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Joined: 3/12/2011
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@LeeAnna, Kyoko - I may have mentioned this before, but I'm the facilitator (enabler?) for the underground anime club at my high school. I've introduced them to some good series and shows, and they've started doing the same with me. I introduced them to Ah! My Goddess! (Great example of Japanese perception / mutation of a Western pantheon), they introduced me to Black Butler ('I am simply one Hell of a butler' *grin*). Some we've discovered together, like Gurren Lagann and Soul Eater.
The reason I've pushed anime and a few other selected shows (Firefly, MLP:FIM) on them is to show them what good storytelling looks like. Those who are writers have benefited from seeing the structure of what good stories look like, and those who aren't at least have an idea that there is something more entertaining than watching several small minded people snipe at one another endlessly.
While I agree with Jay that there is more to learning how to do something than watching someone else do it, a certain amount of watching good examples is a near requirement; else you've no idea whether you're doing it right or not.
@Herb - About 1/3 to 1/2 of what I write has something of a military theme to it. It's an interesting balance trying to make something entertaining and readable while still portraying how horrific war can be. I'll admit, I've leaned toward 'entertaining' rather than 'horrific' by design, but I've been told that the horror often seeps through anyhow.
My SteamPunk series has a heavy Horror component already, and much of it isn't deliberate; it's the consequences of war played straight, when a lot of other things are more fantastic. My Space Opera often feels (to me) like it's less horrific, because the POV character is resigned to horror, and the main supporting character has a very dark sense of humor. My YA Space Opera is, oddly, the one where I'm going to be dealing with the horror of war most directly, because the characters involved aren't jaded to it all.
I think that's actually a good way to bring this hijack back on topic - one of my peeves is when an author doesn't follow through. They talk about how horrific something will be, they get you all primed for something to be really awful (or good, or exciting, or sexy, or scary, or <insert adjective here> and then, in the pinch, they draw the curtains or worse, put up something that... well... my four year old would say 'why was everybody scared of that?'
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Joined: 8/13/2011
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Kyoko, I've no idea where to get your hands on lots of light novel translations. The Haruhi one I've got is published directly by Kadokawa, so I'd start with them and work from there.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
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Not following through, that's a big one for me. If you're going to swing at the pitch, don't stop. Go all the way. I hate when writers or directors tip toe around something that they hyped up. It weakens things. I don't want to do the things I've done with my character Adamar, but I do because it's necessary. I'm not going to pull any punches.
Gurren Lagann and Soul Eater. I love both of those. What saddens me is anime series that they start animating, but never finish because they weren't popular enough. You get and "ending" that isn't one. There is supposed to be more. It's like a good series on TV that gets canceled like Firefly. My husband and I were watching Chrome Shelled Regios, and after 26 episodes we knew there had to be more. There are a lot of those. Anime, the movie version of manga. Sigh.
I really need to sit down and catch up on my Fairy Tail.
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Joined: 1/26/2012
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Because of this list, I have a sudden fear of using "suddenly"! Thanks, Carl! 
Seriously though, is there a time when it isn't cheesy?
Or, has anyone come up with some fun alternatives?
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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Hi, Ella! Thank you for the compliment. Glad I could be of some help here!
Here's my thought: If you write coherent prose that flows well (regardless of whether or not it "pops"; kinda hate that word) and you use strong action verbs, the red-flag-out-of-the-clown-gun word "SUDDENLY" isn't necessary.
Example (made up on the spur of the moment):
"I've an answer for you."
Rutger cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed and alert. "Yeah? So what's--"
His head exploded with light. The world grayed out, came back into focus as he bounced off the wall at his back, knees buckling but holding, mouth full of blood.
Conroy shook his fist in his face. "Want another one, tough guy?"
In this example, what is to be gained from writing, "Suddenly, his head exploded with light"?
Rule # (choose your favorite number) of good writing: omit unnecessary words. I would add: be especially censorious and suspicious of corny, telegraphing, bet-you-didn't-see-this-coming-but-now-you-do-AH-HA! words.
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Joined: 1/10/2012
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Carl - I was actually planning to weigh in with the whole dash idea. I've seen it used quite well, and I'm trying to employ that as I write to denote the SUDDENLY without saying it. It makes me do a little happy dance to see you're giving your okay on that!
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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@Laura: Congrats! You've mastered another tool in the writer's toolbox.
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Joined: 4/22/2012
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...I use "abruptly." Because it sounds better. So...*blows raspberry*
But seriously, I try not to use it often. Anyone wanna take a spin through Strains and let me know how to rework some of 'em?
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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@ Robert: The effects of war are often horrific, but not necessarily moreso than the effects of other conflicts that we as writers focus on. Reading about a character blown apart by a land-mine is not fundamentally worse than reading about one torn apart by a monster or sliced up by a serial killer. I think what makes war more horrific are its causes. Monsters and serial killers are malevolent entities we can view as aberrations, but those who instigate war are often mundane to the point of banality. The true horror of war is not in its consequences, but in the fact that we tolerate and sometimes even welcome it despite knowing full well what those consequences will be.
Back on-topic:
I think the key to using "suddenly" well is to acknowledge that it is a cushioning word, not an emphasis word. When a phrase does not have any intrinsic connotations of rapidity, writing that phrase in naked form can be jarring to the reader.
Compare:
We were talking in the back seat when the car swerved, knocking me into Jen.
versus
We were talking in the back seat when the car swerved suddenly, knocking me into Jen.
In this case, "suddenly" is just an informational adverb, and is useful because a swerve can be either gentle or abrupt. Without its use as a qualifier, some readers will feel there is insufficient transition to the subsequent phrase, "knocking me into Jen."
"Suddenly" can also be perfectly worthwhile as a modifier for an adjective:
Suddenly hot, I walked over and checked the thermostat: eighty-five degrees, and yet I hadn't heard the fan shut off in half an hour. Great. What is it this time, the compressor? A coolant leak? Here comes another giant repair bill.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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I enjoy your postings, Herb! Thanks for contributing so many thoughtful mini-missives to this thread.
But as regards your examples--nope, not buying it (though I gave you a "thumbs-up" because [a] I liked the first part and [b] you argued your point well).
May I disagree with you w/o becoming disagreeable? In the first instance, the word "swerve" denotes a sudden deviation from a straight-line trajectory, no? So the difference between a swerve and a "sudden swerve" strikes me as being just a tad redundant. Semantically acceptable, sure, but the highest caliber writing?
In the second example, you've provided just the kind of groaner that makes me roll my eyes when I'm reading. If I'm cruising/perusing a novel (of any genre) and a character "suddenly" realizes anything--that they're hot, hungry, horny, hirsute (hopefully not all four at once!) I chuckle to myself and wonder what new astonishments and belated epiphanic wonders will strike our hero next . . . Mind you, I'm not objecting to the fact of a character "suddenly realizing" anything; it's just that that particular two-word phrase (I freely admit this may be nothing more than jaded prejudice on my part) strikes my ear and intellect as an over-used crutch-phrase wielded by amateur writers first learning the craft.
Example (1):
Tom suddenly realized how late it was. He looked with horror at the clock. Midnight. "Jesus, I gotta go!" he said.
Example (2)
Tom glanced at the clock. Midnight. "Sorry, gotta go," he said.
Let the reader do some work. Or if you must baldly tell the reader that your character has been struck by an abrupt revelation/belated recognition of some salient fact, try the word "realized" all by its lonesome without the drama-queen helper adverb "suddenly".
And that's my two cents. Worth about, oh . . . a quarter of a cent.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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This is a thread about peeves, so your two cents are worth exactly what mine are!
I'll agree that my air-conditioning example was not as gracefully streamlined as it might have been, but if you look closely, you'll see that its structure is exactly the same as your improved Tom/clock scenario, barring the inclusion of the word "suddenly."
Here's another crack at it:
Blinking away sweat, I walked to the thermostat. A noise from the vent overhead, mechanically tubercular, stopped me. Suddenly, I had no desire to know the temperature. The magnitude of that figure had been eclipsed by much larger numbers, which would soon be flowing out of my bank account and into the eager hands of Carl's Central Air Repair.
Note that my goal here is not to prove that "suddenly" is the best word for some particular situation, only to show that -- especially when the goal is not to add excitement or verve, but merely to denote the quality of an event's onset -- it can be an appropriate word. (So long as one's reader is not harboring a longtime grudge against it!)
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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You've done the impossible--I actually like your use of the word "suddenly" there! Great example and nice bit of writing, Herb. Well done. Rules--and writing prejudices--were made to be broken, eh?
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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Thanks! Although now I'm slightly disappointed, because I spent my evening jog concocting what I thought was an even better example, in case you weren't convinced.
I guess I'll paste it here anyway (at the risk of producing an anticlimax).
Professor Moldrutz described to us the rainforest through which he had labored in search of Boreobdella Moldrutzus. He described the rock under which he had found his first intact specimen. He described in every particular the wonders of that specimen: its mass, its girth, its length, its coloration and discolorations, its blemishes, its excretions. He described the internal anatomy of the creature to the last detail of each bodily system, whether circulatory, digestive, integuementary, or nervous. He described month upon month of field studies. He described painstakingly his measurements and methodologies, as well as the tribulations of instructing his various graduate students in how to carry out those procedures. He described the typewriter, yes, the manual typewriter upon which he drafted his first paper detailing “the single most important Boreobdella-related discovery in half a century.” He described more field studies, more specimens, more physiological minutiae.
Suddenly, I hated him.
And, just as suddenly, an exquisite plan sprung into my brain, fully formed and exact in every detail. I was going to kill Professor Moldrutz, and I knew precisely how.
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Nice writing, Herb I just suddenly wanted to look at your book.
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Joined: 1/26/2012
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Well done and bravo, Herb. I just knew if I put that challenge out there someone would come up with a great example.
But, as I said, I also totally understand the original intent behind the pet peeve and have been duly warned. What I have learned is that most of the time "suddenly" is redundant and can be deleted outright, assuming the context of the sentence already implies that the action was sudden. Yes?
I also think double-cheese awards to "suddenly" at the beginning of the sentence.
Suddenly, (insert soap opera music: dun dun DUN!!) Ella understands!
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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Suddenly, a word that I try to avoid at all costs. I try to avoid words that end in -ly period, but sometimes it can't be helped. If I do use suddenly, I usually (there's one) put it in dialogue. I just wrote a line where a character said (pardon the spoiler):
"How do you think she'll react if her father was suddenly back from the dead?"
Okay, I'm slightly paraphrasing, but I'm sure you get the point.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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@GD: Thanks! Suddenly, hope swells in my heart that my "number of reads" count might increase by one. I certainly won't complain if you do read it, and I'll complain even less if you make any comments to salve the ego abrasions I got from my last reviewer. Ouch!
@Ella: You've got it straight as far as I'm concerned.
@LeeAnna: As with many words that writers overuse or misuse, "suddenly" is much less problematic when it is used by a character, and I think your example is a winning demonstration of that.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
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I like to blame the overuse of the word "suddenly" on Dan Brown. =)
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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@Herb: Thanks. People speak different than we write. I think some people forget that.
@Colleen: I would like to suddenly agree with you on that. I have suddenly realized that you are right. I wonder how many sentences I can suddenly write with the word suddenly in them. (Wow, that is bad. I hate that word.)
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Joined: 4/22/2012
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Okay, so I went through and found all of my occurrences of "abruptly" (there were 13). I edited it down to 7 occurrences, and then I thought I would take a look at "suddenly," just to see if I actually used it anywhere...
OH MY GOOD LORD, 24 OCCURRENCES!!
*facepalm*
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@ Nicki but now you know how to get rid of them all.
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@Herb, about your last review Some reviewers want to rewrite your story for you in the belief they can do exactly what you intended to do, only better. I took a look at The Last Tragedy the other day and genuinely liked what I read. I distinctly recall enjoying the line, "The old blind harpist sat exactly where Weston had been told to look for her - in the shade of a graceful elm not far from the town fountain." It stuck with me. In the end, it's the readers who count.
Someone should start a new thread, "Ten Things Reviewers Do That Cause Me To Sigh Heavily."
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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Many thanks, GD! I actually took that reviewer's advice, rewrote bits of the first two scenes, and updated the excerpt. Then, just a few days ago, I reread it and hated the update, so I reverted to my original. Sometimes you have to go with your gut. (Note that the advice wasn't necessarily bad advice; I merely found that when I implemented it, I liked the results less. The flaw may have been more in my implementation than in the advice.)
As for your thread idea, I would undoubtedly have things to say in such a topic. But I pause at creating one, since I suspect it would have a strong tendency to touch the wrong nerves.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
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@Herb, GD - I've found that reviewers who are writers or editors are the ones most likely to do that. They've usually got a lot of good advice, mind you, and it's expressed well, but (and I can understand this completely) they get the urge to suggest changes that would wind up inadvertently changing the nature of the story.
Here's a peeve related question for all of y'all - I've heard people say that books need to 'start with action!', but when I pull a dozen of my favorite books from the shelf, most of them start with 'non-action'. What say you; action, description, whatever fits the story, or whatever fits the voice / tone?
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Joined: 8/13/2011
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Personally, I think a book should begin simply by grabbing you with what it is. A good start is one where it establishes the themes of the story and grabs the reader's attention. I quite liked the opening of Rivers of London, for example, because that details the events that occur with the discovery of the first victim. It's only at the end of it that we're introduced to the main character, who is, of course, volunteered to stand in the rain and keep an eye on the crime scene. What really works is that it invokes a lot of the themes of the book (the police/ main character's difficulty in dealing with the public, the feel of London and the nature of the job) in just two or three paragraphs. The fact that it manages to describe Good Samaritarianism in London as a 'extreme sport' is only the icing on the top.
Personally, I tend to start with action or humour, but that's just the kind of thing I like to write.
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Joined: 4/22/2012
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I think how you start a story depends on what it is that you want to accomplish. Most of the books that I've read and enjoyed are able to, presumably much like Rivers of London, capture the main themes/essence of the story in a handful of paragraphs at the beginning. That doesn't always mean that they are or should be full of action or that they identify every major character off the bat, but even just getting a hint of the major conflict is a good way to pull a reader in, I think.
However, one exception that I note among my favorite books is that of the author Poppy Z. Brite's approach to a story opening. She approaches it much like a film would, by focusing on environment first and then zooming in to focus on primary characters as more-or-less free agents operating within that environment. For example, in Lost Souls she spends the first page describing the general festivity and some of the specific customs of Mardi Gras in New Orleans before focusing down on two characters in a bar in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras. In Drawing Blood, she describes a small town in North Carolina in the 1970s and how it has been subtly touched by the free love movement and the Vietnam War, before coming around to talk about one of the main characters moving into this town at the age of 5. Starting with description is certainly not an action-based approach, but it works really well for her since she has such a rich, distinctive voice and an enviable vocabulary with which to describe these environments.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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A random selection of openings from the first several awesome books I thought to crack open:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...
I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other.
On the heights above the river Xzan, at the site of certain ancient ruins, Iucounu the Laughing Magician had built a manse to his private taste: an eccentric structure of steep gables, balconies, sky-walks, cupolas, together with three spiral green glass towers through which the red sunlight shone in twisted glints and peculiar colors.
The ship didn't even have a name. It had no human crew because the factory craft which constructed it had been evacuated long ago.
Usually I'm not much interested in other people's mail. I mean when you get right down to it, even my own mail doesn't do that much for me.
For a week Mr. R. Childan had been anxiously watching the mail.
The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
The gathering at Castle Banat on the evening of Friday, October 16, 186-, had been more than three centuries in the planning, though only a marginal effort had been directed toward the ceremonial essentials of the affair, its pomp and splendor.
So, then, I have to go downtown to the University and forage for dollars again.
Nifft the Lean is no longer among us, and I have at last confessed to myself that, hereafter, he never will be.
Several of these are among the most rip-roaring action books you might ever read, yet only one of the scenes above is an action scene, and I suspect you might be hard-pressed to guess which one from the opening sentences.
I think that it's much more important to start a book with a promise to the reader than with action. Action says, "Something is happening here." But a well-constructed opening promises to the reader, "Something will be happening throughout this entire story, even if big things aren't happening right here at the start."
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Woot! A wonderfully refreshing post, Herb
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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Hey, gang! You guys (that is a gender-neutral term now, right?) might enjoy Christopher Jackson's musings re: opening lines.
http://www.fuelyourwriting.com/the-most-important-sentence-how-to-write-a-killer-opening/
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Joined: 6/29/2012
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One thing that makes me cringe, and probably throw a book across the room, is secondary characters that come in to fill in plot holes with dialogue.
I read a book once (the author is a NY Times Best Seller) that I wasn't really into. The story line was good, but the plot was flat. About two-thirds into the book a character just approached the FMC and MMC and told them things that they could have found out for themselves. Then the character had to go on to explain why she knew all this stuff. It took a whole page for her information dump dialogue. To this day I don't read that author.
About the sex scene discussion earlier: I skim over the passages if they are longer than a page or two. Less is more for me.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
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@Robert: "I've heard people say that books need to 'start with action!', but when I pull a dozen of my favorite books from the shelf, most of them start with 'non-action'. What say you; action, description, whatever fits the story, or whatever fits the voice / tone?"
I follow the blog of literary agent Kristin Nelson and she addressed this the other day. http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/06/writing-craft-action-vs-active-openings.html
It was quite informative and did clarify the difference, at least to me.
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Joined: 4/22/2012
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Alexandria, that's a great blog post! Thanks for sharing.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
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Awesome blog post. I've added her to my list of followed blogs.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
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Thanks, Alexandria. Another bookmark in my ever-growing bookmark file.
And, Kyoto, thanks, too. I wrote that list so long ago, I was a bit surprised that someone had read back that far in this thread.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
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She writes a very informative blog and is on the top of my list when I start sending out queries. Kristin also occasionally posts YouTube videos and had a whole series dedicated to YA books. Her latest was about why agents often overlook the prologue.
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Joined: 4/22/2012
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SHE DOESN'T BLINK.
Okay, she does, but I had such a hard time paying attention to what she was saying in today's video because I was busy having a staring contest with her and losing.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
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I can't seem to come up with a list of annoyances. I lump a lot of what's been said here into one big-tent beef: it comes down to the quality of the writing.
Good writing is clear, and economical (yeah, I know I'm an exception to that rule, but I have my reasons, and I believe they are valid). It shuns clichés; it is tailored, somewhat, to the genre but it's always nice to see someone defy expectations - and succeed at it. It has a grace, a flow, a style that is enjoyable, and words that delight, that sizzle, or soothe, and, most of all, that surprise.
I recently wobbled my way through a sci-fi piece, not my favorite genre by a long shot, because the use of language was outstanding. I put up with thing-a-ma-bobs that I couldn't understand, or keep track of, or care about, because I adored the prose. Rightfully so, the guy's reviews are golden. Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick is amazing.
I must be hooked by the quality of the composition immediately, or you lose me. Here on BC, I give it more time. In a bookstore, I pick up a promising title, give it three chances to grab me, three paragraphs chosen at random. I peek at the comments on the back cover, of course. Buying off of Amazon, I give more weight to the reviews on Salon, Beast, etc, and to my previous experience with the author.
Carl's List Of Ten comes under the general banner of Crappy Writing. That's as specific as I'm gonna get. What doesn't stop me in my tracks is a crappy plot, if the writing itself is sublime. I mine tripe for gems of phraseology that can influence my own style.
One of my favorite works is Victorian melodramatic mush, The Cloister and The Hearth. I can't recommend it, except as a period curiosity. Much of it is as tedious as it gets. But the use of language is frequently marvelous.
I know I've been less than helpful. Sorry about that.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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Swanwick is quite a writer. I still have copies of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, where Stations of the Tide was originally serialized. As I recall, it's one of those rare science fiction books in which the author explains almost nothing directly to the reader, and yet all of the concepts come across clearly and comprehensibly because of the skillful way Swanwick has his characters speak and interact within the context of those concepts.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
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I'll have to read it again, and I will, because the language is a delight. Nothing was clear to me the first time around. I probably didn't try hard enough, I was that enthralled with the prose.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
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Even though this article is about movie dialogue, it's aimed at writers in general about a phrase I never thought of before. I suggest reading it.
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/bad-dialogue-cliches-this-time-its-not-personal.php
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Joined: 2/27/2011
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Nicki -
Oh my God, you're right. She doesn't blink in those videos! LOL!
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Joined: 3/12/2011
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@Mimi / Herb - Yeah, I would give up body parts to write like Swanwick. What's really funny is that I'd read his stuff, loved it, but when I met him at PhilCon a few years back I couldn't remember what he wrote. Not as in 'oh, what was that book' again, but as in no connection between him and the brilliant novels he'd written. Kinda embarassing. Brilliant prose, though.
Herb - Three paragraphs at random? Do you read the opening line / paragraph? Because plenty of great books have utilitarian paragraphs somewhere in the middle...
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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The three paragraphs method was Mimi's.
My method is to open the book to page 82 and read the entire page. If nothing about page 82 interests me (not the prose, not the characters, not the dialogue, not the events), then I'll usually put the book back down. I was actually blogging page 82 reviews for a while at page82reviews.blogspot.com, but I sort of ran out of steam on the project.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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Now that's interesting to me! 82 is a "happy number", mathematically-speaking, meaning that it is a positive integer whose number can be replaced by the sum of the squares of its digits and the process repeated until the adjusted number equals 1.
82 is also the atomic number of lead, the international direct-dial code for South Korea, the ISBN group identifier for books published in Norway, the designate number for an unguided high-explosive bomb and the very significant number referenced by Kurt Vonnegut at the end of his novel Hocus Pocus.
So why 82, Herb? Just curious . . .
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Joined: 5/25/2011
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Geee, suddenly I think Carl's back! (the pleasure is all ours!)
BTW What happened to the story you posted? Went to read it and it was gone.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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'Lo there, Tom!
Revising. I go through periods of intense, focused activity followed by intervals of burn-out. Plus (as I mentioned awhile back) I made a conscious decision to lower my profile on BC.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
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Your reasons are all more interesting than mine, Carl! I think I used to use page 86 or 87, back when I was doing a lot more book shopping. My reading has picked up again after a long lapse, though, and when I decided to make a conscious effort to buy more books and also to blog the reviews, I settled on 82 because of the assonance with "reviews," which made for a better blog title than "Page87reviews."
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Joined: 4/27/2011
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"Page 82 Reviews" does have a nice ring to it.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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As to the explanation of why a single page from around that location, I heard about the technique while I was in college. The first few pages of a book are unlikely to be a good measure of the book as a whole because (1) the writer and publisher have probably tried their best to make those pages grab readers immediately, and (2) the need to orient the reader with respect to the story almost inevitably requires a different sort of writing than later in the book, when the reader is adapted to the story and just need to be drawn along by it. So the first bit of a book may be uncharacteristically action-oriented or uncharacteristically setup-oriented compared to the rest. By leaping ahead, you reach a point where the story should be well underway, giving you a better impression of the writer's storytelling.
If I can understand everything that's transpiring on page 82 without having read pages 1-81, it may indicate that the author is a spoon-feeder who's too straightforward for my tastes. Conversely, if I'm completely lost on page 82 and can't form any impression of characters or plot, it probably means the writer is too abstruse for me. Basically, I want page 82 to show me that the author writes clearly and vividly, but that I've missed something important by skipping, and I want to be intrigued enough by what is missing to go back and read from the start.
Writing about it here inspired me to pick the blog back up. You can read my new entry at the URL below.
http://page82reviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/page-82-of-talent-for-war.html
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Joined: 4/26/2011
Posts: 26
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All good points and well made Carl (i.e. in your initial post).
So but with `Ulysses', he (Joyce) really just did 3 things, right?
ie
1) base it (each section) on The Odyssey of Homer
2) deal with `the body' (since he was protesting the war, where men were sacrificing their bodies)
3) use weird writing techniques (break rules cos its fun) and also allude to lots of other literary stuff
(okay that's 4 things but, who's counting?)
I could probably do that...? So could all of us here.
eg
1) base a story on (say) the Epic of Gilgamesh (random example of a really old story)
2) deal with "the mind" (since people are sacrificing these to Reality TV every day)
3) use weird writing techniques, and allude to... stuff
Even so, I will say, Ulysses is pretty awesome, even though it's mostly unreadable.
The main thing that makes me sigh (that writers do) is use a word i don't know, e.g. a long one.
eg perfunctory
I have been reading this word for years and I always see it next to the word `grin' but I still am forced to guess what the hell it means. Every time. One day I'll actually look it up.
Random tangent: (and please excuse the semi-edited profanity below, everyone, I certainly do not intend to offend. My apologies in advance if I have done so,)
Speaking of words you see next to `grin', one compound word that always flummoxes me is `sh*t-eating'. (ie when combined with `grin').
ie I assume it means that: someone is grinning, knowing that they are putting up with something they'd rather not. But most writers don't seem to use it in that context, and, that makes me confused.
Anyway I better not spend more time dealing with my own personal problems here. It was just a thought that occurred to me, stream-of-consciousness style.
I blame Joyce, and Ulysses.
Anyway Carl, great list of 10 things. And I tend to agree with all of them!
Cheers
JoeTV
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