Okay, Let’s Talk Galactica Finale (Part 1)

Daybreak So. I am finally getting around to re-writing the Galactica finale review that got eaten by the mist monsters of cyberspace.

Thanks to those who have waited patiently . . . and to the reader who keeps sending emails that just say “bsg finale analysis?” Polite. Succinct. I like that.

So here goes . . . 

The reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica ended with a 3-hour finale called Daybreak. In case you’ve forgotten what happened in it,

HERE’S A SUMMARY OF PART ONE.

AND ONE OF PART TWO.

For those who (still) haven’t seen it, I’ll put the spoilers below the fold. But let’s answer the first, more general question here: Love it or hate it?

Mmmmmmmm . . . neither.

I certainly didn’t hate it, but I didn’t find myself thinking it was the best possible ending, either. I put it in the “Basically liked it but had some stupid parts” category.

So I wasn’t disappointed. I wanted to come out basically liking the ending, and I did. I don’t expect shows to wow me in the final episode with a “Best. Episode. Evah!” experience. That’s too much to ask. The Best Episode Evah is statistically far more likely to come before the series finale, so I don’t go into the ending with my hopes set too high. 

I just want them to tell an engaging story that answers the series’ major questions, ties up the major loose ends, and gives me a sense of closure and satisfaction.

I thought the BGS finale did that, with a few blemishes that I’ll talk about.

To give you a sense of how I think this finale compared to other sci-fi finales, I guess I’d rank them this way (series that got cancelled and didn’t have a proper finale, I won’t cover):

Star Trek: Deep Space 9: * * * * of 5 stars (fire cave sequence needed to be better and Sisko should have become a prophet, per the plan)

Babylon 5: * * * 1/2 (nice closure, but not the series’ best/most exciting, which wasn’t what I was looking for; get to see the main characters 20 years later in their lives; Sheridan’s final goodbye to Delenn, etc.)

Battlestar Galactica: * * * 1/2 (better than B5 in some ways, but also marred by stupid stuff, making them about equal)

Star Trek: Next Generation: * * * (okay; didn’t wow me; didn’t deserve the Hugo it got; felt like an ordinaryish 2-hour episode; drama hampered by the fact that there was no overarching series goal to be resolved, so they had to come up with the fakey “you’re still on trial” thing in an attempt to provide one; it’s such a pity that–although there was still a lot of good Next Gen to come–the series technically jumped the shark with “the best of both worlds” (2nd3rd season cliffhanger (thanks for the correction!); Picard becomes a borg); that really should have been one of the feature films)

Star Trek: Voyager: * * (no post-climax cooling off period; very important for this kind of story; we need to see the returnees starting their new lives and enjoying (or not) the home they’ve struggled so long to get to, not just sighting the planet in the distance; also BTW, this is where the bottom of the barrel starts; if your series finale scored lower than this, you really have something to be ashamed of, no matter how good it was in its heyday–or even one episode before)

Stargate SG-1: * 1/2 (ihh. that was an ending? sit around for a long time and hit the reset button? it wasn’t unending, it was uninteresting as a finale)

Star Trek: Enterprise: * (horrible! abominable! never do this! the holodeck thing was bad enough, but the worthless death of a major character was insane! this episode was so bad that the producers deserve to be doomed to a sisyphean ordeal of constantly struggling to get new sci-fi shows on the air only to have them swiftly cancelled and . . . oh, wait.)

The X-Files: * (gaaahhh! unbelievably bad writing in the final episode! the whole mulder-on-trial thing was a disaster! and that franchise-killing movie you followed it up with was horrible, too! LISTEN, CHRIS CARTER!: BEG, BORROW, OR STEAL WHAT YOU NEED TO DO A THIRD MOVIE IN 2012, TELL US THE STORY OF THE ALIEN INVASION THE SERIES WAS LEADING UP TO, AND THEN PUT THE FRANCHISE DOWN AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY, KEEPING YOUR HANDS IN SIGHT AT ALL TIMES!)

Hrm.

Okay, I have more on this to say than will make a comfortably sized post, so up next will be things I liked about the finale, then things I didn’t like.

In the mean time, why don’t y’all argue about the relative merits of series finales like the ones above? (That’s the whole point of rankings–to quantify an opinion for purposes of discussion, after all.)

True Confessions Writing Advice

NEW AND IMPROVED! Now with fewer typos!

A writer writes:

I’m a writer, working on something that incorporates a back and forth between a priest and a congregant in a confession booth.  I’m not Catholic, and when I asked a Catholic friend for some help, he was sad to say he couldn’t remember the last time he went to confession.  He did, however, give me your name as someone who might be able to shed a little light on the situation.  You don’t know me from Adam,

That’s okay. I don’t know most folks from Adam. There are six billion of us, after all.

and I’m sure you’re a busy guy, but if you had a couple of moments to field a couple of questions, it would be most appreciated.

Sure, no prob.

The info I’m looking for is pretty basic.  The character in the thing I’m writing hasn’t been to confession since he was a little boy.  So he’s pretty rusty when he enters the booth.

Okay, first a bit of general info: They aren’t called "booths." They look like that–or used to, at any rate–but the term you’ll want to use is "confessional." Also, these days they don’t look like booths in most churches. They’re like little rooms, and they’re usually designed in such a way that you can either sit opposite the priest on one side of a screened partition or so that you can go around the other side and make your confession face-to-face if you want.

If your story is set in the past (say, pre-1970) or if you just want a more traditional feel, you can still use the booth set-up. A few parishes still have those.

As a bit of research for your story, I’d suggest visiting a Catholic church and looking at the confessionals. It’ll help give you a better idea how to describe them in the story. Notice the colors and textures and smells (though all of these will, of course, vary from parish to parish). If you need to know the names of things in the room–like the kneeler that may very well be present in front of the screen–ask someone from the church office to explain them.

BTW, try to pay this visit when confessions are not being heard. It’ll inconvenience folksand confuse the priest  if you’re there poking in the confessional around while people are waiting in line for confession.

When someone enters a confession booth, who speaks first?  And what’s said? 

Typically the penitent will begin by making the sign of the cross (i.e., crossing himself) and saying "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." If the penitent stops at "and of the Holy Spirit" then the priest may say the "Amen."

If the penitent doesn’t say the Trinitarian formula, the priest will probably do so as a way of prompting the penitent to start. If the penitent still doesn’t start, the priest may say in a friendly, inviting manner, "Go ahead" or simliar words.

According to the rite (as found in a book called The Rites, volume 1, which goes into all this in great detail), the priest then invites the penitent to trust in God, using one of a number of different invitations.

  • May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in his mercy.
  • The Lord does not wish the sinner to die but to turn back to him and live. Come before him with trust in his mercy.
  • May the Lord Jesus welcome you. He came to call sinners, not the just. Have confidence in him.
  • May the grace of the Holy Spirit fill your heart with light, that you may confess your sins with loving trust and come to know that God is merciful.
  • May the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow.
  • If you have sinned, do not lose heart. We have Jesus Christ to plead for us with the Father; he is the Holy One, the atonement for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.

In practice, the priest doesn’t make this invitation if, as usually happens (so far as I know), the penitent launches into his confession after the sign of the cross is made.

The TV version has the congregant starting first, saying, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."  But if the congregant wasn’t sure how things went, might the priest start?

The classic way of beginning is by the penitent saying "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been X amount of time since my last confession." If the penitent doesn’t know how long it’s been, he may simply say "It’s been a long time since my last confession." The priest might ask how long, and the answer "Years" would be acceptable.

Actually–and most folks don’t know this–the mentioning of how long it’s been is not mandatory. The rite only calls for the priest to ask for this if he doesn’t know the penitent.

Is there ever any discussion re: what types of sins might be discussed?  For example, if someone hadn’t been to confession in a long time, might the priest suggest he start with sins of the heart, sins of the flesh, sins of the mind, etc.?

Yes, this kind of thing will happen. If the penitent hasn’t made an examination of conscience before going in to confess, the priest will help him do so in the confessional (assuming that there’s time). The typical way this would happen would be for the priest to walk the penitent through the Ten Commandments, asking if he can remember any offenses against the individual commandments. (Be sure to use the Catholic numbering of the Ten Commandments if you go this route. SEE HERE AND SCROLL DOWN.)

The priest may, though, simply ask the penitent what sins are on his mind, and afterwards he may ask if there are any other sins that he is aware of that he needs to confess. (You only need to confess mortal or major sins; not venial or light ones.) The priest may also give the penitent counselling advice, particularly about how to avoid sin in the future.

After the penitent is finished confessing the priest will assign him a penance (typically some prayers, such as an Our Father and a Hail Mary or a decade of the Rosary or something, or he may assign him to read the Scripture readings for that day).

Then the priest invites the penitent to say an act of contrition, in his own words or using a set formula. If the penitent isn’t sure what to do the priest may lead him through a simple act of contrition like:

Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Then the priest extends his hands or his right hand and says the words of absolution:

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

As he says the Trinitarian formula he makes the sign of the cross with his hand, and when he is done the penitent says "Amen."

Then the priest says something to dismiss the penitent, such as "The Lord has freed you from your sins. Go in peace."

There are a lot of variations on how this all happens. You might want to check out The Rites volume 1 (a local parish will have it) to see some of them. One thing that is not supposed to vary, though, are the words of absolution as I gave them above. The priest has a lot of flexibility elsewhere, but he’s supposed to say the words of absolution verbatim. (Regrettably, not all priests do.)

One thing I’d recommend is that after you write this scene you show it to an actual priest and ask him if what you’ve written rings true. If he spots any major problems, you’ll be able to fix them before turning in your story to–well, wherever it is you’re planning on submitting it.

Good luck!

State Of Smear–Redux

Earlier I linked to my review of Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear, which is a world-class example of how NOT to write a novel.

Later I got to reading what was at the link and realized that I had FORGOTTEN just how skin-peelingly bad this book is.

But some things are worth remembering.

So here goes. . . .

I have just finished Michael Crichton’s "novel" State of Fear and plan to review it. First a couple of disclaimers:

  1. This is a contemporary thriller novel and as such contains a
    significant amount of cussing, non-described acts of sexual immorality,
    and a scene of particularly gory brutality towards the end of the book.
  2. I happen to agree with Crichton that the theory that global warming
    is caused by "greenhouse gasses" is junk science, as are many other
    items of popular junk science that he brings up in the course of the
    novel. And I hope State of Fear manages to spark a real debate over global warming and enviro-nuttiness.

Now for the review:

Michael Crichton’s "novel" State of Fear is not actually a
novel but instead is a piece of propaganda masquerading as a novel. A
novel, of course, is a work of literature, a piece of art whereby words
are used to evoke aspects of the human psyche and of human experience
that transcend the merely ideological.

This transcendance of the ideological is what fails to happen in State of Fear.

According to the novel, there appear to be three kinds of people who believe in global warming:

  1. Those who don’t really know much about the science involved and
    whose attachment to the environmental movement is so tenuous that they
    can and will be flipped to the other side by the end of the novel,
  2. Those who don’t really know much about the science involved but
    whose attachment to the environmental movement is so strong that they
    remain shrieking harpies no matter what facts they are confronted with,
    and
  3. Though who know that the science supporting global warming is junk
    but whose commitment to environmentalist ideology (or something) is so
    strong that they are willing to cause millions of casualties in order
    to fake scientific data supporting global warming.

If there are any other kinds of people who believe in global
warming, they apparently occur sufficiently infrequently in nature that
they do not merit having a recurring character in the book.

Also according to State of Fear, there apparently aren’t
any evil big busines types willing to fake environmental data. Sure,
many charactes appearing in the pages of the novel talk incessantly
about this type of individual, but since no exemplars of this type
appear in its pages, they appear to be a myth–like unicorns, centaurs,
griffins, or global warmings.

With this ideologically one-sided cast of characters that inevitably
results from the above, does Crichton at least succeed in delivering a well-made piece of propaganda, like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will?

No.

Artistically, the "novel" is a disaster on every level above basic spelling and grammar.

On the top level, there is the plot, which involves a huge,
sprawling mess of a story that is so poorly defined that much of the
time the reader has a better sense of what is going on when watching The Big Sleep
than reading this morass. There is no clearly defined central action,
and poorly-drawn characters do preposterous things at the drop of a hat.

F’rinstance:

  • What should a young lawyer do when he checks his messages and
    discovers that he has several calls from the local police department
    telling him that he failed to show up for an appointment and they will
    issue a warrant for his arrest if he doesn’t contact them? Should he
    drop everything to get the matter taken care of? Make sure he doesn’t
    get distracted by anything else before he does? Nooooo! He should
    simply leave a message for the detective who called him and then zip
    off on global assignments he has no qualifications for whatsoever!
  • A preening Hollywood actor/activist who plays the president on TV
    (think: Martin Sheen) wants to tag along with the heroes on a mission
    of vital global importance in a place so dangerous that death,
    decapitation, and pre-death cannibalism are real possibilities. No
    problem! Just have him sign a waiver! Don’t worry that he might
    actually be a security risk to the mission since you already know he’s
    working for the other side. Perish the thought that he might simply a
    bumbling incompetent who would get in the way of your vital mission to
    save millions! You’ll need him along so you can constantly argue with
    him about the lack of evidence for global warming and other
    environmentalist fetishes and make a fool of him at every turn.
  • Suppose that you’re an eco-terrorist mastermind. What should you do
    with people who are getting too close to the truth? Shoot them and be
    done with it? No! You should send your goons to use a tiny poison
    critter that you keep in a plastic baggie filled with water to sting
    them with a poison that will make them paralyzed but not kill them and
    that will wear off in a few hours. What’s more, you can do this to
    several people in the same city without any fear that after the toxin
    has worn off that the victims will tell the police enough to figure out
    who you are. So confident can you be of this that you don’t even need a
    clearly defined REASON to do this to people. You can just do it as part
    of some vaguely-defined attempt to be intimidating or something,
    without even telling the victims what it is that they are supposed to
    do or avoid doing in the wake of your goons’ attacks.
  • Suppose that you are a rich man who has been supporting environmental causes and who has somehow (FOR NO REASON EVER
    EXPLAINED IN THE BOOK) come into possession of a set of coordinates of
    where major eco-terrorist events will be happening–what do you do?
    Turn the list over to the government? Put it in a safe deposit box
    which only you and your lawyer have access to? No! You <SPOILER
    SWIPE> hide it inside a
    remote control in your TV room, where there is a lot of Asian art
    including a Buddha statue, then fake your own death in an auto accident
    so you can go personally face eco-terrorists all by your lonesome on a
    south sea jungle island despite the fact you are an aging, overweight
    alcoholic, and just before doing so you cryptically tell your lawyer
    that it’s an old Buddhist philosophical saying that "Everything that
    matters is not remote from where the Buddha sits"–seeming to imply (if anything) that the TV remote is NOT where the hidden list will be found.
    </SPOILER SWIPE> See? It’s obvious, ain’t it?

Below the level of plot is the level of character. How are the
characters? Thinly-drawn action adventure stereotypes, with one glaring
exception. Unfortunatley, the one glaring exception is the
pseudo-protagonist.

Y’see, this novel has an ensemble cast, but the omniscient narrator
focuses on one character in particular–a young L.A. lawyer–to use as
the lens through which to show us the vast majority of the story,
making him the pseudo-protagonist.

Because of his status in the narration there is a need for the reader to at least be able to like him (ideally, you’d want the reader to be able to identify
with him, but that’s too much to ask in a novel like this).
Unfortunately, you can’t. While every one of his colleagues–whether
they are personal assistants to rich men, rich men themselves, or other
lawyers–are apparently action heroes, this character is the ultimate
momma’s boy.

For the first chunk of the novel he does nothing but walk around,
take order from others, and ask simple questions so that the reader can
be given load after load of exposition. He takes no personal initiative
in doing anything.

Eventually, the action hero characters he’s surrounded by start
noticing what a wuss he is and our glimpses into their internal
monologues reveal words like "wimp" and "idiot" as descriptors of this
character–who is, you will remember, the main character the omniscient narrator has chosen for us to follow.

In the second part of the novel the character is placed in a
potentially life-threatening situation that causes him to experience a
collapse into such a passive, sobbing, whimpering wreck that even the
omniscient narrator seemingly turns away from him in disgust and
temporarily starts following his action-wouldbe-girlfriend until she
can rescue him from his predicament.

Just before this event occurs the character is wondering to himself
why the action-wouldbe-girlfriend (i.e., the action hero woman who he
would like to date) doesn’t "take him seriously as a man"–a moment bound to leave the reader going "Hey! Buddy! No one in the audience takes you seriously as a man EITHER!"

Fortunately, getting his butt saved after his potentially
life-threatening experience starts to awaken a glimmer of intestinal
fortitude in him, and by the end of the novel he has learned to cuss (a
little) and he gets a romantic hug from his action-wannabe-girlfriend,
who is apparently transitioning into his action-actual-girlfriend for
no good reason.

If the plot and the characters are disasters, how about the dialogue and narration?

They suck eggs on toast.

Some passages are so excruciating that I found myself wondering "Didn’t they give Crichton a copy editor?"
One such instance occurred when a character says something to Momma’s
Boy in a foreign language and we read (quotation from memory):

"He didn’t know what it meant. But it’s meaning was clear."

Other
pasages contain monstrosities of dialogue that no copy editor could
fix. F’rinstance: Toward the very end of the book one triumphant good
guy character is expositing on his grand vision for the future, of how
to save environmentalism from itself, save science from its current
predicament, and generally improve society. (This speech is sometimes
so general that certain points remind one of the Monty Python sketch
"How To Do It," in which we are told that the way to cure all disease
is to invent a cure for something so that other doctors will take note
of you and then you can jolly well make sure they do everything right
and end all disease forever.)

This manifesto would go on for several pages without break except for the fact that Momma’s Boy gets to interrupt it with scintilating interlocutions like:

  • "Okay."
  • "It sounds difficult."
  • "Okay. What else?"
  • "Why hasn’t anyone else done it?"
  • "Really?"
  • "How?"
  • "And?"
  • "Anything else?"
  • and (a second time) "Anything else?"
  • and (a third time) "Anything else?"

I’m sorry, but no copy editor could fix a multi-page speech with
such transparent attempts to disguise it as dialogue. At that point
it’s the editor’s job to call the author and demand a re-write.

If the publishing house is interested in producing quality works, that is–as opposed to simply making money.

Oh, and lest I forget, there are numerous dropped threads
in this story. Like: Whatever happened about that arrest warrant that
Momma’s Boy got threatened with? And: How about other
established characters who left him messages and needed to talk to him?
And: What did the other critter-victims tell the police after the toxin
wore off? And: Where did that body come from that got washed up on the
beach and how did someone else’s clothes and watch get on it? And: Why
didn’t the heroes ever use the incriminating DVD to incriminate anybody?

And most importantly: What actually, y’know, happened to
the bad guys in the end? Did they go to jail? Were there congressional
hearings? Did they flee to countries without extradition treaties? Did
they manage to keep their cushy jobs? Did they just go out for sushi? What???

Crichton is interested in telling us none of these things.

But then, his "novel" was never about the story to begin with.

It’s a political tract that fails to rise above the level of those
theological "novels" (both Protestant and Catholic) in which one side
is always right and in which characters of opposing points of view exist only to serve as conversational foils to help illustrate the rightness of the protagonists–time after time after time.

It’s enough to make you scream.

Qualify This!

Michelle here.

If you read carefully through the questions-and-answers by staff apologists on the Catholic Answers Forums, you’ll notice that we use a lot of qualifiers. Especially when dealing with issues of moral culpability, we try very hard not to use absolutes. While it is possible to state definitively whether or not a particular action is grave matter, it is not possible for the apologists to discern any inquirer’s personal culpability because culpability for grave matter depends on knowledge and consent, two things I am not remotely qualified to discern. So we use qualifiers. We use may, could, perhaps, possible, might, etc. It becomes habitual. So habitual that I find it leaks into other forms of writing I do, such as this blog.

In what was supposed to be a "throwaway" post that turned into a major brouhaha over Martin Luther, I wrote:

"If you’re trying to think of the perfect gift for Luther, might I suggest obtaining a partial or plenary indulgence for his soul? Wherever Luther is now, I’m sure he now knows the value of an indulgence."

GET THE POST.

You may be horrified to learn that this innocuous bit of humor has brought me to the attention of the Universal Inquisition. Well, the Sacred Weblog of the Universal Inquisition at any rate, where I am exposed as a neo-Catholic (gasp!). The Inquisitor General, who describes his blog (one hopes with tongue in cheek) as "the weblog for the office of the Inquisitor General, scourge of heretics, archenemy of modernity, and protector of all things traditional" writes:

"Jimmy Akin’s blog has mentioned Luther’s birthday and given us this mildly humorous comment:

‘If you’re trying to think of the perfect gift for Luther, might I suggest obtaining a partial or plenary indulgence for his soul? Wherever Luther is now, I’m sure he now knows the value of an indulgence.’

"Of course, our only quibble is with the ‘wherever’ part. Luther is almost certainly in Hell*, and we have no qualms about saying it, unlike our neo-Catholic fellow bloggers.

"* Note the words ‘almost certainly.’"

GET THE POST.

While I did not intend to write with qualifiers in a humor bit, I note with amusement that it has become a bit of a modus operandi. And, frankly, that’s fine with me.  (It’s primarily artistic writing, such as fiction, where qualifiers may be a problem.)  In the case now being scrutinized, my qualifier wherever is an acknowledgement that it is not given to us to know where Luther is right now or whether an indulgence may help him, but that we can know that he does now know the value of an indulgence. Even if the indulgence cannot be used for his sake because he is in heaven or hell, God can use the indulgence for the sake of a suffering soul who can benefit. If Luther’s in purgatory, God can use the indulgence for his sake. In any case, the indulgence is of benefit and value to someone.

But, in the spirit of the Universal Inquisition, let’s look at the Inquisitor General’s use of qualification. Apparently, he desperately wants to say flat-out that Luther is in hell and thus separate himself from those Awful Neo-Catholics who refuse to make such a judgment. Despite assertions to the contrary, he does have qualms about saying it flat-out and so he highlights and explains his qualification so that he cannot be accused of casting Luther into hell. I submit to the Universal Inquisition that this isn’t a case of acknowledging that judgment belongs only to God but a case of Cover Your Tracks.

Note: The Wikipedia article on neo-Catholicism was down when I tried to check it. I can’t wait to try again later and find out all about neo-Catholicism.

Update:  Link to the Inquisitor General’s post added.  Apologies for the oversight.

Writing With Style

Here on the blog y’all get to see me writing with at least a measure of style. My editor and I have an understanding, and if I want to plot an "ain’t" or a "y’all" or a "YEE-HAW!" into a sentence, I can and he won’t "correct" me.

I occasionally cut loose with a full-blown fisk (though it requires me to have found a REALLY stupid story to use as a base for the fisk. If the story isn’t stupid enough, the fisk won’t be that funny.)

When I write for most publications, though, I have to write in a very SERIOUS manner.

That doesn’t stop me from appreciating those who write with a lot of style. I just don’t get a chance to put much stylish stuff in print, myself.

There are certain people who I’ve discovered on the Net who write in such an interesting manner that I’ll go out of my way to read their material, just to admire their creative use of language. Even if I don’t agree with what they’re saying, I still admire how they say it.

Peggy Noonan is one. Mickey Kaus is another. LILEKS HAD A REALLY GOOD ONE HERE.

And then there’s Mark Steyn. He’s always a treat in terms of how he uses words. For example, consider the following paragraph in which he describes listening to a National Public Radio story that talked about Muslim terrorists in Russia without identifying them–till the last word of the story–as Muslims:

When the NPR report started, I was driving on the vast open plains of I-91 in Vermont and reckoned, just to make things interesting, I’ll add another five miles to the speed for every minute that goes by without mentioning Islam. But I couldn’t get the needle to go above 130, and the vibrations caused the passenger-side wing-mirror to drop off. And then, right at the end, having conducted a perfect interview that managed to go into great depth about everything except who these guys were and what they were fighting over, the Russian academic dude had to go and spoil it all by saying somethin’ stupid like "republics which are mostly . . . Muslim." He mumbled the last word, but nevertheless the NPR gal leapt in to thank him and move smoothly on to some poll showing that the Dems are going to sweep the 2006 midterms because Bush has the worst numbers since numbers were invented.

Now see! That’s good writing! I’d love to do stuff like that, only people take you SO seriously when you’re an apologist and expect you to be SO prim and proper and "charitable" and literal all the time.

It’s enough to make you stamp your foot sometimes.

ANYWAY, READ THE REST OF STEYN’S PIECE TO SEE WHAT OTHER NIFTY WRITING TRICKS HE PULLS.

Double-X Marks THe Spot

A number of years ago I got a book called Revising Fiction. The book was about how to revise . . . well, fiction.

One of the author’s big points was that the revision process is very distinct from the writing process. (It had better be, or he’d have no reason to write his book.)

He therefore stressed to writers that they should not try to revise while they are writing. Write when you write; revise when you revise. Don’t mix the two or you’ll get into trouble.

And you will.

If you let your inner critic drive you to start editing what you’ve just written, you’ll fiddle with it forever. You’ll get bogged down–repeatedly–as you write, and you may never finish your manuscript.

Revision is incredibly important. It’s how you get all the bad stuff out of your writing. But it’s a separate process, and a very important one. This led the author to an interesting perspective: Why do writers write? Frequently, so they can have something to revise. That’s not true all the time (certainly, it’s not true of me when I’m writing an article or a special report on deadline), but at times in a writer’s experience–particularly in the beginning–it may well be true.

His overall point about keeping editing separate from writing is extremely important, however. When one writes, one frequently should get the words down as fast as one can, without worrying about how good they are. You can fix them later, but finishing that first draft is vitally important.

In my own writing, I try whenever possible to follow the advice, "Write in a fury!" Do whatever it takes to bang out that first draft. Fix it later.

One of the things that means is that I don’t stop to look up citations. If I stopped to look up every Bible verse I need to quote, or type in all the bibliographic info for a book I want to cite, it’d break the flow of my writing and I’d lose precious time by getting sidetracked to look stuff up. As a result, I don’t (when I can avoid it).

Instead, I drop unique strings into my writing at points I know I need to revisit. For example, if I know that I need to insert a Bible verse, I frequently will write "(xx)" for the citation. Then, after I’m done with the first draft and am in the revision stage, I’ll go back and do an electronic search for all the "xx"es and replace them with the missing citations.

If the needs of the manuscript are more complex and I need to mark different kinds of places to revisit in the revision process, I’ll use other unique strings. I don’t want a combination of letters that will likely appear in the text, though, so I’ll use something uncommon, like "jj" or "qq" or "xjxj." It’s then a snap to look these up electronically.

Using the word processor’s highlight feature also can help. I may put a yellow highlight on the whole first draft and then go through it, turning the yellow highlight off as I revise individual sections. (That way if I need to skip a section for some reason, it’ll still be yellow and thus obvious that I need to go back and finish fixing it.)

I understand that for some in the publishing industry, typing "00" has been an equivalent of my "xx." I don’t like that as much, though, because (a) "00" can look too much like "oo" or "OO" (making it hard if you’re visually scanning a secion) and (b) the zero keys require one to take one’s fingers off the letter-keys and hit the less-familiar number-keys. "xx" doesn’t require that.

So for me, any way, double-X marks the spot.

Travis Tea Speaks!

Guestblogger Travis Tea (alias Mary Catelli) writes:

Once upon a time there were — and there still are — some writers who helped new writers against scam tricks in the publishing industry.

You can read about them: at Writer Beware http://www.sfwa.org/beware/ or at Preditors & Editors http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/

The writers involved were SF and fantasy writers, and one publisher that was warned against was PublishAmerica, which described itself as a traditional publisher but had such untraditional practices as a one-dollar advance, and requiring you register your own copyright (leaving you $29 in the hole, because it costs $30.)

Apparently it hurt.  Or so we deduce from the comments here:

"As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction."  So they warn to run away away from SF or fantasy writers, who are obviously without a clue.


http://www.authorsmarket.net/experts.htm

And indeed, this particular screed seemed to point quite clearly:
http://www.authorsmarket.net/youreyes.htm

Some SF and fantasy writers were discussing this posting online.  During the course of which, someone proposed that we should try to get published by PublishAmerica.

James Macdonald took this and ran with it.  He drew up an outline, asked for volunteers, and send out the chapter descriptions.  Indeed, one he sent out twice, to two different writers. 

I asked for, and got, one of them.  And so I sat down to channel my inner clueless newbie.  I went on for two paragraphs on describing the setting, neglecting any research, and ignoring what I already knew, down to forgetting that polo is played on polo ponies.  And I expanded those paragraphs for a page each — carefully ensuring the opening sentences of the first paragraph contradicted its last sentence.  And then I told, in a flat-footed style, the story he laid out for me.  I made up for the opening by chopping parts up into itsy-bitsy paragraphs, one sentence, or one word.  I introduced one character by cutting and pasting the description from the two paragraphs I had been sent.  I larded their conversations with said-bookisms — far-fetched substitutes for the word "said."  When it was coming in under the length he asked for, I reached for those handy chocolate, fattening parts of speech:  adverbs and adjectives.  Whenever my fingers slipped, I trusted the Microsoft spell checker, which hates all writers and tries to make you look like an idiot; if it could correctly work out the word, I twisted the misspelling until it suggested something else.  Most work of all, in one paragraph I switched tenses every sentence.  That I had gotten used to doing on autopilot.

And then I sent it off.

Meanwhile, other writers were also channeling their inner newbies.  James MacDonald collected them all, put them in the order received, left one chapter out when the writer was unable to make it, fed several into a text generator to produce another chapter. . . . my little efforts at inconsistency are but the smallest part.  People change race.  They die in one chapter and return in the next without a comment.  They wake up and it was all a dream — AND THE STORY GOES ON.

Online, the chatter went on, but when MacDonald said he would tell us the title it would go in under, I posted "NO!"  It was a private location, but never post anything to a private discussion that you don’t want to see on the front page of a New York Times — and once I posted it, the chorus arose.

The rest of the operation was carried out as Top Secret. 

Therefore the next I heard was of our happy acceptance.  They had, of course, had the contract vetted by a lawyer and though it would have been fun to carry the hoax all the way — have it published — the lawyer didn’t think it wise.  So the news was announced:


http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb202277.htm

From here you can see the acceptance letter and the contract:
http://critters.critique.org/sting/

Alas, a month after PublishAmerica accepted it, the day after the news was publicized, they read it.  "Upon further review it appears that your work is not ready to be published."

Fortunately, we were able to find a new publisher:  lulu.com, where we were not fed the same line as at PublishAmerica.

Also, you can download the electronic version for free from the "sting" link.

The story as told by James MacDonald:
http://www.sfwa.org/members/TravisTea/backstory.htm

The website in question has a great deal more information.  Read the blurbs:
http://sfwa.org/members/TravisTea/blurbs.htm

And then compare to the list of known authors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights

Introducing Travis Tea

Travistea_1Before Travis Tea gives us the inside story on Atlanta Nights, I thought I’d introduce him.

To the left is his picture from his author’s page over at lulu.com.

And here’s his bio from his own web site:

It was a dark and stormy night the night Travis Tea was born in the small town of Sweethome, Alabama. Though ever proud of her only son, his mother Senilla continually mourned the loss of the little princess who never would be, Travis’ stillborn twin sister, Madge S. Senilla moved the family from their ranch-style house to a ramshackle shack on the outskirts of the cemetary where the baby was buried. After five years of such living, his father, Ben-Ali, took Travis, and they began a nomadic existence, travelling the highways and byways of America’s southlands, often staying with various of his father’s relatives, many of whom provided inspiration and impetus for his future ambitions.


Travis grew swiftly into a young man, but to a father grown hardened, burly and surly from hard labor, he was. . . not to put too fine a point on it. . . a disappointment. Always of a non-descript and introspective type, Travis made few friends, and buried himself away from his father’s scorn in the pages of magazines and cheap paperbacks purchased at any convenient drugstore. In those pages, he was transported away from his life of toil, and soon began to write for his own amusement. His dear maiden Aunt Vanna was the one who told him in the first place that he was as good as any writer out there. Only one piece from this period is still extant, though Travis holds that shred of napkin close, and will not deign to share it with the general public at this time.


For his 18th birthday, Travis gave himself the gift of a future, and signed up for a hitch in the National Guard. Not quite fitting in with the others, he kept company with his imaginary little brother, Insanna, who would whisper to him at night, and kept him going. While Travis served his country, his father capitulated to his loneliness, and returned to Senilla, who, though Travis had always sent letters home to her, barely realized the men had been gone. Upon his return from the service, Travis wrote a very special story for Senilla’s birthday, which he entitled "That’s All Right, Mama." After the story had been read to her, his mother miraculously recovered her sense of the importance of her living family members, and resumed her place as matriarch of the home.


Travis threw himself into his writing. He wrote at night; he wrote on weekends; at mealtimes; and between work shifts. He enrolled in several correspondence courses in writing, and though lessons were not always delivered in their entirety, and some may never have arrived at all, he perserveered. Though several applications to writers conferences were inexplicably rejected, he perserveered.


In June of 2004, following a particularly vivid dream that stretched over three long nights, Travis began work on his first full-length novel, Atlanta Nights, and by dint of his his dedication to his craft, and phone conversations with his cousin Atrossa helping to drive the plot, and cousin Vapidda helping fashion the words on the page, the novel was completed by July.


Currently, Travis’ family has quit the locality of the cemetary, and moved into a posh suite at the nearby Motel 6. Travis continues working on his next novel, travelling as need be to make personal appearances and perform dramatic and not-so-dramatic readings of Atlanta Nights. He designed, updates and maintains this website with the kind assistance of the Sweethome, Alabama Public Library and HTML for Dummies.

Atlanta Nights

A number of years ago some sci-fi and fantasy authors wrote a book called Atlanta Nights. The book was not sci-fi or fantasy, because the prospective publisher (PublishAmerica) had publicly dissed sci-fi and fantasy authors.

PublishAmerica claimed to be a respectable publisher, though its critics claimed it was a vanity press.

After reading its diss of SF&F authors, several decided to exact revenge by writing a deliberately bad novel and getting PublishAmerica to agree to publish it, thus exposing the literary "standards" of the house for what they are.

The manuscript was not only filled with bad grammar and spelling, misused words, and internal contradictions. It also featured things like an "accidentally" duplicated chapter, an inexplicably missing chapter, and a chapter written by a computer program.

The manuscript was then submitted to PublishAmerica under the pen name Travis Tea (get it? say it fast).

The plan worked brilliantly. PublishAmerica offered to publish the book.

At least, it did until the authors publicly announced that the book was a hoax and then PublishAmerica did a "further review" that determined that the manuscript was "not ready to be published" after all.

Despite this setback, Atlanta Nights was eventually published and can be read online or ordered in hardcopy.

It also has some of the most remarkable blurbs in publishing industry history. For example, Jerry Pournelle raves:

"Don’t fail to miss it if you can!"

But best of all, it turns out that Travis Tea is a reader of this blog, and later today, Travis will give us the inside scoop on Atlanta Nights!

Yee-Haw!