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Proofreading Scripts vs. Fiction

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In the previous post, which also concerned proofreading, I said this:

While I certainly don’t want typos in my milestone drafts, a typo in a script feels like less of a crime simply because a script is a blueprint, not a finished work. When I really came to terms with the fact that I would be producing a finished product with my name on it, my level of concern (and vanity) about typos markedly increased. Where I previously felt that typos in a script were unprofessional, I suddenly felt as if typos in my short story collection would be a personal criticism of me.

I don’t disagree with those statements, but in the intervening days I’ve come to realize that I completely missed the main difference between proofreading a script (screenplay, stage play, interactive script) and proofing prose fiction. It’s not simply that scripts are blueprints while fiction is finished work. It’s that the density and complexity of fiction is infinitely greater than anything you will find in a script, precisely because the availability of techniques is so much greater.   [ Read more ]

Proofreading Your Own Work

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In the previous post I mentioned various proofreading methods I considered for my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE). While the objective in all cases was the same — eliminating nagging typos and errors — each method had different strengths and weaknesses.

Because I knew TYOTE would be read by almost no one, and would bring in almost no revenue, I decided to pursue the option that promised to teach me the most about the proofreading process, and about my own ability to spot mistakes. Against all advice, and despite knowing in advance that I could not be one hundred percent successful, I decided to proofread the final draft of the collection myself. (Full disclosure: one other person gave the stories a proofreading pass early in the process.)

Having written professionally in a number of mediums I know I have a decent eye. Not great, but good enough to catch a lot of common errors. Still, like every writer, I have my nemeses. For example, I am constantly transposing ‘from’ and ‘form’, and no spell checker can save me from that fate. Even when I consciously watch for that mistake, slowing my eye to a letter-by-letter crawl, I invariably miss an instance. (Case in point, when I originally wrote ‘from’ and ‘form’ above, I wrote it as ‘from’ and ‘from’ — and didn’t catch the mistake until re-reading the sentence for the umpteenth time.)

Too, it’s worth noting that much of my professional writing has been script work, both in the motion picture and interactive industries. While I certainly don’t want typos in my milestone drafts, a typo in a script feels like less of a crime simply because a script is a blueprint, not a finished work. When I really came to terms with the fact that I would be producing a finished product with my name on it, my level of concern (and vanity) about typos markedly increased. Where I previously felt that typos in a script were unprofessional, I suddenly felt as if typos in my short story collection would be a personal criticism of me.  [ Read more ]

Extending Smashwords’ Functionality

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Note: It has been brought to my attention that I failed to note that I ultimately chose not to implement the process outlined below. This omission happened while revising the original post and was unintentional. See comments for more.

This winter past I spent a fair bit of time thinking about how best to finish the editing process of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm. In particular I considered a number of possible proofreading solutions in order to track down as many typos and errors as possible. Along with hiring an editor or doing the work myself, I came up with what I thought might be a way to merge the inherent functionality of Smashwords with the goal of open-source proofreading.

In an exchange of emails, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker graciously helped me refine the idea in a manner consistent with the Smashwords TOS, which states that only finished works can be published through the site:

9d. You further warrant the book represents a complete work:
• this is not a work-in-progress
• the uploaded file is not a partial sample or sample chapter, or is not a collection of sample chapters
• the uploaded book represents a complete story with a beginning, middle and end

Because any work (fiction or nonfiction) that is ready for proofreading should be finished in every other respect, the proofreading process falls into a gray area relative to this requirement. For that reason, I need to stress that the proofing I am talking about is just that: a final attempt to track down typos and other miscellaneous errors after the entire work has been written, revised, edited and checked by as many eyes as possible. A work that has errors on every page, or obvious mistakes in abundance, is in need of copy editing, and is not what I would deem a finished work.  [ Read more ]

Where Stories Come From

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Many moons ago I found myself in a bar called Green’s Grocery just outside of Nashville, attending a wedding reception for an old friend of mine. After wishing the newlyweds well I found an empty chair and struck up a conversation with a very nice man who turned out to be an accountant. When he asked what I did for a living I told him I was a storyteller. His eyes widened a bit as if I had confessed to alchemy.

From that moment it was little more than a hop, skip and jump to the question that every writer is asked sooner or later: where do you get your ideas? It was a question I’d been asked before, but until that day I had never fully realized that the human ability to invent stories or cobble them together out of life events is not universal.

As I talked with the man, and struggled to explain how ideas came to me, it became clear that he had never had the same thing happen to him. The more I tried to abstract the process, or explain it by using analogies, the more he insisted that the kind of narrative genesis I had been familiar with since childhood was simply foreign to him. The absurdity of the thought almost convinced me that he was pulling my leg, but it was obvious that he wasn’t. He simply did not think that way.  [ Read more ]

Writing Grief

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For the past year or two I have been living with two impending deaths. One was natural, merciful and literal. The other was unnatural, tortured and figurative. Both have both come to pass.

I have been alive long enough to know that there is no way to anticipate or speed the grieving process. There is no way to shed grief but to endure it and to respect the truth of it. I am also aware that the trend these days is to encourage people to move on with their lives, or to otherwise ignore or distract themselves from grief — advice that is often proffered by friends and family who do not want to embrace the totality of loss, or the inevitability of mortality, in their own lives.

As I have watched myself move through this process in two instances, I have noticed that as a writer I do not have the tools to accurately describe what I am thinking and feeling. Were I authoring these events I would struggle greatly to communicate the totality of what I feel as a character.  [ Read more ]

Site Seeing: Chuck Wendig/TerribleMinds

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Lots of people say what they think. Chuck Wendig says it the way he thinks it:

I ride you people pretty hard. I’m like an old man on the lawn, shaking his walker at you interlopers. “Get the hell offa my property! Quit screwin’ around!” Next thing you know, I’m thumbing two homemade rock-salt shells into the breach of a double barrel. Ch-chak. “Old Man Wendig’s gonna make Swiss cheese out of our backsides again! He’s lettin’ the taco terrier out of her hermetically-sealed cage, too! It’s like Jurassic Park, and we’re the goats in the T-Rex paddock!”

I deft you to find anything similar outside of a state-run institution.

But that’s Chuck. He’s got attitude to burn, and the writing skill to weld that attitude to a web page. If you want a little entertainment with your subject matter, you’ll get a feature-film’s worth at TerribleMinds.

(I can’t tell you if Chuck’s site is safe for work or not, because for all I know you run the Hell’s Angels Deli. Still, it’s a question you might want to consider.)

But here’s the thing. Chuck isn’t just entertaining. He also knows what he’s talking about craft-wise. He knows about writing, he knows how he writes, and he knows the difference. And that puts him in a pretty small camp.

So pick yourself out a pretty one of these, and one of these, and maybe $500,000 worth of this, and head on over to Chuck’s site. He’ll welcome you with open arms, as long as you’re cool with the pulled pin.

— Mark Barrett

A Generational Definition of Insanity

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You’ve undoubtedly heard this before:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results.

I’m old enough now that I can attest to the truth of that saying from both observation and personal experience. The antidote, of course, is to recognize behavior patterns and interrupt them — provided you have the clarity of mind to do so. It’s not easy, and it runs against the human tendency to resist change and protect the ego, but it can be done. As is also often said, admitting you have a problem is the first step.

A related but much more insidious problem involves the repetition of behaviors over the course of generations. These generations may be literal, coming along every twenty years or so, or they may be developmental and occur with greater frequency. In each case, however, new generations are predisposed to repeat experiences precisely because they arrive on the scene oblivious to what has gone before.

There are two main reasons for the perpetuation of such generational blindness. The first is the failing of previous generations to pass along useful knowledge, or to make knowledge available and digestible in ways that are accessible and relevant. The second is the failing of new generations to recognize that a distinction must be made between what is new to them (as a group or as individuals), and what is actually new.

For example, at some point most people becomes fascinated with their own sexuality, often to the point of distraction. Yet no one would argue that this process for any individual sheds new light on the human condition, or represents a break from the past. Coming to terms with one’s own desires and biological essence is exciting, intoxicating, and so utterly commonplace as to be mundane. That such newness can feel transcendent to the individual or group is clear, even as it is demonstrably not new. (Without ‘going there’, try conceptualizing your parents or grandparents as the sexual being you believe yourself to be. Because they are/were.)  [ Read more ]

The Year of the Elm — Available Now

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I recently published a collection of twelve short stories on Smashwords. [Book removed 01/03/17].

The first three stories can be viewed free. The entire collection is $4.99, and available in a variety of formats.

Original post here.

— Mark Barrett

The Year of the Elm

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That’s the title — and this is the cover — for the short story collection I’ve been working on, which I referred to in an earlier post by the TYOTE acronym. I put the collection on Smashwords last night. [Book removed 01/03/17.]

There are twelve short stories in the collection. The first three stories are free. The price for the full collection is $4.99, for reasons that have been exhaustively detailed in previous posts. (Regular readers are now laughing themselves silly or suffering flashbacks.)

I am making three stories available for three reasons. First, I like the idea that a prospective online customer can peruse part of a work as they might in a bookstore. Second, I believe self-published authors have an obligation to demonstrate that they can carry a tune before asking someone to pay for their work. Third, I intendThe Year of the Elm to create an overall effect, and I feel an obligation to make the structure clear to the prospective buyer. Reading the first three stories should do that.

The next step for TYOTE is to put together a print-on-demand (POD) version, probably through Lightning Source. I’ll have more to say about TYOTE, and about the process of publishing it myself, in subsequent posts.

On the horizon, my next project involves a novel I’m revising, and what may or may not be an innovative attempt to meld the strengths of the internet as a medium with the craft aims of traditional storytelling. I believe that all mediums are eventually turned to fiction, and my hope would be to show how that might be better done with the internet itself.

— Mark Barrett

Art, Craft and Writer’s Block

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I don’t believe in writer’s block. I know full well there are days when the writing comes easy and days when the writing won’t come at all, but I don’t ascribe the difference to any unseen or mystical force. Rather, I ascribe the difference to the fact that writing is damned hard all the time, and any day when it’s going great is a miracle.

I was reminded of my feelings about writer’s block by a post from Stephanella Walsh, in which she herself talked about coming to terms with the myth of writer’s block. It’s a good post, and particularly so because it admits to change, which is something too few people are confident enough to do.

Stephanella does a solid job of listing reasons why people reach for the “I’m blocked!” excuse, and I don’t disagree with any of them. People have been using the excuse of writer’s block — and the premise: that writing necessarily flows from some hidden spring of inspiration — since the first caveman struggled with the first cave painting.

I would like to propose, however, that there is a basic choice that every storyteller needs to make when approaching their work, and that in making this choice a writer necessarily allows or precludes writer’s block as an aspect of the storytelling process. The choice I speak of is whether or not writing is viewed first and foremost as a craft.

If you view storytelling as a craft — as a mix of techniques and channeled authorial gifts (the stuff you just happen to be good at) — I don’t see how writer’s block pertains. When you write from craft you can say you’re stuck, or you’re tired, or you hate your life, but the idea that your muse is playing coy, or that something that happened in your childhood is getting in the way of your ability to bash the holy hell out of your keyboard is absurd on the face of it — as it would be if you were a ditch digger and complained of ditch-digger’s block.

On the other hand, if you view storytelling as art — as a nebulous, ill-defined process of introspection and pure expression devoid of any compelling need to communicate with the reader, or even to be intelligible — then I suspect that writer’s block is useful in an endless variety of ways. Including, perhaps most importantly, by connecting you in spirit to all the other great writers who sat back in a sunny cafe chair and bemoaned the lonely fate of the truly and tragically gifted.

It’s your call, of course. But if you’re thinking that what you’d like to do is tell stories, you might want to take a long hard look at what your storytelling is in service of. Giving your authorial fate over to the unseen or mystical strikes me as a both a considerable statement of intent and a mistake. Unless, of course, what you’re really interested in is the drama of being a storyteller as opposed to the end product.

— Mark Barrett