Joe Velikovsky's Blog, page 19

Achievement Unlocked! (2019)

Achievement Unlocked-!   (2019)
So, life is a game. Well; not really; but, life is gamified.(Speaking as, a Game Designer.)
I hear a lot about `the gamification of everything'... (e.g., frequent-flyer points, coffee-shop loyalty cards, that Good Citizen Points System in China, etc.) 
But, Life is (was always) gamified: by Evolution. ...Adaptation. Overpopulation, by the best-adapted. If your design is (say) faster, or smarter, or more agile, or stronger, or has better armour, or is cheaper, or more efficient, or whatevs, then your genes propagate, over, those whose: aren't?And, if you are fitter and better-looking than average, you probably can get: fitter and better-looking mates than average, and vice-versa, and so on.Anyway; I digest. 
So, I was reflecting, and, thinking about: What I've "Achieved" In Life. 
Most of it seems: absurd, but, hey - that's existentialist humanism for ya. It's: an absurd universe. Still, it's the only one we've (currently) got.Seems: We all have to find our own goals (aka "our porpoise in life") and, see if we can achieve 'em.
Anyway; here's some random achievements. In case I die tomorrow, What the hell did I get up to?
Well, I guess, this is some of it:
A SEMI-COMPREHENSIVE LIST, 
OF,
SOME STUFF, I HAVE APPARENTLY DONE... 
by JTV (2019)
2,000 x Quora answers (see my Quora page)...
30+ movie screenplays (see, parts of some of 'em, here)
10 x videogames (see my YouTube channel, I guess? Some Game Trailers, on there)
6 x novels (...hey, here's one of 'em... AM SO AS!)
Some plays (e.g. Darwin Down Under , The Abercrombie Zombie, The MovieMakers, etc)
3 x feature films (see my YouTube channel, I guess)
Some TV stuff... (e.g. The Comedy Sale!, Odyssey 2014, The C Files, etc.)
17 x academic articles/book chapters (see my Academia and Researchgate and ORCID pages, I guess. And, the StoryAlity PhD weblog.)
A whole bunch of blogs, n artworks (e.g. drawings, paintings, comics, n stuff...) see also: Dog-Weiner-Dog , Naked Philosophy Guy , Ask Dr N Sayne , CR4P , Diary of a Grey Alien Soldier , Robot Jesus , Uncle Stupid's Mildly-Amusing Deathbed Anecdotes, etc    
At least, one  Poem (...it's: here, within an interview - & thanks again, Morgen Bailey!)
A bunch of Horrifying Haikus ...
About 300 x Songs... (some of em, even ended up on, a couple of albums!)
2 x (nonfiction) books (eg here, both on: Movie Screenwriting)
Co-edited a book, on Transmedia Practice .
180 x PhD-blog posts (StoryAlity, also On Writering, and Outrageous Bullshit)
110 x Short Films (again - see my YouTube channel, I guess?)
30 x Flash-Philosophiction Stories (see:  Outrageous Bullshit )
A few Essays...
A few Short Stories. (e.g. Spartacus the Incubus, etc)
A bunch of computer-programs... (see, here)
1 x Ph.D. (it's free, online here)

& a hugely-important academic/scientific paper, about the meme, the unit of culture (2016, 2017, 2019)...
...And, a partridge in a pear tree.
---------------------
Hey; you want proof?

...YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE PROOF


2,000+ answers on Quora...


And as for the rest, I guess, see those links above... 
Also, after all that - I am still not really sure, what the whole point of my existence was? 
...But hey, I sure left a whole lotta crap behind, before I died.  :)

Thanks for reading/experiencing it all !!!
Or some of it,
Or, whatever. :D

-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)

& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).

& Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6741-066X

Descartes (1637) on creativity and consilience

Descartes on creativity and consilience
Portrait of René Descartes (1596-1650) - (after Frans Hals 1648), That symbol is an interrobang.
René Descartes was a very famous French thinker, but that's not his fault. 
He was a scientist, mathematician, geometer and philosopher. 
For one thing, he incorporated algebra into geometry, and we still use Cartesian co-ordinates: x for the horizontal, y for the vertical axis. 
For another thing, he had a big influence on Sir Isaac Newton. (Not bad.)

Some of Descartes' most famous writings include Discourse on the Method (1637), and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). Among many others.
And, if you read the book  Clear and Simple as the Truth (Thomas and Turner, 1994/2017), they mention his (classic) writing style, quite a bit! (see: pp. 124–125, 153–154)
Anyway, I wanted to show you some cool things that Descartes said about creativity and consilience . 

...And this was back in: 1637 !!! He was way ahead of his time... 

And/Or, maybe folks just didn't pay enough attention to what he was saying. (These things were true back in the year 1637, and also in the year 1641, and even in 1684; and they haven't stopped being true, yet. Well except the bit about the how the heart works.) In fact, you could even build a time machine, go back and check most times, and, they would still be true. (Strange, but true. Strange, because the French are usually wrong about most things, e.g. Continental Philosophy, etc. Though Bourdieu was a notable exception.)
Okay... (my all-time favourite dialog-line, in the movies) ... here they come :

Descartes expressed it thusly:  `RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND
RULE 1

The end of study should be to direct the mind towards the enunciation of sound and correct judgments on all matters that come before it. 

Whenever men notice some similarity between two things, they are wont to ascribe to each, even in those respects in which the two differ, what they have found to be true of the other. Thus they erroneously compare the sciences, which entirely consist in the cognitive exercise of the mind, with the arts, which depend upon an exercise and disposition of the body. They see that not all the arts can be acquired by the same man, but that he who restricts himself to one, most readily becomes the best executant, since it is not so easy for the same hand to adapt itself both to agricultural operations and to harp-playing, or to the performance of several such tasks as to one alone. 
Hence they have held the same to be true of the sciences also, and distinguishing them from one another according to their subject matter, they have imagined that they ought to be studied separately, each in isolation from all the rest. 

But this is certainly wrong.     ...Hence we must believe that all the sciences are so inter-connected that it is much easier to study them all together than to isolate one from all the others.' (Descartes, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, 1684)

So; what Descartes is talking about here, is 

consilience, the unity of knowledge.  

See consilience for more details.
For even more detail on twelve of the Rules, see  Rules for the Direction of the Mind: Descartes’s 12 Timeless Tenets of Critical Thinking (BrainPickings 2016)


---------------------------

Below are some supercool quotes from Descartes' Discourse on the Method (1637).

`For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations’ (DotM, Part 1, Descartes 1637, p. 2) 

This reminds me of Colin Martindale's great quote: 

`Some scholars are very learned. But maybe they learned all the wrong things.'

Reminds me of:  Continental Philosophy . (What a mess of wrongheadedness, all that is.)

Anyway, back to Descartes:

`Of philosophy I will say nothing, except that when I saw that it had been cultivated for many ages by the most distinguished men, and that yet there is not a single matter within its sphere which is not still in dispute, and nothing, therefore, which is above doubt...' (DotM, Part 1, Descartes 1637, p. 5)

Yes; Philosophy asks good questions, science gives good answers! See: The Tree of Knowledge .

`…I remained the whole day in seclusion, with full opportunity to occupy my attention with my own thoughts. Of these one of the very first that occurred to me was, that there is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those completed by a single master. Thus it is observable that the buildings which a single architect has planned and executed, are generally more elegant and commodious than those which several have attempted to improve, by making old walls serve for purposes for which they were not originally built.’ (Pt 2, p 7)
(This is kinda like, how: A camel is a mouse, designed by a committee.)
`In the same way I thought that the sciences contained in books (such of them at least as are made up of probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they are of the opinions of many different individuals massed together, are farther removed from truth than the simple inferences which a man of good sense using his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respecting the matters of his experience.' (Pt 2, p 7)
Watch out for trying to examine your own Epistemology. Can get spooky:
`The single design to strip one's self of all past beliefs is one that ought not to be taken by every one.’ (Pt 2, p. 8)
He goes back to hammering Philosophy.
`I had become aware, even so early as during my college life, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible, can be imagined, which has not been maintained by some one of the philosophers' (Pt 2, p 9)
(This is like Continental Philosophy. LOL.) Hey wait he has more:
`…the art of Lully, in speaking without judgment of things of which we are ignorant’ (Pt 2 p 9)
(I note, Donald Trump also does this constantly.)
Okay, so, here's the nub of it: 
Get ready for 4 things to get said about: Method...  (in fact, 4 methods!)
`The first [method] was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.
And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted. (Pt 2, p 10)
This one (Number the 4th) is always a bit tricky... i.e., How do you ever really know, when you know all of the important stuff? ...When, exactly, do you stop reading, in doing your Literature Review for your PhD ? (Answer: You never really know...! LOL. A crucial gem of wisdom may be hiding in the one book you didn't read or know about. Then again Big Data helps solve this problem, a lot.)
Here's some more nuggets of wisdom from Descartes:

`…very many are not aware of what it is that they really believe; for, as the act of mind by which a thing is believed is different from that by which we know that we believe it, the one act is often found without the other.’ (Part 3, p. 13)

(The above is like: Trump voters-!)

`…it is very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to act according to what is most probable’ (Pt 3, p 13)

But - then again: (stay skeptical!)
`After all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a little copper and glass, perhaps, that I take for gold and diamonds.’ (Pt 1, p. 2)
He (Descartes, in doing Philosophy, Science, etc) also seems to be putting himself in the flow state, or "following his bliss":
`This method, from the time I had begun to apply it, had been to me the source of satisfaction so intense as to lead me to, believe that more perfect or more innocent could not be enjoyed in this life; and as by its means I daily discovered truths that appeared to me of some importance, and of which other men were generally ignorant, the gratification thence arising so occupied my mind that I was wholly indifferent to every other object.’ (Pt 3, p 14)
Note “the ten-year rule” in creativity! (He says, he spent 9 years, testing out his Method - in travelling, and, talking to folks…)
`These nine years passed away, however, before I had come to any determinate judgment respecting the difficulties which form matter of dispute among the learned, or had commenced to seek the principles of any philosophy more certain than the vulgar. And the examples of many men of the highest genius, who had, in former times, engaged in this inquiry, but, as appeared to me, without success, led me to imagine it to be a work of so much difficulty, that I would not perhaps have ventured on it so soon had I not heard it currently rumored that I had already completed the inquiry.’
I think, this means: If he knew how long it would take, he wouldn’t have started the project!
The below bit, kinda reminds me of: me, (LOL) :
`But, as I am of a disposition that makes me unwilling to be esteemed different from what I really am, I thought it necessary to endeavor by all means to render myself worthy of the reputation accorded to me; and it is now exactly eight years since this desire constrained me to remove from all those places where interruption from any of my acquaintances was possible, and betake myself to this country, in which the long duration of the war has led to the establishment of such discipline, that the armies maintained seem to be of use only in enabling the inhabitants to enjoy more securely the blessings of peace and where, in the midst of a great crowd actively engaged in business, and more careful of their own affairs than curious about those of others, I have been enabled to live without being deprived of any of the conveniences to be had in the most populous cities, and yet as solitary and as retired as in the midst of the most remote deserts.’ (Pt 3 p 16)
Okay - so here comes the famous meme...
`But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum),was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.’ (Part 4, p 17)
Unfortunately, Discourse on the Method is in six parts. I say "unfortunately", because he could have left out Part 5, which is mostly some ideas he has on how the heart works (he thinks it's not a pump, but rather, a heating device that causes the pulse... hmmm. But, a very good try, considering it was only 1637!)
After going on (wrongly) about the heart in Part 5, he says, this: (note – Creativity! i.e. Imagination ). And note how, he talks about one's common sense, receiving new ideas? Sounds a lot like:  habitus to me!
`I had expounded all these matters with sufficient minuteness in the treatise which I formerly thought of publishing. And after these, I had shown what must be the fabric of the nerves and muscles of the human body to give the animal spirits contained in it the power to move the members, as when we see heads shortly after they have been struck off still move and bite the earth, although no longer animated; what changes must take place in the brain to produce waking, sleep, and dreams; how light, sounds, odors, tastes, heat, and all the other qualities of external objects impress it with different ideas by means of the senses; how hunger, thirst, and the other internal affections can likewise impress upon it divers ideas; what must be understood by the common sense (sensus communis) in which these ideas are received, by the memory which retains them, by the fantasy which can change them in various ways, and out of them compose new ideas, and which, by the same means, distributing the animal spirits through the muscles, can cause the members of such a body to move in as many different ways, and in a manner as suited, whether to the objects that are presented to its senses or to its internal affections, as can take place in our own case apart from the guidance of the will. ’ (Part 5, p. 28) 
So the bold bit above is about creativity. See Evolutionary Culturology for more.
He also rambles on a lot about God and the soul, but - he was also very worried about The Church because Galileo recently had a pretty rough time with those guys...
But hey - Check out this, re: The Dunning-Kruger Effect:
`I refer to those who imagine that they can master in a day all that another has taken twenty years to think out, as soon as he has spoken two or three words to them on the subject; or who are the more liable to error and the less capable of perceiving truth in very proportion as they are more subtle and lively. As to the opinions which are truly and wholly mine, I offer no apology for them as new-persuaded as I am that if their reasons be well considered they will be found to be so simple and so conformed, to common sense as to appear less extraordinary and less paradoxical than any others which can be held on the same subjects; nor do I even boast of being the earliest discoverer of any of them, but only of having adopted them, neither because they had nor because they had not been held by others, but solely because reason has convinced me of their truth.’ (Part 6, p. 38)
(Good call; it doesn't really matter who says it, as long as it's: a true fact.)
This problem below can occur, (sometimes) when you set about teaching (say) Screenwriting - or any other complex cultural activity:
`Though artisans may not be able at once to execute the invention which is explained in the Dioptrics, I do not think that any one on that account is entitled to condemn it; for since address and practice are required in order so to make and adjust the machines described by me as not to overlook the smallest particular, I should not be less astonished if they succeeded on the first attempt than if a person were in one day to become an accomplished performer on the guitar, by merely having excellent sheets of music set up before him.’ (Part 6, p. 38)
ie Things take time (i.e., trial and error, and error-correction to get right, but - all of life is doing science.)
(I also love, how he signs off -- basically, Leave me the hell alone to do my work, everyone! ...LOL)
`Of this I here make a public declaration, though well aware that it cannot serve to procure for me any consideration in the world, which, however, I do not in the least affect; and I shall always hold myself more obliged to those through whose favor I am permitted to enjoy my retirement without interruption than to any who might offer me the highest earthly preferments.’ (Part 6, p 39)

...Anyway, it's a cracking good read, so go check out, Discourse on the Method (Descartes 1637).
Though it caused "the mind-body problem", it's still a great argument for: why we are probably living in a Sim.
Personally, I think Dan Dennett (e.g. From Bacteria to Bach, 2018) has some much better (and rather more recent) ideas on what the mind is... 
Still, all told - not a bad effort, for 1637!
(And yes this post was glib, a bit cheeky, and even tongue-in-cheek at times. But, still: Descartes sure said a lot that relates to: consilience and creativity! So: Yay!)
And Thanks for reading!
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

Sans Forgetica... That's, what you are...

Sans Forgetica... That's, what you are... (to be sung to the tune of: `Unforgettable' by the Nats: Cole)
Hey so - there's a new (free!) font out, that's supposed to make you remember stuff that's written using it, better than: any other font. Probably.
See this (it only goes for like, a minute):

And - so here's where you can download it from.
(Also: Don't say, I never do anything for you :)

It is, truly: a font of wisdom.
Also, hey - see how they say "desirable difficulty" in that video above?
Well I am now saying....  this : (and I haven't heard anyone else say it before)

Desirable difficulty = stuff that puts you in "the sweet spot", where you can enter the flow state, in creativity. - Just sayin'.

Now, go and read my PhD on all that good stuff. (i.e., Creativity and Movies and Screenwriting, and, whatnot.) - As, that's free, too.
Hey, also - check this out:

I sort of made that, myself... sort of.
Basically, Nobel-prize-winning Danish quantum physicist Neils Bohr, said:

“The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” 

– Niels Bohr

So I've compressed it down into: the above, colourful-thing. In: sans forgetica. 
So - Maybe you can even remember it better now! 
(And especially, whenever listening to that Scrotus-guy, Donald Trump, as most of that that guy says is pure bullshit, and often when you invert it, it's: pure distilled crystalline, bullshit.)

For more on all that, see:


Hey, and I don't want to bohr you with too many quotes here, but, Niels Bohr also said:

“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.” -- also Neils Bohr, (apparently?).

Which is funny, cos it's true.

It is also a Profound Truth; (Try inverting it.)

Okay so here's one I prepared earlier:

"A non-expert is a humanimal who hasn't made any of the mistakes which can be made, in a broad field" (Velikovsky 2018, inverting Bohr)

Hmm - my flan didn't rise there.

Lemme try again:

"A layperson (or: amateur) is a humanimal who hasn't made any very public and professional mistakes ~ yet..." (Velikovsky 2018)

So, be (mostly) fearless, get right in there - and start trying stuff.

...You'll make mistakes - but hey, that's how you learn. Ya just gotta do: Science,

I mean - What's the worst that can happen-?
(Okay, so, sometimes, you can die, but - whatever.)

...I mean, sheesh kid, you should see, all of the ways, in which my 30 x (genius) movie screenplays haven't been made, over the past 20 years...

I mean a few of them, did get made, but I guess, that's:  The 1% Law in Screenwriting & Cultural & Biological Evolution , for you.


Anyway; I forget what we were talking about...?

Oh yeah, Sans Forgetica.

~Enjoy!

NB - I should note, in the interests of full disclosure: I am not connected to RMIT university in any way I can think of (or: remember), right now...
I mean, I gave some classes there (on Game Design, and Narrative Writing and Creativity, and whatnot), but - that was years ago.
Hey but anyway the font (sans forgetica) is free, so - cut it out, anyway.

PS - And yeah; I know I spelt "Neils" wrong as "Nils" in, the colourful-thing. I did that on porpoise. It's so I can track it, as a meme, a unit of culture. See: The Science of Memetics. Long story.

I am also tracking, the use of the word "humanimal", a word which I made up.

-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

In praise of Wired For Story (Cron 2012)

In praise of Wired For Story (Cron 2012)

I’ve been reading Lisa Cron’s great book, Wired For Story (2012). 
...If you’re a fiction writer (e.g. short stories, novels, prose, and even film writers…!), I highly recommend it!

Wired For Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science  to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (Cron 2012)

And, I just wanted to note a few pearly-gems of wisdom, from this great book…
Here is, just one:

`As John Irving once said, 

“Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.” 

Glib? Yeah, okay. But a worthy goal to shoot for.’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 17, bold emphasis mine)

It strikes me that, this greatadvice (or, heuristic / guideline / rule (of thumb) / algorithmic instruction) is similar to Blake Snyder’s (Save The Cat!) movie-screenwriting advice, of:

Have the Theme of the whole movie story on page 5, spoken out aloud, in a line of dialog… 

(Screenwriting guru Syd Field also previously said that the Theme in a movie script should be stated in dialog on page 3, but: whatever. ...Things change! And Story Gurus have different systems. 
My own system [ StoryAlityHigh-RoI Movie Screenwriting ] says, the 14% mark (e.g. page 11 of a 90-page movie script) is when the Theme should come out… 
So – be all that as it may…)
…In a short story, or a novel, stating the whole story in the first line, is: just a really great trick to do!
…Besides, it’s fun! A cool little writing-challenge! It also solves, the problem of: “What’s my first sentence in this story, going to be?”
(Hint: You can of course, wait till the story is written as a first rough draft, to come back and insert it! In fact, that may even be, a very good `rule of thumb’…)
As a writing mini-task, it also actually makes you work harder(or, maybe not harder, but just: a bit longer?) as a writer, mainly so’s the reader doesn’t have to! When they read that opening line, (well; if you’ve done it right?), they kinda know: where you’re going with this story!
(…just: Not, howyou’ll get there!)

---------------
…But - a Question: (Just playing Devil’s Avocado, now, for a moment)
Wait…Does every great story, ever, do this?
Let's look at some semi-random examples:

“Call me Ishmael.” (…Hmm, well, just in that case, not really?) 

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Yes!!) 

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Yes!!!) 

(Source: http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp... 

So - Maybe, as a fun exercise, go to:  100 Best First Lines From Novels ... And see, just how many of them, this John Irving `rule of thumb’ applies to – ?
(Namely: Have the very first line, tell the whole story!)

…Well, so, maybe not every single great (novel) story ever does it, but; Who even cares?

…I love it, and, what’s more,
I am going to do itwhenever I can, from now on! …So there.
It’s like, having a (hyper-compressed!) Abstract, or, a 25-word logline, sort of. But, inside the story! 
…Nice! (…Why didn’t I ever read this line of advice, by John Irving before?)
…And/Or, Why didn’t I ever know, or think of (discover) this, myself? 
Well anyway, now I do know it! And so do you! So = thank you, Lisa Cron!
And, thank you, brain science! (...Man, I love all that stuff.)
Moving right along - Cron (2012) also rightly notes,

`…here are the three basic things readers relentlessly hunt for, as they read that first page:
1. Whose story is it?
2. What’s happening here?
3. What’s at stake?’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 16)

Cron then cites a great opening sentence, in this case from Elizabeth George’s novel What Came Before He Shot Her:

 “Joel Campbell, eleven years old at the time, began his descent into murder with a bus ride.” 

(George, cited by Cron, 2012, p. 18)

Wow!
That opening sentence... sure does hook you right in!
(Well it did, me!)
As Cron notes, it also tells you: Whose story it is (Joel’s), what’s happening, and gives a sense of the stakes… (i.e., somebody got murdered, as that great philosopher, The Clash once said).
Also, I see, the titleof the Elizabeth George novel kind of not only attracts our attention, but gives us a bit of context also. It raises questions, that we want answered! (i.e., “What Came Before He Shot Her”… We wonder: Wait, who,shot who?)
The topic of murdersure seems to get our attention. …Ahem. (See David Buss on human Evolutionary Psychology, and, the things (subjects and topics) which tend to attract most human attention and thus, seem to - most often - get in the news headlines…)
(i.e., Whom got murdered? And, by whom? And, Why? …Wait, could this happen to: me…?)
In one way, the real job of the writer is: to trigger questions in the reader that they want answered.
i.e.: (The below is me, thinking further, on some of Cron 2012)

In a `Love/Romance’ genre story: Will the boy get the girl, and, will they live happily ever after?

In a Crime (and/or Mystery) genre story: Will the murderer be caught? 

In…any genre of story: Will, the protagonist(s) achieve their goal, (whatever, thatspecific overall goal, might be…?) …Or, if not, then what? - Is it at least, still, a satisfying story, on some level(s)-?  

(As: Tragedies / `unhappy endings’ can be awesome, too. See Hamlet, Manchester By The Sea, The Great Gatsby, and, whatnot.)

Anyway, below is another timeless gem, from Cron 2012, about writing a great story:

`Simply put, we are looking for a reason to care.
So for a story to grab us, not only must something be happening, but also there must be a consequence we can anticipate.
As neuroscience reveals, what draws us into a story and keeps us there is the firing of our dopamine neurons, signaling that intriguing information is on its way.’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 13)

 Aw Man: I love neuroscience...

(See my PhD blog! https://storyality.wordpress.com/)

I love Cron’s definitionof story, too:

`So what is a story? 

A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result. 

Breaking it down in the soothingly familiar parlance of the writing world, this translates to
“What happens” is the plot.
“Someone” is the protagonist.
The “goal” is what’s known as the story question.
And “how he or she changes” is what the story itself is actually about.’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 11)

This definition is also worth comparing with Jon Gottschall's (The Storytelling Animal, 2012): 

`Story = Character + Problem + Attempted Solution’ (Gottschall 2012)

Although, I note, not allgreat prose stories are about characters who change, I still really do love this approach in Cron (2012)-!
(As indeed, manygreat stories, are indeed about: Change...! Namely, How, a person adapts / changes / adjusts /shifts their Worldview, or their Psychology, or, Mindset. Or, their Emotionallandscape…! Or in other words: copingmechanisms! The adaptation of a system, to a change in its environment!)
In short, many great prose stories are showing potential ways, that [bio-psycho-socio-cultural] systems [e.g.: us, humanimals!] can adapt to their environment. …Or, in very short: Evolution!)
Cron (2012) also rightly writes:

`As counterintuitive as it may sound, a story is not about the plot or even what happens in it.
Stories are about how we, rather than the world around us, change.
They grab us only when they allow us to experience how it would feel to navigate the plot. Thus story, as we’ll see throughout, is an internal journey, not an external one.’ 

(Cron, 2012, pp. 11-2)

Cron makes another great point:

`Every single thing in a story—including subplots, weather, setting, even tone—must have a clear impact on what the reader is dying to know: 

Will the protagonist achieve her goal? 

What will it cost her in the process? 

How will it change her in the end? 

What hooks us, and keeps us reading, is the dopamine-fueled desire to know what happens next.’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 20)

In each great chapter of this great book, Cron also really busts some old writing myths:

`MYTH: Beautiful Writing Trumps All 

 REALITY: Storytelling Trumps Beautiful Writing, Every Time’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 20)

And Cron also has great (really helpful) checklists, at the end of each chapter!
...Check out the book, it's great...!
Cron also cites my favourite literary scholar, Brian Boyd (whose work hugely influenced my StoryAlity PhD):

`Think of it as the “So what?” factor.
It’s what lets readers in on the point of the story, cluing them in to the relevance of everything that happens in it. Put plainly, it tells them what the story is about. 

As literary scholar Brian Boyd so aptly points out, a story with no point of reference leaves the reader with no way of determining what information matters: 

Is it: “the color of people’s eyes or their socks? The shape of their noses or their shoes? The number of syllables in their name?”’ 

(Cron, 2012, pp. 24-5)

I love this book! So full of useful writing advice and great wisdom.
And in terms of, a story as a unified whole:

`A story is designed, from beginning to end, to answer a single overarching question.’ 

(Cron 2012, p. 25)

A great heuristic!

And on theme :

`Happily, theme actually boils down to something incredibly simple: 

• What does the story tell us about what it means to be human?
• What does it say about how humans react to circumstances beyond their control? 

Theme often reveals your take on how an element of human nature—loyalty, suspicion, grit, love—defines human behavior.' 

(Cron 2012, pp. 29-30)

 And Cron has yet more great advice:

`So why not take a second to ask yourself,
What is it I want my readers to walk away thinking about?What point does my story make?How do I want to change the way my reader sees the world?’  

(Cron 2012, p. 31)

Another myth, busted by Cron:

`Myth: The plot is what the story is about.
 Reality: A story is about how the plot affects the protagonist.’ (Cron 2012, p. 31)

I also (very) often think about Mood, Tone, Atmosphere, Emotion in stories. (...And, in movies!)
So here also, is another great call:

`Tone belongs to the author; mood to the reader.' 

(Cron 2012, p. 35)

And Cron also notes how  Theme comes last, behind character and plot , for the reader:

`...Besides, did you ever go into a bookstore saying to yourself, 

What I’d really like is a book about survival and how catastrophes bring out the gumption in some and not in others? 

Or I’m dying to curl up with a good book that traces the defects of society back to the defects of human nature? 

Or What I’m so in the mood for is a book that is a metaphor for Latin America? 

I don’t think so. 

Which isn’t to say that you might not leave with Gone with the Wind, Lord of the Flies, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, whose authors, when pressed, described their themes as such.’ 

(Cron 2012, p 36)

As for information-processing, Cron makes another brilliant point :

`In the second it takes you to read this sentence, your senses are showering you with over 11,000,000 pieces of information. Your conscious mind is capable of registering about forty of them. 

And when it comes to actually paying attention? 

On a good day, you can process seven bits of data at a time. 

On a bad day, five. 

On one of those days? More like minus three.’ 

(Cron, 2012, p. 7)

Brain science tells us, every single thought or experience is accompanied by emotion:

`According to Damasio, “No set of conscious images of any kind on any topic ever fails to be accompanied by an obedient choir of emotions and consequent feelings.” 

If we’re not feeling, we’re not breathing. A neutral protagonist is an automaton.’

(Cron 2012, pp 47-8)

Here is Lisa Cron's (great) TED Talk:

Lisa Cron: Wired For Story (TED, 2014)

A few more of my favourite quotes from Wired For Story (Cron 2012) are below:

(All aspiring writers should tattoo these behind their eyelids!)

Some are: great `general fiction writing Guidelines / Heuristics'; others are brain science, and how it applies to (or gives insights into) human nature, and `drama', and writing and reading...

All are solid gold, so you should read the book!

----------------------

`The bigger the word, the less emotion it conveys.' (Cron 2012, p. 63)

This is a great one. i.e., Never use a long word, when a short one will do the trick. (Well; unless for some reason, you really want to avoid conveying emotion! Which can be fine; in its place!)

One of my favourite thinkers is Steven Pinker... Cron notes:

`Steven Pinker defines intelligent life as “using knowledge of how things work to attain goals in the face of obstacles.”’ (Cron 2012, p. 66)

I'm always interested in definitions of intelligence, mainly due to: my fascination with intelligence (`g'), multiple intelligences (e.g. see Howard Gardner), and, Artificial Intelligence...! (JTV)

`As Pinker is quick to point out, without a goal, everything is meaningless.' (Cron 2012, p. 67) 

In other words, as Popper notes: Life creates Values, and Values create Goals.

Also Cron points out, all lifeforms are designed as survival machines:

`Remember, we’re hardwired to instantly evaluate everything in life on the basis of: is it safe or not?’ (Cron 2012, p. 105)

`In order to survive, we’re wired to draw conclusions about everything we see, whether or not we have all–or any–of the facts…’ (Cron 2012, p. 85)

The above is a serious cognitive bias, which causes a great many problems!

`Scenery without subtext is a travelogue.' (Cron 2012, p. 123)

The above is just a great reminder that scenery description (in fiction) can get boring fast, unless it serves a real story purpose!

`Story is about how we handle the conflict of: the battle between fear and desire.’ (Cron 2012, p. 126) 

Side Note: Stanley Kubrick's first feature film was called Fear and Desire ! (Another Side Note: It wasn't very good, but that's not the point. Or, maybe it is the point... Even creative geniuses take time to learn the storytelling craft! And, have to learn via Theory, Trial and Error, what works. In short, even in the Arts, all of life is doing science. ...For real!)

This next one ties into the fact that `g' intelligence (aka I.Q.) is pattern-recognition:

`...the brain is wired to hunt for meaningful patterns in everything, the better to predict what will happen next based on the repetition or the alteration of the pattern (which means, first and foremost, that there need to be meaningful patterns for the reader to find).’ (Cron 2012, p. 131)

`We’re hardwired to love problem solving; when we figure something out, the brain releases an intoxicating rush of neurotransmitters that say, “Good job!” The pleasure of story is trying to figure out what’s really going on (which means that stories that ignore the first two facts tend to offer the reader no pleasure at all).’ (Cron 2012, pp. 131-2)

In other words, Popper was always right: All Life Is Problem Solving (1999)...

`Those who are truly brave tend not to see themselves as brave at all.’ (Cron 2012, p 135) 

The above is just a great observation about Human Nature. Like, a proverb! Good to remember when depicting any brave character in your writing.

`...the three dreaded Cs: a convenience, a contrivance, or a coincidence.’ (Cron 2012, p. 137)

Yikes! The above is just a great point about 3 `pitfalls' for early-career writers to avoid. They can "break" your story for the reader. (In: a big, bad way.)

 `The good news is, when it comes to keeping your story on track, it boils down to the mantra if, then, therefore. 

If I put my hand in the fire (action), thenI’ll get burned (reaction). Therefore, I’d better not put my hand in the fire (decision). 

Action, reaction, decision—it’s what drives a story forward.’ (Cron 2012, p. 147)

I LOVE THIS...
The above point by Cron (2012) reminds me that, (a) we're Ev Psych systems (with IF/THEN rules built in over deep time;


Source: Models of Human Nature, and Ev Psych


Harari also notes in Sapiens (2015) and Homo Deus (2017), that  emotions are algorithms )... check out, from the 22 minutes, through to the 27 minutes mark of this great video:


Harari: "What we call emotions are actually: algorithms, calculating probabilities" (@ 26 mins)

So then... the real `trick' - as a fiction writer - is: How do you trigger the right algorithms (the right: emotions) in your reader...?

...And, moreover, the above quote by Cron (on: ` If, Then, Therefore' algorithms ), also reminds me that (b) we're all probably living in a Sim...
But anyway - moving right along:

`…the pleasure doesn’t come from the joy of reading a compelling story as much as from having solved a difficult problem, which is genuinely intoxicating. ’ (Cron 2012, p. 150)

The above makes more sense in context; so, read the book!
But again, a key point is that, solving problems, gives us a drug rush!
So - use that, for your reader's benefit! (And: pleasure!)
...This one (below) is a doozy: Cron has a truly great insight here...
She suggests that the old `rule of thumb', `Show, Don't Tell' is figurative , not literal...(!)

`MYTH: "Show, Don't Tell" is literal - Don't tell me John is sad, show him crying. 

 REALITY: "Show, Don't Tell" is figurative - Don't tell me John is sad, show me why he's sad.'
(Cron 2012, p. 152)

...Which, is a major insight, in my view!
Just: brilliant writing advice!!!

And, the quote below, I like, simply as: I see the world using the Systems View; and Systems (including us humanimals) are, energy, information, and matter. But - all 3 can be `reduced' to: information! (Which is also, why: we're probably, living in a Sim... but anyway!)

`As with life, new information causes us to re-evaluate the meaning and emotional weight of all that preceded it, and to see the future with fresh eyes. 

In a story, it influences how we interpret every single thing that happens—how we read every nuance—and in so doing raises specific expectations about what might occur in the future.’ (Cron 2012, p. 161)

The brain is designed as a prediction machine (to help us: survive and replicate). And, in a sense, all storytelling is just about managing information:
Namely, What information does the reader get, and, when (and how) do they get it?
And, what effect will it [each new packet or chunk or even bit/byte of information] have...?
(Which is also why, structure, and, setups & payoffs, and surprises, twists and reversals are: so important! In: masterful storytelling.)

The below is such an important heuristic for: self-editing! (i.e., Your own writing.)

`A digression is any piece of information that we don’t need and therefore don’t know what to do with.' (Cron 2012, p. 164)

And omg, I LOVE this one (below)...
As, this, is actually what my (2016) PhD, on highest vs lowest RoI movie storytelling was all `about'!

`There’s an old saying: 

`Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.’ 

The trouble is, bad judgment can be deadly.'
(Cron 2012, p. 167)

I also love the truth and simplicity (thus: beauty) of this:

`Information is currency.' (Cron 2012, p. 174) 

...Did I mention, how much I love this book? 
Buy it! Read it! (...I'm an Information Scientist, among other things.) 

Here is a great one, too:

`In the beginning, no-one ever spends more than the minimum effort required to solve a problem. 

But honestly, can you remember the last time the smallest amount of effort solved anything?’ (Cron 2012, p. 176)

Ahem... Did I mention, how much I love this book?
Buy it! Read it!
(I'm also a Problem-Solving Studyer, among other things.)

Now here comes a fun one:

`There’s no such thing as a free lunch–unless it’s poisoned.’ (Cron 2012, p. 178)

Check out the above... It's what Pinker (2015) and Thomas and Turner (2017) call `Classic' Style writing...
It's creative writing! (i.e., New, useful, and surprising is: the tripartite definition of creativity.)
e.g. Take an old cliche, and freshen it up!
...I love it. I love, this book.
I love the writing in it.
I heart Lisa Cron. But mainly: her book!
Read it! Buy it!

`The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: to break a pattern.' (Cron 2012, p. 187)

The above, from Cron's Chapter 10, is all about: Setups and Payoffs. Fantastic stuff!

I love this too:

`Memories aren’t just for reminiscing. They never were. Memories are for navigating the now.’ (Cron 2012, p 201)

The human brain is about: memory, computation, and learning.
That's really all you need, to build an Artificial Intelligence.
(Sounds easy, right? In practice, it's: complex!)

Below, I love how Cron defines Pacing; 
(it's not just about: alternating "action" scenes with "quiet" ones!)

`Pacing is the length of time between moments of conflict.’ (Cron 2012, p. 204)

And - I also really love this one:

`Ch 12 – The Writer’s Brain on Story

COGNITIVE SECRET: It takes long-term, conscious effort to hone a skill before the brain assigns it to the cognitive unconscious.
STORY SECRET: There’s no writing; there’s only rewriting. (Cron 2012, p. 220)

In other words, Creative Practice Theory -!

Source: Creative Practice Theory

As a writer, you have to learn - and internalize - all the `rules' of writing, through: practise, practise, practise. Until it becomes a reflex action, not a conscious task.
Like, say, doing `drills', in the army, or, when you learn mixed martial arts, or boxing!

In Creativity Science, this process is called `internalizing the domain'...

You have to embed all the rules / skills / moves / techniques in your mind and even body, so you can execute them all together, flawlessly.
Every single sentence is - sometimes - not just doing about ten things at once, sometimes, it's doing hundreds of things all at once!
Of course, if you've done it right, the average reader never even suspects... They just: enjoy the ride!


And Cron even cites `the ten-year rule' in creativity! (Yay!)

`...Nobel laureate Herbert Simon estimates that it takes about ten years to really master a subject. By then we've gathered upward of fifty thousand "chunks" of knowledge which the brain has deftly indexed so our cognitive unconscious can access each chunk on its own whenever necessary.' 

(Cron 2012, p. 221)  

(Side Note: When Cron mentions "chunks" above, she means: George Miller's 1956 work on information processing, memory and cognition. Anyway read the book for all the details! - JTV)



...In summation, 
I very highly recommend this terrific book, for any prose fiction writer...!



...And, here also, are a few others I would recommend...!



P.S. - I mean, a small caveat: Cron’s (2012) brilliant book is mainly about writing: Novels...…Short stories,may have, slightly-different criteria…!(But, loads of it, also definitely applies!)

...Write On!


And, thanks for reading!

~JTV
-----------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

-----------------------------------------
REFERENCES

In praise of "The Sense of Style" (Pinker 2015)

In praise of:

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Pinker 2015)


What a wonderful book!

Classic writing style has never been more fun to read!

I particularly loved:

`Chapter 2:  

A Window onto the World.   

Classic Style as an antidote

for 

Academese, Bureaucratese, Corporatese, Legalese, Officialese,

and other kinds of Stuffy Prose.'  

(Pinker 2015, p. 26)

From the end of that spectacular chapter:

"In this chapter I have tried to call your attention to many of the writerly habits that result in soggy prose: metadiscourse, signposting, hedging, apologizing, professional narcissism, clichés, mixed metaphors, metaconcepts, zombie nouns, and unnecessary passives.  

Writers who want to invigorate their prose could try to memorize that list of don’ts.  

But it’s better to keep in mind the guiding metaphor of classic style: a writer, in conversation with a reader, directs the reader’s gaze to something in the world. 

Each of the don’ts corresponds to a way in which a writer can stray from this scenario." 

(Pinker 2015, p. 56, bold emphasis mine) 

So my advice is: read the book!

My brief (and sometimes waggish) summary of some of those tricky writing tips include:

AVOID, LIKE YOU WOULD THE BUBONIC PLAGUE (which, can kill you):
Metadiscourse (which includes, Signposting, which is coming up next, and see what I did there).

Metadiscourse is: `verbiage about verbiage, such as subsection, review, and discussion. Inexperienced writers often think they’re doing the reader a favor by guiding her through the rest of the text with a detailed preview. In reality, previews that read like a scrunched-up table of contents are there to help the writer, not the reader.' (Pinker 2015, p. 38)

Signposting - Instead of explaining (or, previewing) what your next section or chapter will do, (e.g., In this next section, I will discuss the causes of ...) and instead, Ask the reader an interesting question! (e.g., What makes [X]s do [Y]?).
Likewise, instead of summarizing (e.g.: In the section/chapter above I have shown that...) in Classic Style you should use figurative language to demonstrate a literal view. Convert the language into a mental "view". (e.g.: As we have just seen...)

Hedging - Stop using weasel-words! `Many writers cushion their prose with wads of fluff that imply that they are not willing to stand behind what they are saying, including almost, apparently, comparatively, fairly, in part, nearly, partially, predominantly, presumably, rather, relatively, seemingly, so to speak, somewhat, sort of, to a certain degree, to some extent, and the ubiquitous I would argue (does this mean that you would argue for your position if things were different, but are not willing to argue for it now?).' (Pinker 2015, p. 43)

Apologizing - Don't apologize that there is no standard definition for the topic you are discussing, nor open by saying it is "complex" and there is "uncertainty" and "controversy." Pinker writes: `In classic style, the writer credits the reader with enough intelligence to realize that many concepts aren’t easy to define and that many controversies aren’t easy to resolve. She is there to see what the writer will do about it.' (Pinker 2015, p. 42)

Professional narcissism - Don't say "In recent times, researchers have focussed on the problem of...[X]" just pose the question and answer it: "[X] is the mystery. How does it work?".

On this, Pinker says: `researchers are apt to lose sight of whom they are writing for, and narcissistically describe the obsessions of their guild rather than what the audience really wants to know. Professional narcissism is by no means confined to academia. Journalists assigned to an issue often cover the coverage, creating the notorious media echo chamber. Museum signs explain how the shard in the showcase fits into a classification of pottery styles rather than who made it or what it was used for. Music and movie guides are dominated by data on how much money a work grossed the weekend it was released, or how many weeks it spent in the theaters or on the charts. Governments and corporations organize their Web sites around their bureaucratic structure rather than the kinds of information a user seeks.' (Pinker 2015, p. 41)

Clichés - Try and create new cliches! Don't just use the old ones. - It's boring!
(The movie mogul Sam Goldfish said: "What we need around here are some new cliches!")

Mixed metaphors - Keep it consistent, stupid! 
Pinker says: `Classic prose is a pleasant illusion, like losing yourself in a play. The writer must work to keep up the impression that his prose is a window onto the scene rather than just a mess of words. Like an actor with a wooden delivery, a writer who relies on canned verbal formulas will break the spell. This is the kind of writer who gets the ball rolling in his search for the holy grail, but finds that it’s neither a magic bullet nor a slam dunk, so he rolls with the punches and lets the chips fall where they may while seeing the glass as half-full, which is easier said than done.
Avoid clichés like the plague— it’s a no-brainer. (12) When a reader is forced to work through one stale idiom after another, she stops converting the language into mental images and slips back into just mouthing the words.' (Pinker 2015, pp 45-6)

Metaconcepts - These are abstractions of abstractions! `Could you recognize a “level” or a “perspective” if you met one on the street? Could you point it out to someone else? What about an approach, an assumption, a concept, a condition, a context, a framework, an issue, a model, a process, a range, a role, a strategy, a tendency, or a variable? These are metaconcepts – concepts about concepts.' (Pinker 2015, p. 49)

These mean your prose is too abstract, and not concrete. If you really have to use a "model", a "strategy", etc, then, immediately follow it up with examples! Paint a visual picture!

In Classic Style: You put the reader in the scene with you, and make it so that you are both viewing the object that you are talking about.

Then again - an actual  scientific model is okay, if you include a diagram, in my view. e.g.: See the Creative Practice Theory model. Or say, the Systems Model of Creativity.

But of course - in Classic Style you should also include concrete examples, right after mentioning any abstract concept. (Like I just did above, with those 2 links, to CPT and the Systems Model of Creativity.)

Zombie nouns - e.g. "There is no anticipation of a cancellation" is better said "It's still on." Pinker writes: "The nominalization rule takes a perfectly spry verband embalms it into a lifeless noun by adding a suffix like –ance, –ment, –ation, or –ing.Instead of affirming an idea, you effect its affirmation ; rather than postponing something, you implement a postponement. The writing scholar Helen Sword calls them zombie nounsbecause they lumber across the scene without a conscious agent directing their motion." (Pinker 2015, p. 50)

and finally, Pinker (2015) warns against:

Unnecessary passives - Make the language active (active not passive verbs) unless there is a need for the passive. (Sometimes the passive voice is better! Depends on the exact problem-situation.) 


====================
And so, those are but a fraction of the priceless advice in this wonderful book!

A crucial point - and which, as far as I know, nobody has ever made before, I would like to make [note the signposting, but I think it's worth it this time] is:

Classic Style is, literally, creative writing.
Namely, the standard bipartite definition of creativity (Runco & Jaeger 2012) is: an artifact (word, sentence, paragraph, book, movie, joke, etc - a unit of culture) that is "new and useful", and the tripartite definition of creativity is: new, useful and surprising.

Now...

Just to use one example from the above excellent list by Pinker, let's look at:

Cliches!

Pinker 2015 (rightly) adjures (i.e. advises, if you have never seen that word before) on Plain vs. Classic Style:

`The early bird gets the worm, for example, is plain. 

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese is classic. ' 

(Pinker 2015, p. 30)

Wait, How does creativity work, again? 
Okay well - stated formally, by Martindale (1989):

`Ultimately, all creative products have this quality: old ideas or elements are combined in new ways. 

This is the case for all domains of creativity.’ 

(Martindale, 1989, p. 212, bold emphasis mine).

So, with his book, Pinker is showing us:

How to make an old thing (e.g.: a cliche): new, useful and surprising. 

Thus: officially, creative.

Did you catch that? It's a profound truth. 
(Profound, because the opposite of it is also true; namely: using cliches is uncreative writing.)
Pinker is showing us: how to be - literally - creative in our writing...!

Let's break it down:

1. "New" = Combine two old things, to get a new thing. 

Namely, combine the phrase "The early bird gets the worm" with another phrase - a joke, in this case - ("but") "the second mouse gets the cheese."

2. "Useful" = Okay so the utility of any solution depends on the precise problem-situation, and how well it is solved by that creative artifact (idea, process, or product).

In this case, the problem (i.e., task, goal, objective) is:

I want not to bore my readers! 

I want to do the opposite, namely entertain, or educate, or amuse, or inform, (etc - insert other possible goals here, there may well be many goals.)

The new thing - the actual phrase: "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese" - is: entertaining as well as informative, as it demonstrates for us, how to do classic writing. So it is indeed: useful!

At least; the new twist on an old cliche shows, just one of the very many stylistic tricks, devices, moves, or techniques, of Classic Style writing. (There are literally hundreds of heuristics for Classic (prose) Style. It's much like: Screenwriting Heuristics.)

And finally: (in looking at:  1.   new, 2. useful, 3. surprising as the 3 criteria for creativity...)

3. "Surprising" = unexpected.
The 2nd half of the sentence ("but the second mouse gets the cheese.") is an extra added (and/or, `new') twist on an old cliché, or turn of phrase!

I, for one, didn't see the second part of the phrase, coming! It was a nice surprise.
I mean to say: I could not have predicted it. (And: I had not heard/seen/did not know that specific phrase/joke before. So, it was also new . To me! (And, no doubt, to many other readers, who also have not heard that entertaining phrase before.)

So it is - officially - a creative sentence.  New, useful and surprising .

It achieves all the three goals/criteria, at once!

But - what is most amazing: Pinker (2015) does this, over and over and over...!

Sentence after sentence after sentence!!!

Thus:

He is super-creative in his writing.

Super: Classic Style!

My admiration and appreciation for this kind of writing knows no boundary conditions! (I was going to say "Knows no bounds", but that seems a cliche. And I am trying to write in Classic Style more often. It takes a while to learn. Practise makes... less-imperfect.)

Have I made myself clear? Here is my (new, useful & surprising) point:

Classic Style writing, literally is creative writing.Classic Style writing, actually is creative writing.Classic Style writing, really is creative writing.
My favourite writers/thinkers are (to name only seven of hundreds):

Charles Darwin, Stanley Kubrick, Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Brian Boyd, Steven Pinker, Helen Sword...

And, guess what?

They all write in Classic Style!
...And, guess what else?

Steven Pinker has written a book (2015) on Classic Style, in Classic Style!

(That is an amazing feat! He actually: walks the talk-!)

And, it is an absolute pleasure to read.

And: informs, educates, explains, entertains!

...I LOVE IT!

...Why are you not reading it, right now???

(Okay, maybe you first have to finish reading this blog post.)

Okay, it's over, so: GO!  :)

And sprint, don't perambulate.


As an aside - for my next trick, I am actually going to try and write a book in the Classic Style. 
It is about: this.
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

In praise of Stylish Academic Writing (Sword 2012)

Stylish Academic Writing (Sword 2012)

I should say up front, some of my favourite academic scholarly (and even general audience) writers include Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Brian Boyd and Richard Dawkins, among so many others... (and now also - Helen Sword!)

To explain - I've just been reading this absolutely terrific book:
Stylish Academic Writing (Sword 2012)

And, since it is such a glowingly-remarkable book, I shall now make some glowing remarks about it...!

But first some more Backstory: I am aiming to improve my academic writing style.

So with this goal in mind, recently, I have read:

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Pinker 2012).

and also

Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose (Thomas and Turner, 1994/2017), which I also blogged about here.

At any rate, of the three, Helen Sword's (2012) book was the most enjoyable to read! I loved it.

Not least as, the methodology underpinning it reminds me so much of my Ph.D study (2016), which compares the advice in the movie screenwriting manuals to actual movie success and failure...(!)

...In short, I adore this way of thinking!

And, I soooo wish I had known about this wonderful book, when I did my Ph.D.

But better late than never, as I now aim to write a book... For both a general and academic audience. (Please wish me luck.)

In the book, Sword (2012) has presented invaluable wisdom resulting from not just one, but two wonderfully-useful studies:

The first is a study of 100 (yes, n=100!) academic writing style guide manuals from 2000-2010 (a study conducted by Louisa Shen under Sword's supervision) which examines their (a) prescriptions and (b) cautions, about various academic writing techniques.

This is a brief snapshot of some of the results of that study:



(But - you really must read the book itself, probably also including its Appendix, to understand the details of the above results, and their implications for academic writers...!) 

Meanwhile the second study informing the advice in Sword (2012) is an examination of 500 academic articles (50 papers, each drawn from 10 academic disciplines: Medicine, Evolutionary Biology, Computer Science, Higher Education, Psychology, Anthropology, Law, Philosophy, History, and Literary Studies). (Sword is herself a Literary scholar, and her thinking and writing is such a pleasure to absorb!)

And, here are two more tables from the book, with some of the results from that study, results which form the majority of the book's content:


(But again - you really must read the book itself, to understand the details of the above results, and their important implications for academic writers!) 

And lastly a third incredibly-informative and useful table from this excellent book:


(But did I mention? - You really must read the book itself, to understand the details of the above results, and their important implications for academic writers! Not least as I have deliberately reproduced them a little bit blurry here, as I really think you should buy and read the book.) 

And finally here is my very brief - and not at all comprehensive - summary of the content of book. 
Sword (2012) gives sage advice:on capturing and maintaining the reader's... attention!on do's and don'ts for crafting your article - or even book - Title, and even Section and/or Chapter Headings. (Loads of nifty tricks right here!)on structuring your articles (i.e., IMRAD [Introduction, Method, Results, Analysis, Discussion] structure vs. bespoke structure vs... hybrid?)on choices you as a writer can make about deviating from disciplinary conventions (in style, form, content, tone, and more!)on imitating the common versus imitating the successful in academic writing (and, see my PhD for the same approach in movie screenwriting!)on personal voice (and the use or avoidance of personal pronouns!)on establishing bonds with your reader!on assessing different reader-types' responses (experts, colleagues, nonacademic friends, strangers... even strange friends...)on turning the abstract (ideas, concepts, theory) into the concrete (images, metaphors, analogies, scenes, anecdotes) and why it's a Very Good Idea...on avoiding abstract nounson concrete nouns and vivid verbs - and on great reasons for keeping them close together in a sentence!on passive vs active verbs!on curbing clutter. Kinda like Strunk & White's classic "Omit unnecessary words" (only: better!)on avoiding jargonitis (or, using it well, when it's actually advisable!)on why jargon is like a computer macro!on avoiding repetitionon avoiding repetitionon Genette, re: paratexts and why you really should think about them!on when to use semi-colons in: a Title! (And: When not to. And: Why) Scientifically-Proven Creativity Tricks!* e.g. "For inspiration, find an engaging title from a discipline other than your own and mimic its structure. No one in your discipline need ever know.”" (Sword 2012, pp. 74-5)  on CARS vs. the problem-solution model!How to hook your readers!!! (You can even open by talking about figs from every angle! Be honest, have you ever tried it? - What about plums? ...Just sayin'.)On using: Anecdotes! Scenes! Scenarios! Quotes! Surprising facts! (and more!)The many different ways you can use: Story! And different types of story! (e.g. the research story; the researcher's story; a story from within the research, and so on!) ...Stories keep us compelled to read on! (So: you can use that!)on point-of-view... (Have you ever been an atom, an animal, an alloy? Start now! Eminent creative geniuses do this, so why shouldn't you?)on the crucial difference between the ole "Show Don't Tell" guideline (in: drama/screen media) and "Show AND Tell" (in: stylish academic writing!)on irregular verbs! And how Pinker wrote a whole half-a-book about them!on when to use: Case Studies!on Nabokov's butterflies! Did you know you can identify butterfly species by examining their genitals closely? (I thought about moving "closely" in front of examining but it wasn't as funny)on the use of Humour! And when not to use: Humor!(That's not a typo.)on Evolutionary Arms Races-!!!on how images and words have different departments in the brain! on using diagrams and/or illustrations!on using Figurative Language!on Foucault and the panopticon! (sort of)on Foucault and Derrida: What's the différance?on having a good hard look at yourself in the mirror, when you do use jargon! (Mainly, as the actress said to the bishop: What's your motivation?)on metaphors! Like: sentences as bricks!How Woolf drew a diagram of the structure of one of her stories! Because: Who's afraid of drawing a diagram?on literary allusions! (see what I did there)on Paragraph Outlines! (Like a Scene Breakdown for writing a film script; same-same, only different!)on how different citation styles (e.g. APA 6th, MLA, Chicago, etc) can actually change your modes of thinking-! e.g. In MLA you think: author, author! In APA you think: facts, facts! (Well; sort of.)on when and how and why to use Endnotes and/or Footnotes** on: expressing complex ideas clearly !!!on avoiding pretentious obscurantism !!!on how to write better Abstracts!on Watson and Crick (1953) cracking DNA and their cheeky little note  in there about how: something had not escaped their attention!on: writing outside the carton! (ok, box)on borrowing from the best-est!on more on: creativity!on how: Move over, The 6 C's of creativity , because here comes... the 6 c's of stylish academic writing: 

"communication, craft, creativity" 

and 

"concreteness, choice and courage" 

(Sword 2012, p. 173) 

But you will really have to read the book to register the details. (Words are useful tools of information-compression but sometimes you need to read the long version. Not just: my riskily glib and frivolous bullet-point summary of it!)The book provides wonderful samples of stylish academic prose throughout, including examples by Pinker, Dennett, Boyd and Dawkins! (Yaaaaay! Found my peeps!) 
It also analyzes examples of bad academic writing, showing just exactly where they went wrong...! 
And in fact - one fascinating exemplary paper made me realize - to my horror - that President Trump (sorry to even mention his name) was predicted in 2003. Namely: "What Happens When Authoritarians Inherit the Earth? A Simulation" (Altemeyer 2003).  (The horror... The horror...)
And hey - get this - there's even a fun and helpful website to test your writing out on!

"THINGS TO TRY 

•  For a playful insight into what ails a sagging paragraph, go to the Writer’s Diet Web site (http://www.writersdiet.com) and paste a sample of your writing (one thousand words maximum) into the online WritersDiet test, a free diagnostic tool designed to tell you whether your sentences are “flabby or fit.” (Sword 2012, p. 60)

In short, in my view - this book is a must-read for all academic scholars!
~Enjoy!!!
--------------------
FOOTNOTES (and/or Endnotes, hard to say in a blog-post)
* I am not making this up. i.e., specifically I am not making up, this part: Scientifically-Proven Creativity Tricks!* e.g. "For inspiration, find an engaging title from a discipline other than your own and mimic its structure. No one in your discipline need ever know.”" (Sword 2012, pp. 74-5)   As the scientific study of creativity shows that, borrowing ideas from neighbouring (or even, distant-!) domains of knowledge (i.e., academic disciplines) is a proven trick that a vast number of eminent creative geniuses have used... I am not making this up. I have a PhD in creativity. In: Movies. And Screenwriting. 
In short, as Helen Sword (2012) advises: Imitate the successful !!!  (And what's more - try and do the opposite, or at least do something different from, the not-so-successful / effective / creative !)

** - and even asterisks!

Thanks for reading!
In short I want to thank and praise Helen Sword for writing this wonderful book. I now have a much greater appreciation for great writing! 
My next goal in life is to master some (or even all) of her wonderfully helpful prescriptions! 
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of the quote is unknown to me)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over. You can stop reading now.

Styles of writing in: `Clear and Simple as the Truth' by Thomas & Turner

So, I've just been reading:

Clear and Simple as the Truth - Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (Thomas & Turner 1994 / 2017)
And - it's terrific. Read it!
I was alerted to its existence by this (also-excellent) book: 
The Sense of Style (Pinker 2015) 
As, see the [9] minutes mark to the [30] mins mark (or so - in fact watch it from start to finish), of this great lecture, by Steven Pinker from 2014:


Steven Pinker on The Sense of Style (Talks at Google, 2014)
Anyway - back to Clear and Simple as the Truth (2017), as that is the point of this post.
So - I've been a professional writer for 25 years, have also been reading stuff for 40 years (and - a professional movie & TV script reader for 20 years) and, didn't consciously know that there were some [8] very important categories (styles) of prose (nonfiction) and poetry and novel and play, writing. 
But Thomas and Turner (2017) lay these 8 styles out clearly (and simply), and: I like them! 
So this (below) is my uber-brief Summary of what they say, in the book:
The 8 major styles of writing are: 
Plain style, Classic style, Reflexive style, Practical style, Contemplative style, Romantic style, Prophetic style, and Oratorical style. 
At least, from pages 72 through 97 of their book, those are the categories (or: styles) of writing they explain, and with examples and critiques of those examples. 
But I do note, on page 69 they say this:

"...style is plain, classic, romantic, contemplative, oratorical, sublime, prophetic, practical, or diplomatic."

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 69). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition (2017). 

And, Diplomatic is not explained in detail as a style, in the book...
And I note, Sublime is not explicitly discussed as a category quite like the others are in pages 72-97. But - they do say:

"The closest model in classical antiquity for our analysis of classic style is Longinus’s analysis of “the sublime” in On the Sublime, perhaps the most brilliant treatment of a style ever written." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 69). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

So, here's the thing: as I understand it, Classic style is Plain style but with some fancy bits added on, and, Plain style is basically (more or less) very close to what Longinus (long ago) called: Sublime style. 
And Now, I am going to try and summarize the basic characteristics (and, give examples of) these major styles, as Thomas & Turner (2017) have explained it. 
(And, I sure hope this works.)
Here we go.
1) Plain style - clear and simple writing, but - the theology (the belief system / worldview) behind plain style assumes the knowledge it presents (as: common knowledge, or common sense - even possessed by young children) is "the truth". But - the fact is, sometimes kids can actually be very wrong (truth and reality may be more complex than a kid can comprehend) - so, Plain style is basically a much simpler, (much worse, less accurate, less true) version of Classic style.

Classic style takes Plain style and adds to it: sophisticated thought, conceptual refinement, critical thinking and also personal responsibility.

In Plain style, you can also sometimes basically trick people into thinking what you are saying is true, but mainly because it falls back on moves like "As any child knows..." which may well be true information in some cases - but may also be a rhetorical trick (and/or, the result of muddy thinking).

Plain style also uses cliches, whereas Classic style often extends and rethinks cliches:

e.g., a Plain style phrase might be "The truth is pure and simple..." (which is a cliche) - whereas by distinction, a Classic style phrase would instead be: "The truth is rarely pure and never simple..." (as Oscar Wilde wrote).

““Seeing is believing” is plain. 

“Seeing is believing only if you don’t see too clearly” is classic." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (pp. 72-73). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Bear in mind also - in any given piece of writing: it may be the actual case that a sentence, a paragraph, even a chapter, may be in one style (e.g., Plain, or Classic, or Romantic, etc!) while others vary.

So - some writers may well use many different styles, all within the one work! (Even in a blog post - like this!)

(Also - the authors of any given piece of writing may not even have known that these 8 different styles exist - or else, some of the styles may well have emerged after they were writing!)

Thomas and Turner note:

"“Grace is simple” is plain. “Grace, from the perspective of God, is simple” is classic, as is “The machinery of grace is always simple.” 

Plain style values simplicity but shuns nuance. 

Classic style values both simplicity and nuance." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 72). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

And - some Examples of Plain Style would be: 

A typical religious person talking to another religious person.

In my view, most of Mark Manson's essays, as, they seem to be the result of very shallow thinking? e.g. this essay of his on Evolutionary Psychology, as he is writing about something he clearly knows very little about, namely Evolutionary Psychology. (I would also note - he switches styles a few times within that lousy blog-post, but overall it is mostly written in Plain style.)

Hmm, and actually right now, I can't think of too many more very good / obvious examples of Plain style (as importantly, it is usually not very memorable because of its actual Plain style!), but - most bad student essays, and indeed a whole lot of blogs are written in Plain style; rife with cliches, and very simple - often wrong-headed - thinking).

In contrast to Plain style: 

2) Classic style - takes a very clear stance on 5 key issues:

Truth, Presentation, Scene, Cast, and also Thought and Language.

(You will have to read the actual book by Thomas and Turner in full, to see all the details of those 5 x things, above.... But - just as an example, Cast means there are 2 people in the classic "scene", and they are equals; not a "Professor talking down to Student". Conversely, in Oratorical style, the Scene and Cast is: a speaker talking to a crowd, and s/he is trying to persuade that crowd of something or else summarize their consensus view.)

As the authors also write:

"The concept of classic style assumes that plain style already exists. 

The classic version introduces a refinement, a qualification, a meditation on the plain version that makes it classic. 

Classic style takes the attitude that it is superior to plain style because classic style presents intelligence as it should be presented: as a sparkling display, not weighed down by grinding earnestness." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 16). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. (boldface emphasis mine) 

Examples of Classic style (as given by the authors, Thomas and Turner) include:

Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War. Plato's Apology. Euclid's The Elements of Geometry. Descartes' Discourse on Method. Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Also (surprisingly) most good Guide Books, such as say: The Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds. (...Seriously!)

I also suggest, (given my understanding of styles) that these works below are (primarily if not totally) written in Classic style:

Darwin On The Origin of Species. Dawkins The Selfish Gene. Dennett Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Boyd On the Origin of Stories. Csikszentmihalyi Creativity. 

Interestingly, in short, and in retrospect, a great many of my favourite nonfiction books seem to be written in Classic style. (i.e., Now that I think I know, what it actually is ! Having read Clear and Simple as the Truth. And no, this blog post is not written in Classic style; it uses various styles, depending on the situation.)

Basically, as the authors note, Classic style is "a transparent window through which its subject is presented". (p. 73)

Also, you can't really skim-read Classic writing, as, you miss nuance... The "last third" of a classic sentence is not predictable!

"[when you read] the end [e.g. the last third] of a classic sentence, you will recognize that the sentence was true to its direction, but that does not make the sentence predictable, because it usually contains a conceptual refinement that is clear and simple as the truth but not a cliché and hence not predictable."
Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (pp. 81-82). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

(The authors also then provide 4 great examples of such Classic sentences in their book. Here is just one...)

"Although a dirty campaign was widely predicted, for the most part the politicians contented themselves with insults and lies. (Julian Barnes on the 1992 British parliamentary elections)" 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 82). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. (bold emphasis mine) 

Basically, the last third of the sentence in Classic style writing is often creative: i.e., new, useful and surprising!

Moving on now to the next category of style outlined by Thomas and Turner:

3) Reflexive style - this style is: writing (and, thinking) that questions (and even doubts) its own competence...

One point they make is that, in a cookbook (say) we don't expect philosophical (ontological and epistemological) introductions about whether cooking even exists, and if it is even possible to talk about cooking...

Raising such doubts self-consciously in the writing is a Reflexive style. It uses Philosophy to appear "knowing", whereas Classic writing deliberately ignores such questions and just cuts to the car-chase.

Classic style assumes that we can (and indeed should) talk (i.e., write) about the subject we are describing, explaining or otherwise discussing. And, that it is interesting for its own sake. (And - may well also be, very useful knowledge and/or insight to have or use.)

Examples of Reflexive style include:

Quite a lot of Philosophy. Especially that writing that questions its own ability to describe or communicate anything.

Meanwhile - (next style in our listicle...)

4) Practical style - is writing that tells you how to solve a practical problem: Build a house, change a tyre, skin a cat, or whatever.

Most Instruction Manuals are usually written in Practical style.

"In the model scene behind practical style, the reader has a problem to solve, a decision to make, a ruling to hand down, an inquiry to conduct, a machine to design or repair—in short, a job to do. The reader’s need, not the writer’s desire to articulate something, initiates the writing."
Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 75). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Thomas and Turner later write:

"The best-known teachers of practical style are Strunk and White, in their ubiquitous Elements of Style. 

The best teachers of practical style are Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb, in Williams’s Style: Toward Clarity and Grace and a series of academic articles and technical reports." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 78). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Examples of Practical style are: 

Most scientific and even artistic research papers, which are presenting the results of some research. And also, Instruction Manuals. And "How-To" (D.I.Y.) books. Most Screenwriting Manuals would also thus be an example of Practical style.

Moving on now to:

5) Contemplative style - which is focussed on the writer's interpretation, and thus (implicitly) tries to convince the reader to interpret it in the same way.

"In contemplative style, the distinction between presentation and interpretation is always observed: the writer sees something, presents it to the reader, and then interprets it. 

The stress is on the interpretation, but the transition is always explicitly marked. E. B. White, a master of the contemplative essay, characteristically observes this sequence, as he does in “The Ring of Time,” a dazzling piece of writing that is entirely unclassic." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (pp. 82-83). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

I am also reminded of the TV series The Wonder Years, where after a flashback, there is always a scene where the now-adult-voice of the narrator narrates "It was at that time, I realized: [insert some proverb or insight here, etc]"

Examples of Contemplative style include:

E B White's contemplative essays (obviously :)

Preachers, who present a text and then present their interpretation of it.

Moving along:

6) Romantic style - is all about the writer, not the reader.

As the authors say:

"Classic Style Is Not Romantic Style  

Contemplative style is fundamentally about the writer’s thought and often explicitly acknowledges this focus. Romantic style, although not necessarily focused on the writer’s thought in the sense of his analysis or reflection, is always and inescapably about the writer. Romantic prose is a mirror, not a window. 

Romantic style does not separate thought from sensation, memory, and emotion. All these things together are experience. 

Neither does romantic style distinguish the person who experiences from the experience. The romantic writer therefore cannot be an observer who sees something separate from himself; both the writer and his experience are inseparable elements of a perpetual dialectic in which the writer creates a world, which in its turn creates him. This process is something like the pulse of life. A writer can describe this dynamic relationship, but cannot “present” it and allow it to be verified."
Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (p. 86). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Examples include:

Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Probably lots of Romantic writing, e.g.: Taylor-Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, Byron, Keats. (Including many or even all of their poems... not just their essays or the like)

Goethe, in The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Importantly:

"Both the classic writer and the romantic writer are vulnerable but in entirely different ways. The classic writer is vulnerable because he speaks noncontingent truth to which everybody is vulnerable. The romantic writer is vulnerable because everybody is vulnerable to the conditions of life. 

The classic writer is always vulnerable to challenge; the romantic writer never." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (pp. 88-89). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Classic is basically the opposite of Romantic writing. (No wonder I hate Romantic writing so much :)

(Romantics obscure creativity. The scientific study of creativity is much more useful to people!)

Moving along to:

7) Prophetic style - is its own authority, usually "by" some kind of deity or mystical prophet or something with divine powers. And/Or, reporting what the "prophet" (or deity, or supernatural being) has "said" (or "declared").

In short, science is always better than supernatural or mystical stuff.

Examples include: 

The Old Testament.

Or in fact, most bibles of most religions.

...and finally our last style:

8) Oratorical style -  is basically a public speaker, talking to a crowd and trying to convince them of something.

"The model scene of oratorical style is neither casual nor spontaneous. Its prototypical occasion is the assembly of a group of people faced by a public problem—like military invasion, the forming and maintenance of public values, or the judging of social offenders.

This scene creates a cast. Leadership is necessary, and the assembly’s job is to respond to a candidate who puts himself forward. 

The orator assumes a role as leader of both the public moment and the setting of policy. He invites the audience to yield to his rhythms and to his views, which he typically presents as a version of common verities." 

Thomas, Francis-Noël. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition (pp. 91-92). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Examples include:
Ulysses (eg at certain points, in The Iliad, and The Odyssey) and also Pericles (his "Funeral Oration" in Thucydides' Pelopponesian Wars), whenever they are a spokesperson for an audience. 
And - I am also thinking of, the "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" speech in Julius Caesar.
Also, Jefferson (US Declaration of Independence): "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." (etc)
==============================
Anyway - so, that's an overview / summary of the 8 styles, namely:
Plain style, Classic style, Reflexive style, Practical style, Contemplative style, Romantic style, Prophetic style, and Oratorical style. 
And importantly - Classic style assumes that there is an Objective Truth. 
(That: "Truth is not: Mind-Independent" (p. 99))
...So: I like it! 
(I also like: Karl Popper. And Dan Dennett, and the like... Same deal.)
And so - I very highly recommend the book:
Clear and Simple as the Truth - Writing Classic Prose - Second Edition
(Thomas & Turner 1994 / 2017)


And - Thanks for reading this post!
(The main reason I wrote this post was to force myself to check that I understand the 8 major styles as described and examined in the book.)

I've written million-selling games and novels and movies, not sure in what style... I'd have to re-read/rewatch/replay them, and figure it out. But from now on I'll be aware if it when creating stuff.
FYI, I see there is another summary of Thomas & Turner, on a blog by somebody, here. Theirs is probably a better (more comprehensive) Summary than mine, but as I say, I was mainly just trying to make sure that I understood the book (and thus the styles).
As an aside - I am actually going to try and write a book in the Classic style. 
It is about: this.
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

JB - Above-Top-Secret-Agent-Guy-Person - Chapter 1

J.B. : Above-Top-Secret-Agent-Guy-Person 

A thrilling series of thrilling top-secret adventure novels 
Chapter 1
of

J.B.: Above-Top-Secret Agent Person Guy
Adventure #1:
“The Case of the Thing with the Thing, and Whatsaname”
By: JT Velikovsky
© August 12th2017
Page 1, Chapter 1:

====================================
J.B., super-handsome and athletic heart-throb top-secret agent guy walked down the long corridor of CIA Headquarters in Langley Virginia in the good ole U.S. of A.
This meeting was going to be the most important meeting of his life, and he knew it. The stakes could not be higher. He could feel it in his boner.

He saw the secret CIA Briefing Room door getting closer and closer as he walked towards it.
…This was it.
The moment of truth…
Just then disaster struck. A stinking miasma reached his nose, for he had just farted the worst silent fart of his life–possibly even the worst fart in recorded human history–and suddenly, his whole world came crashing down around him.
This was bad.
His heart raced.  What to do? It was a potentially-lethal fart, he realized. 
Someone could get hurt, or even killed.
Should he hang around in the corridor for 60 seconds, and try and walk it off, before entering the Briefing Room? Surely, he couldn’t just walk a fart like this into this big important meeting with some of the most powerful and serious people in the world.
But, he also knew, if he did that, and paced around in the corridor for a minute, it would mean he would be one minute late for the most important meeting in his life, and possibly even in all of human history.
Panic set in. Using the age-old `combat-breathing technique’, he fought the panic off. He mentally counted to four as he breathed in, then held his breath for a slow count of four again, then breathed out as he counted to four a third time. This made it worse, as having now really ingested the terrible fart, he also felt nauseous and light-headed. He fought off the gag reflex and mentally slowed his heartbeat with the old `slowing the heartbeat down’ yoga trick.   
Think; I’ve got to think-?! he thought…
He stood stock still before the door as now the backwash of the drifting fart gently enveloped and overtook him.
What if someone came out of the door, right now…? The entire jig would be up. 
Game Over. Roll Credits. Pack up the chairs and go home. The End. Never To Be Continued. That is definitely All, folks.
It would be an unmitigated disaster… His whole reputation was on the line. If this played out like it looked like it was going to, unless he took action–and fast–then he, J.B., top-secret-agent, would forever be: that guy who did that worst fart, ever. And, walked it right into a big meeting.
Rumours would spread. No-one would ever again take him seriously.
His reputation, his entire career, was on the line.
But–should he now pace around in the hallway, and walk it off?
If anyone saw him, they might mistake his pacing intentions as nerves, or anger, or even frustration. Would that be even worse? Maybe. Hard to say.  
He stood frozen, standing right before the door, steeling his nerves. …What to do?
Suddenly the door burst open and a pert, bosomy, female Aide­­–with great shapely legs–in her early 20s, dressed in a suit, rushed out of the door, a folder clutched under one arm. She brushed past J.B., and she raced off down the hall, her luscious boobs jiggling under her shirt, dragging the bulk of his fart away with her down the hall. It got caught up in her slipstream as she went, and she took most of it away with her.
J.B. was saved, due to random chance.
Phew, he thought. Yay, for: random chance! 
He sniffed the air again, still unsure. Was it still there...? Lingering traces, perhaps?
Eureka!

The fart was now almost undetectable. His lack of a good plan had worked out brilliantly.
He watched her go, ten feet away... now, twenty feet... 
As she moved off, he admired her shapely female figure, the waggle of her ass, the bounce of her booty.
Must be jello, cos jam don’t jiggle like that, he surmised, sexistly. 
His boner twitched in his pants, programmed by millions of years of genetic evolution to respond to random visual female sexual-signals.
Suddenly, she was now thirty feet away, and she halted–and turned back to look him square in the eye.

Uh-oh... he thought.
His heart stopped. Surely, she had now smelt his fart - and had realized what had just happened. 
...How would he ever bone her now, if the chance even came up? He had never even seen her before in his life, but he already knew, he had blown his chance of randomly getting his rocks off with her, whoever she was. Maybe, she was even: important.
“They’re ready for you J.B., so head right on in,” she smiled warmly at him. 
He noticed the curves and the ballast of her ample breast, through her very low-cut blouse... her mouth-watering breasts served up there for his visual pleasure like a platter of juicy rockmelons. They had jiggled a little as she spoke and were still settling... It was pure poetry in motion.

She turned on her high heel which she knew made her calf muscles look more shapely and would attract more sexual attention from males, and she marched off, obviously in a hurry. But not too much of a hurry, as she knew his gaze was still on her and she wanted to show off her assets from behind.
He nodded, stunned. As she titted away down the corridor, he wondered just how she knew his name, "J.B."...? - That information was supposed to be above-top-secret...? 
Maybe, he thought, his above-top-secret reputation preceded him...? 
Maybe she had heard of him, maybe he was even famous in CIA circles, and maybe, if the chips fell right, he could actually give her a good schtupping sometime in her near future, after all.
After all, hadn’t her words just now, had a hidden second meaning, a salacious subtext? “They’re ready for you J.B., so, head right on in…” were her exact words.

Surely, she was communicating via code: her sexual readiness for him...? 
It could hardly be more obvious, he thought, like the gutter-minded chauvinist sexist pig he was, since he was a male.

Surely, she was actually, really saying: “Bone me but good, big boy - Go for gold!”
He smiled and he nodded knowingly. Stuff was going good today. He was probably going to get laid tonight, and as usual, being a male, he didn't really give a shit, by which random female.
He took another deep breath, steeled his nerves, adjusted his boner, and he knocked on the big important secret CIA door.  
“Come in” said a deep authoritative voice from behind the CIA door.
Two burly armed secret service agents stepped out, and they ushered him inside the secret room.
From scanning both their expressionless secret agent faces, they didn’t seem to smell the traces of his fart..? 
He seemed to have actually, gotten away with it?
...The perfect crime?
As top secret agent J. B. stepped inside the dimly-lit CIA top-secret Briefing room, he saw about twenty important men in suits (and also a few sexy women - but then again, all women were sexy to J.B.; he’d pretty much fuck anything female that moved, as noted previously) were all seated around a large round table. 
There was the President, the joint chiefs of staff, the head of the CIA, head of the FBI, head of Homeland Security... and some other folks he didn’t recognize but he knew they must be super-important, powerful and authoritative people; because they were wearing suits.
Maybe, they were even, members of the Secret Society who really ran the world… he thought. Or, who knows what?, he thought. Like - The Majestic-12, or The Bilderbergers, or The Illuminati, or the Masons, or someone like that…
J.B. wasn’t quite sure whoactually ran the world, if anyonedid, as all that was well above his pay-grade.
There sure were a lot of Conspiracy Theories about it, and, they were pretty powerful memes, he had to admit, but - that was not his concern right now.
Right now, he had to give the greatest presentation of his life, right here in this secret Briefing room of the CIA.
“Gentlemen, and of course, ladies,” J.B. smiled charmingly, and nodded to them all, and especially, to the women. Some of the women even nodded and smiled back. Maybe, he could schtupp some of them later, he thought.
All eyes were now on him. And you could almost hear a pin drop, if someone had actually dropped one, right then. (But, it also seems odd that anyone would have a pin handy - unless maybe they were sewing, which they clearly weren’t.)
The President smiled a guarded smile at J.B., and announced to all the important people present, “Everyone - as you all know - this is top-secret special-agent J.B…. And J.B., this is… everyone... And now, Agent J.B., if you would proceed with your Above-Top-Secret Briefing, for us?”
J.B. nodded and smiled at the President.
He moved over to the laptop computer by the digital projector, and he tapped the space-bar key to wake it up. 
This was always a tense time... Would the computer even work properly? Had the tech-guys, even set all of this up properly? ...Had they even loaded up the right PowerPoint file, that he had sent them via email this morning-? This could all be very awkward and embarrassing…? There was lots that could go horribly wrong.
Phew, thought, as his actual PowerPoint presentation finally appeared on the large screen on the wall.
Its title screen boldly read: “Above-Top-Secret: The Simulation Conspiracy”.
“Ladies and gentlemen... In the course of my investigations, I, personally, have stumbled upon evidence, that suggests - we are all... living inside a computer simulation."
A few stunned gasps were heard, around the darkened room. J.B. continued:
“Namely - our entire universe, and everything in it, is a simulation, and is probably running on some kind of alien computer or whatever, and which was created by some currently-unknown advanced alien civilization, or something.”
He now clicked though more of his PowerPoint slides, and everyone’s attention was utterly riveted.
It was all going pretty well so far, all things considered, J.B. thought?
He went on, as he clicked through more of the slides he had prepared earlier:
“Apart from the fact that DNA itself is digital, and also, everything from quarks to atoms to molecules to DNA up to planets and galaxies everything else - can now be simulated in our own very powerful digital computers- even so that, the simulated lifeforms inside them, actually think they are conscious and living - new evidence from another angle has recently come to light, that: we are indeed, all living in a sim. And thus - we are conscious sims, inside, a simulated universe. Running on, some alien computer someplace, probably.”
The whole room just listened, and waited, in stunned silence. 
You could have heard another pin drop, but, I rest my case about it seeming unlikely that there would be any pins in the room, anyway. 
Who even uses pins? These days we have Velcro and zippers and whatnot, thanks to: Science and Technology. 
I mean I guess, some people use safety-pins, sometimes. 
But still, it seems unlikely any of the most powerful and secret people in the world would have safety-pins on them, in a top secret, big important meeting like this one. But anyway.
J.B. glanced around the dimly-lit room, now noticing that there were, actually, some pretty hot babes and MILFs in the room, and he actually seemed to be impressing them right now, with his presentation.

So, maybe he could schtupp some of them later on... This day was just getting better and better all the time.
He continued with his briefing:
“The new evidence is that - it also appears, that there are clues hidden in the bibles of almost every religion that has ever existed on Earth, that - we are living in a sim. Right now!" 
He paused for effect again, and to take a quick chance to peek at the exposed cleavages in the low cut suits of of some of the MILFs gathered around the table. They all looked pretty awesome to him. Bosomy-cleavage pretty much never got old.
"And so - I now give you, Exhibit A, the Old Testament bible.”
Now, he clicked and a quote from the Old Testament appeared on the big screen.
“ `In the beginning, God created the sky and the earth’. ”
J.B. read it out aloud, just in case anyone in the room was illiterate, or something. (He would still be quite happy to schtupp them, regardless.)
Then he flicked through slides of a few other quotes, from some other bibles of other religions...
“As we do a close reading of almost all religious bibles in existence, and, there are thousands of them - and when we also check this data, via artificially-intelligent text-parsing algorithms, we are now able to see: there are countless hints, or clues, cleverly hidden within all these ancient and even modern bible texts, that…”
He paused again just for effect. Yes, definitely gonna schtupp at least one of these MILFs, he thought. He continued his speech:
“… the universe, and everything in it - even our very own planet Earth, and even us, as human beings, and all plants and animals - were created by computer programmers, otherwise known as The Great Game Design Team in the Sky, and here shortened to the acronym `Group Of Developers’ or `G.O.D.’ for short . The clues are obvious, once you know what you’re looking for.”
Another shocked murmur rippled around the room. J.B. soaked it up.

More currency, in the getting-laid-tonight game... Cha-ching! Cha-ching! he smiled to himself. He was gonna cash this currency out, tonight! Payday was on the way...
J.B. clicked the next slide, showing: some decoded DNA.
“Also, the Human Genome Project, now in 2018, has secretly discovered - a hidden coded message in the so-called `junk DNA’ of all living organisms, including even ourselves... It is, a `remark’ as computer coders would call it, left there in our DNA. by the coders of the simulation that we are all in. Like, a “maker’s mark”, if you will...”
J.B. again paused for effect. Maybe even that blond over there, he thought. She seemed pretty enraptured. Was she: swooning? Yes, she was.
“And so now, ladies and gentlemen, I will reveal to you, the screen of this presentation that shows: The hidden secret message, within the DNA of all organisms, plants and animals. Even, in yourselves. Written there, in every cell of your... body.”
He looked over at the bustiest blond's body, and she licked her lips at him.

It was on, baby, on! Yeahhhh babay!
J.B. turned back to the computer, clicked the mouse button again, and now the screen showing the secret hidden message appeared...
Everyone in the room gasped… Surely, it couldn’t be true-?!!!




[END OF - CHAPTER ONE]



And also ...
(PS – Wow, Note the super-cool cliffhanger / `page-turner’ there-!

Did you see that ?!
As if, you don’t want to read Chapter 2, right NOW - !!!)
(Note also how - this book begins with a supercool Conspiracy Theory, that might even be true! 

Namely that we are living in a Sim..!!!!
See: The Simulation Argument.
Hooboy, man - this is: fucking great stuff!
(Aw Man, this JTV dude can really write!)
Also note how, it’s even an ironic, `meta’, parody of `sexist secret agents’ with initials JB, like James Bond or Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer...! 

...and also note - we also haven’t yet been told, what J.B. even stands for!
…What a brilliant tease-?!!!


Note even also, the vague influence of the `Butler’ satirical novels!

And - Note: lots of other stuff, too!


Like how it emulates crap like `50 Shades', 
but from a sexist male perspective! 


...Wowsers! OMG - This stuff is GREAT!!!)


To Be Continued, in

Chapter 2 –
of the book,
currently known as:
J.B.: Above-Top-Secret Agent Person Guy
in
Adventure #1: 

THE CASE OF THE THING with the THING, and WHATSANAME

By: JT Velikovsky
in
The B.A.L.L.S.A.C.K. Series –
Brilliant Adventures in Secret Agent Conspiracy (Known)





 (Hey wow - Note also - how deliberately `zen-stupid’ the title of the book is!
I guess this guy, likes Bob Burden’s writing, too!)
Hey, and it turns out, he [JTV] even wrote another satirical novel, too:
AM SO AS !
But, whatever! 
The point is -

…TO BE CONTINUED!!!



Holy shit, this guy’s a genius. 
What great (meta) writing!!!
Especially even in the age of #MeToo and all that.
It's almost as if he's amusingly implying: First, Eliminate Sex!
But even that too may be a satire, as: who knows?

...Amazing!

And

Shut up and just take my money, 
I want to read lots more of this crazy satirical parodical stuff!!!



============================================


-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

Heroism Science!

HEROISM SCIENCE!


So, I recently found out about HEROISM SCIENCE !

And: Wow! It's - terrific !!!

The Heroism Science websiteThe website above has links to the Journal of Heroism Science , (open access! YAY!) where you can read much more. Fantastic stuff.

See also - this great presentation by one of the (heroic!) founders of Heroism Science: Olivia Efthimiou!


More of Olivia's great work, here, and here.


And - another great talk by another founder: Prof. Scott Allison!


The Rise of the Art and Science of Heroism Science!
Scott notes (see 6-7 mins, of the above keynote by Scott) that Joe Campbell (who discovered the hero journey monomyth, 1949 ) believed that biological processes of the body are what produce hero mythology...

My intuition likewise tells me that The Philosophy of Biology has a lot to teach us about Heroism Science... and hero mythology... Fascinating stuff-!!! In fact I blogged on it, on my PhD blog, a few years ago...

The Hero's Journey - It's Not What You Think! (Velikovsky 2013)

And, that article was actually then (re)-published in this great book: Miller's Compendium of Timeless Tools For the Modern Writer  (2015) ...But - that's a whole other story.
(See what I did there. A whole other story... a book about: writing stories, and,,, er, never mind.)

And - see also Scott Allison's great Heroes (& Heroic Leadership) blog:


And see Scott's (and George's and Rod's) great new book:


I love Chapter 20 - The Hero's Transformation (by Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals)
i.e.:(...I think about scale ...a lot!)And see also Matt Langdon's great work - at the Hero Construction Co .


Below is a TEDx talk Matt did. (the sound level is a little low, so... listen up! hehe)

And check out Phil Zimbardo on: Everyday Heroes!


(Particularly on: The `Whistleblower' Heroes!
And, The (related) Bystander Effect (in Social Psychology) -
Namely, when things go wrong, people tend to stand by and watch, BUT - as soon as someone leaps in - and takes action - and DOES THE RIGHT THING, everybody follows!
But... So - who's going to make the first move?

...BE A HERO! MAKE IT: YOU! 
i.e., Feel the fear - and do it anyway...!!!  )

See also Phil's nonprofit organisation: The Heroic Imagination Project


Also - speaking as a million-selling videogame designer (very few games sell a million copies) I found this talk by Phil both fascinating and enlightening...!


And see Dr Clive Williams' great work at:  A MudMap For Living: Discovering Your Hero's Journey.



A great talk Clive gave...


See also - Clive's great book!


So - HEROISM SCIENCE !!!
What a great idea ( ! )

More on Consilience, here...

Heroism + Science! (And - The Arts!)
Creativity - combine two old things to get a new thing - and:  EUREKA! It WORKS!!!

`Ultimately, all creative products have this quality: old ideas or elements are combined in new ways.
This is the case for all domains of creativity.’
(Martindale, 1989, p. 212).

And this (Transmedia) show certainly now has a new resonance...(!)


Top Ten HEROES Characters
Anyway - loads more resources on HEROISM SCIENCE, here!

Also - (as a volunteer firefighter) I also really liked this diagram: ( Intervention and Immediate Risk - from Twitter @MrHeroSupport)


And see also The Hero Roundtable - `Often called the TED Talks of heroism, the Hero Round Table teaches people how to be more than a bystander. '



---------------------------------------------------------


And, for random News updates from me, please see:  NEWS !
~Comments, always welcome.


-----------------------------Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).

& Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer:
Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

See also:
IMDb: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

------------------------------------------

Spec Screenplays

Some of my Spec Screenplays

So I've written over 30 movie screenplays since I first began writing them, back in 1993. Then after my Communication degree (91-93), I went to film school (in 1995-96) and wrote lots more. Some have even been made into movies. It takes about 10 years (on average) to master the craft of screenwriting (for more, see: The 10-year rule in Creativity ). I'm also a high-RoI movie (story, screenplay, movie) consultant. For the 30 key high-RoI guidelines that I use to create movie screenplays, please see my 2017 PhD study, on the top 20 RoI movies. You can also download the PhD dissertation as a free PDF, here. Here's a short (15 minute) summary of the PhD study:


For more detail on the 30 guidelines, see my PhD. (Movies are complex.)
And - a list of my best spec screenplays to date:

US Movie Marketplace

EVERYTHING WARZ

KILL LIST

ROBOT JESUS

THE ZOMBIE-SCREENPLAY OF DORIAN GRAY

ALIEN WARPORN

JACKRABBIT the Psychotic Possessed Ventriloquist's Dummy vs. The Mafia

BIOSPHERE

DOORWAY

Australian Movie Marketplace :

DAVE CHUCKS A SICKIE

HALO

NOVOCASTRIAN LURV


UK/US Marketplace

THE EMPYRE'S VAMPYRE



And, for random News updates from me, please see: NEWS !

~Comments, always welcome.

-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).

& Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

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