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Mary Rosenblum
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Hello all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Welcome to our Friday After
Hours forum.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I hope you've all had a good
week.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If any of you missed my
interview of Donna Ippolito last night, I really recommend reading the
transcript.
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Mary Rosenblum
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She is an editor, a writer,
and a LR instructor and she had a lot of useful information to share with
everyone.
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Mary Rosenblum
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She mentioned the importance
of presenting the editor with a strong, polished manuscript and that's what
this Forum is all about.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What words do and don't work
and why. Or why not.
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april cassandra katko2
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Were you nervous when you
submitted your first story?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Of course! Everybody is
nervous! :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You hear a lot of dos and
don'ts in books on writing, from instructors, on conference panels...
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Mary Rosenblum
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and that can be intimidating.
You can end up sitting at your desk staring blankly at the page or screen
while a host of 'don't do that' echoes through your head.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And while you'll find very few
absolute 'NO!' rules in writing, those 'do this' 'don't do that' cautions
are worth paying attention to.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Anything can work.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But that means you use it
intentionally in order to make something work.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Too often, we use weak prose
out of habit, not because we want to use a weakness in order to illustrate
a point.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here's a wonderful exercise
for you. Go to your files and pick out something you have written recently.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now remove every single 'to
be' verb from it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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No is, are, was, were, will
be, would have been
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Mary Rosenblum
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No waffling. No 'just this
one'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You'll learn a lot about
stronger construction that way.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Any time you begin a sentence
with 'there was' or 'there is' or 'there are', or 'there were' fix it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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These are all weak
constructions and very rarely are you going to want to use these
intentionally.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You get told 'no adverbs'. Why
not?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Adverbs themselves aren't
really bad. Sometimes we need to modify an adjective or verb and make it stronger.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But most of the time you could
replace that adverb with a more specific word or a stronger verg.
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Mary Rosenblum
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She ran very quickly to the
house is simply stronger as she raced to the house.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here's another general
exercise for you. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Pick up that old LR exercise
or recent piece of prose and circle every word that does not give you a
visual image.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Those are 'empty' words. The
fewer empty words you have in your prose (and you'll always have a few),
the stronger your scene will be.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Rewrite that piece and see if
you can reduce the empty words by 50%.
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geezer
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Any idea how a person whose soul
is poetry challenged can learn to write metaphors and similies?
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you don't normally use
them, why write them, Geeze? Similes tend to be way overused and frequently
elict eye rolls -- not normally the intended response.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Metaphors can get stretched
until it threatens to snap.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Clear image, dialogue, direct
action -- they can get your story across as strongly -- or even more
strongly -- than the most elegant metaphor or simile.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Don't write at a language
level you do not use comfortably.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Many novice writers think that
they need to embellish their everyday conversational voice when they write.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Don't.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The number of thesauroids I
see in novice prose makes me roll my eyes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Thesauroids are the words you
get from the thesaurus where the meaning is off just a bit, rendering the
passage humorous. Unintentionally.
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barbiq
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Why do we use so many to be
verbs so easily?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Some of that is internal
editing I think, barb. It slows down the meaning so that we can think
ahead.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It gives us time to
dual-process -- compose the next sentence and get this one out at the same
time.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Remember in conversation you
are literally thinking on your feet.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But when you're writing, you
have all the time in the world to get the words just right.
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grayalien
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I noticed something recently
about describing colors: there are more than just the primary ones: red,
blue, black, etc. Just the simple act of describing other shades, such as
crimson, magenta, turquoise, adds to complexity without adding words
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Mary Rosenblum
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Exactly, gray.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is called specificity.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And it applies to everything.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I see a lot of 'generals' in
novice prose.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Lunch. Flower. House.
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Mary Rosenblum
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As opposed to a grilled tuna
sandwich, a spray of lilies, and a cottage.
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Mary Rosenblum
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turquoise eyes are much more
intersting than blue. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Lots of details may not suit
your scene if the action is fast paced, but a single vivid detail can add a
lot of visuals.
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quixote
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i was reading a passsage wher
almost everything was "- ing"... why did it sound awkaward?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh, thanks quix. Those gerunds
were next on my list. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Gerunds are verbs ending in
ing.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They get seriously overused.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Not only are they
grammatically incorrect they give your scene a fuzzy, blurry feel.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The family was eating dinner
while she was doing her homework.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What happens first? What
happens next? Are they absolutly simultaneous, they start and end exactly
at the same time?
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Mary Rosenblum
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was plus an ing verb indicates
an action that begins and ends in contrast to an action with a shorter
duration.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The family ate dinner while
she was doing her homework.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now we know that she started
her homework and while she was doing it the family ate dinner and finished.
By the time she finished her homework, dinner is over.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Most of the time it's better
to avoid gerunds altogether.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You have a to be verb (was),
an empty word.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If it's not important to the
story to know specifically that the family ate dinner and finished while
she did her homework, you could writ:
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Mary Rosenblum
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She did her homework while the
family ate dinner.
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Mary Rosenblum
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We know the events took place
more or less at the same time.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Avoid gerunds unless you need
them in order to make the order of overlapping actions clear for the
reader.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Avoid telling your readers
what your character is seeing or saying.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Joey looked out the window and
saw three girls standing around under the linden tree. He wondered if that
was Elizabeth, the tall one in the red dress.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The author is telling us that
Joey is looking and that Joey is wondering.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, the author is telling us
what Joey saw. I picked on the wrong verb there. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Joey looked out the window.
Three girls stood under the linden tree, chatting. Was that Elizabeth, the
tall one in the red dress?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I didn't tell you that Joey
saw them. Clearly he saw them. And clearly he's the one wondering if the
tall one is Elizabeth.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The reason you nit pick words
like this is that strong prose is the greatest input in the fewest words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The reason for that?
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Mary Rosenblum
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We are a visual species. The
faster the images form in our heads, the faster we hear voices and see
things, the more real that scene becomes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If we have to process lots of
words and only then form the scene...we're conscious of that process and we
know we're reading about something.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If the scene forms very
quickly we begin to forget that we are reading and the action begins to
unfold in our mind's eye as if we are seeing it play out in front of us.
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barbiq
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Is that how we get the
"wordy" impression when we read?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Exactly, barb.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's because you notice all
those words. You have to strain the visuals out of that soup of words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Many novice scenes contain
real strength, but they are so wordy that they don't have the impact that
is inherent in what the writer intends.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That is where craft comes in.
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barbiq
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Some of the greatest novels are
"wordy" though.
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Mary Rosenblum
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As with Dickens? :-) To name
one?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Or how about Dostoyevski?
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Mary Rosenblum
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And we read them in spite of
their wordiness. Anna Karenina lately? (I'm probably mispelling here)
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Mary Rosenblum
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They got paid by the word.
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Mary Rosenblum
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A cool point Donna Ippolito
made last night...many of the 'classics' were 'hack' writers, working for
pay by the word.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They touched on very powerful strengths
and we still read their work, but in terms of modern prose they are wordy.
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barbiq
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Even more recent. Like The
Eldest by Christopher Paolini
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, Barb, in the publishing
world of today, never confuse quality with sales numbers. And waht works
works,. Hemmingway is hardly terse writing.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But there are many things that
make up a powerful book and those strengths may outweigh a difficult or
wordy read.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I love the magic realists and
that prose style is tends to be very convoluted.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But Marquez, Ortega, and
Alvarez have a lot to bring to the story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Does that mean you can say
'but they're wordy so I can be wordy'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Only if the strengths in your
story vastly outweight the wordiness. :-)
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charie'
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Isn't the "wordiness"
dependant on the era when they were written?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Very much.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Edwardian prose style and
South American prose style is quite different than today's US or European
prose style.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Also, an intentional wordiness
where the author sacrifices pacing for depth of detail or long soliloquies
on the part of the main character is not at all the same
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Mary Rosenblum
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as a lot of to be verbs,
gerunds, and empty words in what is supposed to be a strong action scene!
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Mary Rosenblum
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They are not the same thing at
all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Your prose needs to suit your
story. They should not be separable.
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dim writer
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Why do some writers ,write cold
snow or hot fire?
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Mary Rosenblum
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You know, dim, you can find an
example of every bad prose habit out there in some published piece of work.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Published does not equal
excellent. I wish it did, but it doesn't.
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april cassandra katko2
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Would you submit to magazine if
you only got copies of the magazine?
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Mary Rosenblum
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You mean instead of money,
april? Well, I probably wouldn't send something there first, that's for
sure.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But if I had exhausted my
paying markets and I was a novice writer with no published clips, then I
probably would.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I might not get any cash, but
I'd now have a published clip.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Always start with the top
paying market for which your story or ariticle is suited.
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barbiq
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So self-editing is critical to
maintain your own standards?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I don't know anybody who
writes perfection in the first draft, barb, and I know a LOT of writers
personally. Pros, I mean. Well published pros.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Every one of us does several
revisions. Some do many revisions.
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Mary Rosenblum
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All of us depend more on our
own editing than on anyone else's, even the publisher's editor.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Only you really know what you intend
to do with your story, so you make it as strong as you can. Input from
others is very important, but your input needs to come first
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Mary Rosenblum
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and one of the things you
learn to do as a writer is separate yourself from that story, stand back,
and look at it with a critical eye.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Believe me that takes
practice!
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's often very useful to put
it aside and work on something else for a couple of weeks.
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dim writer
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So I should just get it on paper
and then edit?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Most people find that works
best. If you try to edit as you go you can run out of creative energy and
simply bog down halfway through.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Your inspiration, your ideas,
are the soul of your story, but you need to make your words as strong as
they can be so that your inspiration and ideas are as clear and strong
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Mary Rosenblum
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to the readers as they are to
you. That's where prose skills come in.
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quixote
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Do you thing software like
'Word'has had some influence on editing on the go? and is it evil? :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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YOu mean like grammar check,
quixote?
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quixote
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and copy , paste delete
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, grammar check is only
going to hurt you if you use it. :-) Mine is turned off. It's often wrong.
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Mary Rosenblum
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AS to cut and paste, I LOVE
IT!
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Mary Rosenblum
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It used to be LITERALLY cut
and paste, dear, and often one did not change something because it meant
retyping all those darn pages.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The computer does allow you to
play with words, move them around, see if this works better here or there.
You can do on the page what you used to do mostly in your head
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Mary Rosenblum
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and I personally find the
visual component useful.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Grammar check is good if your
grammar skills are very poor, but it's wrong as often as it's right, I
find.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Just turn it off.
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kolanda
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do you think prose skills can
come from reading a lot?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Of course.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You may not know how you're
doing something exactly, but you'll know when it feels right.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I can remember very clearly
the first story I wrote where I thought 'I did it! This is really a strong
story!'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I didn't know WHY It was a
strong story, but it 'felt right'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And by the way, that was not
my first published story. It was something like my third or fourth. :-)
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barbiq
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Do you think writing poetry
helps or hurts?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Any writing helps. Poetry, as
with flash fiction, forces you to find the most 'bang for your buck' in
your word choices.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I often feel that people who
begin with novel form are often 'sloppier' writers than those who start
with short fiction. They have more room and they don't learn to write as
tightly as someone
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Mary Rosenblum
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who is trying to squeeze a
story into a few thousand words.
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grayalien
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I had an idea of going through
the manuscript and analyzing the scenes, then thinking of specific words
that describe the right mood, and finding ways to work those into the
narrative.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's how you do revision,
gray.
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Mary Rosenblum
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My first revision is gross
anatomy...by that I mean I add any scenes or change timelines...do any
major structural changes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Second pass is
characaterization -- body langauge, tone of voice, pauses, thoughts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Third pass is for language --
rhythm, nuance, shaded tones, subtle choices to reflect mood.
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kolanda
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as a novice writer I have found
the 2nd assignment where it is suggested to start with the climax very
difficult. Is that unusual, I just feel stuck.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's pretty typical for people
who are predominantly novel readers, kolanda. :-) YOu're used to a novel
dramatic arc...start before the plot begins, rise to the climax, and
conclude.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Very hard to do in 1000 words.
:-) Short story is a different form.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, this has been a fun
forum and I hope it helps you strengthen those words. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'll post the transcript in
the usual place -- Writing Craft Forum Transcripts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Do join us Sunday for our
casual chat...we just get together to talk about whatever
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Mary Rosenblum
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Have a good weekend all!
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