Re: Writing a Novel
Lawrence Watt-Evans
>How to Write a Novel
>New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
Oh, for heaven's sake.
There are ALREADY a gazillion resources and ideas and groups for
would-be novelists, from rec.arts.sf.composition to Writer's Digest.
What the bloody fuck does anyone need with yet ANOTHER?
Look, you want to write a novel? READ a few thousand of them to see
how they work, and what _doesn't_ work. Then sit down and do a little
thinking about what you want in your story, and then just WRITE THE
BLOODY THING.
It's not that goddamned hard that you millions of frickin' wannabes
need to whine and bitch and critique each other to death, and clutter
up the web with ten zillion sites about it, and fall victim to every
half-assed scam artist from Addis Ababa to Yellowknife, and rant and
rave about how the Evile Nasty Publishers don't appreciate your
genius.
If you'd been paying any goddamn attention in ninth-grade English
you'd know the basic structure, and if you can't think of a plot you
can always just swipe a classic -- Homer and Dickens and Poe and
Austen are all in the public domain, you can swipe from them ALL YOU
WANT, and it's legal! Shakespeare stole his plots, and you can, too.
Steal the characters, too -- Robin Hood and Pseudolus and that bastard
Theseus, Arthur if you must, they're all FREE FOR THE TAKING! Change
the names and it's not plagiarism, it's archetypes.
And YES, it's a lot of work cranking out ninety thousand words without
putting your foot in your mouth repeatedly, and YES you may need to
write three or four or a dozen for practice before you get it right,
but for the sake of Buddha, Moses, and the bleeding baby Jesus, don't
TALK it to death, just fucking DO it! Put your ass in the chair and
your fingers on the keyboard and TYPE THE FUCKING WORDS!
DON'T TALK ABOUT IT! DON'T COMPARE NOTES! JUST DO IT!
JUST FUCKIN' DO IT, AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT!
And yes, if some wiseass out there doesn't know who I am, if it's so
simple, yes, I've done it. Thirty-four times, last time I counted.
And no, no one taught me how, I didn't do any bloody workshops, I
didn't have any connections in the industry or read a zillion "how to"
books or take a single creative writing course -- I SAT DOWN AND WROTE
THE DAMN NOVELS, the first six on a bloody electric typewriter because
we didn't _have_ word processors or the Internet back then.
So don't you tell me you need all your friends trading bad advice back
and forth, and some editor's secret handshake; I never met an author
until I WAS one, never met an editor until three years AFTER I sold my
first novel. What you NEED is a story worth telling -- doesn't need
to be new, either -- and the talent to tell it.
THAT'S ALL THE IDEAS AND RESOURCES YOU NEED.
Don't waste your time "learning the ropes" and "making connections"
and critiquing and all that shit; just WRITE. Write, write, write,
write. And after about a million words, maybe you'll get the hang of
it. I started when I was eight, sold my first novel at twenty-four.
If you got a late start, it's not MY problem, and you aren't helping
by wasting MORE time.
Sheesh. Damn wannabes.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>
>>How to Write a Novel
>>New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>
>Oh, for heaven's sake.
>
>There are ALREADY a gazillion resources and ideas and groups for
>would-be novelists, from rec.arts.sf.composition to Writer's Digest.
>What the bloody fuck does anyone need with yet ANOTHER?
>
>Look, you want to write a novel? READ a few thousand of them to see
>how they work, and what _doesn't_ work. Then sit down and do a little
>thinking about what you want in your story, and then just WRITE THE
>BLOODY THING.
And another thing -- what do you want to write a novel FOR? The
market sucks. There's no money in writing novels unless you're
Stephen King or John Grisham or Terry Pratchett or J.K. Rowling or
someone at that level, and YOU, dear wannabe, aren't. And if you had
the talent to reach their level you'd already KNOW that you don't need
anyone telling you how to do the job.
You can make more money as a plumber. You can entertain more people
doing stand-up comedy. You'll get more feedback from a goddamn blog.
(You think ordinary writers get fanmail? Yeah, right. A letter a
week, maybe.)
You think you'll enter into the ranks of literary immortals? Do a
little experiment. Go to the local Barnes & Noble and look over the
books in a section other than your usual genre -- how many of the
names on those spines do you recognize?
Google up a bestseller list from the 1950s, and see how many names you
recognize -- and those were the big guns!
How many living science fiction and fantasy authors can you name?
Couple hundred, maybe? SFWA has 1,500 members, and _only maybe half
the SF writers in America are members_.
Writing won't make you rich. It won't make you famous. The most
common question writers are asked at bookstore signings isn't "Where
do you get your ideas?," it's "Where's the rest room?" People at
parties, after you've sold a dozen well-received novels and quit your
day job, will still say, "Oh, you're a full-time writer? Had anything
published?"
Nobody reads. Nobody cares. Nobody understands what writers actually
do. A good part of the population isn't clear on the concept of
"fiction." Others don't know that there are books that _don't_ get on
television.
Spend a year writing your wonderful, brilliant SF novel, sell it to a
major New York publisher, and you'll get an advance of $7,500. If
you're lucky. For a year's work. And if it doesn't earn out, they'll
reject the next one unread unless you agree to use a different name on
it.
Hit the bestseller lists, and your novel's shipped 100,000 copies --
in a country of 300,000,000 people. Whoa, fame and fortune, boyo.
And half will probably come back as bookstore returns. In the 1960s,
during the big Tolkien craze, more people watched reruns of "My Mother
the Car" than actually read _The Lord of the Rings_. Reading novels
is an obsolete hobby, a niche market. More people voted on last
week's "American Idol" than ever heard of Robert Heinlein.
Fuck writing novels. Get a life. Get drunk, get laid, invent a
better toothbrush or code a funny website, they're all better uses of
your time than writing yet another goddamn SF/fantasy novel.
Tell your parents you love them. Tell your kids and your spouse, or
your girlfriend or boyfriend, that you love them. Forget about
telling readers anything at all; they won't listen, or they'll get it
all wrong. Learn to communicate with the people around you, not a
bunch of bookworms -- talk to the people who'll talk back, and not
just bitch about the ending to your last book or demand to know when
the next one's coming. Think about the people who will show up at
your funeral, not the ones who'll just post, "Damn, now he'll never
finish the series!" to rec.arts.sf.written, and be answered with,
"Just as well, the last few sucked."
Even as a _daydream_, writing sucks. Writers don't get groupies; they
barely get fans. Writers don't get to endorse sneakers or aftershave,
nobody cares what cars they drive (and mine's a seven-year-old Isuzu,
in case you wondered). I got more freebies for writing a _failed
comic book_ (LEONARD NIMOY'S PRIMORTALS) than for my entire career as
a novelist.
So just give it up. Don't pretend anymore. Don't waste your time
encouraging other newbies in some silly mutual admiration society, or
playing one-upmanship games in some bloodthirsty critique group. If
you must write a novel, just do it at home, don't tell anyone, don't
talk it to death, just do it -- and as Heinlein said, wash your hands
afterward.
Because really, consider -- wouldn't it be so much more impressive
when you actually show up witha novel if NO ONE KNEW YOU WERE EVEN
THINKING ABOUT IT? THAT would be the way to be one of the cool kids,
not talking about what you're GONNA do someday. Just the fact that
you put it all on paper without telling anyone would get you so many
cool points that it would hardly even MATTER if you can't sell it!
So screw writing a novel -- but if you absolutely must, do it quietly
at home and shut up about it.
Okay?
Wayne Throop
: Oh, for heaven's sake.
: [.. etc, etc ..]
<fingertips to temples, brow furrowed in psychic effort...>
I'm getting an impression. A definite vibe here...
you're feeling exasperated about something, am I right?
"Hey Rocky, watch me pull a novel out of my hat!"
"Again? That trick never works!"
"Nothin' up m' sleeve!" <roar!>
"Ooooh! Don't now m'own strenth!"
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Greg Schmidt
Sounds like somebody's afraid of a little competition. :-)
--
Greg Schmidt gr...@trawna.com
Trawna Publications http://www.trawna.com/
Gray Area
Its posts like these that make me realise why Ive been lurking in
r.a.sf.w for the last 14 years. Gosh has it been that long.
Cheers,
Ciaran
do$feratu
> TALK it to death, just fucking DO it! Put your ass in the chair
and
> your fingers on the keyboard and TYPE THE FUCKING WORDS!
>
I'll put that bit in my quote file.
Michael Alan Chary
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>
>>How to Write a Novel
>>New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>
>Oh, for heaven's sake.
>
>There are ALREADY a gazillion resources and ideas and groups for
>would-be novelists, from rec.arts.sf.composition to Writer's Digest.
>What the bloody fuck does anyone need with yet ANOTHER?
Well, what you need with it is that if someone is actually any good, they
might be competition, and this will mean they are writing masturbatory
crap about writing, rather than, you know, actually doing it.
>Look, you want to write a novel? READ a few thousand of them to see
>how they work, and what _doesn't_ work. Then sit down and do a little
>thinking about what you want in your story, and then just WRITE THE
>BLOODY THING.
I've tried. I'm crap at it.
--
Rene Descartes walks into a bar and orders five drinks. After he's done, the
bartender says, "Do you want another?" Rene says "I think not," and disappears.
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Alan Chary) wrote:
>In article <thmp415ppc7ghtdoi...@news.rcn.com>,
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>>
>>>How to Write a Novel
>>>New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>>
>>Oh, for heaven's sake.
>>
>>There are ALREADY a gazillion resources and ideas and groups for
>>would-be novelists, from rec.arts.sf.composition to Writer's Digest.
>>What the bloody fuck does anyone need with yet ANOTHER?
>
>Well, what you need with it is that if someone is actually any good, they
>might be competition, and this will mean they are writing masturbatory
>crap about writing, rather than, you know, actually doing it.
Yeah, but if they're any good, _I want to read their novel_! Not
their posts about it.
Competition -- pfeh! Not an issue. Not how it works.
Johan Larson
"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <l...@sff.net> wrote in message
news:u2pp41lvhmsua3fv5...@news.rcn.com...
[snip]
> Fuck writing novels. Get a life. Get drunk, get laid, invent a
> better toothbrush or code a funny website, they're all better uses of
> your time than writing yet another goddamn SF/fantasy novel.
> So screw writing a novel -- but if you absolutely must, do it quietly
> at home and shut up about it.
What just happened? Were you possessed by two time-travelling ghosts of
Harlan Ellison, or is something really wrong?
Johan Larson
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Nothing's wrong. Sheesh. A guy can't rant a little now and then,
even on All Fools' Day?
Al Wesolowsky
Quote file, hell. I'm making a wall poster outta the entire
rant!
--
Al B. Wesolowsky o Unlike J. W. Hardin, my foolish moves
a...@bu.edu o have been many.
Boston University o ---Michael Murphey
Glenn Dowdy
"Gray Area" <ciara...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1112348001.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> <snip>
>
> Its posts like these that make me realise why Ive been lurking in
> r.a.sf.w for the last 14 years. Gosh has it been that long.
>
Glenn D.
stre...@rohan.sdsu.edu
[snip]
> Yeah, but if they're any good, _I want to read their novel_! Not
> their posts about it.
>
> Competition -- pfeh! Not an issue. Not how it works.
Yeah, it's yet another source for you to crib fr^W^Wobtain inspiration from!
--
--Stewart Stremler----------------...@rohan.sdsu.edu--
"*I* am a troublemaker? YOU are the one spinning me up!"
-- A. Spydell (12/2000)
Tina Hall
> ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
Am quoting bits from both your posts, as one followed up to the
other.
First, is this your version of a 1st of April joke? (Ever confused.)
>> How to Write a Novel
>> New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
> Oh, for heaven's sake.
> There are ALREADY a gazillion resources and ideas and groups for
> would-be novelists, from rec.arts.sf.composition to Writer's
> Digest. What the bloody fuck does anyone need with yet ANOTHER?
<above left in for context>
[...]
> And YES, it's a lot of work cranking out ninety thousand words
> without putting your foot in your mouth repeatedly,
Where's the fun if it's work?
> and YES you may need to write three or four or a dozen for
> practice before you get it right,
What's 'right'? The only point I finally found for writing some
silly story is that you don't forget the details (and see what
happens next).
> [...] don't TALK it to death, just fucking DO it!
Others' opinions on the actual writing indeed ruin any fun there
could be had.
[...]
> -- I SAT DOWN AND WROTE THE DAMN NOVELS, the first six on a
> bloody electric typewriter because we didn't _have_ word
> processors or the Internet back then.
How did the first creep up on you?
> So don't you tell me you need all your friends trading bad advice
> back and forth, and some editor's secret handshake; I never met
> an author until I WAS one, never met an editor until three years
> AFTER I sold my first novel. What you NEED is a story worth
> telling -- doesn't need to be new, either -- and the talent to
> tell it.
Sell it? Ew. That'd mean letting anyone else see it. I doubt anyone
would be willing to pay the neccessary compensation for that. <g>
Screw talent. As long as there's an entertaining story (purely for
lack of a good fantasy story to _read_), that's enough.
> THAT'S ALL THE IDEAS AND RESOURCES YOU NEED.
I just started wondering about some physical trait I would find neat
in a character, and then some things to sort out concerning the
nature/relation of different folks (and started making notes,
because I kept forgetting the answer the moment I thought about the
next), and then I saw some character sitting there, and wondered
why, and when I found out why, I wrote that down... Been amusing
myself with that for over a month now. It's interesting that my
vague guesses on what's behind it all, and how things would turn
out, were usually wrong.
I'd still like to _read_ a story of that kind, though. One useful
thing is that it highlighted the things I really like, and the
things I find really, really boring. (confirmed some earlier ideas,
too). One of these days I'll try to sum up the notes on that, here.
> Don't waste your time "learning the ropes" and "making
> connections" and critiquing and all that shit; just WRITE.
> Write, write, write, write. And after about a million words,
> maybe you'll get the hang of it.
The hang of what?
<bits from your followup post follow>
> And another thing -- what do you want to write a novel FOR?
Nothing. :) I would like an interesting fantasy story.
> The market sucks.
What matters the market?
> There's no money in writing novels unless you're Stephen King or
> John Grisham or Terry Pratchett or J.K. Rowling or someone at that
> level, and YOU, dear wannabe, aren't.
Who cares what they do? Why they expose their stuff to the public is
a mystery to me, anyway, unless they write for money, which doesn't
sound like fun.
> And if you had the talent to reach their level you'd already KNOW
> that you don't need anyone telling you how to do the job.
What matters talent?
[...]
> You think you'll enter into the ranks of literary immortals?
What's the point of that? Once you're dead, you're not around to
enjoy yourself, and besides, lots of unknown people appreciating
someone's work has no value apart from what that someone attaches to
it in their head.
[...]
> Fuck writing novels. Get a life. Get drunk, get laid, invent a
> better toothbrush or code a funny website,
Ew. None of that sounds in the least appealing. And inventing a
better toothbrush sounds like the only thing that has some use.
> they're all better uses of your time than writing yet another
> goddamn SF/fantasy novel.
A fantasy story would be much more fun. Shame there are so few that
are actually fun.
> Tell your parents you love them.
I don't lie just like that.
> Tell your kids and your spouse, or your girlfriend or boyfriend,
> that you love them.
I wouldn't, so I don't keep any of that nonsense around. <g>
[...]
> Even as a _daydream_, writing sucks.
But daydreaming is fun. :) The writing is just so you don't forget
all the good bits. (Plus some boring plot and off-screen battles,
when they're necessary to provide excuses for more nice stuff.)
[...]
> If you must write a novel, just do it at home, don't tell anyone,
It's like playing a roguelike. It's fun talking about the fun you're
having, just keep the details out. Who wants to know you went NW/NW/
N/N/W/W/W.... and then ran into a floating eye?
The fun thing is that you can make up your own rules, and go back
and change the fact that you prayed at the wrong moment 20000 turns
ago, and that daft god still being angry.
> Because really, consider -- wouldn't it be so much more
> impressive when you actually show up witha novel if NO ONE KNEW
> YOU WERE EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT?
Who wants to be impressive? Why show it to anyone?
> THAT would be the way to be one of the cool kids, not talking
> about what you're GONNA do someday. Just the fact that you put it
> all on paper without telling anyone would get you so many cool
> points that it would hardly even MATTER if you can't sell it!
Cool is just in people's heads. I'd rather like a good story in
mine. :)
> So screw writing a novel -- but if you absolutely must, do it
> quietly at home and shut up about it.
If not for this post, I might have. Something went wrong here. <g>
--
Tina
No internet access.
### XP v3.40 RC3 ###
Wayne Throop
:: without putting your foot in your mouth repeatedly,
: Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall)
: Where's the fun if it's work?
Where's the fun if it isn't? (Or the satisfaction.)
Liz Broadwell
>:: And YES, it's a lot of work cranking out ninety thousand words
>:: without putting your foot in your mouth repeatedly,
>
>: Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall)
>: Where's the fun if it's work?
>
>Where's the fun if it isn't? (Or the satisfaction.)
Different kinds of fun? Between, say, successfully juggling rubber balls
and successfully juggling chainsaws? :-)
Peace,
Liz
--
Liz Broadwell (username-in-header at orphco dot org), Charter Orphan
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
"Mediaeval monasteries performed 'rolling backups' of the world's books
for a very long time." -- David Tate, r.a.sf.w, 10/26/04
Damien Neil
> >How to Write a Novel
> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>
> Oh, for heaven's sake.
Applause, with intermittent cheers and fireworks.
- Damien
htn963
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
<Snip>
> Sheesh. Damn wannabes.
So this is how "successful authors" view "ordinary people with
writing aspirations."
--
Ht
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 08:09:22 -0800, "Johan Larson"
Also, there's a school of thought that if there's any possible way you
/can/ be dissuaded from becoming a writer, you /should/ be. If you
don't have the drive to keep cranking the pages out, come Hell or high
water, sell aluminum siding instead.
That doesn't mean you can't write stuff on the side, but writing in
and of itself doesn't make you a writer. Just the same as in sports,
there are the pros, the semi-pros, and the weekend warriors - and it's
the ones who get paid who get to claim the mantle "ballplayer".
--Craig
--
"I have no sex appeal, a rum-pa-pum-pum," sang Gabe Fenton, in spirit
with the season. "My social skills are nil, a rum-pa-pum-pum."
"Did that actually rhyme?" asked Tuck. -- Christopher Moore,
"He's a bright guy," said Theo. _The Stupidest Angel_
Default User
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
[ranto snippo]
> (You think ordinary writers get fanmail? Yeah, right. A letter a
> week, maybe.)
Aw, somebody just wants more fan letters. I'd do one, but I'm not
entirely sure I could find my stamps at home. I don't think I've
physically mailed anything but packages in a long time.
[rantus remaindus snippidus]
Brian
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Sometimes. Largely because so many of them are poseurs, frauds,
whiners, and fools.
We're usually too polite to say so, though.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>
>> (You think ordinary writers get fanmail? Yeah, right. A letter a
>> week, maybe.)
>
>Aw, somebody just wants more fan letters. I'd do one, but I'm not
>entirely sure I could find my stamps at home. I don't think I've
>physically mailed anything but packages in a long time.
Oh, e-mail counts. And it's probably really something like 1.7 a week
on average, I haven't actually kept count. Tends to go in streaks.
Some of them are really sweet and brighten my whole day; others make
me wonder why they bothered.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On 1 Apr 2005 12:19:38 -0800, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
I want to expand on this a little, as long as I'm here. "Writing
aspirations" -- what does that mean, exactly?
You don't _aspire_ to write -- you either write, or you don't. You
may aspire to write _well_, or to _sell_ your writing, but if you want
to write, you just do it.
Aspiring to write is like aspiring to throw a ball; you don't need to
aspire, you can just do it. And you get better at it by doing it, not
by talking about it.
If you want to write, that's cool; go ahead. It's fun, sometimes. If
you're good at it you can make a little money. But the people who
come up to authors and say they're writers, too, or the people who put
together workshops and critiquing circles, are generally not the ones
who actually want to write. They're the ones who want to Be Writers.
They're the ones who have developed this image of themselves as cool
artistic people in order to stand out from the crowd, at least in
their own minds.; they're not interested in telling entertaining
stories, they're interested in creating a satisfying persona for
themselves, something that'll boost their egos and gain them the
respect of their peers.
They see authors at conventions, and the authors are full of
interesting ideas and have eager fans listening to them and are able
to talk to other famous writers as equals, and they think, "Gee, if
_I_ were a Writer, I could be that cool, too!"
Except they have cause and effect partially reversed. The reason Lois
Bujold, say, is a successful writer is that she was _already_ a cool
person full of interesting ideas who people would enjoy listening to,
and she put some of those interesting ideas down on paper. It's not
her writing that made her interesting; it's that _she's_ interesting
that made her _writing_ interesting.
Now, if you've already written a novel, or a dozen stories, and you
want to workshop them to learn how to do better next time, that's cool
-- seriously, more power to you, that's great. But if you want to
join a writer's group _first_, and _then_ write, you've got it
backwards. If you _aspire_ to write, you're doing it wrong.
Write _first_.
Then you aren't "a person with writing aspirations," you're a writer.
An amateur, a beginner, but a writer.
And you're never going to become a writer any other way.
You might discover that you hate writing, and no matter how much you
want to be a writer, that just isn't going to work.
Or you might discover you _like_ writing -- in which case, forget the
posing and persona and enjoy it, because you'll get more out of
actually writing than you ever will out of any aspiring.
Louann Miller
wrote:
>> So this is how "successful authors" view "ordinary people with
>>writing aspirations."
>
>Sometimes. Largely because so many of them are poseurs, frauds,
>whiners, and fools.
>
>We're usually too polite to say so, though.
For that matter, I wonder how much other professions have this sort of
problem?
"You know, I could have been a movie star but I didn't want to deal
with the studio system/Hollywood phonies/sell out." -- sounds likely.
"You know, I could have been an insurance underwriter but I didn't
want to deal with the actuarial tables" -- less plausible.
"You know, I could have been an evolutionary biologist but I didn't
want to take four undergraduate years of math and science courses, two
years for a master's degree, and another four for a top-rated doctoral
program if I could persuade them to let me in, also my brother's
preacher says it would be tampering in God's domain." -- sorry, I
think that one was a crossover from my talk.origins soapbox.
Eudaemonic Plague
couldn't ignore the weirdness.
"Tina Hall" <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote in message
news:MSGID_2=3A240=2F2199.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org...
: Lawrence Watt <l...@sff.net> wrote:
[snip]
: What's 'right'? The only point I finally found for writing some
: silly story is that you don't forget the details (and see what
: happens next).
That's the only point you find to write? It's postings like this one,
that make me really wonder about you.
: > So don't you tell me you need all your friends trading bad advice
: > back and forth, and some editor's secret handshake; I never met
: > an author until I WAS one, never met an editor until three years
: > AFTER I sold my first novel. What you NEED is a story worth
: > telling -- doesn't need to be new, either -- and the talent to
: > tell it.
:
: Sell it? Ew. That'd mean letting anyone else see it. I doubt anyone
: would be willing to pay the neccessary compensation for that. <g>
:
: Screw talent. As long as there's an entertaining story (purely for
: lack of a good fantasy story to _read_), that's enough.
This is absolutely perverse.
Are you shitting me? Don't they give the death penalty for this sort
of nonsense?
: > Don't waste your time "learning the ropes" and "making
: > connections" and critiquing and all that shit; just WRITE.
: > Write, write, write, write. And after about a million words,
: > maybe you'll get the hang of it.
:
: The hang of what?
D'OH!! Check that subject line again.
: <bits from your followup post follow>
:
: > And another thing -- what do you want to write a novel FOR?
:
: Nothing. :) I would like an interesting fantasy story.
I'm having difficulty believing you, just now.
: > The market sucks.
:
: What matters the market?
I see, you're filthy rich, so you don't care if you get paid, right?
: > There's no money in writing novels unless you're Stephen King or
: > John Grisham or Terry Pratchett or J.K. Rowling or someone at that
: > level, and YOU, dear wannabe, aren't.
:
: Who cares what they do? Why they expose their stuff to the public is
: a mystery to me, anyway, unless they write for money, which doesn't
: sound like fun.
This apparent total lack of empathy would make it pretty close to
impossible to write a useable story that involves people. How can you
possibly write about people, if you don't understand basic, obvious
motivations? You certainly won't be able to deal with more
complicated and/or subtle human behaviors.
: > And if you had the talent to reach their level you'd already KNOW
: > that you don't need anyone telling you how to do the job.
:
: What matters talent?
Somehow, I suspect that it's a moot point, in your case.
: > You think you'll enter into the ranks of literary immortals?
:
: What's the point of that? Once you're dead, you're not around to
: enjoy yourself, and besides, lots of unknown people appreciating
: someone's work has no value apart from what that someone attaches to
: it in their head.
There is something essentially wrong with this outlook on life.
Normal people (yeah, what's normal? I'm not) generally have some
interest in having left some mark on the universe that will remind
people that they once existed.
"Well, you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand;
The things you think are precious I can't understand"
: > Fuck writing novels. Get a life. Get drunk, get laid, invent a
: > better toothbrush or code a funny website,
:
: Ew. None of that sounds in the least appealing. And inventing a
: better toothbrush sounds like the only thing that has some use.
You're saying that you don't find having a life appealing? The world
certainly doesn't need better toothbrushes, Fuchs makes perfect ones.
: > they're all better uses of your time than writing yet another
: > goddamn SF/fantasy novel.
:
: A fantasy story would be much more fun. Shame there are so few that
: are actually fun.
You exhibit a certain lack of comprehension, I think. You definitely
show that you've either read very few fantasy stories, or have managed
to somehow avoid the many, many superlative fantasy stories.
: > Tell your parents you love them.
:
: I don't lie just like that.
Don't you? I'd have to consider that a lie, in and of itself.
: > Tell your kids and your spouse, or your girlfriend or boyfriend,
: > that you love them.
:
: I wouldn't, so I don't keep any of that nonsense around. <g>
Ummmm...which nonsense? Family? Friends? Love?
: > Even as a _daydream_, writing sucks.
:
: But daydreaming is fun. :) The writing is just so you don't forget
: all the good bits. (Plus some boring plot and off-screen battles,
: when they're necessary to provide excuses for more nice stuff.)
Comprehension? What's that? This seems a lot like what happens in
some of the other ngs. People with extremely limited understanding of
a subject like to spew their opinions, which display their ignorance
rather thoroughly. Has it never occurred to you, that you make
yourself look bad, when you write these strange posts?
: > If you must write a novel, just do it at home, don't tell anyone,
:
: It's like playing a roguelike. It's fun talking about the fun you're
: having, just keep the details out. Who wants to know you went NW/NW/
: N/N/W/W/W.... and then ran into a floating eye?
:
: The fun thing is that you can make up your own rules, and go back
: and change the fact that you prayed at the wrong moment 20000 turns
: ago, and that daft god still being angry.
It might be interesting to find out how this connects to what he said,
but somehow, I don't think I want to.
: > Because really, consider -- wouldn't it be so much more
: > impressive when you actually show up witha novel if NO ONE KNEW
: > YOU WERE EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT?
:
: Who wants to be impressive? Why show it to anyone?
Why bother to post? Who are _you_ trying to impress? Hmmmm?
: > THAT would be the way to be one of the cool kids, not talking
: > about what you're GONNA do someday. Just the fact that you put it
: > all on paper without telling anyone would get you so many cool
: > points that it would hardly even MATTER if you can't sell it!
:
: Cool is just in people's heads. I'd rather like a good story in
: mine. :)
Either you don't know what cool is, or you are really uncool.....or
something.
: > So screw writing a novel -- but if you absolutely must, do it
: > quietly at home and shut up about it.
:
: If not for this post, I might have. Something went wrong here. <g>
No kidding. So, you're writing a novel, are you?
Default User
I'd expect the email ones to trend more towards the jerk/loony side.
Glad you get some nice ones.
Anything new regarding Realms of Light (sequel to Nightside City). You
mentioned some time in the past that it was partially written but not
really marketable.
Brian
Louann Miller
wrote:
>If you want to write, that's cool; go ahead. It's fun, sometimes. If
>you're good at it you can make a little money. But the people who
>come up to authors and say they're writers, too, or the people who put
>together workshops and critiquing circles, are generally not the ones
>who actually want to write. They're the ones who want to Be Writers.
>They're the ones who have developed this image of themselves as cool
>artistic people in order to stand out from the crowd, at least in
>their own minds.; they're not interested in telling entertaining
>stories, they're interested in creating a satisfying persona for
>themselves, something that'll boost their egos and gain them the
>respect of their peers.
Maybe the recent popularity of blogs will absorb some of those.
Cheaper than vanity publishing, and less annoying to bystanders than
carrying your Great American Unfinished Novel around to show them.
Louann
Deirdre Saoirse Moen
> I want to expand on this a little, as long as I'm here. "Writing
> aspirations" -- what does that mean, exactly?
That one is procrastinating?
> If you want to write, that's cool; go ahead. It's fun, sometimes. If
> you're good at it you can make a little money. But the people who
> come up to authors and say they're writers, too, or the people who put
> together workshops and critiquing circles, are generally not the ones
> who actually want to write. They're the ones who want to Be Writers.
I'm sure there are people for whom this is true; I'm not one of them.
Then again, I didn't put together workshops and/or critiquing circles to
become a writer; I just wanted more people who wrote stuff I liked
reading. I'm one of those people who has learned more from workshopping
and other critiquing than I ever did on my own (by reading).
I sort of meander between fiction and non-fiction writing at times,
mostly for monetary reasons; I've written and sold a lot over the years,
but only one story in-genre.
> Except they have cause and effect partially reversed. The reason Lois
> Bujold, say, is a successful writer is that she was _already_ a cool
> person full of interesting ideas who people would enjoy listening to,
> and she put some of those interesting ideas down on paper. It's not
> her writing that made her interesting; it's that _she's_ interesting
> that made her _writing_ interesting.
Sometimes, learning to be a good writer is about learning what makes you
interesting and how to plug into that.
> Now, if you've already written a novel, or a dozen stories, and you
> want to workshop them to learn how to do better next time, that's cool
> -- seriously, more power to you, that's great. But if you want to
> join a writer's group _first_, and _then_ write, you've got it
> backwards. If you _aspire_ to write, you're doing it wrong.
>
> Write _first_.
Amen.
Which reminds me: I need to resign from one of my critiquing groups. Too
many of the members are NOT writers, which frustrates those of us who
are.
--
_Deirdre web: http://deirdre.net blog: http://deirdre.org/blog/
"Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!"
Tina Hall
[stuff about 'aspiring to be a writer]
> You might discover that you hate writing, and no matter how much
> you want to be a writer, that just isn't going to work.
What if you just like stories, and not the actual act of writing any
more than the act of reading, and you definitely don't want to be a
writer? :)
'Be a writer' sounds much like 'be a fan', or 'be a regular'. That's
what other people do, or maybe just are in their own or other
people's heads.
Carl Dershem
> Sheesh. Damn wannabes.
Heh heh heh... I just *love* this guy's writing.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Anything new regarding Realms of Light (sequel to Nightside City). You
>mentioned some time in the past that it was partially written but not
>really marketable.
It's still partially written and not really marketable.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<dei...@deirdre.org> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> I want to expand on this a little, as long as I'm here. "Writing
>> aspirations" -- what does that mean, exactly?
>
>That one is procrastinating?
Probably, yeah.
>Sometimes, learning to be a good writer is about learning what makes you
>interesting and how to plug into that.
A good and interesting point.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>
> >How to Write a Novel
> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>
> Oh, for heaven's sake.
<snip>
Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
discouraged and go home.
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
"All rather stout automobile manufacturers are sad when there is a full
moon. It makes them feel lonely. It stirs their hearts to thoughts of
love. Marriage loses its terrors for them, and they think wistfully of
hooking some fair woman up the back and buying her hats."
--P.G. Wodehouse, _Uneasy Money_
Nancy Lebovitz
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>> On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>>
>> >How to Write a Novel
>> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>>
>> Oh, for heaven's sake.
>
><snip>
>
>Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
>never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
>
>The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
>now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
>and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
>discouraged and go home.
Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
(as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
skill?
--
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
"We've tamed the lightning and taught sand to give error messages."
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
Peter D. Tillman
> Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> > On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
> >
> > >How to Write a Novel
> > >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>
> <snip>
>
> Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
> never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
>
> The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
> now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
> and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
> discouraged and go home.
>
Thus, the distinguished public service performed by M. Swanwick in his
Unca Mikes [Bad] Advice columns:
<http://www.michaelswanwick.com/evrel/advansw.html> et al
Forex, Cat writes:: Should I apply for Clarion West?
UM: It differs from person to person. I've had students tell me it made
them never want to write another word of fiction again - and that's
good...
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Swanwick Site Committee
Sean O'Hara
>
> Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> skill?
Well, John Kennedy Toole killed himself after one rejection slip,
yet /A Confederacy of Dunces/ is one of the great American comic novels.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
History Professor: What device invented in the 20th Century allowed
people to view broadcast programs in their own homes.
Fry: Oh, I know this. What do you call it? Lite-brite.
-Futurama
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Lebovitz) wrote:
>Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
>(as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
>skill?
No.
An anecdote from a friend of mine who once worked for a certain
literary agency:
This agency, while it did legitimately represent dozens of clients,
also ran a profitable reading-fee operation -- would-be writers would
send manuscripts for evaluation for a fee, and get a two- or
three-page critique back, telling them (along with genuine advice on
the story's strengths and weaknesses) that their work showed potential
but wasn't marketable as it stood -- try again with something else.
Very, VERY rarely, a reading-fee submission was good enough to get
turned over to a real agent for representation, but well over 99% got
"not good enough but keep trying."
Nobody was ever told, "You suck. Give up." Management liked keeping
those reading fees flowing.
Except there was one writer, living somewhere in New England, who sent
a _complete new novel_ every two or three months, and they all sucked,
and were gradually getting _worse_ over time. Every time he got a
critique, his next cover letter would say he'd taken the advice to
heart and worked his hardest and he was sure this next one was the one
where he finally got everything right and they'd take him on as a
client. And every time, the novel was _worse_, the same flaws still
there.
So finally my friend, who had concluded that maybe this was not a job
he wanted to do for the rest of his life and he therefore no longer
cared if he got fired for this, wrote the guy a straightforward letter
saying, "Look, it's hopeless. You've been doing this for years and
showing no improvement at all, your writing is so far below
professional standards no editor would ever read past page 3 and most
wouldn't finish the first paragraph, you've spent thousands of dollars
in reading fees and wasted thousands of hours of your time writing
this stuff, and we've wasted hundreds of hours of _our_ time
critiquing it. Give it up. Pack it in. You aren't a writer and you
never will be."
As it happened, management did not catch him and fire him, so my
friend was still at the agency a month later when the _next_ novel
came in, with a cover letter saying, "I know you only wrote that stuff
about giving up to make me try harder, so I DID, and I KNOW this is
the one that's going to sell!"
And it was, of course, the worst piece of crap yet, "Eye of Argon"
level stuff...
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <424E187C...@optonline.com>,
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>>>
>>> >How to Write a Novel
>>> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>>>
>>> Oh, for heaven's sake.
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
>>never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
>>
>>The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
>>now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
>>and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
>>discouraged and go home.
>
> Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> skill?
No, but there's pretty strong reason to believe that
irresistable-force level determination to get published is a necessary
ingredient. And it's much easier to test for than writing skill.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
Matt Hughes
> Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> skill?
No. Consider John Kennedy Toole. He wrote a fine book called "A
Confederacy of Dunces" but couldn't get it published. So he killed
himself. Then his mother, who was apparently not a writer but
possessed vast reserves of determination, hammered away at the
industry until the book was published to great acclaim.
Together, they made a great and successful author.
I sympathize with Lawrence's giving in to the impulse to stick his
thumbs in his ears, waggle his fingers and go, "Booga-booga-booga!" at
all the "aspiring" writers. I deal with a lot of them while teaching
how-to-write-a-novel through my local college's community ed program
and doing blue pencil cafe at writers conferences. The first rule is:
don't break the emerging writers. No loud and sudden noises or too
graphic descriptions of how the business really works.
I never took a writing course or joined a critiquing circle (except as
the published pro who ended up critiquing the others like some
coffee-stained oracle). I wrote my first (god-awful) novel on a
rented manual typewriter, and learned a lot about how to do things
wrong, which is a precursor to learning how to do them right. There
is no substitute for bum-in-seat, fingers-on-keyboard.
But, financially, it makes more sense to calculate how many hours
you'd spend writing the novel, then instead of writing it, go get a
job at minimum wage, save all your pay and use it to buy lottery
tickets.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com/black-brillion
Next book: The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, Night Shade, July
Current story: The Gist Hunter, F&SF, June
Next story: Go Tell the Phoenicians, Interzone #198, May-June
Free read of my Locus recommended story "A Little Learning" at
http://www.archonate.com/a-little-learning
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>I sympathize with Lawrence's giving in to the impulse to stick his
>thumbs in his ears, waggle his fingers and go, "Booga-booga-booga!" at
>all the "aspiring" writers.
I'd like to think it was a _little_ more content-rich than
"booga-booga-booga!"
Wayne Throop
: I'd like to think it was a _little_ more content-rich than
: "booga-booga-booga!"
Indeed. It was at least a four-booga rant.
Maybe more. And nicely done IMO.
Myself, I can barely work up a hundred milli-booga rant.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Matt Hughes
wrote:
>On 2 Apr 2005 11:27:42 -0800, mhu...@mars.ark.com (Matt Hughes)
Well, that's the thing about this pomo era; it's not so much what
you're pitching, but more what the reader's catching.
But you're right, there was some "stop whining" and some "write
something, for god's sake" in there, too. The "Booga-booga-booga!"
was, to my mind, however, the best element.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Andrew Wheeler
>
> In article <424E187C...@optonline.com>,
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
> >Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> >>
> >> On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
> >>
> >> >How to Write a Novel
> >> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
> >>
> >> Oh, for heaven's sake.
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
> >never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
> >
> >The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
> >now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
> >and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
> >discouraged and go home.
>
> Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> skill?
No, but there's also no reason to believe writing skill is
well-correllated with success in publishing novels, either. Really
determined people get ahead -- like the old saying "It's easy to get
rich; you just have to want to get rich *more than anything else in the world.*"
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>But you're right, there was some "stop whining" and some "write
>something, for god's sake" in there, too. The "Booga-booga-booga!"
>was, to my mind, however, the best element.
Fair enough; thanks.
htn963
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
<snip>
> The reason Lois
> Bujold, say, is a successful writer is that she was _already_ a cool
> person full of interesting ideas who people would enjoy listening to,
> and she put some of those interesting ideas down on paper. It's not
> her writing that made her interesting; it's that _she's_ interesting
> that made her _writing_ interesting.
Or else she has easily-pleased fans who aren't interesting
themselves to begin with.
I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans (but
not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember, now,
his reputation with me is on the line here.)
> Now, if you've already written a novel, or a dozen stories, and you
> want to workshop them to learn how to do better next time, that's
cool
> -- seriously, more power to you, that's great. But if you want to
> join a writer's group _first_, and _then_ write, you've got it
> backwards. If you _aspire_ to write, you're doing it wrong.
Ever heard of the mentor system?
--
Ht
Nancy Lebovitz
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> In article <424E187C...@optonline.com>,
>> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>> >Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On 31 Mar 2005 12:51:24 -0800, ditchd...@yahoo.com (digger) wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >How to Write a Novel
>> >> >New group to exchange ideas and resources for writing novels
>> >>
>> >> Oh, for heaven's sake.
>> >
>> ><snip>
>> >
>> >Preach it, brother, preach it. They won't listen, of course -- they
>> >never do -- but you still got to put that Good Word out there.
>> >
>> >The one piece of advice every aspiring writer needs is: Give Up. Give up
>> >now. The good ones, the ones who might actually make it, won't listen,
>> >and it will save so much time on everyone's part if the other 99% get
>> >discouraged and go home.
>>
>> Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
>> (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
>> skill?
>
>No, but there's also no reason to believe writing skill is
>well-correllated with success in publishing novels, either. Really
>determined people get ahead -- like the old saying "It's easy to get
>rich; you just have to want to get rich *more than anything else in the world.*"
discouraged should be discouraged. It's one thing to say that aspiring
writers should be told the truth about the long road ahead and the
unlikelihood of making much money, and another to make being nasty
to them into some sort of useful filter.
Peter D. Tillman
Sean O'Hara <sean...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the Year of the Cock, the Great and Powerful Nancy Lebovitz declared:
> >
> > Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> > (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> > skill?
>
> Well, John Kennedy Toole killed himself after one rejection slip,
> yet /A Confederacy of Dunces/ is one of the great American comic novels.
Or a big, dull mixed-up mess, which is why I didn't get very far with
the thing. YMMV greatly, as alleged Humor is involved. [glances at
bookshelf] I kept my copy for *years*, thinking it was just me, mood, or
whatever, tmust have given up & recycled the thing. Humor works, or it
doesn't. No predicting this, either, ime.
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Peter D. Tillman
Matt Hughes <mhu...@mars.ark.com> wrote:
Hear, here!
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
--
Nineteen-year-old Christopher Paolini of Paradise Valley, Montana,
has sold self-published first novel Eragon and two unwritten sequels
to Knopf for a deal reportedly over $500,000.
Locus, http://www.locusmag.com/2003/News/News01Log.html
So-- did it earn out? <GG>
Richard Horton
For what it's worth, I think _A Confederacy of Dunces_ is a fabulous
comic novel. The humor is very much pain-inducing -- the lead
character is a many ways a monster, though a sympathetic one (and when
I say monster I don't mean anything like Hannibal Lecter -- rather, a
racist (though even then in a contradictory way), and a messed-up
loser).
But I laughed and gasped throughout.
I do think it is true that folks' mileages vary more with humor than
with other genres.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
art...@yahoo.com
>a _complete new novel_ every two or three months, and they all sucked,
>and were gradually getting _worse_ over time.
But he didn't give up, even after writing "It".
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Cute. Wrong New Englander. If I'd meant Maine, I'd have said Maine.
This guy used two addresses, one in Massachusetts, one in Rhode
Island.
David Goldfarb
htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans (but
>not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
>interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember, now,
>his reputation with me is on the line here.)
I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte Cristo_:
_Dragon Weather_
_The Dragon Society_
_Dragon Venom_
--
David Goldfarb |From the fortune cookie file:
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |"Do not put so much sugar in your coffee, or
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | he will think you extravagant."
htn963
David Goldfarb wrote:
> In article <1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans
(but
> >not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
> >interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember,
now,
> >his reputation with me is on the line here.)
>
> I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte
Cristo_:
>
> _Dragon Weather_
> _The Dragon Society_
> _Dragon Venom_
Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
unicorn is tolerable.
--
Ht
Lawrence Watt-Evans
(David Goldfarb) wrote:
>In article <1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans (but
>>not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
>>interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember, now,
>>his reputation with me is on the line here.)
>
>I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte Cristo_:
>
>_Dragon Weather_
>_The Dragon Society_
>_Dragon Venom_
He specified "no dragons." That eliminates roughly half my output,
I'd say.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
>unicorn is tolerable.
For heaven's sake, you'll tolerate unicorns but not dragons?
Okay, fine -- WORLDS OF SHADOW has no dragons...
Oh, wait. I take that back. It does have a dragon. Damn.
war...@aol.com
> --
> Nineteen-year-old Christopher Paolini of Paradise Valley, Montana,
> has sold self-published first novel Eragon and two unwritten sequels
> to Knopf for a deal reportedly over $500,000.
> Locus, http://www.locusmag.com/2003/News/News01Log.html
>
> So-- did it earn out? <GG>
Sure it earned out the advance. There were a million copies in print in
Feb. 2004, in the US alone. It's been sold to 37 foreign markets.
Fox is making a movie of Eragon; principal photography to begin in July
2005.
http://movieweb.com/news/news.php?id=7023
Eragon is number two on the New York Times Children's Chapter
Best-Sellers List, 82 weeks on the list.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/books/bestseller/0410bestchildren.html
And the USA Today Top 150 Bestsellers List has Eragon currently in the
top 150
http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx
Weeks in Top 150: 70
Current position: 136
Entered Top 150: 9/11/2003
Peak Position: 11
Last appeared: 3/31/2005
I'd say that Eragon has earned out many times more than the advance for
all three book Random House/Knopf bought. If Eragon sold 1,000,000
copies at the standard royalty rate, retail price of $18.95, yields
$2.36 million. And that was over a year ago.
Eragon Amazon ranking 468
Eragon BN ranking 235
Paolini's second book due out in August 2005 is already a bestseller
Eldest Amazon ranking 49
Eldest BN ranking 40
Master Paolini is set for life. And how was your day?
Kevin
David Goldfarb
You may rest assured that the fact had not escaped my attention.
...Oh, all right, how about _Touched by the Gods_?
--
David Goldfarb |"Just once I'd like to battle an alien menace
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | that *wasn't* immune to bullets."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart
| Doctor Who: "Robot"
do$feratu
> On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 10:24:03 -0600, "Peter D. Tillman"
> <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> For what it's worth, I think _A Confederacy of Dunces_ is a
fabulous
> comic novel. The humor is very much pain-inducing -- the lead
> character is a many ways a monster, though a sympathetic one
(and when
> I say monster I don't mean anything like Hannibal Lecter --
rather, a
> racist (though even then in a contradictory way), and a
messed-up
> loser).
Racist!? After he led the Crusade for Moorish Dignity?
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> In article <rLadnToazrS...@comcast.com>,
> Sean O'Hara <sean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In the Year of the Cock, the Great and Powerful Nancy Lebovitz declared:
> > >
> > > Is there any reason to think that strong determination to get published
> > > (as distinct from finishing stories) is well-corelated with writing
> > > skill?
> >
> > Well, John Kennedy Toole killed himself after one rejection slip,
It was more protracted and depressing than that. There were
many revisions requested before the final rejection. Which
may not have been all that final, though Toole thought it
was. JKT appears to have had serious problems aside from
the rejection of the book.
> > yet /A Confederacy of Dunces/ is one of the great American comic novels.
>
> Or a big, dull mixed-up mess, which is why I didn't get very far with
> the thing.
Several times now I've given up on a book after the first
couple of chapters, only to return to it later and discover
that it's one of the best books I've ever read.
YMMV greatly, as alleged Humor is involved.
I lent my copy to a friend, he lent it to another ... it was
two years before I got it back.
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Johan Larson
"Nancy Lebovitz" <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote in message
news:dAM3e.754$bI3....@monger.newsread.com...
> The piece that I'm dubious about is the idea that the ones who can be
> discouraged should be discouraged. It's one thing to say that aspiring
> writers should be told the truth about the long road ahead and the
> unlikelihood of making much money, and another to make being nasty
> to them into some sort of useful filter.
If I may take a wild amateur guess, the pros' thinking goes something like
this:
<pro>
I'm an editor. Every year, in addition to managing the reprint backlist, I
publish 10 SF works. I select them from the 1000 (!) submissions I get
during that period. Of those 1000, 900 are obvious trash, easily rejected,
99 are good works, requiring serious consideration, and 1 work is a shining
jewel. These ratios as a big pain, since I have to plow though 900 pieces of
crap that frankly require rubber gloves, a task I wouldn't wish on my
enemies. I also have to say, "Thanks, but no thanks." to 90 authors of
perfectly reasonable work. I try to harden my heart as I shrivel my liver,
with gin, but it's always tough.
If we were to take serious measures to discourage aspiring professional
writers, say by hiring illiteratist deathsquads, those submissions might
drop to 300. To begin with, the shining jewel I spoke of earlier would still
be there. Believe me, I've met the people who produce them; they hoist their
sails in gales of ambition and steer by true talent's star; even Cossack
pogroms wouldn't discourage them. The remaining 299 submissions would
probably drop proportionally. There would be 270 pieces of crap, and 29
competent but unexceptional works. Under this scheme, I would only have to
say no to 20 competent authors, which is a lot better than 90.
So I say bring it on. Fewer aspiring authors would mean a lot less crap for
me to wade through, and a lot fewer broken hearts.
</pro>
Johan Larson
art...@yahoo.com
>I'm an editor. Every year, in addition to managing the reprint
backlist, I
>publish 10 SF works. I select them from the 1000 (!) submissions I get
>during that period. Of those 1000, 900 are obvious trash, easily
rejected,
>99 are good works, requiring serious consideration, and 1 work is a
shining
>jewel. These ratios as a big pain, since I have to plow though 900
pieces of
>crap that frankly require rubber gloves, a task I wouldn't wish on my
>enemies. I also have to say, "Thanks, but no thanks." to 90 authors of
>perfectly reasonable work. I try to harden my heart as I shrivel my
liver,
>with gin, but it's always tough.
Are those 10 works novels or short stories? I would imagine the percent
of publishable material is similar for both. I wonder how many short
story submissions the typical SF magazine gets every year. (Does Locus
accept unsolicited manuscripts? I have no idea).
James Nicoll
Johan Larson <johan0larson8comcast0net> wrote:
>
>If I may take a wild amateur guess, the pros' thinking goes something like
>this:
>
><pro>
>I'm an editor. Every year, in addition to managing the reprint backlist, I
>publish 10 SF works. I select them from the 1000 (!) submissions I get
>during that period. Of those 1000, 900 are obvious trash, easily rejected,
>99 are good works, requiring serious consideration, and 1 work is a shining
>jewel. These ratios as a big pain, since I have to plow though 900 pieces of
>crap that frankly require rubber gloves, a task I wouldn't wish on my
>enemies.
I bet there's a level of interns who get to some of that. My
third-hand impression is that most of the bottom 90% are sub-ATTACK OF
THE R*CK*IDS, so totally inept that a sentence or two will do to eliminate
them.
Think of it like this: You know the worst book you ever read? Well,
_it_ got published. That implies the ones that did not were even worse.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.marryanamerican.ca
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Michael Stemper
I thought so, too. In fact, you should save the initial post and your
main follow-up to it. That way, when you do your own "Grumbles From the
Grave" or "Expanded Universe", you can include the obligatory "curmudgeonly
advice for aspiring writers."
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
(David Goldfarb) wrote:
>In article <1112585872.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>David Goldfarb wrote:
>>> In article <1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> > I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans
>>(but
>>> >not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
>>> >interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember,
>>now,
>>> >his reputation with me is on the line here.)
>>>
>>> I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte
>>Cristo_:
>>>
>>> _Dragon Weather_
>>> _The Dragon Society_
>>> _Dragon Venom_
>>
>> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit.
>
>You may rest assured that the fact had not escaped my attention.
>
>...Oh, all right, how about _Touched by the Gods_?
I didn't put any dragons in it?
Hmm... no, I guess I didn't. And there certainly aren't any elves or
unicorns. (I don't think I've ever put a unicorn in a novel, though
I've certainly used 'em in short stories.)
Okay, that should work.
Scott Robinson
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <582dnTpC0ui...@comcast.com>,
>Johan Larson <johan0larson8comcast0net> wrote:
>>
>>If I may take a wild amateur guess, the pros' thinking goes something like
>>this:
>>
>><pro>
>>I'm an editor. Every year, in addition to managing the reprint backlist, I
>>publish 10 SF works. I select them from the 1000 (!) submissions I get
>>during that period. Of those 1000, 900 are obvious trash, easily rejected,
>>99 are good works, requiring serious consideration, and 1 work is a shining
>>jewel. These ratios as a big pain, since I have to plow though 900 pieces of
>>crap that frankly require rubber gloves, a task I wouldn't wish on my
>>enemies.
>
> I bet there's a level of interns who get to some of that. My
>third-hand impression is that most of the bottom 90% are sub-ATTACK OF
>THE R*CK*IDS, so totally inept that a sentence or two will do to eliminate
>them.
>
> Think of it like this: You know the worst book you ever read? Well,
>_it_ got published. That implies the ones that did not were even worse.
True, but it probably was in the right place at the right time. Or
the publisher couldn't turn down the author (possibly favoritism,
possibly the publisher had a reason to believe the next book would be
good and wanted to keep the option to publish first). Maybe the
market was low on books at the time, didn't Campbell also say that you
have to fill all the pages, and sometimes it takes a work you'd rather
see in the competition?
On the other hand, try as you might, you can't read everything that is
published. The odds are high that there are plenty of worse books
published, and plenty worse out.
I have a hard time believing that the slushpile can't be easily
scanned electronically. Sure, a competent author will break any laws
of writing for good reason, but I expect that the slush will come out
with so much questionable writing as to make it not worth human eyes.
Scott
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Nicoll) wrote:
> I bet there's a level of interns who get to some of that. My
>third-hand impression is that most of the bottom 90% are sub-ATTACK OF
>THE R*CK*IDS, so totally inept that a sentence or two will do to eliminate
>them.
No, unfortunately, it's not that simple. In these days of word
processors and grammar checkers, lots of people can produce coherent
sentences for page after page. Some stuff is indeed laughably bad,
but a great deal of slush is just mind-numbingly _dull_ -- page after
page of boring characters doing boring things to no apparent purpose,
where even outwardly-exciting things are utterly unengaging.
One example I remember opened with a battle scene, which should be
stirring enough, except that it was written with such utter detachment
that not only could I not bring myself to care who won or lost the
battle, I couldn't figure out which side the _author_ considered the
good guys. Lots of description of soldiers whacking at each other,
lots of stuff about "And then mighty Gorad, Master of the Third Host,
fell before the blades of the surging Twyrians," where I had no idea
who the heck Gorad was (he hadn't been mentioned before), or why I
should care.
And then the actual story started in Chapter Two, where it turns out
our hero and his sidekick were left for dead upon the battlefield, not
that I cared about them, either. Neither of them appeared by name in
Chapter One, though I eventually worked out that their fall had been
mentioned.
Or there's the "inappropriate market" problem. I helped out reading
slush for DREAMS OF DECADENCE once; DREAMS is a vampire magazine.
Says so on the cover. Says so in the guidelines. Says so in the ads.
But you'd be astonished how many submissions I read there that had no
vampires so much as mentioned in them, even by implication.
Anyway, the vast majority of slush these days is reasonably literate,
but completely and utterly fails the Eight Deadly Words test.
> Think of it like this: You know the worst book you ever read? Well,
>_it_ got published. That implies the ones that did not were even worse.
They generally were. But the major problem isn't ineptitude, it's
dullness.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
What's the one with the guy on the cover running from a flying
saucer while his arms are loaded with groceries? /The Chromosome
Key/? I'm pretty sure that doesn't have a dragon.
Might require searching a used bookstore, though.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
It's not a small world, it's a small bourgeois clique.
-Deborah Chinn
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>In the Year of the Cock, the Great and Powerful Lawrence Watt-Evans
>declared:
>> On 3 Apr 2005 20:37:52 -0700, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
>>>unicorn is tolerable.
>>
>> For heaven's sake, you'll tolerate unicorns but not dragons?
>>
>> Okay, fine -- WORLDS OF SHADOW has no dragons...
>>
>> Oh, wait. I take that back. It does have a dragon. Damn.
>
>What's the one with the guy on the cover running from a flying
>saucer while his arms are loaded with groceries? /The Chromosome
>Key/? I'm pretty sure that doesn't have a dragon.
THE CHROMOSOMAL CODE. No dragon. Nor are there dragons in SHINING
STEEL or NIGHTSIDE CITY, and if there's a dragon in DENNER'S WRECK
it's a very brief cameo.
>Might require searching a used bookstore, though.
Yeah. And I don't think THE CHROMOSOMAL CODE is exactly a masterpiece
-- one reviewer described it as, "If STARTLING STORIES were still
publishing, this could have been their featured serial," which I
thought was a fair assessment.
Joe Morris
> But I laughed and gasped throughout.
Man, the scene with Ignatius and his mother at the bar
is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
It's occasionally painful to read, but it really is a great book
--
Joe Morris Live music in Atlanta
jol...@gmail.com http://jolomo.net/atlanta/shows.html
Michael Alan Chary
THe Lords of Dus has no dragons except for the invisible mute one that's
sleeping in various places throughout the book.
--
In memoriam: Fred Korematsu, age 86, American Hero
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
Sean O'Hara
>
>
> For what it's worth, I think _A Confederacy of Dunces_ is a fabulous
> comic novel. The humor is very much pain-inducing -- the lead
> character is a many ways a monster, though a sympathetic one (and when
> I say monster I don't mean anything like Hannibal Lecter -- rather, a
> racist (though even then in a contradictory way), and a messed-up
> loser).
>
When you say it like that, he sounds an awful lot like David Brent
from /The Office/, only smarter and with a bit of Gareth thrown in.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do
it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
-Woody Allen
Louann Miller
wrote:
>No, unfortunately, it's not that simple. In these days of word
>processors and grammar checkers, lots of people can produce coherent
>sentences for page after page. Some stuff is indeed laughably bad,
>but a great deal of slush is just mind-numbingly _dull_ -- page after
>page of boring characters doing boring things to no apparent purpose,
>where even outwardly-exciting things are utterly unengaging.
Do you happen to know, was this the case with the Inutterably Bad
Writer your friend at the agency was trying to discourage?
I've dabbled in editing on a strictly fanzine level. From my tiny data
set, if someone writes lively scenes with superficial details --
spelling, grammar, history of the Merovingian Empire -- screwed up you
can sometimes coax them into fixing the superficials so that the
fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read. If the grammar
and spelling and so forth is perfect but the scenes are stone cold
dead in the market, there isn't sh*t any beta reader or writing group
can do for it.
Aka: "no, there's nothing wrong there. There's just nothing _right._"
Bradford Holden
>
> fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read. If the grammar
> and spelling and so forth is perfect but the scenes are stone cold
> dead in the market, there isn't sh*t any beta reader or writing group
> can do for it.
May I ask what a beta reader is?
--
Bradford Holden
"Brains are very delicate, always handle them with care; they have a tendency
to fall apart." - _The Joy of Cooking_
Default User
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2005 15:07:08 -0800, "Default User"
<defaul...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Anything new regarding Realms of Light (sequel to Nightside City).
You
> >mentioned some time in the past that it was partially written but
not
> >really marketable.
>
> It's still partially written and not really marketable.
Thought that was probably the case.
Perhaps I'll check again another couple years from now.
Brian
Mike Schilling
"Louann Miller" <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
news:1112646182.f01b51209ccb72ab1fe0e1550db5531d@teranews...
> I've dabbled in editing on a strictly fanzine level. From my tiny data
> set, if someone writes lively scenes with superficial details --
> spelling, grammar, history of the Merovingian Empire -- screwed up you
> can sometimes coax them into fixing the superficials so that the
> fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read.
Or they might fix none of it (OK, I didn't spot any spelling errors) and
produce _The DaVinci Code_.
Mark Atwood
>
> Think of it like this: You know the worst book you ever read? Well,
> _it_ got published. That implies the ones that did not were even worse.
Some of the worst books I've ever read have been self published (or
almost equivalently, published by a publishing house with no editoral
standards at all (TSR in the implosion stage)).
Unfortunately, this does not lend itself well to a creating a decision
rule, because many of the BEST books I've read have been self published.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure
ma...@atwood.name | you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
Mark Atwood
>
> And then the actual story started in Chapter Two, where it turns out
> our hero and his sidekick were left for dead upon the battlefield, not
> that I cared about them, either. Neither of them appeared by name in
> Chapter One, though I eventually worked out that their fall had been
> mentioned.
That's a classic writer's problem. One chapter to set things up, then
chapter 2 starts the story. If the story is worth saving, step one in
the salvage operation is to guillotine off chapter one and throw it in
the bit bucket.
Mark Atwood
>
> Or there's the "inappropriate market" problem. I helped out reading
> slush for DREAMS OF DECADENCE once; DREAMS is a vampire magazine.
> Says so on the cover. Says so in the guidelines. Says so in the ads.
> But you'd be astonished how many submissions I read there that had no
> vampires so much as mentioned in them, even by implication.
That may be a symptom of Heinlein's advice, once you've written a
story, *never* stop shopping it around.
This piece of advice probably doesn't scale all that well as the
number of hopeful writers increases, and for writers with less ability
to tell an engaging story.
Mike Schilling
"Mark Atwood" <ma...@atwood.name> wrote in message
news:m2k6nig...@amsu.fallenpegasus.com...
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
>>
>> And then the actual story started in Chapter Two, where it turns out
>> our hero and his sidekick were left for dead upon the battlefield, not
>> that I cared about them, either. Neither of them appeared by name in
>> Chapter One, though I eventually worked out that their fall had been
>> mentioned.
>
> That's a classic writer's problem. One chapter to set things up, then
> chapter 2 starts the story. If the story is worth saving, step one in
> the salvage operation is to guillotine off chapter one and throw it in
> the bit bucket.
Classic sitcom problem too: the first episode introduces the characters and
sets up the premise for the rest of the series (Malcolm tests out as a
genius, Diane goes to work at the bar, Ross's wife leaves him for another
woman, etc, etc) but isn't particulaly funny. Ben Elton knew better, which
is why, except for the first series, Blackadder always started in medias
res.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> writes:
>
>
>>fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read. If the grammar
>>and spelling and so forth is perfect but the scenes are stone cold
>>dead in the market, there isn't sh*t any beta reader or writing group
>>can do for it.
>
> May I ask what a beta reader is?
>
Like a beta-tester, but without the BSOD.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Kitty Farmer: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!
-Donnie Darko
Mark Atwood
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> writes:
>
> >
> > fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read. If the grammar
> > and spelling and so forth is perfect but the scenes are stone cold
> > dead in the market, there isn't sh*t any beta reader or writing group
> > can do for it.
>
> May I ask what a beta reader is?
The writing equivalent of a "beta tester".
Some authors destribute (usually electronic) drafts of their
work-in-progress to beta readers, to allow the power of peer review
and Linus's Law to kick in and discover proof and copyedit problems,
technical and scientific errors, domain knowlege goofs, plotting and
character inconsistancies, readability, engagability, and literary
quality.
This is similar to "writers circles" where a bunch of writers get
together to crique each other's drafts, tho those are more structured
and more designed to look for proofing problems and literary quality.
My anecdotal evidence is that authors are more likely to recruit beta
readers if they are from a technical or technical/academic background,
and are comfortable with the socialization and mores of heavy internet
use.
I have been privilaged to be a beta reader for a couple of different
authors.
Sea Wasp
>
> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
> unicorn is tolerable.
You'll take the dragons and LIKE them, soldier!
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Sea Wasp
> On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 03:06:38 +0000 (UTC), gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU
> (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>
>
>>In article <1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>>htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans (but
>>>not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
>>>interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember, now,
>>>his reputation with me is on the line here.)
>>
>>I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte Cristo_:
>>
>>_Dragon Weather_
>>_The Dragon Society_
>>_Dragon Venom_
>
>
> I'd say.
Even eliminates the Lords of Dus series unless he'll let you get away
with SPOILER.
Sea Wasp
> In article <grf1511ng5okofq0p...@news.rcn.com>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>>On 3 Apr 2005 20:37:52 -0700, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
>>>unicorn is tolerable.
>>
>>For heaven's sake, you'll tolerate unicorns but not dragons?
>>
>>Okay, fine -- WORLDS OF SHADOW has no dragons...
>>
>>Oh, wait. I take that back. It does have a dragon. Damn.
>>
>
>
> THe Lords of Dus has no dragons except for the invisible mute one that's
> sleeping in various places throughout the book.
And the SPOILER SPOILER which Garth encounters in Book of Silence.
Richard Horton
wrote:
>
>When you say it like that, he sounds an awful lot like David Brent
>from /The Office/, only smarter and with a bit of Gareth thrown in.
I've only seen the first two shows of the American version of THE
OFFICE. Is David Brent the "boss" character (of the English version)?
Not really like Ignatius at all, but I can see that he does kind of
match the description I gave.
So far I think THE OFFICE is easily the best thing on TV since
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Granted that I don't watch much TV.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Bradford Holden
> Bradford Holden <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> writes:
> > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> writes:
> >
> > >
> > > fundamentally okay lively scenes are easier to read. If the grammar
> > > and spelling and so forth is perfect but the scenes are stone cold
> > > dead in the market, there isn't sh*t any beta reader or writing group
> > > can do for it.
> >
> > May I ask what a beta reader is?
>
> The writing equivalent of a "beta tester".
Hunh. So one of the world's oldest professions has picked up lingo
from one of the newer ones.
>
> My anecdotal evidence is that authors are more likely to recruit beta
> readers if they are from a technical or technical/academic background,
> and are comfortable with the socialization and mores of heavy internet
> use.
>
> I have been privilaged to be a beta reader for a couple of different
> authors.
--
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 14:25:48 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
>wrote:
>
>>No, unfortunately, it's not that simple. In these days of word
>>processors and grammar checkers, lots of people can produce coherent
>>sentences for page after page. Some stuff is indeed laughably bad,
>>but a great deal of slush is just mind-numbingly _dull_ -- page after
>>page of boring characters doing boring things to no apparent purpose,
>>where even outwardly-exciting things are utterly unengaging.
>
>Do you happen to know, was this the case with the Inutterably Bad
>Writer your friend at the agency was trying to discourage?
Nope, he didn't get specific.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Alan Chary) wrote:
>In article <grf1511ng5okofq0p...@news.rcn.com>,
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>On 3 Apr 2005 20:37:52 -0700, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
>>>unicorn is tolerable.
>>
>>For heaven's sake, you'll tolerate unicorns but not dragons?
>>
>>Okay, fine -- WORLDS OF SHADOW has no dragons...
>>
>>Oh, wait. I take that back. It does have a dragon. Damn.
>
>THe Lords of Dus has no dragons except for the invisible mute one that's
>sleeping in various places throughout the book.
Hello? The Dragon of Orgul, in Book Four?
Joe Morris
> ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Granted that I don't watch much TV.
Me neither, but with the help of TiVo, my favorite shows are
(the american) Office, Arrested Development, Scrubs & Desperate Housewives
Favorite non-fictiony: Letterman & Daily Show
ObSF: PKD's Newsclowns
Mark Atwood
>
> My anecdotal evidence is that authors are more likely to recruit beta
> readers if they are from a technical or technical/academic background,
> and are comfortable with the socialization and mores of heavy internet
> use.
The "they" in that sentence refers to the authors, not the readers, BTW.
htn963
David Goldfarb wrote:
> In article <1112585872.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >David Goldfarb wrote:
> >> In article
<1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> > I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans
> >(but
> >> >not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
> >> >interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember,
> >now,
> >> >his reputation with me is on the line here.)
> >>
> >> I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte
> >Cristo_:
> >>
> >> _Dragon Weather_
> >> _The Dragon Society_
> >> _Dragon Venom_
> >
>
<Snerk>
> ...Oh, all right, how about _Touched by the Gods_?
Doesn't look like a good choice. The plot is very generic: hero in
humble circumstance called on to save the world from dark forces, yada
yada. This Amazon review is aptly representative -- and remember that
Amazon land is known for even more mindlessly generous reviews than
that of our own resident shill, Justin Bacon:
***************
(2 out of 2 people found this review helpful)
3/5 stars:
Unremarkable, and not very imaginative, November 13, 2000
Reviewer: "jillpill98" (Mobile, AL United States) - See all my reviews
The main feature to this book is it's mediocrity. It wasn't bad, but it
also wasn't very good. The characters seemed likeable enough, but there
were too many of them for any of them to be developed at any depth. The
plot was fairly standard high fantasy, complacent, peaceful empire vs
evil, dark horde, without any surprises or suspenseful moments. The
setting was also pretty average, consisting of small agrarian villages
and the big walled city (sort of magical/mythical medieval). Those who
really love classic high fantasy, such as David Eddings, might enjoy
this. Anyone who is looking for something new and different should try
something else.
*****************
David Eddings? Ouch.
--
Ht
>
> --
> David Goldfarb |"Just once I'd like to battle an alien
menace
> gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | that *wasn't* immune to bullets."
> gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart
> | Doctor Who: "Robot"
htn963
>
> >In article <1112504271.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> >htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> I'm going to try reading some of your novels, Mr. Watt-Evans
(but
> >>not any of those that have dragons, of course), and see just how
> >>interesting you really are. (Recommendations, anyone? Remember,
now,
> >>his reputation with me is on the line here.)
> >
> >I would recommend his trilogy loosely-based on _The Count of Monte
Cristo_:
> >
> >_Dragon Weather_
> >_The Dragon Society_
> >_Dragon Venom_
>
> I'd say.
Roughly half, eh? If, like Anne McCaffrey, your forte is dragon,
then I guess you are screwed.
--
Ht
htn963
Sea Wasp wrote:
> htn963 wrote:
>
> >
> > Thanks, but I said no dragons, dammit. An occasional elf or
> > unicorn is tolerable.
>
> You'll take the dragons and LIKE them, soldier!
Sir, I'm a conscientious objector, Sir!
--
Ht
Jeff Stehman
l...@sff.net says...
>
> He specified "no dragons." That eliminates roughly half my output,
> I'd say.
Feed him a few dragonless Ethshar books. He'll be reading the dragonful
ones soon enough without any encouragement from us.
--Jeff Stehman
Justin Bacon
> Doesn't look like a good choice. The plot is very generic: hero
in
> humble circumstance called on to save the world from dark forces,
yada
> yada. This Amazon review is aptly representative -- and remember that
> Amazon land is known for even more mindlessly generous reviews than
> that of our own resident shill, Justin Bacon:
It's important to understand, of couse, that to Htn "shill" means "they
like Bujold".
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Nancy Lebovitz
Mark Atwood <ma...@atwood.name> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
>>
>> And then the actual story started in Chapter Two, where it turns out
>> our hero and his sidekick were left for dead upon the battlefield, not
>> that I cared about them, either. Neither of them appeared by name in
>> Chapter One, though I eventually worked out that their fall had been
>> mentioned.
>
>That's a classic writer's problem. One chapter to set things up, then
>chapter 2 starts the story. If the story is worth saving, step one in
>the salvage operation is to guillotine off chapter one and throw it in
>the bit bucket.
Would this have been good advice for LOTR?
--
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
"We've tamed the lightning and taught sand to give error messages."
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
Dave Goldman
<hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Mark Atwood <ma...@atwood.name> writes:
> > Bradford Holden <hol...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> writes:
> > >
> > > May I ask what a beta reader is?
> >
> > The writing equivalent of a "beta tester".
>
> Hunh. So one of the world's oldest professions has picked up lingo
> from one of the newer ones.
Perhaps you're thinking of "bed tester"?
- Dave Goldman
Portland, OR
Kevrob
Experts in the field, such as Abner Yoakum, refer to that
as "mattress testing."
Kevin