Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion
Writing Technique
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Keep the reader locked in.
Robert wrote: "Micah,Maybe you are suppose to be happy that you are still alive at the end of the story."
Bingo! That's completely the reader thought after reading it. To clarify let the reader thoughts run wild in return the book becomes a personal affect to them. I am all about giving the reader more.
Charles wrote: "The most important thing as a writer is to connect and communicate with the reader. And the reader is a wild beast that remains untamed."Charles, that's the number one thing everytime I write period. Telling them the story from a person point of view. As the character experience new things so does the reader. Don't hold the readers hand, instead open the door for them and say have a ball.
Owen wrote: "...(blasted semi-colons are the bane of my existence)..."“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
"I went to college; I use semicolons a lot." ~ Micah R. Sisk
Micah wrote: "Owen wrote: "...(blasted semi-colons are the bane of my existence)..."“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing a..."
I find semicolons cute and adorable. So I sprinkle them about liberally -- and generally wrongly, as has been often pointed out. Rightly eludes me. I long to do right by the humble precious lil' semicolon; I fail. Hence they are my bane; my albatross; the millstone about my neck.
Vonnegut (that accursed despiser of semicolons): I knew there was a reason I don't read him.
So if using semi-colons show you've been to college, then what does complaining about their usage in creative writing mean? That you've been to way too much college?
Micah wrote: ""I went to college; I use semicolons a lot." ~ Micah R. Sisk..."
I didn't go to college (learned a trade instead), and I use semicolons a lot. I even know how to use them and why; it's part of the job description: Writer.
I didn't go to college (learned a trade instead), and I use semicolons a lot. I even know how to use them and why; it's part of the job description: Writer.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon This goes back a few years but I can't read it without laughing again. Check the bottom links for more grammar links from The Oatmeal.
Mod
I disagree with one point on that link: you can use a semicolon with a conjunction if the two clauses are truly independent, and you want a longer pause than with a comma. "He looked into the cave opening and waited; but nothing came out." I could be technically wrong on this, but I use the effect anyway.
Christina wrote: "I love the semicolon paradox that is Word's grammar check. Use a semicolon and you get a green squiggle telling you to try a comma. Change it to a comma and you get a green squiggle with the sugges..."Welcome to AI (your new overlord).
Charles wrote: "or massive run ons"My preferred solution! :-)
(And when you can arrange to put the verb at the end... bliss.)
To me, semi-colons are best served in a time and place. When you want the text to be urgent; pressing; impending. Then you use a semicolon.It's out of place in the down scenes, when a comma helps keep a slower, more appropriate pace.
Mod
Nope. Everyone knows I'm team
Charles wrote: "To me, semi-colons are best served in a time and place. When you want the text to be urgent; pressing; impending. Then you use a semicolon.
It's out of place in the down scenes, when a comma hel..."
That probably depends on your writing style. The use of any punctuation within, or even outside, the rules contributes to a style.
It's out of place in the down scenes, when a comma hel..."
That probably depends on your writing style. The use of any punctuation within, or even outside, the rules contributes to a style.
Christina wrote: "Use a semicolon and you get a green squiggle telling you to try a comma. Change it to a comma and you get a green squiggle with the suggestion that a semicolon works better. I guess the only option is to write short sentences."You forget the alternative: ignore Word's grammar checker. That's what I do.
Vonnegut wrote short sentences. Hey, ho.
Charles wrote: "When you want the text to be urgent; pressing; impending."Ken wrote: "He looked into the cave opening and waited; but nothing came out."
**Captain Picard facepalm**
Both of those are wrong. You might like them and you are certainly free to use them...but you do so at the risk of sounding like a writer who doesn't know grammar.
There are only a few legit uses for the semicolon.
First is to join two independent clauses where you want to strengthen the relationship between them:
"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway." ~ Tolkein
Complex clauses with coordinating conjunctions, and separating items in complex lists...
"If you want me to go out tonight, you need to help me with my homework first; and if you say no, I'll know that you don't really care about going out."
"I enjoy a lot of international foods: Japanese dishes like sushi, teriyaki, tempura, nabeyaki udon, and okonomiyaki; spice-laden Indian foods such as vindaloo, dal, tikka masala, and chettenadu; Thai curries, Tex-Mex, Vietnamese, French, and Italian dishes of all kinds."
And of course when conjunctive adverbs are used (however, therefore, indeed) are also valid uses.
Grammar Girl is usually a good place to look for help:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educ...
And we are all free to disagree...
Ken wrote: "And we are all free to disagree..."We're all free to disagree on whether grammatical conventions are appropriate...but not, I think, that conventions exist. ;P
I.e., expect any editor to red-ink those semicolons!
Oh, and on the Vonnegut quote...anything he ever wrote similar to that was pretty much always either a joke, hyperbole, or both. The sentence after that quote read: "And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding."
It came from his collection of essays called A Man Without a Country, in which he uses a semicolon and says that "rules only take us so far, even good rules."
Another quote from him, which wasn't a joke, was this: "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
Which means that the quote about the semicolons was probably just Vonnegut farting around.
Micah wrote: "Charles wrote: "When you want the text to be urgent; pressing; impending."Ken wrote: "He looked into the cave opening and waited; but nothing came out."
**Captain Picard facepalm**
Both of thos..."
I know mine is wrong. You have to know the rules before you can break them.
This is where writing trends into stylistic territory, instead of being dead words on paper.
Mod
Eye fough fend one dear dwight pea pulse ink bray kink they rolls ri lemmings.
I guess they'd have to go ask the dead old white men that came up with them.My books are written for the enjoyment of the reader, not to submit to some archaic rules.
Christina wrote: "But Charles, how does the reader know that you know the rules when you disregard them?"Of course, you will occasionally encounter the reader who thinks they know the rules and complains. So, in a sense, there's no winning. Personally, I stick to the conventions most of the time.
Since we just hired a professional editor for the first time (whom we like very much, BTW), we'll will follow them more closely now. But I did explain to her that we had "habits" where we broke the "rules" and why, and she pretty much gave us a thumbs up on those (which is why we hired her). So our idiosyncratic style lives on, but will it be bit more proper now. That makes us happy.
Personally I refrain from criticizing the style of other writers until I've at least read some of what they wrote.
Charles wrote: "This is where writing trends into stylistic territory, instead of being dead words on paper."Yeah, I'm not buying that argument when it comes to using semicolons where commas should be.
To me it doesn't add any style or urgency, doesn't make the sentence more pressing or impending. It simply looks wrong.
To me style is exemplified by how you phrase things. The use of fragments. The use of slang and vernacular, casual or familiar language...Ponderous or florid verbosity. Poetic metaphor. Word choice, voice, POV...Not using incorrect punctuation.
Joyce's Ulysses would still have a singularly unique style even if he had used actual quotation marks rather than dashes. (I've got a book to read that's done the dash instead of quotation marks thing and frankly I find it rather obnoxious and pretentious--see? just like Joyce!)
And there are reasons for conventions. By using semicolons where convention says a comma should go, then the grammatical value of both punctuation marks have become devalued: they end up meaning nothing.
I mean% if I substituted percent signs for commas% and @ signs for apostrophes% and dollar signs for periods% it@s not going to be more stylish$ It@s just going to be confusing$
I'd suggest that you use something other than semicolons when you want the text to be urgent. Pressing. Impending. Like, uh, commas? Or fragments. In moderation.
And I'm not buying the argument of convention. That's the last thing someone should hold up to me if they want to make a point. "Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth."
To think that I have the ability to devalue something that has been around longer than I ever will be is impressive. Maybe I'm even more awesome than I thought.
Charles wrote: "And I'm not buying the argument of convention. That's the last thing someone should hold up to me if they want to make a point.
"Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I’ve..."
In the argument between rigid convention and fluid writing, I pick the latter. My argument is that it's a matter of style, and a comma and a semicolon are much more closely related than a comma and a percent or dollar sign. Having said that, I still have a problem with the misuse of the word "like" that so many newer authors seem to ignore.
"Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I’ve..."
In the argument between rigid convention and fluid writing, I pick the latter. My argument is that it's a matter of style, and a comma and a semicolon are much more closely related than a comma and a percent or dollar sign. Having said that, I still have a problem with the misuse of the word "like" that so many newer authors seem to ignore.
Maybe we can argue split infinitives next!That dead horse hasn't been beaten lately.
"Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Hey, do we want to really launch our new Sci-Fi program with this?
Hey, do we want to really launch our new Sci-Fi program with this?
Charles wrote: "Maybe we can argue split infinitives next!...Wait...Was that exclamation point supposed to indicate an emphatic statement? Pfft. How conventional.
Micah wrote: "Charles wrote: "Maybe we can argue split infinitives next!...Wait...Was that exclamation point supposed to indicate an emphatic statement? Pfft. How conventional."
I save the darkness for my writing. ;)
Writing sure is a weird proposition, isn't? I think of a story, once told, as a thing that is corporately, not individually owned. It means things to the hearers/readers that it may not mean to me, inspires things I never thought of, communicates things I never intended. Readers form relationships with the characters we create which are both independent and (when they tell us of them) fascinating. So there's an inevitable tension in the sharing of story. The author (for the most part) initiates it and readers (for the most part) respond. And the question of conventions is part of that. How as author treats convention -- and that might relate to f-bombs or sex or sociopolitical (or semi-colons) -- is a primary way of managing that tension.
Another way is that the degree to which an author is "present" in his/her work. Obviously, we are all present, but to what extent do we (like Michelangelo) make ourselves apparent -- a type of chorus? I don't know exactly what Joyce intended by his non-use of quotes, but the end effect was to say "I'm here" (something he did more radically as his work progressed, IMO). There nothing wrong with that: authors are under no obligation to efface themselves. It's just another way to modulate their relationship with their readers. These are matters between the author and his/her readers, but the more popular an author becomes (or wishes to become) affects the balance.
Personally, I think the "happy" author is one who's at peace (but not without tension) with his readers, being there a handful or millions. (How this is achieved and what it means varies, of course.) But this raises the question of the "duty" authors owe to their readers. That is where things get touchy. The point where you tell your readers "Where I have to go, you can't follow. What I have to do, you can't be any part of" is (for me) a critical one.
As we approach that point, we decided to delegate the handling of minor conventions to a 3rd-party, so we can better focus of violating the major ones. This is not a reflection on anyone else, and what it ultimately leads to for us (a beautiful friendship or something else), time will tell.
Others will find their own way through these issues. I wish them all the best in doing so.
Micah wrote: "Owen wrote: "...(blasted semi-colons are the bane of my existence)..."“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing a..."
Well got no problem with semi colons at all. What gets me worked up is the stupid net culture words that made it into the freaking dictionary. Good example selfie.
Owen and MichahI ought to let you run rampant in my first run manuscripts. The punctuation is often right, barring comma use, but the other conventions I can't seem to wrap my head around often elicit some wonderful replies from my first line editor. I mean, after all, if I am going to write in present or future tense, then I shouldn't have bothered looking at what occurred now, right?
There are many times I wish, deeply and sincerely, to be a better writer with the written word. Even in the first of the rough draft phase, it would be nice to not have tenses swapped without intention. Forget about the splits for now. Those make small change.
I'm currently chewing my way through a piece I'd agreed to review, and am wondering just how badly I'd do if I pushed my rough drafts out the door. Is it bad when you know you've got your own issues, and you actually SEE those in someone else's work? (This one, actually made me wonder if English was a second language, to tell the truth.)
K. wrote: "Owen and MichahI ought to let you run rampant in my first run manuscripts. The punctuation is often right, barring comma use, but the other conventions I can't seem to wrap my head around often ..."
On your last sentence, I think your on to something at times English language and take the form a second language.
My hypothesis:
American slang and sub cultures that carry their own spelling and terminology. And its free for all, meaning no right or wrong to spell the word. Furthermore one word could share 2 to 3 different meanings. What sets the words apart is how it's used in a sentence.
Owen wrote: "An interesting question, although I'm not sure I can address it very well. Our books have villains (assorted bad guys) but the MC's main conflict is with herself, so the bad guys tend to be subsidi..."The greatest enemy is ones self. When you factor in the protagonist, conflict rich environments and challenges the character will face, the reader will have to read through what the MC is going to do.
Rob wrote: "@K, What would be the problem with a second language?"I think she meant the manuscript she's agreed to review has errors in it that make her wonder if the author is not totally fluent in English. Some errors are obvious to native speakers that are not obvious to non-native speakers.
For example, "I have been a fan of science fiction since many years."
Using the word "since" instead of "for" in sentences like the one above is a farily common non-native English speaker mistake. If you see something like that in a book, you instantly wonder if the author's primary language is something other than English.
Rob - There isn't anything wrong with English as a second language when people learn it in school, or on the streets of Britain and Australia. When they learn it on the streets of America we wind up with a horrible mess that is hard to understand. Micah uses an example from someone who's learned it well, and is refining their usage for some of the terms. This poor author makes Hemingway look like he's got impeccable grammar. The example that comes to mind from the published work is a run-on sentence (I think) with no punctuation and four or five "but"s stringing it together. Imowen - I can live with slang. That is its own language. It's when that slang is folded into jargon and the resulting mess is stirred into a narrative. I've wondered at times if I'm from the wrong generation - I still prefer to see the language at least respected in the narrative. You can do whatever you want in dialogue - mangle the syntax, throw in as much slang as you want, even mangle the slang's syntax - just leave the foundation narrative clean, please!
K. wrote: "I still prefer to see the language at least respected in the narrative. You can do whatever you want in dialogue - mangle the syntax, throw in as much slang as you want, even mangle the slang's syntax - just leave the foundation narrative clean, please!"Well...depends on the narrative POV, of course. But in general, yes.
Michah, I do realize that for a first person POV, the rules typically go out the window. And, from the single article I've read on "deep POV", it's about the same there too. However, I still prefer the books that make you think about the story, not how the story is being told.Then again, that could just be my own personal bias showing. I prefer real language to the slang idiom that has started surfacing recently. Txt spk means almost nothing to me, and takes too long to figure out.
K. wrote: "It's when that slang is folded into jargon and the resulting mess is stirred into a narrative. I've wondered at times if I'm from the wrong generation - I still prefer to see the language at least respected in the narrative..."In general, I agree. You can break this rule, if you are careful. One author I greatly admire has a way of rendering in the narritive what would normally be said in dialog, and it I think it works quite well. But much of the time, people just don't know any better.
BTW: Did I mention the time I saw a sign downtown where I live that read (in part): "...would of done?"
K. wrote: "Rob - There isn't anything wrong with English as a second language when people learn it in school, or on the streets of Britain and Australia. When they learn it on the streets of America we wind ..."Whoa you can't throw in slang as much as you want in a story. I learned that hard way with editor. Which is one way to really piss the reader off when a character sounds like a ratchet, and it will kill the readers interest in finishing the book. My rule of thumb is to keep a jargon speaking clown to one character.
2nd if you're writing a faction, group of characters or what have you, keep jargon phrases short and give meaning after the phrase or word is used. So you when you go into jargon again the reader understands it.
I am glad I learned this early lol. Thanks for the reply.
K. wrote: "However, I still prefer the books that make you think about the story, not how the story is being told..."You've got me curious...have you read A Clockwork Orange? I think that's a perfect example of where how the book's written is just as interesting as the story itself...in fact, in the hands of a real master like Burgess, the two together produce a work of greater verisimilitued than one without the other. Of course this book's full of slang, and not slang of the common vernacular.
"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being much read neither. Well, what they sold was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I'm starting off the story with."
Owen wrote: "K. wrote: "BTW: Did I mention the time I saw a sign downtown where I live that read (in part): "...would of done?"..."**facepalm**
One that drives me crazy is on National Public Radio (who should know better) when they use the phrase "graduate high school" rather than "graduate from high school."
Schools friggin graduate students, not the other way around!...[this grammatical faux pas really gets under my skin].
One of their sponsors uses that, which I suppose you can blame on them, not NPR...But then the other day I heard an NPR correspondent use it in one of her pieces.
Someone once advised me to put the reader's brain to work. If I provide enough of the character's voice (mannerisms, accent, etc.), the reader's mind will fill in the blanks. I can write with just enough of the slang, drawl, accent and tone to maintain the character and, therefore, avoid bogging down the story with impenetrable jargon. I don't have to spell a character's entire dialogue phonetically to convey the fact that they speak with an accent. There are times when I want to have someone speak in a specific manner because their speech is central to the character or the plot. Other times, however, I can use just a few well timed words or phrases to maintain the image of the character and feel of the dialogue without burying the reader in a cesspool of jargon.
That's my opinion, anyway. One size does not fit all. Your mileage may vary. Use at your own risk.
Mod
Yep, Clockwork Orange was a little tough for me at first but once I got my head wrapped around it I loved it. The movie was actually more difficult for me to watch.
Charles wrote: "Yep, Clockwork Orange was a little tough for me at first but once I got my head wrapped around it I loved it. The movie was actually more difficult for me to watch."Really? Why was that...content or language or what?
I came to the book from the movie, as many did. The movie was always a wicked delight to me. The book was like getting more inside the head of Alex. And of course Kubrick left out the last chapter, so the two end very differently.
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I gotcha Charles no misunderstanding. I do love your replies and questions, the provoke thought.