Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5 Editing and Polishing Tricks & Tips

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 5

Editing and Polishing Tricks and Tips

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In Part 4 of this series, we discussed editing and polishing. This time we'll go over editing and polishing tricks, which--over the course of the next several weeks--will include highly-focused tip sheets. 

Bernard Malamud said that he wrote each book at least three times: "Once to understand it, a second time to improve the prose, and a third time to compel it to say what it still must say." While I won't argue the sequential order of doing these things stated with a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, writers unquestionably do need to remove clutter to make a story understandable, to prevent tripping hazards caused by clumsy prose, and to infuse a story with vivid, interesting narration that says succinctly what it is the author wants it to say, concurrently bringing the whole story to life.

Putting on work clothes for the final step closer to your dream--where a story really comes into its own--you'll no doubt feel a sense of gratification, realizing your baby is almost ready to leave the relatively safe nest you've provided, hopefully to make you proud. Over the next several weeks, I'll provide some basic tricks in the form of tip sheets to help you with this process. We'll start with description.

Tip Sheet: Description

• Don't write character descriptions in a single block (i.e., for more than three sentences) at any point in the book. As Renni Browne and Dave King say in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, "Your readers will find your story more engaging if they can meet your characters the way they meet people in real life: a little at a time. ..." Or, to put it another way, here's a gem from Tina Jens's "Such Horrible People" in On Writing Horror: "...don't drop chunks of your character sketch into the story like a brick into a fishbowl." Intersperse character description throughout a scene.

• Unless the main character is the only one who has point of view in the story, avoid putting a POV character in the embarrassing position of having to describe herself. Preferably, character descriptions should never be written from the same character's point of view (i.e., her own POV). More effectively, write them from other characters' POVs. Describing herself from her own POV, she'll either sound like she's going on and on about herself with every little detail of her looks, or she'll sound outright conceited. Of course if your story only has a single character POV without an omniscient narrator, you will have to write descriptions from her POV, but, again, these need to be interspersed carefully and used with the purpose of revealing the character's unique personality and emotions.

• Don't inundate the reader with the same descriptions over and over, such as of eye color, hair color, etc. Mention descriptions only once or twice each throughout an entire story. You might want to use these in moments of intense intimacy or within dialogue. In general, though, trust your reader to already have the fact stored away and used in the vision whenever a particular character is in a scene. As Dwight V. Swain says in Creating Characters: "Show how the character looks and acts, and then let your readers extract whatever feelings they wish from it."

This example of effective description from Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen, equally conveys personality:

Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, was a good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who walked a great deal, seemed very happy and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and husbands, hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex, and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not.

• Descriptions are more than adjectives! Descriptions should never simply be adjectives tacked onto a person, place, or thing, such as in the following example of overdone description:

With a heavy sigh, he set down the black ceramic coffee mug, his green gaze settling heavily on the gilded clock ticking loudly against the familiar noises outside his solid oak office door.

When you reveal every last detail of your character and/or surroundings, as above, the reader--sure--can picture the scene, can even feel like she's right there...but she might not want to be now that you've hit her over the head with it. In the above paragraph, the reader does get a picture of the setting, the character, and the things around her. But it's the type of writing that calls attention to itself and thereby pulls the reader out of the story. Every writer's cardinal rule (and goal) should be to keep a reader reading.

Description can be turned into something vital to your story during your editing and polishing.

Next week, I'll present an editing and polishing tip sheet for dialogue.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Emotional Intelligence

Here's another self-help article that may offer useful suggestions for the writing life:

How to Control Thoughts and Emotions

The author, Justin Bariso, writes frequently on this topic, and his many online essays about emotional intelligence include a variety of "rules" and behavior patterns related to it. The article linked above, which appeared in our local newspaper last Sunday, lists five "rules of emotional intelligence."

The Blue Dolphin rule targets the bad habit of obsessively rehashing thoughts we'd prefer not to fixate on. It counteracts the familiar problem inherent in trying not to think of something, e.g., a white bear. The harder you attempt to banish that polar bear from your mind, the more persistently it looms. Instead, replace the unwanted thought with a different one, such as a blue dolphin.

The other rules deal with (1) Awkward Silence -- don't leap in with an answer to a tough question instantly, but take a long, thoughtful pause; (2) Scope -- before you start, define the details of a task, what's involved in it, and the amount of time and effort it will require, important for authors mapping out how much time they'll need to complete a writing project without rushing and getting overwhelmed; (3) the Diamond Cutter -- use critical feedback to transform the diamond-in-the-rough of your work into a polished gem (as in Karen's post last week); (4) Recentering -- "reaffirm your primary goals, values and key principles," in other words, in writing as in any endeavor, creative or otherwise, clearly set your priorities.

To me, these five principles focus more on cognitive than emotional habits, even though they're labeled "rules of emotional intelligence." As hinted by the title, they seem more like methods of managing one's thoughts and thus, maybe, controlling emotions as a byproduct.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Quantity vs Quality

There once was a pilot, a situation comedy TV series, and a spin-off movie called, "Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Width." 

 

That sounds like the start of a joke. I apologize for the lack of a punchline, but nostalgic anglophiles might like to read Ronnie Barker's biography for some superb jokes and thought-provoking philosophy... which is an absolute non-sequitur, because, as far as I can tell, Ronnie Barker had nothing to do with "Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Width."

"NMTQ,FTW" was about the clothing trade in Britain, in which two tailors, one an Irish Catholic, and the other Jewish who set up shop together in the East End. Situational hilarity ensued. The title of their work became a byword (or by-sentence) for valuing quantity over quality.

 

The same (Never mind the quality...) preference applies to copyright infringers and their defenders. There is a common perception, perhaps reinforced by this case, that as long as an excerpt lifted from a copyright-protected work is a fraction of the work, copying is "fair use". 

Legal blogger Jim Astrachan provides a fresh perspective for the law firm Goodell, DeVries, Leech & Dann LLP in discussing a case of when a relatively small excerpt of 400 words from a 7,500-word memoir might give away the plot and all the juicy bits, hook-line-and-sinker (to turn a phrase).

 

Jim Astrachan's hook is a remarkable quote from Judge Learned Hand.

“…no plagiarist can excuse the wrong by showing how much of his work he did not pirate.”

 

IP Law link:

https://iplawblogs.com/copyright-fair-use-how-much-copying-is-too-much-copying/#page=1

 

For more quotes from the Judge:

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/learned-hand-quotes

 

Another new-to-me law firm, O'Hagan Meyer PLLC provides an update on a topic I have dealt with before, the copyright status of those small but intensely interesting floor plans that realtors and others tend to display online to assist potential buyers in evaluating their interest in homes for sale or rent.

O'Hagan Meyer link:

https://ohaganmeyer.com/2022/06/29/u-s-supreme-court-declines-review-of-case-holding-that-floor-plans-are-entitled-to-copyright-protection/

Credits to Dana J. Finberg,  Stephan F. Andrews, and Timothy R. Evanson for what might be a warning to real estate professsionals.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 4 Editing and Polishing

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 4

Editing and Polishing

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In Part 3 of this series, we discussed involving critique partners and setting aside the book. This time we'll go over editing and polishing. 

Uncovering the Diamond in the Rough

Everyone knows that "a diamond in the rough" is a metaphor referring to the original unpolished state of diamond gemstones, especially those that have the potential to become high-quality jewels. Most stories are rough diamonds at this stage. Someone who works in a diamond mine or designs jewelry will get as excited at the sight of a rough, potentially perfect diamond as someone who loves to wear expensive jewelry will over a fine cut diamond. In their mind's eye, these experts can already see the finished, faceted jewel that will emerge when the gemstone is put through the steps of cutting and polishing.

Editing and polishing are a lot like the process of turning a rough gemstone into a finished one. You're cutting the bad, replacing it with the good, and polishing up what remains until it shines. This is a final step in publication of a book.

What most writers call revising is actually just editing and polishing. Writers get excited about their stories at nearly every stage, since they have a picture in their mind’s eye of what will emerge. A writer unquestionably does also need to remove clutter to make a story understandable, to prevent tripping hazards caused by clumsy prose, and to infuse a story with vivid, interesting narration that says succinctly what it is he wants it to say, concurrently bringing the whole story to life. Editing and polishing add a very definite extra layer to your story. Without it, your story probably won’t read smoothly, nor will it shine.

The process of editing and polishing can also involve any or all of the following:

·       The "editing" portion of this task can be called copyediting in publishing circles and entails the correction and enhancement of grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation details.

·       Ensuring a completeness of three-dimensionality in character, plot, and setting

·       Rearranging sentences or paragraphs

·       Showing (more frequently) and telling (at times), where these are most needed

·       Tightening sentences and individual words (such as changing passive to active and dull to impacting; cleaning up repetitiveness)

·       Smoothing out roughness and making your writing more natural or interesting

·       Punching up tension and suspense

·       Ensuring variation in sentence construction and length

·       Diversifying and enriching words

Editing and polishing should be almost as simple as reading through the manuscript and making minor adjustments that allow the words to flow like music to the ear. A solid outline followed by a first draft virtually ensures that. I do usually complete this step quickly--within a day (or two) once I take it out for this purpose. The difference between revising and editing and polish is generally in the amount of work I do for each. With a revision, there's always more to do, so I need three days to a week to focus on fixing everything. For editing and polishing, I may only mark or fix something every few pages. Also, though I haven't been away from the story quite as long as I did in the previous setting aside, I tend to not want to put the book down during this stage. There's total immersion of myself into the story in this stage, the way the amount of work I needed to do previously didn't allow.

Again, this is something I used to do on a printed manuscript, but, as I get older, I prefer to do less work and that means completing this step directly in the story file on my computer so I don't have to spend hours after I'm done editing and polishing just making corrections to the computer file. I generally add another 5- to 10,000 words to the story in this process--again, another pivotal layer.

In the more than twenty years I’ve been steadily selling books to publishers, writing the book has become the easy part of the whole production process. For the most part, my first drafts have been final drafts, requiring minimal revision; usually a final edit and polish completes the job. Most of my editorial revisions are basic, commonsense suggestions to refine word usage and smooth out the flow of sentences. I’ve been very fortunate to regularly enjoy five-star reviews and a warm reception from readers, so I trust my process.

Next week, we'll go over editing and polishing tricks along with a slew of highly-focused tip sheets.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Fiction About Creating Fiction

This week I watched the Fred Astaire musical THE BAND WAGON. The plot (such as it is) revolves around a lighthearted musical play the Fred Astaire character's two best friends have written for him as a comeback vehicle. The famous director who's persuaded to take charge of the production insists they rewrite the story as a contemporary, avant-garde musical adaptation of FAUST. When the opening performance proves to be a spectacular flop, the cast and crew remake the play according to the original script. So this movie is a musical about the making of two musicals.

KISS ME, KATE is another well-known example of a film about producing a play. Many others appear in the list on the TV Tropes page titled "The Musical Musical":

The Musical Musical

Of course, the device of a play within a play goes back to Shakespeare, if not earlier. In A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, the workmen of the city put on a play about Pyramus and Thisbe, meant as a movingly tragic drama but turning into a farce. Hamlet writes a revenge drama for the visiting actors to perform in an attempt to expose his murderous uncle and even lectures them on acting techniques.

Then there are films and TV series such as WANDAVISION and PLEASANTVILLE, in which the protagonist is trapped inside a TV show or movie come to life.

Novels about writing books are not uncommon, also. One obvious example is Stephen King's MISERY, in which the villainess forces the author of her favorite series to compose a sequel restoring the supposedly dead heroine to life.

Such stories can go either way in terms of the relation of the embedded fiction to the main plot. In MISERY, the melodramatic historical novel the author writes during his captivity contrasts sharply with his own desperate plight; the process of creation offers temporary escape. In HAMLET, the content and theme of the play within a play deliberately echo the situation at Elsinore.

Do authors create stories like this mainly because, as labeled on TV Tropes, "Most writers are writers," and we tend to "write what we know"?

Most Writers Are Writers

Or are there deeper reasons why many people enjoy metafictional fiction?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Indecency?

"There's a hole... I must look into it!" is a play on words that is apparently so old that it does not turn up on the first page of a reputable, almost omniscient search engine's results.

The finding that cropped up most plentiously was, "There's a hole in my bucket," which I heartily recommend to anyone dealing with small children, teenagers, or aging loved ones.

"There's a hole... I must look into it!" is the sort of joke best told in a funny voice by a man with a mobile eyebrow and wearing a well-worn raincoat, who might be a very thorough detective, or a sex addict. 

So much for indecency.

Now to Decency, as in the Communications Decency Act, (Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material.)

Here is a very tiny permissionless excerpt from an excellent Ivy League law school publication on the matter. (I could have credited Cornell, there, but I went for alliteration.)

(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liabilityNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A)

any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

(B)

any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

How interesting that they bring Good Samaritans into the topic! There is a hole in that logic, but I will not go into it! 

Legal blogger Robert B. Nussbaum Esquire of the Saiber law firm's Trending Law Blog appears to suggest that Decency is under assault with his title "Section 230 Dodges Another Judicial Bullet."

In a nutshell (nussbaum is German for "nut tree"), there are some politicians who would like to revise the so-called "Good Samaritan" immunity protections (probably tautologous of me) that are currently enjoyed by internet platforms when they host or display indecent material that is uploaded or created by third parties.

Personally, I have to wonder, what is not third party content? At least when it comes to a social media site such as Facebook.

The "bullet" or case under discussion, is one of a private individual who did not succeed in a suit against Facebook for its hosting of a sex predator.

One Supreme Court justice's opinion is well worth reading. He ruled on the law as it is written, and not, perhaps, as he thinks it should be.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-459_6k47.pdf

It would be stretching literary license to wonder whether there's a bullet hole in the legal bucket. I only do so for a hook upon which to hang the literary device of apophasis. Additionally, as a copyright enthusiast, I hope that the grim-faced actor with the rubber glove gets royalties for that edifying apophasis meme shot!

Here's a parting link: 

https://blog.prepscholar.com/list-of-literary-devices-techniques

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 3 Involving Critique Partners and Setting the Final Draft Aside

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 3

Involving Critique Partners and Setting the Final Draft Aside

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In Part 2 of this series, we discussed the revision part of the process. This time we'll go over involving critique partners and setting the final draft aside. 

STAGE 2: INVOLVING CRITIQUE PARTNERS

Everyone knows writers can get too close to their own work. It's an occupational hazard. While you may feel that you've got a story beyond compare, it may need a little more work and you simply can't see it. That's why it's so important now to turn your beloved opus over to a trusted spouse, friend, or, preferably, a critique partner (or three) for a critical read. The opinion of others is very important. You're not ready to send that book out to a publisher/editor or agent until you've had enough reader reactions to judge the strength of your accomplishment.

I highly recommend that you give yourself this time to digest the comments a critique partner made about your beloved baby, too. At this stage, your desire may be to haul off and lay her out flat. Don't do it! After you've initially read her comments, send her this note without any embellishments: "Thanks for all the work you put into critiquing my story. I'll get back to you in a few weeks if I have any questions or comments about your evaluation." Then folder-up that project again with her comments. Put it away in your story cupboard and do something else. I guarantee that her comments, if left on a low backburner in your mind, will do their work. When you return for the final editing and polishing, hopefully for the last time before you begin submitting to publishers/editors or agents, you might even agree with your friend on several points. You'll also feel better about everything, and you'll be able to evaluate, unbiased, what needs to be done to shine up that book.

STAGE 3: SETTING THE FINAL DRAFT ASIDE

Letting your projects sit, out of sight and out of mind, for a couple weeks--or even months--in-between stages will provide you with a completely fresh perspective. Distance gives you objectivity and the ability to read your own work so you can progress further with it, adding more and more layers and dimensions to your characters, plots and settings. Another reason for setting projects aside between stages is that writers may reach a point where their motivation runs out, and they want to get away from the story as fast as they can. Sometimes the author may not feel inspired to write a book he's just spent weeks or even months outlining, or revise something he's spent weeks or months writing.

Setting a project aside between the various stages the project goes through also allows your creativity to be at its peak. The process becomes easier, too, and your writing will be the best it can be. Putting a WIP on a back burner for an extended period of time will allow you to see more of the connections that make a story multidimensional.

To set your project aside between stages, return everything to your story folder. For as long as you possibly can, put this book on a shelf and keep it on the backburner in your mind. Get to work on something else so you won’t concentrate too much on this project and it becomes the center of your attention again.

In the introduction to this series, I mentioned that Stephen King calls this a “recuperation time”, and it really is that, considering the blood, sweat and tears you’ve expended thus far (half-done in the writing in stages process!). When you take the manuscript down again to begin revisions, followed by editing and polishing, “you’ll find reading your book over after a…layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours…and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else. …This is the way it should be, the reason you waited…”

As a general rule, every book I write gets a few months between stages, and I really need the break from each project. I can't imagine going through all the steps in finishing a book back-to-back. I get so sick of a story when one stage carries into the next without pause, I can no longer see whether anything I'm doing is improving or ruining. When one stage of a WIP is done, I'm eager to get away from it. Many times I leave a stage certain the whole thing is fit only for burning in the nearest fireplace, but, when I come back to it months later, I discover that all my hard work previously was well-worth the effort. The layers of the story are building up beautifully into something I know will be even better when it's finally done.

The basic reason for any shelf-time for a project is obvious: You just finished one big stage, you’d have to be insane to want to read the book again right after you just finished going over it from start to finish yet again. You’ll have gained no distance from it if you jump directly into the next stage at this point. So give yourself another few weeks or more if your deadlines allow before moving on.

One other thing I alluded to earlier is not wanting to get burned out when it comes to any specific project. When writers say they’re burned out, they mean they’ve been working too much and not taking the time off to refresh themselves and keep their creative energy flowing. (This is completely different from writer’s block, which can stem from situations like a story not ready to be worked on, not enough brainstorming or inspiration, or sheer laziness usually attributed to a fickle muse.) This is especially true if you're working on the same project, doing all these stages back-to-back, without taking a break from the same project specifically or from work in general. You bring back your own love for a project each time you set it aside and then come back to it fresh. Don't underestimate the importance of doing that. You and your stories will suffer for it eventually if back-to-back stages becomes a habit.

There's another reason for avoiding burnout whenever you can. The soil in your brain is like the soil farmers sow crops in. It needs rest and rotation (writing in stages, for the author) in order to become fertile and nutrient-rich again. I strong suggested working up yearly goals prior to every new year. On this sheet, you're not only deciding what you’re going to be working on during that year, but you should also be planning your breaks from writing. If taking weekends off doesn’t refresh you, take a week, weeks or even a month off during the year. Read, watch movies, relax, and re-energize your creativity. (This doesn't mean you can't be brainstorming or researching for upcoming projects during this time.) By the time your vacation is up, you’ll be raring to go on your next writing project. Take your scheduled vacations when you’ve planned them unless something wonderful happens (an editor contracts a series from you, you're asked to write a screenplay of your book; you fill in the blank for your own idea of wonderful) in your career or life, and you can’t let the opportunity pass you by. As soon as that thing is finished, take the vacation you planned. Reward yourself by allowing your creative soil to become fertile again.

You might be wondering how many times you can set your book aside before it goes to an editor. I suggest you set it aside for a few months after the outline is complete (before you begin writing the book) as well as after the first draft is done and, of course, before you begin revising. I also suggest you set it aside again after the critical reads and before you complete final editing and polishing and send it off to a publisher/editor or agent. As with a good wine or cheese, the more shelf-time you give each book, the stronger it'll be--and the better for you to see your story clearly, my dears.

Next week, we'll go over Stage 4: Editing and Polishing.

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Our Viral Symbiotes

About 8% of our DNA may have come from ancient viruses that infiltrated our cells, where they established permanent residence.

Viral "Fossils" in Our DNA

The human genome includes 100,000 pieces of "ancient viral DNA." Recent studies of what function, if any, this "fossil" DNA might perform in our bodies suggest that it may play a vital role in boosting our immune systems. Amazingly, viruses that invade our cells sometimes not only become part of our chromosomes but become inheritable. The article summarizes the process thusly:

"When a type of virus known as a retrovirus infects a cell, it converts its RNA into DNA, which can then become part of a human chromosome. Once in a while, retroviruses infect sperm and egg cells and become 'endogenous,' meaning they are passed down from generation to generation."

In science-fiction treatments of traditional monsters such as vampires and werewolves, this ability of some retroviruses could be invoked to rationalize how a naturally evolved creature of a different species could convert a human victim—or willing host—into a member of the "monster" species.

When Walt Whitman declared, "I contain multitudes," he wrote truer than he could have suspected. That quote features in the title of a book by Ed Yong, I CONTAIN MULTITUDES: THE MICROBES WITHIN US AND A GRANDER VIEW OF LIFE, about microbiomes inside animals and especially humans, in the context of a vision of our bodies as "living islands" with millions of inhabitants.

On a totally different topic, but harking back to some of my earlier posts, here is a detailed article about the intelligence of octopuses, to which I've alluded more than once in the past. As the article says, they're probably the closest to intelligent aliens of any species we currently know. Cool!

Another Path to Intelligence

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Sextortion, Scams, Privacy in the Toilet (Metaphorically)

Yesterday, a man with a foreign voice telephoned my landline, and without verifying with whom he was speaking, he proceeded to ask me about my vaccination status. He was quite verbally assertive about his inquiries. 

If I understood him correctly, he did not believe that I was fully vaccinated against shingles, and he wanted to administer a two-shot vaccine (which might cost up to $250 a pop, but he did not tell me that). It seemed to me that the call might have been a HIPAA violation... or not.

Anyone can claim to be anyone over the phone, and I believe anyone can control what Caller Id displays. There are Covid-19 vaccination scams, so why not Shingrix scams?

Australian legal blogger Dennis Miralis of Australian defence law specialists Nyman Gibson Miralis shared an excellent advice piece on What Everybody Ought To Know About Scams (Down Under). 

Words in parenthesis are mine. I could not resist the word play.

Original link:

https://ngm.com.au/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-scams/

 

Apparently, in 2021, Australians were scammed out of two billion Australian dollars. After investment scams, the next most lucrative or prevalent scam appears to be categorized as romance-and-dating. Not all of the latter would be sextortion. Dennis Miralis does not mention sextortion, just to be clear.

Legal man of mystery, Celes Keene of Klemchuk LLP on the other hand, does mention sextortion, and a whole lot of other intriguing information about your vulnerabilities, and privacy or lack thereof.

Sextortion link:

https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/sextortion-in-online-platforms-social-media-law

 

Legal jeopardy link:

https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/reverse-keyword-searches-in-law-enforcement

 

Creepy age extrapolation link: 

https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/instagram-age-verification-methods-scrutinized

 

Disclaimer: I call Celes Keene a "man of mystery" because the links to his author profile re-link to some of his best and most recent copyrightable works. I apologize unreservedly if I have jumped to offensive conclusions.

 

https://www.lexology.com/1091785/author/Celes_Keene/

 

https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate?author=59654dd55fd63b73289a97ba

 

No photo, no blurb, no guidance as to his preferred pronouns...but given what he writes about, he is probably "walking the talk" and demonstrating how to follow his own excellent advice. 

 

Of the three excellent articles, the one that seems to me to be most interesting to authors is the one about how law enforcement is using reverse keyword searches to select suspects with a real life, arson crime narrative.

 

When I started writing, my research was conducted in libraries and in person. I interviewed interesting people; private pilots, an airforce pilot, lawmen, gun shop owners, funeral directors, a fencing master, Survivorman Les Stroud, a weatherwoman, a witch, a doctor or two and more. Now, there's Search, and with it the risk of being misunderstood if one happens to search the wrong topic, in the wrong place, using what some might call the wrong engine for the purpose.

 

As Celes Keene points out,

"...without proper restrictions on reverse keyword searches, the long arm of the law’s current use could lead to them arresting citizens that searched for terms for innocuous reasons. As an example, they note that a person searching for the specific term could trigger law enforcement investigation or surveillance, regardless of whether the person was searching that term for educational reasons or other completely innocent reasons." 

What is sextortion? Celes Keene explains, 

"Sextortion refers to the process of a scammer extorting payment from victims by securing sexually explicit photos, screenshots, or recordings of a victim through reprehensible means."

Celes Keene says that awareness is key to prevention, in other words, to not being a victim. That advice is probably good, whether one is an author searching for reprehensible information, a recipient of an invitation to sext, or a privacy enthusiast who avoids sharing their age/driver's license/biometric data on social media.

Do I need to explain my reference to privacy in the toilet? Unlikely, except that the thesaurus is less helpful than I expected, and my meaning is that privacy is destroyed, eradicated, gutted and sacked. It would be an adverbial phrase of Degree, rather than of Place.

All the best,

 

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday

Karen S. Wiesner: Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 2 Revision

Writer's Craft Article

Fiction Fundamentals: Writing Elbow Grease, Part 2

Revision

by Karen S. Wiesner

Based on Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2: 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

In this three month, in-depth series, we're going to go over what could be considered the grunge work in building a cohesive story. Revising, editing, and polishing require a little or a lot of writing elbow grease to finish the job and bring forth a strong and beautiful book.

In the introduction to this series, we discussed the process of entering the revision mindset. In this second installment, we'll go over all things "revision".

STAGE 1: REVISING

Marguerite Smith said, "Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes." Revision can also be aptly described as when your dreams put on work clothes. The process is equivalent to getting on your hands and knees to scrub a filthy floor until it shines. It's the grunge work of being a writer, but it's well worth the effort you put into it. And revision and editing and polishing add a very definite extra layer to your story. Without it, your story probably won't read smoothly, nor will it shine.

What's the best way to revise? Below, we'll discuss ways to go about revision effectively.

Minimizing the Work

Let's first talk about the difference between the revision process and the editing and polishing process, because these, too, are separate jobs that can--but ideally shouldn't--take place at the same time.

These writing processes are similar to what builders face. It's not unusual to make design changes during construction, but builders want to minimize them. Moving a wall, for instance, can be expensive, especially if it's already been framed in and drywalled. During construction, periodic visits are made to the building site in order to monitor the home's progress. This allows the owner and builder to detect problems earlier and therefore take corrective action.

In the same way, in the process of writing a book, you want to minimize major changes to your book, like rewriting an entire story thread, or adding, deleting, or revising multiple chapters--they'll cost you a lot of time and effort (hence the need for an outline, where these kinds of revisions take only a fraction of that time and effort). If you've gone back to your outline often while writing the first draft to make sure your story is progressing the way it needs to, you'll detect problems early and be able take corrective action. This prevents major revisions at the end of a project, when you've already committed hundreds of pages to a solid structure. Terry Brooks said about this: "I believe, especially with long fiction, that an outline keeps you organized and focused over the course of the writing. I am not wedded to an outline once it is in place and will change it to suit the progress of the story and to accommodate new and better ideas, but I like having a blueprint to go back to. Also, having an outline forces you to think your story through and work out the kinks and bad spots. I do a lot less editing and rewriting when I take time to do the outline first."

What most writers call revising is actually just editing and polishing. Revision is the larger of the two jobs. We'll talk more about editing and polishing, which should be minor buffing up, later. Revision may or may not be major, especially if you've started with an outline. But it does involve tweaking characters, settings, and plots; and possibly rewriting, adding to, or deleting one or more scenes; and incorporating major research. When you revise, you evaluate (and fix) any of the following:

-Structure

-Character, setting, and plot credibility and the cohesion of these elements

-Depth of conflicts, goals, and motivations

-Scene worthiness

-Pacing

-Effectiveness of hints, tension and suspense, and resolutions

-Transitions

-Emotion and color

-Hooks and cliffhangers

-Character voice

-Consistency

-Adequacy of research

-Properly unfurled, developed, and concluded story threads

-Deepening of character enhancements/contrasts and the symbols of these

Revision is redoing or reshaping in an effort to make what's already there better, stronger, and, of course, utterly cohesive.

Maximizing the Benefits

After you've completed a first draft and allowed the book to sit for a long time, the next step is revision. While I used to do this step off the computer on a hard copy of the book, the work involved after the revision done by my own messy (practically unreadable) hand, having to make all those corrections within the story file on my computer, became too immense. Literally, there was never a single page that didn't have countless changes, additions, or deletions. I now find this job a world easier to do on the computer.

I strongly believe that revision should be done as quickly as possible, with as little interruption from the material as possible. This won't compromise the quality of your revision, I promise--just the opposite, in fact! Ideally, if you can set aside a block of time of about a week (three days is generally the maximum time it takes me, but I always allow for a week) to work exclusively on the revision, you'll find that your story will be more consistent, and you'll remember details much better. In my case, I remember things photographically--I could argue that I memorize the entire book during this time, and any error will jump out at me as I work. During revision days, I may even be woken from sound sleep because a glaring error in some portion of the book will emerge from my subconscious. The whole book is quite literally laid out in my mind, ready to be accessed at a moment's notice during this short revision period. If revision on a project is broken up over a period of days or weeks, especially if you're working on other projects during this time, the book will most certainly suffer from consistency issues, and possibly even structural and cohesion problems. If you can set aside that crucial, uninterrupted block of time to focus on revision, your story will benefit from it immeasurably.

To get started, make a list that organizes the revision items in need of your final attention during this time. Fix firmly in your mind those details you need to attend to while reading your book from start to finish. Check off what you've finished at the end of each work day so you'll know what you need to deal with when you come back to the revision.

Yes, during this time you'll be working on fixing more serious problems, but you probably will be doing some editing and polishing during this stage as well. You're there; it wouldn't make any sense to not clean up something small but not quite right that clearly needs a little elbow grease. However, what you're really looking for during the revision is anything in your story that doesn't work or doesn't make sense.

One way I keep my project consistent is to have a notebook next to me while I'm reading to revise. I jot down the timeline and various other details, including the page number the detail is mentioned on. If I later have a question while revising about, say, when a certain event took place, I can always look in the notebook to make sure I've kept those facts consistent. Whenever and as often as this detail is mentioned in the story, I'll write down the page number for it in the notebook. I might decide to change the fact later, and this way I have a list of all the places affected by the change.

You may have very little left to do to make your book closer to perfect once when you complete this process.

Next week, we'll go over stages 2 and 3: Involving critique partners and setting the final draft aside. 

Happy writing!

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Cohesive Story Building, Volume 2 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor