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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 ]

Professionalism and Price

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In yesterday’s post I made the case for my own rejection of the free/freemium content-pricing model, as well as the celebrity-first marketing model that seems to be its genetic twin. In a nutshell, the idea of giving away content in order to get people to care about me so I can monetize affection on the back end is not what I’m interested in doing. Were I the kind of writer who also wants to be a celebrity I could see the utility and appeal of that approach, but I’m not that kind of person. There’s nothing in me that wants to be on stage in a spotlight, and there never has been.

This leaves me with two choices. If conventional wisdom is right, and celebrity is a critical component of any writer’s ability to make a living, then I need to quit writing and do something else. The only alternative is the contrarian view that content in and of itself still does have some value in the marketplace. Because I tend to come by contrariness honestly, that’s the path I intend to follow.

If I’m right and conventional wisdom is wrong, then I’m effectively buying the content-first model at a discount. Later, when everybody realizes that celebrity is simply another endlessly-available, valueless commodity that they will have to root, grunt, scratch, claw and eternally fight for, I can leverage resurgent interest in non-celebrity content (formerly known as ‘entertainment’ or ‘knowledge’) and make a killing. Or something like that.

Obviously, the trendy idea that information or content has no inherent value rests on the bedrock premise of the internet as an free and open information pipeline servicing a world-wide society of hackers, spammers, pirates, griefers and anonymous cranks, as well as sundry meeker citizens. And I have no problem with that. I don’t think the internet should be regulated, or that people should be forced to give up their anonymity in order to join ongoing cultural conversations. If quality really doesn’t matter any more simply because there’s so much quantity, I can live with that.

However…it’s hard not to notice that comments about the ubiquity of internet content often dovetail with comments about the general lack of quality, value, merit, meaning or worth in that same infinite stream of words and ideas. And here I’m not talking about the difficulty of finding the good stuff. Rather, I’m saying that most of the stuff that’s out there is just plain bad not by my measure, but by anyone’s measure.  [ Read more ]

The Sex Question

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In a recent post I put forward the idea that sex used in the advertising of nonsexual products betrays products of no particular distinction. At root, however, the previous post was not about advertising. Rather, it was the tip of the iceberg in a larger conversation about the decision to use (or, by extension, not use) sex in any kind of authored content.

The question is not why sex is used in commercials or authored works. We know why it’s used. Our animal brains are hard-wired for sex, apart from any additional sociological or psychological interest we may add as we grow and develop in whatever culture we happen to live in. Sex does in fact sell — meaning attract and hold consumer interest — but that’s not what I’m interested in. Rather, I’m interested in what motivates creators to use sex and its sure-fire, brain-simple appeal in any given instance, and particularly in stories.  [ Read more ]

Online Fiction Format

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Two well-thought-out posts from Eli James at Novelr on the formatting of online fiction. Part 1 here, from August; Part 2 here, two days ago.

As noted previously, character blogs in particular and online fiction in general haven’t taken off as I would have thought they might, given that the internet is itself seems a viable new medium. The points Eli raises clearly speak to part of the problem, and I hope to contribute to this issue as well in the near future.

— Mark Barrett

Reviewing Fiction

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Aspiring to Art
The question of reviewing fiction is a complicated one, in part because of the complexity of the task, and in part because the task is often supplanted by the blood sport of judging merit as opposed to execution. In my own life as a writer and storyteller I wrestled with these issues at a relatively young age (in college), while coming to terms with how I might be able to judge my own work in-process and upon completion. This need was precipitated by the realization that it was frighteningly easy (here you should see white knuckles crushing the armrests of a wildly-buffeting airliner) to lose one’s way while working on a story.

An obvious and eternal reference point for any storyteller is the beacon of art. To write for art, to aspire to art, and someday to become art is a road rutted with famous followers. Like many (if not most) storytellers, I would like my work — at least my non-commercial work, but maybe even that as well — to be accepted and seen as art.

But therein lies the flaw. To write for art is to grant others the right to determine the merit of your work at a moment in time, which exposes you to the fads of that moment. Even the most delinquent student of history quickly learns that artistic movements come and go like fashion lines, and that the arbiters of such movements often have more interest in their own personal, social and business agendas than in the value, merit or accomplishment of the works on display.  [ Read more ]

Fiction is Truth

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I’ve been reading The Good Soldiers by David Finkel. It’s a factual recounting of the deployment of the U.S. Army’s 2-16 Battalion during the surge in Iraq.

Something about the book struck me as both familiar and true, despite the fact that I haven’t been in the army and I haven’t been to Iraq. Then I ran across this passage and the lightbulb came on:

On June 20, Kauzlarich was boack on the air on PEACE 106 FM.

“Sir, there is talk that security is bad and getting worse. What is the way ahead to improve security?” Mohammed, whose name was not really Mohammed, asked in Arabic, which was translated into English by an interpreter named Izzzy, whose name was not really Izzy and who had replaced Mark, who had been arrested and jailed for extorting money from other Iraqis working on the FOB, all with fake names as well.

Frankel’s book and the story of the 2-16 remind me of this:

“And the people you sell the eggs to at four and a quarter cents apiece make a profit of two and three quarter cents apiece when they sell them back to you at seven cents apiece. Is that right? Why don’t you sell the eggs directly to you and eliminate the people you buy them from?”

“Because I’m the people I buy them from,” Milo explained.

That’s from Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch-22. I could have pulled a hundred different passages from that book that would have said the same thing. Reality is insanity. Fiction is reality.  [ Read more ]

Site Seeing: Novelr

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When I was first making my rounds on the web to get up to speed on the state of online storytelling, it took me very little time to come across Novelr.com. Busy as I was, however, I filed the URL away in my ever-growing list of sites-to-visit, and promptly got lost in other things.

A few days ago Janoda kindly thought to suggest the site to me on Twitter, whereupon I immediately vowed to visit the site before promptly getting lost in other things.

Which brings me to yesterday, when Eli (the person behind Novelr) stopped by and added a comment to one of my posts, innocently punishing me for being such a slacker. Of such self-induced slights are my better motivations born.

The post Eli commented on was called Taking Stock, in which I updated myself and you about my current level of interest in all things digital and storytelling. One of the things I said I’m less interested in now is the broader question of online fiction, in part because it’s just so damn broad. If not unending.

Happily, as my dedicated visit to Novelr revealed, Eli and the Novelr community are very much on top of the subject, and very much probing the further reaches. Which means Eli and Novelr can do the heavy lifting on this subject for all of us. Wink!

Stop by, take a look around, and if you’re new to subject, say hello before Eli finds you first. You’ll be glad you did.

— Mark Barrett

Why Communities Matter: Support

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There are a lot of people writing online fiction these days. And why not? Until recently anyone with the desire to write fiction had to suffer with a drawer full of unread manuscripts or a social network dotted with unreliable (if not patronizing) readers. Today you can easily find a writing community that shares your specific interests, and if you’re not a total jerk you can usually find someone who will give you honest and useful feedback.

But online communities — at least some of them — also provide another important resource for fiction writers, and that’s emotional support. Whatever you want to say about any given writer’s skill level, or the average skill level of all fiction writing on the web, the fact is that putting your work out there for others to see is a risk — and it should be a risk.

Unless you’re a pure artist — meaning someone who is creating without concern for audience reaction (which is doubly hard to do when you’re using the written word, which was literally invented for communication) — you intend the people who read your fiction to have a particular experience. And at some point you want to know if you created that experience or not. So you need other people to validate your work when it’s finished, and that certainly involves risk.  [ Read more ]

Saturation Day

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One minute you’re skulking around a forgotten alleyway, looking at sights (and sites) that only a few intrepid explorers have ever seen. The next minute someone runs up laughing, slaps a satellite photo in your hand, points to the teeny-tiny, itty-bitty you standing in an infinite grid of similar forgotten alleyways — all of which have already been clearly marked by and populated with people just like you.

That’s Saturation Day. The day the exploring catches up with reality. The day the ground drops out from beneath your feet. The day you realize that the thing you’re trying to take in is bigger than you thought it could be. The day you begin to sense the forest for the trees.

(It’s also the day you’re really glad you didn’t do any exploring before you put up your site, or you just might have decided to go with Plan B: The Ditch in American Cinema — 1930 to 1975.)

Internet fiction is happening. I’m still trying to find a fiction site that really connects with me, but the long tail of independent effort is already established. People are writing fiction on the internet and other people are trying to figure out how to make a buck off those people. Which is pretty much how the internet ballgame works.

Tomorrow, I’m going to speed up the tempo and try to catch up with the things I’ve seen and thought about so far. Because I’m already getting a good idea about what I want to try, and I’m not seeing any reason to think about it a whole lot more before I take the leap.

— Mark Barrett