole thing if you have a minute. Maybe next year I’ll remember to make March 25th Tolkien day as well.
Please Feel Free to Share:
