# New Q&A in my Youtube Channel



## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Please go to the latest post >>>

*What to Expect from an Editor, Part 1.*
_Now that I am offering editing to independent authors, here are some thoughts about what I think you should expect from a literary editor. Part 1 is about editing and editors. Part 2 will be about what services I think an editor should provide, and what you should expect your editor to do with your text._

*Part 1: What makes an Editor*

_What is a Good Book?_ I'm sure the reply is pretty much unanimous: a good book is subjective, personal. But just as I can tell a good violinist from a bad one, although I know nothing about playing the violin, so most people can recognize a bad book. So can most people be editors? I don't think so. Most people can be proofreaders, however.

_Who is a good editor? _Derek Prior and I both studied drama theory, and in the course of our studies learned the craft of _textual analysis_. read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_This is the second part of my thoughts about editing. In the first part I talked a little at random about the qualities of a good book and a good story, and also the qualities of a good editor. Today I am focusing on what an editor should actually do._

*Part 2: What to Expect from an Editor*

All editors are not alike. Each will have his preferred methodology. Each will have strengths and weaknesses, just like a writer. I am aware that there are editors whose principle is that there are a few "standard" ways of writing a good (or saleable) book, and they will coerce your text into meeting the standard. This may well suit you. One might be tempted to divide editors into those who edit to create a commercial success and those who edit to help the writer improve his work. This would be wrong for a couple of reasons. read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Context is everything*

English is not one of the easy languages. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is our spelling, which makes our language (or languages, if you prefer), not only troublesome for foreigners, but tricky for us, too.

In contrast to the romance languages that I translate from, English words frequently select their denotations not only from syntactic modifiers but also from context. Um... in plain English please.

In English, the meaning of a word can be changed not only by the words next to it in a sentence, but also by the situation being described. Examples:

The verb _to get _ read more....


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## Rex Jameson (Mar 8, 2011)

Nice blog entries. I'll have to tweet and link these around the yard


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## MichaelEgon (Jul 25, 2011)

Great blog entries.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Language Traps
*
According to both neuroscientists and illusionists, we see what we expect to see, and with the right stimulus, we can be deceived into seeing things that aren't there, and to missing things that are. Philosophers are quick to latch on to this. Also, fortunately, there is serious research into perceptual phenomena, though it is not always taken seriously.

Writers who are aware of this kind of thing can achieve extraordinary effects on their readers - some of the time. Attention and perception are tricky... read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Semiotics - the language of signs
*
Coined by French author and critic Roland Barthes, semiotics is the study of the language of signs - and by signs, he means nonverbal clues.

In all nonverbal media (the graphic arts, theatre, film and television), semiotics is restricted to the use of visual clues that give you essential information, typically about character, setting or location. Barthes gives the example from professional wrestling, of how to recognise the good guy and the bad guy: read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Who do you write for?*

Reading this thread in the Kindle Boards brought me back to the question.

I have never sought publication as a fiction writer, and I haven't written with any reader in mind other than myself. So I do wonder whether other writers are conscious of writing for someone in particular.

I wrote a lot of love poetry from the ages of 14 through 25-ish (most of which is mercifully lost), much of which was written for three real women. But some of it was written for an imaginary woman - and I developed a very strong sense not only of who she was, but of her existence as a real person, much as one does of a strongly developed character in a novel. read more...

I realise that some writers have an audience in mind. A writer who is not a graphomaniac is typically a storyteller of some sort


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

It occurs to me that this is more of a _storyteller's_ pitfall, since it is all about the business of what stories are. (What they are for is for another time).

IN the theatre, Naturalism is a style of performance and of representation, and a style of writing, that seeks to represent Real Life (RL) - and distance itself from the stylistic, symbolic or mythological. It is accompanied by a style of acting which seeks to represent characters as if they were real, ordinary people. Movement is limited to what is necessary for practical purposes and speech patterns are those used in everyday life.

Plays written in a naturalistic style deal with small, local issues - both action, location and consequences are restricted to a small group - such as a family. The sources of drama are to be found in the everyday lives of the people; their choices, and the consequences of their choices.

The same principle, applied to literature, read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

A couple of days ago I was involved in a brief exchange of view on the meaning of the word "erotica" - used to tag novels on Amazon. Tagging is when readers select a category for a book, so other readers interested in the category will be able to find the same book.

During the exchange, which took place on Kindle Boards, I was caught out being knee-jerk defensive over the meaning of a word - and I was a little impolite to boot.

This rather brought me up short. I am somewhat inclined to pontificate (that's what this blog is for, after all), so I need to be called on it from time to time. After all, I am all for definition by consensus and I support rather than resist changes in meaning.

In UK English, _hopefully_, is used idiomatically to mean 'I hope', as in "hopefully it won't rain tomorrow". People of my parents' generation (including one or both of my parents) are sometimes offended by this, and almost always take a dim view of it. Decimate means to reduce in number by a factor of ten. It is usually used in modern English to mean "destroy", "obliterate" or just "defeat". As far as I'm concerned, that's just fine. read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Wonderful word, this one. Common usage is as an alternative to "great" that sounds more expressive.

_1. Executed with exquisite skill. _

Coupling 'executed' with 'exquisite' and the further _x _of 'skill', and the whole phrase is redolent of finesse, precision and expertise.

_2. The exquisite pain of romance.
_
Here the usage is possibly just the same - 'exquisite' is being used as an emphasizing word that has neutral connotations. Compare it with the following;

_3. The wonderful pain of romance.
4. The terrible pain of romance. _

'Wonderful' and 'terrible' are both providing emphasis, but the former with a positive slant, the latter with a negative. read more...


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## lisarusczyk (Jan 16, 2011)

Neat posts! I have a list of other indie editors on my site. Would you like to be listed there? All I need is your name and Web site link. Keep up the thought-provoking posts.


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## Guest (Aug 26, 2011)

Excellent posts, Harry. I particularly like your take on naturalism. It's frightening to think that, as an undergraduate, I was convinced the only way to perform Shakespeare was naturalistically. For the past two decades I think naturalism is probably the only way NOT to perform Shakespeare.

There's a trend towards naturalism in modern fantasy. It's not demolished story-telling yet, but it does shift the focus onto inconsequential details, seeking identification over narrative. There's a burgeoning obsession with bodily processes that would make Rabelais turn in his grave, tedious descriptions about every morsel on a character's plate (and how many times they have to chew each). Gemmell was great at suggesting the smells, taste, and comforts of a good meal with a few short words. Some of the more tedious of the new epics could have 20,000 words cut if they just got on with the story and stopped pretending it was real. Oddly enough, much of this new writing has more in common with Socialist Realism than with the old masters of Sword & Sorcery, or the old epic writers.


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

great post as usual.

Oh and I love one particular book in your siggy!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that new writers have lots of really good ideas for new characters. Wait. That came out wrong. New writers put far to many characters in their books. I actually mine my first two books for characters to reuse.

The rule that _many characters is wrong_ is one that I would encourage you to break. But before you do, practise and understand character dynamics.

Unless characters are joined at the hip (Merry and Pippin), each character has his own story. So if you settle on nine main characters, you will have nine stories to write (or eight in the case of LOTR). When the characters are together they will share the same story - so this makes it a little easier. When they are separated, there are TWO things to keep track of. The first - that most people get right - is spacetime. You have to keep track of where they are in space and how long it has taken them to get there. Fantasy writers are really good at space but hopeless at time. Chicklit writers seem to be the reverse. The second - that less people get right - is character dynamics. read more...


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## Guest (Aug 31, 2011)

Mel Comley said:


> great post as usual.
> 
> Oh and I love one particular book in your siggy!


Only one, Mel? I'd say there were a couple of stunning books in Harry's siggy!


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

derekprior said:


> Only one, Mel? I'd say there were a couple of stunning books in Harry's siggy!


Mine's prettier! lol


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Mel Comley said:


> Mine's prettier! lol


I suppose a couple of my authors rivalizing over covers is better than nothing but I'm trying to provoke erudite discussion here guys!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Register, in writing or speaking, is the socially or contextually conscious choice of vocabulary and grammatical structure. Those people who are apt to adopt more than one register most commonly do so in formal and informal registers. In some cultures this is part of formal education - notably France where written language has a distinctly different register from spoke. In other cultures, changes of register are used by people who move between different social groups as part of their daily lives, such as teachers and social-workers. Register differs from diction in that it is socially or culturally aware (even if subconsciously).

Writers love register. It enables them to set the scene, the atmosphere, the social status, the background.

_ a) "Oh woe! Oh woe!" she cried, tremulous but stentorian, "we are undone!"_

Whoever she is, her register is telling us something about her. At the very least, this is set in the past - anywhere from the middle ages backwards. If I put her in a toga, we are in ancient Rome, and she's a soothsayer.  read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I already discussed layout of direct speech, nametagging and said last month, but a feature of dialogue that I overlooked was the issue of pacing.

In real life, when people speak, they do a whole lot of other things at the same time, and in between speech. Some of this is unrelated to the conversation - breathing, eating & drinking, swinging an ax. Some of it arises from or illustrates the dialogue: shrugging, gasping, pausing for effect.

Imagine a game of squash between a pair of irritatingly competitive young executives, letting off steam after an important negotiation. I imagine them warming up on court, pounding the ball rather too hard for tactical practicality, and then playing a couple of games, discussing both during and between points, the behaviour of their colleagues and their client; pausing in their dialogue occasionally when the game gets difficult or strenuous.

How do you go about writing the dialogue of such a scene? read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Not interchangeable. The biggest lie that your primary school teacher told you was the one about _opposites_. I daresay I'll rant about that another day. The biggest lie that your highschool English teacher told you was the one about synonyms. The lie in question is this: synonyms exist. They don't. Even the sound of words, the length, the spelling, has different effects on different readers. Synonyms are one of those things that grammarians invent to try to apply rules and boundaries to language. But language, like life, is messy. It doesn't conform to rules, no matter how carefully they are defined. Know this and know it well: _there are no synonyms_. read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Point Of View (POV), sometimes called person, or viewpoint, is a much analyzed and much deconstructed narrative technique. I think this is a mistake.

It is a very simplistic view - indeed it is a _lie to children_ - that the experience of reading a story is one of associating, sympathizing, _identifying_, with a main character, and thereby_ imagining yourself in his place_. We don't experience real life in such an insular, individualistic, egocentric way. We experience real life (much of the time) as a group; we see events and experiences through many pairs of eyes. When you witness some event, you cannot help but see the effect it has on others who witness it, though the expression, posture, movement. When you are caught up in some event, you experience it not only through your own thoughts and feelings, but those expressed on the faces of your companions, and the faces of witnesses and bystanders. Even when you are wholly alone (without any human company), your environment is as much affected by you as you by it, and as you witness your effect on your environment, so you experience your own actions from a separate (albeit inanimate) point of view. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

After yesterday's extended essay, just a quick one today:

Weird Words: The Cat that got the Canary


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Off Topic #2: Design*

Following on from yesterday's not really off-topic post, here is another one, even less off topic, though perhaps seeming more so&#8230;

_Design is dead._

Time there was in production, fabrication and construction, the designer was the single most important contributor to development. Today, few people even understand what, back in their heyday in the nineteenth century, designers actually do, and when I point out exemplary pieces of period design, many folks will comment "Oh yes, there's lots of design on that".

Somehow, design has come to mean "adding the pretty, nonfunctional details". Movements like Bauhaus are partly to blame. Bauhaus elevated design to an art form, but what made Bauhaus so aesthetically and ergonomically pleasing was its concentration on the principles that drove C18 and C19 engineering - the key principle being design. In the C19, design was the careful balance of functional requirements at all stages of the life-cycle of a product. The designer would, when deciding what his product would look like, take account of materials and their cost and availability, the cost, time and skill required for fabrication, the required durability, the costs of future maintenance, the necessity of future-proofing or backwards-compatibility (a couple of ideas that, under a variety of names, have been know since at least ancient Rome). read more &#8230;


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## lisarusczyk (Jan 16, 2011)

I simply love these posts. I agree with a lot of what you say (when I understand it  )

How do you feel about the shift in fiction because of self-pubbed authors? I'm thrilled with new plotting and story-telling. And some of the language I edit for work is amazing and refreshing.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

"Are you sure you know the way?" she asked me.

I stood in thought. This was one of the big mysteries of the adult brain - or so I thought - _beyond yes and no_. Shortly before, she had asked me if I knew the way to room 88. I did know the way, and at (I guess) age 12 or so, that was all there was, so I said so:

"Sure? You asked me if I knew the way, and I said yes. That's all there is. I know, or I don't know. I don't know anything about 'sure'."

She gave me one of those long, faraway stares that adults do when you give them an answer that bears no relation to the expected "yes" or "no". Scratch that - one of those looks that everyone gives me all the time. As far as I was concerned, she started it, by going beyond "yes" or "no" in the first place.

"So you're not so sure, huh?" I used to think this was trying to convince the child he must be in the wrong because he's a child. I have sometimes caught myself doing that to my own children, so other people must do it too, right? Sometimes though, I think it's just taking refuge in a familiar place: the child is getting pedantic, so he must be trying to distract from his lack of certainty. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

The injunction to _STAY ON THE PATH_ is one of those literary conceits that we take for granted. But all sorts of aspects of this idea annoy the hell out of me.

It is developed from an idea formed in the early Christian church which supposed that temptation, sin and wickedness were all around, but that if you keep your mind focussed on the attainment of a _state of grace_, and hence unity with God, you would be free from temptation, sin, and wickedness.

This allowed the Christians to introduce to our culture the idea that remains to this day: that _everyone_ is subject to constant temptation; that it is difficult _for everyone_ to resist, and that therefore those who resist are _strong_ and _virtuous_, while those who do not are _weak_ and _wicked_.

If your aim is to help others to avoid wickedness (however you may wish to define it), this is surely a valuable idea; but it is fundamentally wrong-headed. It assumes that all people are basically the same; that all have the same priorities, the same desires, and that all would, if they could, aspire to the same lifestyle, aspire to the same set of virtues. We see the consequences of this today: a huge range of behaviours are diagnosed (via the painfully dichotomous DSM) as illnesses - to be cured, treated or controlled - through the general acceptance by the mental health profession that someone who is excessively different will suffer as a result of his difference. I can (thoroughly unfairly) sum this up by the ruthlessly simplistic statement that "conformity is directly proportional to happiness". read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Outside of crime and sin, what else does the _straight and narrow_ involve?

It implies that a virtuous life is one that is strictly restricted to a single course, and a single goal. It implies that you shouldn't so much as look at the landscape as you go by for fear of curiosity leading you off the path. It implies that life is about having a goal, and working tirelessly, steadily, towards it.

I'll tell you, in case you haven't already worked it out for yourself, what lies at the end of the road of life:

Death.

Whichever way you look at it, and whatever you may believe about what does, or does not, come after, death is the point that you can't see past.

The injunction to stay on the path means something else, as well, therefore. It means "do as you are told"; "don't think for yourself"; "don't think outside the box"; "don't try to change what you are"; "don't try to learn for yourself". read more &#8230;


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I just wanted to say that I started reading through the blog posts yesterday, and I'm finding them extremely enlightening. Keep up the good work!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

dgaughran said:


> I just wanted to say that I started reading through the blog posts yesterday, and I'm finding them extremely enlightening. Keep up the good work!


Kind of you to say so Dave. I enjoy writing them, and I like to see how many people read them. I would like a little more in the way of comments, but obviously my posts aren't controversial enough.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> Kind of you to say so Dave. I enjoy writing them, and I like to see how many people read them. I would like a little more in the way of comments, but obviously my posts aren't controversial enough.


It might be intimidation. Writers are wise enough not to take editors on in such matters!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

dgaughran said:


> It might be intimidation. Writers are wise enough not to take editors on in such matters!


Noone should be intimidated by what they perceive as authority. Supposing I'm talking a load of bollocks? How will I ever know?


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Here's an argument for educational reform that even a politician can understand:

It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged, memorably framed by Edison I think, that_ we don't know a millionth of one percent about anything_. I assume that most people would agree that the sum of human knowledge is pretty big. Too big, in fact, for any one person to know, let alone understand, all of it. Indeed we frequently choose to approach a problem or project by collecting a team of people each of whom brings different knowledge and expertise, so that we may be sure that we have all the knowledge required to address the problem.

If this technique is so effective - and it is - then our education system should prepare for it. And, I hear the dear politicians protest proudly, it does. Up to age _shmeu_ everyone learns the basics, and then each child gradually specializes until by age _smee_ they are ready to enter higher education fully prepared for their narrow specialization that will make them such a valuable contributor in the future.

This is a really strong argument when you know exactly what the future holds. There have been times in the past where we (almost) have. Those times are _looooooon_g ago now, and getting ever more distant and an ever faster rate as Moore's Law drives us ever faster into the future. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

So having today solved the problems of national education, tomorrow I'll do the same for democracy.

Or possibly develop humility.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I got Skyrim installed yesterday. It runs really well on my three-year-old upper-mid-end system if I keep anisotropic down to 2 or 0. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, maybe the rest isn't for you.

I played Oblivion for the immersion, which after 5 years of modding is amazingly deep and detailed. In Blivvy I generally began with a character backstory, so I could develop a playing style that would be different each time. In Skyrim, I've gone back to my preferred style for the first playthrough. By nature I'm bookish, an alchemist, cook, trader, smith. In combat I'm a sniper. I like to stay hidden and take my enemy by surprise.

So I rolled up a young-ish Breton woman. I find it very hard to play male characters in 1st person RPG. I don't really know why, but I think it has something to do with the archetypes. The boys are all Alpha Males or Alpha Male wannabes, it's all about superiority for them. I find myself not caring about what happens to them. read more &#8230;


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## SentientSurfer (Sep 20, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> Snip


. . .but where's the fanfic?

I like writing them too, though they seem to be more frowned upon than self editing. 

I had planned to write a TES fanfic to help promote my book, but I'm too new to the lore, and need to learn more of the in-world history.

Looove fallout though. . .love fallout:

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1974400/SentientSurfer


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I actually wrote this before I wrote yesterday's blog post, which is why it sounded like the fanfic was in the post. Sorry if that disappointed anyone._

---

Diary Entry #1:

Everything happened so fast the last few hours. Yesterday, I got paid employment carrying supplies over the mountains. I thought it was either smuggling or bringing secret military supplies to an outpost or something, because the guy who hired me was a thief or some other sort of petty criminal &#8230; which &#8230; I suppose &#8230; is what I am, too.

We got ambushed just below the tree-line. After that things got crazy. Executions, Dragons, escape.

To stand where I am standing today, I killed eleven men. Two Imperial guards. The rest were like you, at my feet. Bandits. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_Blogging on storytelling, roleplaying and the place of stories in culture. That's kind of to encourage you to read it anyway, even if it looks at first glance like a computer game review..._

Roleplaying and storytelling are not the same, and should not be confused.

I have been playing a lot of Skyrim. Skyrim is one of those cultural phenomena that many people will dismiss as "just another computer game" in the same way that some British folks dismiss Dr Who as "just another TV SF series" or War and Peace as "just another lengthy Russian classic". read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In typical self-deprecating style, Damon Courtney writes to ask me about my sloppy editing of his capitalizations, as follows:


```
What are the rules on capitalization when someone refers to someone else not by their name but by some other name? Such as:

"Yes, Master."

or

"Yes, My Dear."

Somewhere in my mind I want to capitalize those cases, but I'm not sure if that's right. You didn't note them in your copyedit, but there are some places I didn't do that, and you didn't note those either. So, either it doesn't matter, or I'm doing it wrong one way or the other.
```
Notice that it doesn't occur to Damon that I might have missed an error or (even worse) an inconsistency. Leaving aside the matter of undue deference to the editor, my reply is below. read on&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

When an author says to me:

"The main character in my next book is a Physicist at CERN; the problem is: I don't know anything about the physics that is done at CERN,"

You can imagine the alarm bells ring. A persistent member of the "Writing Advice Top 10" is Write about what you know. It is, this good advice notwithstanding, my observation that a writer with sufficient skill can convince his readers that a character is a genuine nuclear physicist even though the writer has even less knowledge than, for example, a press officer for British Nuclear Power.

How do you convince the reader? read more...


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I have been asked to justify a remark I tweeted recently, and farbeit from me to refuse an excuse to blog, here goes:

I stated that "Planning is the worst waste of time ever invented". Some people think that this is a little unfair, but it may be worth stating that this comes from the mouth of a trained and experienced project-manager, who has worked in the highly regulated and highly documented world of clinical trials, who today works in the entirely unregulated though equally documented world of literary fiction.

In project management, Project Plans exist for one reason and one reason only: to convince those with the money to part with it, and fund the project.

Planning whose purpose is to decide what to do, and in what order, is strictly for novices - and a necessary part of the learning process. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In my opinion, I don't need to tell you what the picture is all about. Most of those translations are pretty good. I know this because they conform to standards, not because I know most of those languages. I can translate well or adequately from eight of them into English. Of the others, I can translate badly and very slowly from a further three.

Okay, that came out wrong. I was trying to be self deprecating but it actually just looks immodest. Let me try to explain why I can do what I can do. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Let's start with WARNING.

This is from Old West Germanic, and means, predictably enough, a warning. OWG is the source of English, Dutch and German, but notice that modern German (D) just uses ACHTUNG ("watch-out"-ing). Dutch seems to have lost the "n" somewhere. Swedish (S) is speaking English, Finnish and Czech look as if they might be too&#8230;

Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Norwegian, Romanian and Slovak all seem to be using the same latin root "vert" - "warn". Not surprising for E, P I and RO. French, of course, has to be different, and is using a different Latin root "tend" - to reach towards.

The Greek, Polish and Hungarian are both Greek to me. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

A fascinating set of words, as they are in common use all the time, have changed very little since their earliest recorded usage, but we seldom differentiate clearly between them, and it is our loss. There are different types and different scales of mental competence, and different people (and therefore for writers, different characters) have differing degrees of competence in each of this group of skills or characteristics.

I'm going to start with what Webster, Wiktionary and the most TU'd entry in Urban Dictionary have to say about the modern meanings, starting with today's offering:

*1. Intelligence* read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I started with the noun, intelligence because the adjective intelligent is formed from the noun. With clever, the reverse is true, the noun, not often used, is cleverness.

Webster:

_1
a : skillful or adroit in using the hands or body : nimble <clever fingers> 
b : mentally quick and resourceful <a clever young lawyer> 
2
: marked by wit or ingenuity <a clever solution> <a clever idea>_

Wiktionary:

_clever (comparative cleverer or more clever, superlative cleverest or most clever)

1. Nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept._ read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In this post I shall be using a word that is considered offensive even in the citation by some. Consequently I have added the tag "NSFW" to the post, but I have not labelled it "adult", as that doesn't conform to my view that it is impossible to give offense, only to take it, and that those that mind don't matter. This said, in the interests of everyone being able to access this, the word itself is included in an image, not in the text, so your filters won't catch it.

I apologise if my use of this word provokes you to take offense. If it does, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.

Today's word is "cunning". Luckily in modern English, the noun and the adj. are the same. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

This one is less of a problem for some, more a problem for others. Memorably, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons™ reduces all mental capacity to a score out of 18 for Intelligence and for Wisdom. Intelligence is usually used for learned or technical matters and wisdom for innate or homely. If you view things this way you'll rarely have a problem with _wisdom_, but not everyone sees things that way.

Webster, usually terse, is almost monosyllabic on this one. It asks us to choose between either _knowledge_ (see the etymology), _insight_ and _judgement_. Wiktionary, after making the correct references to "wise", certainly gives us something to think about. I think Wiktionary's offering #5 may be the most revealing. UD fails to supply a definition in the conventional sense at all. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Although used much more North America than in the UK and other parts of the ESW, smart is nonetheless a frequent alternative to both clever and intelligent, but its meaning is not quite the same; usage seems to be more about some innate quality, and has some similarity with bright (used much more in the UK) - on which more later.

I included the TU and TD stats because it is rare in UD for a non obscene term to get more than 1000 TU's. The users and contributors to UD were, to start with, mostly rebellious teenagers, but clearly a number of them have both social and political sensibilities!

Webster's definition is really not very helpful. I have only included those definitions that denote types of mental competence. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In a FaceBook discussion about pronunciation it was recently brought home to me just how much my personal social ideology influences my choice of language, and my attitude to grammar, spelling, speech and vocabulary.

My great friend Holly posted this link: 100 Most Often Mispronounced English Words.

What I originally began reading with curiosity I soon found myself reading with horror and eventually revulsion, not at the nature of the common mistakes described, but the mockery of the poorly educated, and the arbitrary, high-handed, divisive nature of the "selection" of the "correct" pronunciation. Finally I was unable to read all the way to the 100th entry as I happened across more and more examples of entirely unresearched words, of which for me the worst offender was the claim that we should say "in paretheses" not "in parenthesis". read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In 1951, celebrated Golden-Age Sci-Fi author Cyril Kornbluth* published in Galaxy magazine the story "The Marching Morons". In the fifties, Sci-Fi fell into two fairly narrow categories: pulp sci-fi was all about scare and schlock, alien invasions and monstrous creations. Pulp sci-fi was for the drive-in, and both catered-for and nurtured the public's fear of the strange, unknown, foreign and, of course, commie. Highbrow Sci-Fi (which later became literary SF) originated in the social sciences, indeed one of its authors (I forget who, possibly Philip Dick or even Ted Sturgeon) has claimed Sociology as the only true science. I need to go look that up as I haven't read some of these stories and essays in over twenty years. Kornbluth was resolutely in the latter camp, and if you haven't read Morons, go do so now.

Let's take a look at the first two really big Zombie Movies. These were the main influences on modern culture, with regard to the Zombie. They are the equivalent of Bram Stoker a source material for Vampires. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

As I am planning an update of my website, I've been thinking about how I set out my stall. To this end I have been re-reading past posts that deal with my literary ideology, as well as those that deal with what I think editing is all about. By the end of this post I hope to come up with additional expectations for editors and authors. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Supposing I set you a simple problem, that requires a little knowledge of the mathematics of probability:

A simple, discrete, independent and isolated test has two possible outcomes, A and B. The probability of each outcome when the test is run is 0.5 (one half). I run the test 10,000 times. Every time the result is A.

a) What is the probability of getting outcome A 10,000 times in a row?
b) If I run the test one more time, what is the probability of getting outcome A?

I remind you, the above is a math test question.

I think the answers are:

a) 1/(210,000) (one over (two to the power ten thousand))
b) 0.5 (one half)

*Now*, suppose I ask you a different question:

This morning, I spent my time rather frivolously tossing an English Fifty Pence Piece. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

At the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (TES5), I blogged about my initial frustrations with the story arcs in Skyrim. Soon it will be possible to do something about it.

Just as a quiet revolution is taking place in the written word thanks to those Maverick Capitalistas at Amazon, so recent advance both in the technology and the culture of videogames is bringing about a similar revolution, possibly even a revival, of old fashioned storytelling. I am beginning to wonder if games like TES5 aren't part of the development of a new way of telling stories; the first new way to enter our culture since the tabletop RPG (for those of you in the Bible-Belt, this is a euphemism for "satanic cult" - for the rest of you, this is the technical term for Dungeons and Dragons and its myriad progeny).

In traditional storytelling, the teller uses a setting that is instantly familiar to all his listeners. In the 1001 Nights this is mythic Baghdad and it's environs; in Grimm it is the North Europe countryside; in Andersen it is the North Europe town. In Tolkien fanfic it is Middle Earth. In modern fantasy it's a mishmash of all these locations with a bit of romanticised Arthurianism and Gygax stirred into the mix. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Who is the best editor?*

Not every book needs a literary edit. I think that every book should go to a professional editor for style and format (copy-edit), but a literary edit isn't needed for everything. But how do you know if your work needs one or not?

I suspect the only way to know is to go through the literary edit process at least once. It also helps a great deal to talk to other writers who use, or have used, a literary editor. Those who can tell you why they decided they didn't need to will be the once who help you to discover if you need to. So why not?

For one thing, it is expensive. A book of 120k words will take me anything from 30 to 50 hours to edit, more if you include communication with the author. Your first two or three full length novels will take longer to edit than later ones, which means that those who charge a fixed rate per word may have to do a lighter edit than your work really needs, and those who, like me, quote based on an estimate of the time required, will charge more to edit your early, weaker work than for your later, stronger work. This is one of the ironies of our profession - but it applies to everything that authors do: read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I apologize for the tabloid headlines. Given the content of this post these titles would have been as obvious in the avoidance. Indeed, if you can think of any more, please keep them to yourself.

I am indebted to a correspondent on KB who pointed out to me that I had not noticed, when reading for pleasure, that the British publishing industry was, with a few exceptions, using single quotes for direct speech, leading to some unpleasant excesses where speakers quote other speakers who were themselves citing the names of people and their possessions resulting a positive orgy of punctuation:

_'But,' Mrs Green continued, ''twas if you remember that paragon Dr Blue (speaking of the politician Frank Simons) who declared: 'it is better to possess all our own meagre possessions than any one of Simons'!''._ read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I've always found Rush Limbaugh creepy. And not funny. So I don't listen to his broadcasts. That's freedom, isn't it.

But I was raised a feminist. These days I believe that freedom is more important than equality, but fighting for equality is sometimes the same as fighting for freedom. The current Republican climate, though intensely silly seen from this side of the Atlantic, is also cause for concern, increasingly so, in the light of the Republican Party's current attitude to women.

I have chosen therefore to be mildly political with the excuse that an author should have a heightened awareness of the potential for his language to connote at the same time as it denotes; the potential for his language to be misunderstood or taken maliciously out of context; the potential (far more than most realize) to reveal the author's underlying attitudes and assumptions. When you write a story, you aren't taking a story out of yourself and putting it on the page. You are putting yourself on the page through a story. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

You've got your big idea, you've worked through a few scenarios in your head, you reckon you're starting to get an angle on your main characters, so, you're ready to sit down and either:


start writing
start planning out the story

Before you do, you still gotta ask yourself one question:

"Why am I writing this?"

Very very very very broadly speaking, I find three main reasons for writing, as follows:


I wanna sell books and make some money
I wanna write a great work of literature
I wanna be a great author

These three are not mutually exclusive, but let's face it, if you mean to write a work of great literary fiction, even if you succeed in writing the next Alchemist or Captain Corelli, satisfying your readers is still elusive. No matter how many people declare that you have given them a new and special experience, there will always be plenty for whom your book just doesn't work. If you want to write literary fiction, please please do. There isn't enough of it out there. But you will find reader satisfaction very hard to plan for. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

With a title like that, this could be my _Eats Shoots and Leaves_; pity English doesn't spell phonetically.

I am indebted, not for the first time, to Damon Courtney, for his question that I seek to answer here. It is a question that is in two parts; the first part is relatively easy to answer and provides the guideline that I call "Edit note 10: grain". The second part cuts right to the heart of the process of narration, and the process of reading-although the answer to Damon's question is more prosaic. Here's his question (hacked about a bit since it was in an email with an attachment):

[_Damon says:_] I showed the Prelude [to Book II of the series *Dragon Bond*] to a couple of friends who will be acting as beta readers on this book, and there has been some debate over a line or two. &#8230;

[Here's the passage in question - teaser for those of you who have read the first book]

_The ogre chieftain's greatsword had to be *at least six feet long if it was an inch*. At least it looked that big to Gortogh. It was hard to guess while it was in mid-air and swinging for his head. Also, he was sitting on the ground, and things always look bigger from the ground. Probably why the ogre *looked ten feet tall himself*._ read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I just gave my blog a makeover; first one in about 5 years. Comments welcome. Still not completely happy with it.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Yesterday, I addressed the matter of measurements. Today I cut to the heart of Damon's question, reprinted here:

_The [friends] think it's distracting or that it's wrong because it's not Gortogh's actual thoughts but the narrator who is not a character (or should not be at least) in the story._

Damon's friends, and indeed, his wife, are complaining about his use in narration of an expression that he uses in everyday speech:

_n feet long if it was an inch!_​
which he then goes on to echo and repeat (one repetitions and two echos in three paragraphs; see yesterday's post for details).

They complain that they hear Damon's voice narrating, and that this intrudes on the point of view that is presented, weakly, in the passage, the POV being that of the goblin (see yesterday), Gortogh.

Setting character points of view aside for a moment; who or what is the narrator?

I contend that the narrator is not the author. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I have edited, and am editing, quite a few books that contain music, poetry and fighting.

Rightly so, all three appear in all genres of literature. Sometimes they are treated well. Sometimes they are not.

Because music subsists in a different medium, none but the most _avant garde_ of authors attempts to describe it note-by-note. It is an easy and natural choice to attempt to describe music through the experience of listening, and the sentiments and emotions-even the physical responses-it provokes. This meets with mixed success, but this indirect approach is at the very least not guaranteed to fail. An author cannot, through words, convey the sound of music.

In _A Clockwork Orange_, Anthony Burgess hedges his bets; he selects music that he knows than many of his readers will know, and that some of them will know well. In this way, he knows that at least some of them will be able to hear the actual sound of the music as they are reading it. But he also knows that many will not. So he also conveys the experience of listening, through the main character's (rather visceral) responses to the music, and even manages to convey the progression through different passages of the symphony. This is great writing not because (for most people) it succeeds; it is great writing because it tries. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, is right ynogh for me_

Says the Wife of Bath. She says it as a sort of challenge; in the high middle ages, even as feudal and ecclesiastical monarchies reached the height of their power and culture, the groundwork was being laid for future class struggles, and for the activity known as natural philosophy, that later became known as science.

When, on the October 31st 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, the modern age began, with the idea that thought alone can challenge authority.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales over a hundred years earlier; European man took a long time to shake of the shackles of the likes of Galen and Aristotle; shackles whose name was '_auctoritee_'.

Today, throughout most of Western Philosophy's diaspora, you can call any idea into question with a well expressed challenge; you can seek to disprove any theory through experimentation; we give way to experience more readily than we do to authority (or at least we should)*.

It is time to get back to the cowshed: read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Literary criticism, when its purpose is to improve the object, is an arcane art, and any means of structuring the approach is welcome, however flawed it may be.

Many critics claim to have discredited Aristotle's Unites, which are summed up as follows:


 Place. The setting of the play should be one location: in comedy often a street, in Oedipus Rex the steps before the palace.

 Time. The action of the play should represent the passage of no more than one day. Previous events leading up to the present situation were recounted on stage, as Prospero tells Miranda of the events which led to their abandonment on the island.

 Action. No action or scene in the play was to be a digression; all were to contribute directly in some way to the plot.


(from _this post_ (link inactive in preview!))

Clearly very few novels follow this sort of convention. However, an examination of a novel's deviations from the convention can reveal weaknesses. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

The Unity of Action as I quoted yesterday is as follows:

_No action or scene in the play was to be a digression; all were to contribute directly in some way to the plot._​
A novel differs from a play in that it has (at least) three different levels of action. I am likely to come back to these, so I'm going to define them in a little detail here:


*book* - _historically a physical object, the book includes (in addition to the story) all the additional or peripheral information that goes with the experience of reading, such as cover art, blurb, author bio, dedications, and all the baggage that the reader brings along with him, such as his past experiences of the same author or the same genre._
*story* - _the story is the emotional experience provoked or evoked by reading the book; this is the reader's engagement with characters, locations and events depicted in the book. This is highly dependent on the author's stylistic skill, as well as his skill in getting emotional experience across to the reader, both in terms of the experiences of characters, and in terms of the emotional experience that this generates in the reader himself._
*plot* - _the "mechanics" underlying the story; how the course of events is influenced devices and desires of different characters, or by the vicissitudes of fate or fortune. A plot may be developed or designed in various ways, but it is a different skill from narration or characterization.
_

Incoherence in Unity of Action is often described as _redundancy_. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I'd love to hear what other editors think about this. I quite often get emails from authors, from those who are self-confessed needy right through to the most laid-back, asking where I am with something or when I would reply to their previous message - often questions about my edit or general questions about their book.

The thing is I often don't reply right away because I need Thinking Time. I think about my clients' books a very great deal, when I'm not actually in front of my computer or actually reading something on the Kindle. It can be when I'm in the garden, in the bathroom, driving the car, walking the dog. This mental idle time is really critical to the quality of my service, in my opinion, and quite often I have some idea, question or doubt about someone's work where I know I just need to let a few days go by, and I'll think the thought that I'm waiting for.

This can be hard on my customer, and on my pocket - since most of my customers pay a deposit and then the balance on delivery.

But as a story editor, my work is both creative and critical - it depends on my ideas as well as my knowledge and experience, and all the many books and stories I know or have read. This stuff often takes time to come up from the weird depths of my long term storage.

I encourage all my customers to chase me; this is so I can get a feel for their schedule - and how patient they can be with me and with themselves - so I can prioritize my Thinking Time as much as I do my working time. I also encourage them to tell me when they have specific deadlines or particular opportunities to get writing or editing done. Quite often that actually seems to speed up my thought processes.

Curious that at school I was constantly berated for looking out of the window instead of at my exercise book, and here I am declaring that what looks like daydreaming is essential to my work process!

_(copied in full from my blog)_


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Peter LeStrange sat at the bottom of the rectory garden and watched the fairies dancing.

In recent weeks it had been becoming a source of increasing concern to the Priest of the parish of Tilford that where once he had seen only sunlight flashing in the little stream, now he saw fairies buzzing about.
- Not all the time, mind you.

Sometimes he'd be sitting on the garden bench, reading a book, sipping a pink gin (old Mrs Spacek next door produced a deep blood red molasses sweet sloe gin for which he had developed a liking) or just listening to the breeze, and the only thing moving would be the leaves and the water. Sometimes the air would be thick with clouds of little lace-winged bodies, squeaking and chattering to each other. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I am again indebted to Damon Courtney. I have just finished reading his "rough" draft of the sequel to "Baptism of Blood and Fire" (link on the right). I've really enjoyed it, and it has given me an excuse to talk about something that I've had on my 'bloggables' list for a while:_

In roleplaying games, magic items are coveted objects of artifice or divine origins which enable the possessor to wield great of various types. Players will go on quests to obtain them, or be rewarded with them.

As such, in gaming, balancing MIs is all about ensuring that players do not get granted fabulous Godlike powers, but rather are given a small advantage over enemies who would otherwise be on par with them. The Gamesmaster has to judge quite carefully what MIs players will obtain and when.

Players will note that a really crafty Gamesmaster will sometimes throw in a MI that has a downside. It could be as simple as a curse, as annoying as a geas, or maybe even that the MI, while powerful is not especially useful, or while useful is not quite powerful enough.

In a story, the situation is different from in an RPG. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_With thanks again to Damon Courtney for inspiring this post. I will say that though he inspired it, in this his second book he made a much better job of dealing with both melée and ranged combat both in individual, skirmish and battlefield situations. How did he do it so well? He avoided fine details and concentrated on characters' experiences and roles.

I should perhaps also add that I hate violence of all kinds, but several of my clients write fighting fantasy and other write thrillers, so I have to know enough to (at the very least) be able to send them off to do more research._

*Part 1: Things you can't do in a sword fight.*

1. Block. 
Actually you can do this, but only if you're desperate. Even with a shield you don't want to block, and a shield is used best to protect you from projectiles and to prevent your adversary from seeing a clear target and, of course, to DEFLECT.

2. Parry.
You can do this a little more often than block, but a parry is really a sportsman's move, not a warriors. Literally, a parry is a defensive counter-move that prevents the adversary's gambit from succeeding. It requires a lot of skill and timing, but a warrior skilled enough to defeat his opponent without killing him might do this. read more


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Wow, Harry, your blog is terrific. I'm going to sit down and read it "front to back."


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Great stuff. It's amazing how many cool things you'll miss after taking a long break from a forum.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Thank you both for them kind words. I wish people would comment more. Especially to challenge what I say. Argument is a very fine source of knowledge.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I would comment and challenge some of what you say, but what's the point? It all depends on the kind of fiction you are writing and where, as a writer, you choose to draw the line between entertainment and reality.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Doomed Muse said:


> I would comment and challenge some of what you say, but what's the point? It all depends on the kind of fiction you are writing and where, as a writer, you choose to draw the line between entertainment and reality.


The line between entertainment and reality is exactly the objection that Damon (the author) raised, and I agree that there is a judgment call to be made, that has something to do with who you think your readers are. And this is the point of challenging what I say. If I express myself in quite absolute terms, that's just my style in English. I'm well aware that in a creative activity, there will be situations in which what I have said will be inappropriate or even false, and it is in discussion that those things come out.

Do you think people forbear to comment because they expect me to just shout them down?

Most times, when discussions arise about my statements about how this or that ought to be written, what I discover is a whole landscape of possibilities, and often discover how narrow the context of my original statements was.

When talking about swordfighting with Damon, not only did the question of entertainment come up, but also that of the symbolic significance of swordfights, and how they come to represent the contention between two wills. If that is the case, then an evenly matched skilled combat should last much longer.

What it all really comes down to is that what I want is to think about, and encourage others to think about, how writing works and what we are all writing. It isn't so much that I think some writers are 'doing it wrong' so much as I think they are not aware of what they are doing. That doesn't always lead to poor results, however awareness almost always leads to better writing.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_In the third in a series of posts inspired by editing Damon Courtney's new book._

Tabletop role-playing games are an intensely creative group activity. A whole world is created in the shared imagination of the players, a process that has a lot more in common with theatre than it does with reading.

The act of creation is structured, to ensure that everyone shares a similar experience. Generally the Game MasterI (GM) describes the setting, and provides details of the situation in which the players find themselves. At this point the players will likely start asking questions of the GM. The nature of the questions they ask will give him clues about how they have responded imaginatively to the situation he has placed them in, and he will (often) start improvising details to further enrich the world in accordance with the players' needs, and of course, consistent with the challenges they face.

The most enjoyable games arise when all players and the GM become absorbed into the imagined world, and create a story together.

Since most of these games contain some fantasy element (whether mythical, magical, extra-terrestrial or technological), those things require rules to prevent the tedium that results from omnipotence and omniscience. The rulesets of RPGs are generally about what is possible and what is impossible; they set detailed boundaries about what players (or the characters they are 'playing') can do. This might be anything from how far you can jump through how much sleep you need to how much more trauma you can take while remaining sane.

Rules are essential in fantasy stories. read more


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## Klip (Mar 7, 2011)

Fascinating stuff!

I remember playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was a child, and my brother was the Dungeon master. It was absolutely magical - and now that I think about it (and read your post) a lot of the magic came from the fact that the game is a sort of co-operative story telling. Still, the Dungeon master is the _master_ and had the last word! And I agree that it is more like theater than reading.

My brother has an unusual talent for pulling his audience into the mood of the role playing - making it seem very real - and in many ways he used the same "tricks" that a story teller would use. There is the same unspoken understanding that the Dungeon Master wont lie to you, or interfere in the story to manipulate things. Or "show his hand" to break the spell of the story.

But I'm not attracted to books that seem inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and its like. I get a sense of artificiality, like the difference between astro-turf and a meadow. I think the rules that are necessary for the game to work are too constricting for a reader. Not sure. Off to read the rest of your post now


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

"Crossing the Line" and "Trophy Similes" 
_I was in two minds when I got up this morning as to whether to do a "fun" post or a "serious" one. Actually according to recently published research, since I'm bilingual I'm always in two minds, but probably best not to pursue that thought&#8230;_

*Trophy Similes*

Similes come in two basic flavors: analogy and comparison.

Comparison is when you say "as xy as an xyz". David Mitchell's classic example is "as subtle as a lead brick in a bowl of rice pudding". Blackadder is full of subverted comparison similes: "We're about as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod."

This kind of simile rarely gets anyone in trouble, though they can be unintentionally comical. Their purpose, however, is plain to see; the simile acts as a qualifier for an initial adjective. Many of these are now clichés (happy as a sand-boy, blind as a bat, etc).

Analogy is rather more problematic, though both more literary and (I think) more often both necessary and justifiable. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I could do an awful lot of these posts based around notes that I have prepared for specific authors or books, but it feels a little lazy. Is it of as much interest as my more general, "original" posts?


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I chose this hubris-laden title after some discussions with writers and editors, and after reading several threads on KindleBoards.

Obviously the main reason for chusing a title like this is that it will generate lots more Google hits for my Blog. Clearly I'm going to give you the magic formula for making $$$'s from your writing. That much, we can take as given.

Actually I hope there's a little more to it than that.

*Publishing in Turmoil*

Rarely do I think that a tabloid style banner headline is warranted, but it seems that indie ePub has thrown the world of publishing into confusion. This is a good thing. A writer can reach readers in a way that he never could before. And you don't need anyone's approval, you don't need anyone's permission, and you don't need anyone's help.

This certainly makes some big changes to the process of publishing. This in turn has consequences for the process of writing itself. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I felt it only appropriate after the excessive ambition of my last post to give this one a similarly ambitious title._

Where do stories come from? I, as many writers, can write a story on demand, given a few basic ideas, or even no ideas at all. This is because I know what makes a story. Knowing what makes a story seems to have two elements, the academic and the emotional. The academic elements of a story are those that can be readily named, if not always easily described: plot, character, protagonist, antagonist, etc. The emotional element of what makes a story is a sense of when a story feels right. Part of this feeling is personal, but most of it is a shared feeling, shared between writer and reader in the same way that a play is shared between actor and audience. This means it isn't wholly subjective, and you can learn to judge when a story will feel right to more readers.

Often you can rationalize the successful story post-hoc in the hope of producing an academic explanation of why it works. Often this is spurious. Usually it is a waste of time. Sometimes it advances your understanding of what makes a story work. But not where stories come from.

When most people set out to write their first novel, they do so with an idea of the story already forming, perhaps completely formed. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Following on from yesterday, supposing you sit down to write your first story (if you can remember this event I'd like to hear from you).

Maybe you're arrogantly assuming that you are the next big thing, or humbly supposing that this will be the first of many failed attempts, or anything in between. None of that really matters. What matters is that you get it onto the page.

My process with my first book was that I would write like a demon for a few days, then gradually lose interest, then be inspired anew a few weeks later, at which point I would re-read everything I had written so far, make a few small changes, and then carry on writing. This is a slow and painful process, but thankfully at the time I wrote it I was not a professional editor, and I tended to think everything I wrote was great. Many first time writers spend a great deal of time going back over previous parts of the book to "improve" them instead of doing what they should be doing, which is getting to the end.

When you write your first story, possibly even your second or third, getting to the end should be the first, second and third priorities of the writing process. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I put those three words in the title because a story has a certain neatness that is missing from real life. Real life is messy, random and, most of all, a continuous process. Although I'm comfortable these days saying "I am a literary editor", it would be more accurate to say that I am in a continuous process of becoming a literary editor. This is much like becoming a writer; we often call it 'development' as that has a suggestion that as time passes we improve (which I rather hope we all do), but 'evolution' is more accurate: we adapt and change.

My daughter and I play a game, usually at bedtime, of telling eachother subverted stories. It is as good a way as any of illustrating what a story is. Every story starts as follows:

"Once upon a time there was a lovely little pig called Margot and she wanted&#8230;"
The game is to find something she wanted, and thwart the desire as fast as possible:

"&#8230;a bedtime story, but her parents were both too tired, so she went straight to sleep the end."

This subverts _Story#1_, which is expressed as follows: _person/conflict/resolution._ read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

The celebrated Russian playwright Anton Chekhov explained this principle of drama on a number of occasions, so you can, if you trawl the literature, find several quotations on the subject, and indeed several variations as it is all translated from the Russian. So I'm going to paraphrase Chekhov, rather than quote him:

_If a rifle is seen hanging on the wall in act one of a play, then by the end of act 3 it must have been fired._​
In The Seagull, (someone will correct me if I'm wrong), this is literally what happens. It is intended as an explanation of how the playwright (and by extension, the Director) communicates with the audience, but more especially, an explanation of audience expectation.

When at the theatre, the audience is in a state of heightened awareness, in particular, heightened awareness of the shape and characteristics of a story. Spectators will see meaning in the smallest detail; the angle at which chairs are placed; whether an actor takes his left or right hand to smoke, the color of the drapes, the visibility beyond a doorway; you name it.

Vsevolod Meyerhold made a particular study of the actors' movement and gestures, in an attempt to make the actor as hyperaware as the spectator; to ensure that the actor would make no movement, no gesture, without a control and an awareness of the effect on the audience. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Coined when Chaos Theory was the height of fashion, and scientists everywhere wore t-shirts (and even lab-coats) with Mandelbrot Set patterns on them, and affectionately parodied by Pterry in Interesting Times, the Butterfly Effect was originally an analogy for the interconnectedness of complex systems, expressed as innumerable variations on:

_Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?_

It is generally acknowledged by weather scientists that a hurricane doesn't need the butterfly's intervention in order to happen; but the minute turbulence caused by the butterfly's wings might start a chain of events that, for instance, change the course of a hurricane by a few hundred meters. Once you accept that possibility, however, considering that complex weather systems might be thought of as a whole series of hurricanes just waiting to happen, you might be prepared to accept that the triggering factor might be the butterfly.

It isn't meant to be an actual butterfly. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_It has been said that in order to accept feminist theory, you first have to reject it. It's also been suggested that feminism is like whiskey: the first taste you have is repulsive, but for some reason you keep coming back until you grow to love it. I think the latter is frankly daft._

Sigmund Freud introduced the masses to the idea of 'penis envy': that one of the root causes of women's difficulties dealing with men comes from the fundamental desire for, and lack of, a penis. During the rise of feminism in the twentieth century, that idea probably made a certain amount of sense. Certainly more than it does now. Feminist men tend (if they see it in these kinds of terms at all) tend to see the penis as a sort of consolation prize for all the cool bits women have that we don't. In all honesty, I'm none too sure where I stand on the matter. The feminist antidote to the idea of penis envy is penis extension.

Penis extension is the symbolic representation of rivalry among males and of sexual display to females, through display of exaggerated male sexual characteristics, especially when represented through objects whose shape is analogous to the penis. It is an easy accusation to make, since so many tools, devices and structures are basically cylindrical. It is also, therefore, relatively easy to refute by looking at the design specification of (for instance) a skyscraper and discovering that there is no reference in the specification to the size of nearby buildings. If, on the other hand, the client has specified that it must be the tallest one on the skyline, then clearly some sort of mine's-bigger-than-yours is going on. And since money and power are necessary to achieve tall skyscrapers, and also are strong indicators of reproductive attractiveness, showing off your money and power is de facto a sexual display. Even if what you build ends up not resembling a giant penis at all. read more&#8230;


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> _It has been said that in order to accept feminist theory, you first have to reject it. It's also been suggested that feminism is like whiskey: the first taste you have is repulsive, but for some reason you keep coming back until you grow to love it. I think the latter is frankly daft._


So in order to believe that women should have equal rights, you (and who is "you") have to first reject that belief and that belief is on its face repulsive.

An interesting statement. Perhaps more true if all people (the aforesaid "you") are male.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> So in order to believe that women should have equal rights, you (and who is "you") have to first reject that belief and that belief is on its face repulsive.


You is impersonal. Just good grammar and politeness.



JRTomlin said:


> An interesting statement. Perhaps more true if all people (the aforesaid "you") are male.


I think I tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that it is much easier for women to accept the truths of feminism than it is for men. I tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that at first view most men would recognize that supporting feminism is against their interests. I think that women are right to treat with suspicion those men who profess a support for equal freedom without first having had to wrestle with the fact that it seems to be against their interest. I think those that struggle with their doubt for long enough realize that to believe in freedom is to believe that all women and all men should be equally free, and therefore feminism is component to that ideal.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> You is impersonal. Just good grammar and politeness.
> 
> I think I tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that it is much easier for women to accept the truths of feminism than it is for men. I tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that at first view most men would recognize that supporting feminism is against their interests. I think that women are right to treat with suspicion those men who profess a support for equal freedom without first having had to wrestle with the fact that it seems to be against their interest. I think those that struggle with their doubt for long enough realize that to believe in freedom is to believe that all women and all men should be equally free, and therefore feminism is component to that ideal.


I believe that in this case the "you" is an assumption that all readers and perhaps all people (at least people worth addressing) are male. Whether a pronoun with no antecedent which assumes I am male is either good grammar or polite is something we may disagree upon.

Edit: Did I have to struggle to accept the truth that I am a human being who rates both human dignity and human rights? No, as a matter of fact, I didn't. Whether men consider treating women with decency and respect as fellow human beings as against men's interests is another question. I can't answer for any man much less "most men".


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Oh good lord! Harry, between you B. Justin Shier, my fond childhood memories of He-Man have been hopelessly corrupted.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I believe that in this case the "you" is an assumption that all readers and perhaps all people (at least people worth addressing) are male. Whether a pronoun with no antecedent *which assumes I am male* is either good grammar or polite is something we may disagree upon.
> 
> Edit: Did I have to struggle to accept the truth that I am a human being who rates both human dignity and human rights? No, as a matter of fact, I didn't. Whether men consider treating women with decency and respect as fellow human beings as against men's interests is another question.


I'm beginning to wonder if you assumed that my statement about accepting the truth of feminism was some sort of covert attack on it. If it seemed that way I can only apologize-and backpedal furiously-it was intended as entirely the opposite. (I was trying-and obviously failed-to poke fun at the second statement, redolent of 1950's machismo). I can't believe you think that all people worth addressing are male, so I wonder whether you think that I think so? Many men do have to struggle with (not _against_) feminism even when they are raised to believe in freedom and equality, since feminism has so often been presented by both its opponents and proponents as an attack on men, which it is not, or should not be. But feminism does attack male dominated culture and society, an attack which I believe is both legitimate and necessary, and many men who are benefiting from such a society do have to struggle (with themselves, their upbringing, their immediate patriarch) to give up their privileges. I daresay for some it is a no-brainer. For many it is not.

I put part of what you said in bold because that's the part I really don't see. I've encountered women who are or have been opposed to feminism for a variety of reasons. I think that in certain societies, feminism might look frightening to everyone. (Does 'everyone' in that sentence assume everyone is male? If it does I no longer know how to speak English.)


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> Oh good lord! Harry, between you B. Justin Shier, my fond childhood memories of He-Man have been hopelessly corrupted.


I'm sorry if I spoilt it for you Becca-it's the kind of image that once you've got it in your head the only way to alleviate the horror is to pass it on!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Harry Dewulf said:


> I'm sorry if I spoilt it for you Becca-it's the kind of image that once you've got it in your head the only way to alleviate the horror is to pass it on!


Schadenfreude.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> I'm beginning to wonder if you assumed that my statement about accepting the truth of feminism was some sort of covert attack on it. If it seemed that way I can only apologize-and backpedal furiously-it was intended as entirely the opposite. (I was trying-and obviously failed-to poke fun at the second statement, redolent of 1950's machismo). I can't believe you think that all people worth addressing are male, so I wonder whether you think that I think so? Many men do have to struggle with (not _against_) feminism even when they are raised to believe in freedom and equality, since feminism has so often been presented by both its opponents and proponents as an attack on men, which it is not, or should not be. But feminism does attack male dominated culture and society, an attack which I believe is both legitimate and necessary, and many men who are benefiting from such a society do have to struggle (with themselves, their upbringing, their immediate patriarch) to give up their privileges. I daresay for some it is a no-brainer. For many it is not.
> 
> I put part of what you said in bold because that's the part I really don't see. I've encountered women who are or have been opposed to feminism for a variety of reasons. I think that in certain societies, feminism might look frightening to everyone. (Does 'everyone' in that sentence assume everyone is male? If it does I no longer know how to speak English.)


Think for a minute. You admitted that women are much less likely to be put off by the concepts of feminism (even if they hesitate to call themselves feminists). So your statement mainly applies to men and yet you used "you" as a general pronoun as though everyone would have this reaction. *raises eyebrow*

I think you feel back into an unfortunate habit of wording and/or thinking in treating the world as though it is mainly male. I doubt this does reflect your beliefs but I'm a writer and as far as I'm concerned how we express ourselves matters. So I'll jump on that kind of thing like a rabid ferret going after prey.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I think you feel back into an unfortunate habit of wording and/or thinking in treating the world as though it is mainly male. I doubt this does reflect your beliefs but I'm a writer and as far as I'm concerned how we express ourselves matters. So I'll jump on that kind of thing like a rabid ferret going after prey.


There may be a cultural issue here. I can't imagine that I would fall back into such a habit as throughout my upbringing and my subsequent adult life the vast majority of my interlocutors have been and continue to be women (and most of them smarter and more experienced than I am). I am considerably more at ease in female company-my wife will tell you how it bothers her that in predominantly male company I tend to become taciturn and monosyllabic because I don't know what is expected of me. When I'm writing I'm generally writing with myself in mind as the main reader, and I am a man. But is it really possible to tell that from the way I use pronouns? Or was there something else?

It is of course also true that the written culture from which I - indeed all of us - are issue is one that until recently was utterly male dominated. Men did most of the writing and wrote mainly with male readers in mind. It is fair to expect this disparity to have had lasting effects on our language (like the fact that we default to masculine pronouns when referring to people of unspecified gender or mixed groups (I'm bilingual in French and it is even more obvious in French)). Furthermore, I consciously do not go out of my way to neuter my language as in most company this comes across as either fussy or insincere.

But I am always glad to be challenged on how I express myself, and always curious to try to find new ways to approach my own communication. I take your point that my my later statement supports your contention that I was mostly talking to men earlier on. But I was assuming that it would be read by women. I don't take your challenge as anything other than necessity. Any man who claims he is a feminist should expect to be expected to be very much more rigorous in his thinking and in his expression of his thinking than a woman would be. Which takes me back to my first point, I suppose, and leads me to tend to agree with you that the first quotation in my blog post is likely originally to have been said to a man - though not necessarily by one.

How true that I cannot know what I think until I try to say what I think. Many thanks for the stimulation!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I disagree about being harder on men than on women in this respect. Women are as infected with such phrasing and thinking as men, often without even realizing it. We all are to a greater or lesser degree and even when we strongly believe such thinking is wrong, it will often slip through. 

In fact, I'd probably be even harsher on a woman, feeling she should really know better.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I added a short disclaimer to the top of the post. I prefer not editing things out if they have had unexpected effects, as I think it is necessary to learning to become a better writer that these lively events along the journey are preserved.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

I read this article here:

http://densewords.blogspot.fr/2012/06/sword-and-phallus-what-every-fantasy.html

And... since you like Freud so much, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".

The He-Man blade telescoped because it was an easy way to do what it did in the show... grow bigger when it was powered. People associate size with power (no, not because an erect penis is "powerful"), but because in nature, powerful things are _always _strong simply by virtue of their size. Small things _can _be powerful too -- spiders, for example -- but anything big enough is automatically powerful. Yes, spiders can kill humans. They have venom (and a complex delivery system), camouflage and lightning fast reflex. We have a size twelve boot, powered solely by our mass. I can tell you that far more spiders every year to human boots than we die because of spider venom. Similarly elephents have tusks, but their primary method of harming humans is to trample.

In nature, on the land at least, there is no creature that is bigger than us that cannot harm us. Even extremely docile creatures such as pandas have been known to attack humans (http://www.chinahighlights.com/giant-panda/are-giant-pandas-dangerous.htm) and simply due to their mass can inflict a lot of harm.

Accordingly, fear of things that are big is an evolved survival mechanism, which means when asked to choose between the following guns:










And,










Most people would choose the second. But people who've seen Men In Black know that that first gun is... well, it's going to kick that puny minigun's arse.

Superheroes are, almost without exclusion, tall -- unless their power relies on speed or their small size is somehow relevant. This is because the writers know that someone who is big is assumed, subconsciously, to be powerful.

He-man's sword grew bigger not because it was phallic, but simply because that's a simple visual cue to the audience that it was gaining in power. His vest is pink because animating accurate colour pallets was difficult before digital setups (dollars to donuts it was supposed to be red as shown here http://www.he-man.org/assets/images/collect_toy/prince_adam_a.jpg, Optimus Prime has the same problem in that in many shots he is bright pink) but they didn't stress too much about it because it's a show for kids, and besides it was okay because it was the 80s and everyone was _super_ gay.

If you wanted to make a point about the sexism or sexual dichotomy in this show, there are much better ways to do it. Let's compare "He-Man" to his Obligatory Female Counterpart "She-Ra", introduced in some kind of weird attempt to get young girls interested in the show that, as far as I know, failed horribly.

He-Man:










Tall, insanely buff, with weapons and all kinds of stuff. Irrespective of how he looks like he wandered out of a "Highlander LGBT Fan Parade", this guy is a warrior. He has insanely muscled arms, not only a massive sword but an axe, too, and some kind of... chest brace... armour thing. And he's tall (the 'camera' appears to be at his nipple height). Yeah, okay, he looks a bit dorky really but again it was the 80s (super, super gay) and they were obviously going for the "tower of masculinity and strength" look.

And She-Ra?










There are heaps and heaps and heaps of ludicrous images of this character (Google Image Search if you dare) but I went with this one because it's an official shot. Let's see...

- HER WAIST IS THINNER THAN HER HEAD.
- Massive rack? Check.
- Barbie doll legs? Check.
- Ridiculously thin arms and legs completely lacking in any strength? How can she even carry that sword, let along swing it? Check.
- 45kg of hair? Check.
- A skirt just short enough to cover her underwear (literally, it would start in one pixel) and no longer? Check.
- HIGH HEELS? Check.
- Other weapons? Missing. Women don't need weapons!
- Not obvious from the pictures, but She-Ra's pet is that weird, cute, giant flappy earred flying thing. He-Man's pet is a FULLY GROWN TIGER.

There's a lot of sexual context you can draw out of that show (my god, so much) but the whole "transformation is a sexual display" isn't really one of them. The size is just a visual cue to the audience that it's powered up.

See, when I write female characters that are supposed to be fighters (and not dressed like they're hitting the town to find the perfect guy, tee hee), I prefer to describe them like this:










You know, wearing armour that is actually armour, instead of the ubiquitous stripper-plate:










WHY WOULD YOU PUT A BARE MIDRIFF ON PLATE? Where's the leg protection (maybe her femoral artery is made of titanium)? What the hell is the thing on her hand supposed to protect her from, sunburn? Why no neck armour? Why would anyone wear this kind of thing?!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

David Adams said:


> And... since you like Freud so much, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".


Thanks for your reply. Of course, you are right when it comes to intent; there are plenty of innocent reasons for He-Man being the way he is. My point is that symbolism is there whether you intend it or not. That's the unfortunate nature of nonverbals. There are I'm sure a great many cases where apparent phallic symbolism is just an unfortunate coincidence. The Sword of Omens growing is just convenient; it means Lion-O can leap around without being hampered; however the unfortunate symbolism is difficult to deny, whether it was intended or not. I suspect, however, that this is not the case with He-Man. I think it was entirely intentional, even if it was partly subconscious. The original series of He-Man is stuffed full of social and gender indicators that are, okay, very much of their time, but. But are also strong symbols of male and female polarization. The whole Man-at-Arms / Sorceress / Teela relationship is lifted directly from a whole load of social and rite-of-passage myths. There is probably enough material there for a Doctoral Thesis.

Authors need to know that readers will see symbols, both consciously and unconsciously, whether the author intended them or not. Authors will write symbolism unconsciously, too. Authors should, I think, learn to recognize this, and control it.


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## jasonzc (Dec 23, 2011)

Harry, you a foo'. 

I mean that in the best possible sense. You're a beast. 85% of writing advice is crap, or aimed at people who shouldn't be writing in the first place. Your dissertations are what I would expect from an Ivy Leaguer.

Kudos. I shall sing your praises.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

jasonzc said:


> Harry, you a foo'.
> 
> I mean that in the best possible sense. You're a beast. 85% of writing advice is crap, or aimed at people who shouldn't be writing in the first place. Your dissertations are what I would expect from an Ivy Leaguer.
> 
> Kudos. I shall sing your praises.


Erm... wow. I'm a beast. I wish I knew what you meant, but I'm taking it as a compliment as the rest seems complimentary. I must admit sometimes I re-read my own essays and I think "who is this pompous ass?"


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Content editing comes at a range of intensities. The intensity of a content edit shouldn't depend on the editor, but on the needs of the author, his book, and its writing history.

I've edited a couple of books that were a long time in the writing. In one case, all told from the creation of the first chapter to the completing of the final chapter, 15 years of on-off writing. These are the ones that require the most work from the editor, because even when the author's concept of the original story hasn't much changed, the author himself will have changed over the time of writing, and the reader just isn't going to take 15 years to read it. The editor has to try to find a way to make it all into a single, cogent work. My advice to the author is to get an editor to read it and give some general advice on how to prepare it for editing. I call this kind of read-through a pre-edit sanity-check. Why a sanity-check? Because you if you go to a full literary edit too soon, it will cost you a fortune.

I have a couple of authors who produce short fiction that sells reasonably well. When the author has enough experience a given style/genre, and when he has enough experience of producing coherent stories, very little beyond a copy edit may be needed. At this point, he might still want a sanity-check. Why a sanity-check? Because you might still have a story-breaking plot-hole, or one or two minor issues that a second pair of professional eyes will see.

This post is called 'sanity', not 'sanity-check', for a reason, though. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

We writers tell stories. Some of us tell tales. All told, some tell tall tales.

There seems to be an association throughout European languages between the consonants T and L in that order, and notions of both counting and recounting.

_Total_ is a classical Latin word meaning, perhaps unsurprisingly, a total.

_Tell_ means to count, told and tale both come from early English, and are parts of the same verb.read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Exposition is a dirty word. Editors pull sour faces; readers wander off in disgust. Even your mum says you could have used a bit more description.

I am forcing myself to wonder, though, whether exposition might not, like cholesterol, come in good and bad flavours.

Let's begin at the beginning:

My great hero, Doug Harper, has very little to say on the subject of the origins of this simple workhorse word:
_
late 14c., "explanation, narration," from O.Fr. esposicion (12c.), from L. expositionem (nom. expositio) "a setting or showing forth," noun of action from pp. stem of exponere (see expound). The meaning "public display" is first recorded 1851 in reference to the Crystal Palace Exposition in London. Abbreviation Expo is first recorded 1963, in reference to planning for the world's fair held in Montreal in 1967._

Wiktionary's #6 definition is the one we're interested in:

_6. (writing) An opening section in fiction, including novel, play, and movie, by which background information about the characters, events, or setting is conveyed._

Merriam-Webster Online doesn't give a definition relating directly to fiction writing, but does include the following example of usage:

_This is not an easy book, and the reader may find the layers of detail challenging. There are long expositions of the knotty tangles of monarchical lineage, and the necessary chronicle of historical events occasionally consumes the novel's narrative drive. -Lucy Lethbridge, Commonweal, 23 Oct. 2009_

Urban Dictionary has only one definition, so get over there you writers and add some more! The illustrative example is, in my opinion, very telling of the low status that this word has acquired in certain contexts:

_Dialogue that gives the audience the background of the characters and the present situation.

Writing or speech intended to convey information or to explain, an explanation.

[e.g.] Vegeta provided exposition about his home planet in a flashback._

(Geek points for those who can identify the example.) read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I like to both write and read romance. There, I said it. It so happens that I rarely find romance that really appeals strongly to me, and I think that this is because the archetypal romance story has a dominance possessed of the archetype of perhaps no other genre. It is an archetype that has been appropriated and adapted, culturally and literarily, mostly for and by women. To put it another way, romance is seen as a women's genre. But is it?

I've written before on the meaning of the word erotica, but it was only once I started thinking about romance that I really found a definition of all three words that applies most of the time. This is what I suggest:

_romance_ (in any context): a story about intimate human relationships that ends positively
_erotica_: stories or other materials intended to stimulate, titillate or excite which have (or are intended to have) this effect on all genders and sexual orientations
_pornography_: stories or other materials intended to provide sexual stimulation to a single gender of a single sexual orientation

Erotica is in its intent inclusive; porn is in its intent exclusive. Romance is not about sex. But it also isn't about love. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Here's a linguistic curiosity: _devout skepticism_.

These two words are, of course, simple when taken on their own. Their meanings are little changed in the couple of thousand years they have existed for.

_devout_ is an adjective describing the attitude of someone who has made a vow towards the object of the vow

_skepticism_ is a school of Greek philosophy at whose core is the idea that nothing can be known. A skeptic, therefore has a belief: that you can have evidence, and you can create theories based on the evidence, but there is no underlying knowledge corresponding to the evidence and the theory. So you are obliged to use evidence and theory in order to get by on what is a sort of best guess at a description of reality.

Historically, this places the skeptic in opposition to the religious, since the religious asserts that you can have knowledge, that knowledge comes from God, that you can be certain of this knowledge without any evidence.

You might be forgiven for thinking, therefore, that a devout skeptic was one who doubted everything on principle. But a skeptic has neither room nor need for doubt, since he is certain that true, exact or absolute knowledge is unattainable. I'm going to attempt an example: read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_Regular readers will know that my editing blog occasionally hosts sociological or political rants that are then tenuously connected with something to do with writing. This is one such post._

The frankly bizarre case of Lennox the Dog has caused some considerable upset, and rightly so. I confess I really didn't think that the British or the Irish would stand for such a thing, and indeed an awful lot of them protested very strongly, and many took all sorts of action to seek a solution that would not result in the killing of a family pet.

I don't wish to speculate on the storm of incompetence, arse-covering, buck-passing and blinkered jobsworthing that must have been behind it.

I do, however, have some thoughts about Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). Lennox is, technically, a victim of BSL. BSL is rife in the UK and in the USA, and in both countries it is imposed variously, at both local and national levels. When you move to a new town with your family and the authorities tell you your dog can't come along, it feels like racism. Why is that? read more&#8230;


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Yep. Agreed. There are no bad dogs, just bad owners. Bet the dog would've made someone a great pet.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_This is a new series where I will give examples of standard English that are ungrammatical. I'm not talking about idiom, nor about those exceptions that escape the rules. These will not be obscure, nor exceptional, just correct English that is grammatical nonsense._

A particular feature of English tenses is that any action, past, present or future, can be either _completed_ or _continuous_ (the terms usually used when talking about English; you will understand why, I hope, by the time I've finished). When talking about other languages, or about language in general, grammarians use the terms _perfect_ and _imperfect_.

Etymologically, the word perfect just means "entirely completed" or "fully made". This is the sense in which it is used in grammar. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Traditional grammar divides verbs into two categories:

those which take a direct object, and those which do not

_I fed the dog
I beat the drum_

This distinction is used as a means of identifying transitivity. Transitivity is how an action expressed through a verb affects or changes the object of the verb. Traditional grammar sees two types of verb: those like _feed_ and _beat_, which act directly on the object, and those like talk, play which require a preposition.

So the presence of a preposition is often cited as an indication of _intransitivity_. Intransitive verbs have two properties that are common across most languages:

The verb can be used without an object:

_We talked for hours._

The verb requires a preposition to indicate its relation to the object:

_She likes to play _with_ tin soldiers._

So far so simple. But English loves to do deviant things with prepositions. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Sounds of unknown things present the narrator with a problem. You can't describe a sound accurately. Indeed, it is almost impossible to go beyond very basic onomatopoeia. So the narrator has to decide what general category of noise it is and its volume.

Is it sharp (technically, a "report") like the crack of a distant rifle? Is it a dull thud? Is it continuous? If so does it rattle, wail, drone, grind, etc?

How loud is it really? And how loud does it seem? (authors often get this wrong; for instance, your clothes make loads of noise as you move about but you don't hear it unless you're trying to be silent in a very quiet place).

How near or far is it really? How near or far does it seem?

Does it echo or resonate?

Answer some of these questions and you will be near enough without being vague, and why? read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_This is the first of three or possibly four posts that form, together, an essay about what I think is a fundamental underlying process in narration. I have yet to discover clearly what my conclusion will be. The first post is about what provoked these thoughts. Here's the usual extract:_

By happy accident, over the last month, two of the novels that I worked on both revealed and illustrated what is for me the most fundamental element of narration, and of storytelling, which is the role of memory in the process.

Both books contain high excitement, fast-moving action sequences, but the two authors take a very different approach to narrating those sequences. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I am not on the side of the author, nor on the side of the reader. I believe that the author has to fight his own corner, and in the brave new world of electronic publishing where noone needs to listen to professional critics any more (whose side were they on, anyway?), the reader has at last acquired a voice, with the result that some independent authors rewrite and republish-even entirely retelling a story-after listening to reader reaction.

I am on the side of the story.

Stories can take many forms, so knowing what a story ought to be is not a straightforward matter of applying a few patterns. My authors will know that I'm as likely to cite examples from Buffy and Xena as I am to cite Kipling or du Maurier, Homer or Chaucer, Shakespeare or Wertenbaker.

From time to time this editor comes across shining examples of what not to do when telling a story, and this post is about one of them.

Last night I stayed up a little later than I should have, watching a movie that in some ways I'm glad I watched. Which is to say that if I weren't a story editor, I probably would have said the _n hours of my life I won't get back_ thing. (I'd never say that in a review, but informally or for comic effect I might say it.)

The movie was Babylon A.D. , read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I've been agonizing over this since the previous post, as well as researching it in neurological texts and in the cognitive sciences, commentaries on them, and in philosophy. I haven't found any especially satisfying references, so* I'm not going to try to back up my synthetic hypothesis with weighty authority.

What I want to talk about is the past, the present and the future and how, or more specifically, when we experience them. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I finally got around to reading Wool, via the omnibus edition, and since singing its praises just adds another voice to a justified clamour, I thought I'd suggest, dear reader, that you take my approval and enjoyment for granted, and I'd write about the things that worried me in this book.

Warning, some of the statements in this post might qualify as spoilers. I won't give anything important away, though.

_Wool is Old School SF for the aficionado, or possibly the connoisseur, possibly some other foreign word. It evokes the sociologically centered work of golden age names like Sturgeon, Kornbluth, Aldiss, Harrison, Bova, Silverburg, EF Russell, Bradbury; work that was largely buried by the cyberpunk avalanche and its concomitant wave of high-tech high action cinema that seemed to culminate in The Matrix; at once the apotheosis and antithesis of its own genre, echoing in huge halls the cramped and solipsistic worlds of the sociofuturologists of the 1960s._

I should probably frame that last para. It's intended to exorcise the pretentious twat that lurks inside every critic, no less me. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I've been thinking and blogging recently on the role of time and of memory. I have also been thinking hard about why the order of events is so important, and why jumbling them seems to work for some writers at some times, but not for others, or not at all times.

The inspiration for this story goes, however, to the BBC's dramatization of PD James' The Skull Beneath the Skin - a curious period piece in itself that both reviles and celebrates the classic English country house murder. The following story is in no way an English country house murder. Go figure._

Cosine
by
Harry Dewulf​
It began with a bloodstained nightdress. I thought-at first I thought-that it must have been an accident. But when I reached forward to touch her-I wanted to know if she was still alive-to feel some warmth-I felt the unexpected hard resistance of a knife handle. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I'm finding increasingly with my regular clients that we spend a lot of time talking about the next book. I do this free of charge, and always will, both because I love to do it, and because frankly it's impossible to calculate an invoice for.

Anyone who wants story development advice is welcome to it, for free.

So what is it?

Like a lot of writers, I suspect, the first stories I wrote were what would today I suppose be called fanfic. (I still write fanfic from time to time, but my own writing has become a great deal more disciplined. More on that another time.) This is because it is inspired by having read a book or seen a play or a film and having thought to myself "I'd like to write something like that". As a result, I'd start with a genre, or a type of character, even a set of initial conditions (like a chemistry experiment), and start writing, and discover the story as I wrote.

This can result in a good story.

It can.

Really.

But &#8230; read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Following on from my last post, I've been asking myself how I would go about writing a good story. I have already intimated on this blog that I have written some good stories, and some bad ones. Analysis of my bad stories has revealed the following:

I have a fetish for character creation. Each time I get a cool idea for a new character I go about creating and establishing them. Sometimes my character establishment is much better than the story that it is in. There are a couple of examples here.

The other problem is that I find it all too easy to set up a dramatic event: let's say a sudden confrontation between two characters; the discovery of an accident; a surprise arrival of an unexpected guest. I think of scenes like those very easily and I can write them with as much drama and emotion as is necessary. In my bad stories, I've started with a series of events like those, established some cool characters, and then tried to build a story around them.

I don't know how common this is. But I do know that for me, this doesn't result in a good story. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

It will come as no surprise that the meanings of _substantive_ and _substantial_ are very close.

Etymologically they are very closely related: read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Living in the next village from me is an artist, Gérard Larguier. His work is quite collectable, but I know him because I've fixed his computer a few times.

Gérard's work is special and personal for me, since it helps me to think about what is, for me, the main problem with talking about stories, and with creative art in general.

memory fresco of Soulaines Dhuys

This is because Gérard does not invent, he relates. What he makes is undoubtedly art, but his graphic art is like a story. His technique is part collage, part sculpture, part painting, and it achieves the same sense of varying textures across a limited but continuous palate that you get from staring at the landscape here in rural north-east France. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I don't know if other editors get this, or if I'm just an anxious person._ Before I have even started_ reading a fresh manuscript, I start worrying about how the author will receive my comments. Not even criticisms; I just worry that I might not be able to communicate my findings.

Worse than that, I worry that I might not even find anything to say. I'm sure that's hard to believe-others tell me that I always have _something_ to say.

The biggest worry is that as a literary editor, I'm looking for something beyond errors and issues, holes and inconsistencies. I'm looking for opportunities and improvements. Supposing the book is already as good as it can be? Supposing the author already knows that? read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Got back on Tuesday from the UK where I attended a Showbiz Wedding (no, I really did. A friend I have known since we were 13 is a big comedy star in the UK). You may be aware that since I had no editing to do last week, I asked for submissions for free editing.

Several people responded, and by the time I had filled my stated quota of words, I had before me the work of four very different writers.

They will be relieved to hear that I will not be revealing anything of their work or my thoughts on their work here. That is between me and each of them.

However, I will say that I greatly enjoyed the experience. One of the main pleasures of working with new writers, and especially with indies, is read more&#8230;


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I want to publicly thank you, Harry, both for your free edit of my first novel, and for plugging it on your blog!

http://densewords.blogspot.fr/2012/11/freebies-published.html


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

This probably goes into a category in between weird words and English grammar contradictions, among the things that occasionally annoy me about English compared with the other languages I know. This post is all about negation: giving a sentence the opposite or negative meaning, preferably with a few small changes. Let's start with the Latin (it's good to start with the Latin).

_Caesar aedificare copiis pontem facebat _

"Caesar caused the troops to build a bridge"

But suppose he intended to do so, but at the last minute was prevented? The simple addition of _non_ in the right place, and the sense is inverted:

_Caesar aedificare copiis pontem non facebat _

"Caesar did not cause the troops to build a bridge"

(Part of the fun of Latin is that you can move the _non_ and change the meaning: _Caesar aedificare copiis non pontem facebat_ - "Caesar caused the troops to build something, but not a bridge" !) read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Bonus post today: What not to expect from a content editor


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I doubt very much that I need to give a plot summary of Casablanca.

The film marked me from very young; I remember watching it in my Dad's trailer*, so I must have been at some age between 11 and 15, and though that wasn't the first time I'd seen it, I remember that was the first time that I was struck by Rick's character, and the first time that I wondered _at what point did he realize he wouldn't be on that plane?_

I think he knew from the moment that Ilsa walked into the bar. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

There are very few proper English words that I can honestly say are not in my vocabulary. This is one of them. I have no idea what it means, and I have never used it in a sentence other than to say that I don't get it.

I think this falls into a weird cognitive category of words whose meaning never got firmly attached for me. There are a number of reasons for this, but in this particular case, I think it's a combination of this word not being used by anyone in my immediate family, combined with the distracting _voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant_ (the sound of the letters 'ch') at either end meaning that whenever anyone else used it, I just got hung up on the noise. Which is a weird noise. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

In my book about grammar geekery I was writing some dialog, and stumbled on the material for another whole chapter. It's a perfect example of where the good practice of descriptive grammar creates controversy where there should be none, and comes from the desire (erroneous I think) to classify "than" as one of the two common invariant particle types: preposition or conjunction. Swift loved this sort of thing.

If you view "than" as a conjunction, then it should be found between _two grammatically complete clauses_.

If you view "than" as a preposition, then it should take an accusative compliment (an object noun or pronoun), "like it does in Latin". read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_*Warning:*

While the following blog post is carefully and meticulously researched, and probably fairly accurate and mostly true, it is also a long, detailed essay about the relative merits of bows and crossbows, with only the most tenuous of links to story writing _even if_ you are writing a novel about Agincourt. I'd love to know if anyone finds it remotely interesting, though I expect noone to. _

Crossbows, Longbows and Skyrim

Some of my clients will already know that I am a ballistics geek. As crossbows have recently been added to Skyrim, and they are ludicrously overpowered for their size and mechanics, I thought I'd make a few remarks.

The common measure of the power of a bow is its draw weight. The draw weight is the force (expressed in units of weight), required to draw the string to its maximum position. This measure gives a good indication of the raw power of the weapon, but there are a lot of other factors that govern its effectiveness.

_Draw length_ is the distance that the string travels from its release position to its maximum draw position. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

The Story is my master. I serve the Story; I listen to It, I watch over It. I bewail Its sorrows, I hail Its triumphs. I chant Its words. I sing the song of the Story, for I am the Story's voice.

Stories are not something that we make. They are something that we are. They are as much part of us as the air, our food, our friends our clothing our shelter. They are our parents and our children. When we wonder what we are, it is our stories that tell us. When we wonder what a thing is man, it is our stories that give us the answer.

Something that is so much of what we want to be, what we are, and what we will become must have great value?

Recently, in the history of the story, though it may seem like a long time to us, the story has been exploited by those who are able, dimly, to perceive that it has value, but cannot see what its value really is. They have sought to make a commodity of it, and they have sought to make the greatest profit from the smallest story; the biggest reward for the smallest effort. They have done this by trying to create formulae for a stories that will have the greatest possible appeal. read more&#8230;


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## KaryE (May 12, 2012)

Hi, Harry!

I'm not sure if you'd rather have this question here, or directly on the blog. 

Could you unpack what you mean when you say that all viewpoints are 3rd Omni even when they don't look like it?  It would be particularly helpful if you could give examples in first person and 3rd limited and show / tell how it is they they're actually omni.

*uploads coffee and chocolate croissants for the crowd*

Many thanks!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

KaryE said:


> Hi, Harry!
> 
> I'm not sure if you'd rather have this question here, or directly on the blog.
> 
> ...


Hi Kary, I'm still working my way through a meaningful explanation of what I mean. I'll post it to my blog sometime soon.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I'm far from sure about this bit of literary philosophy, since it's based more on instinct than careful argument or the logical empiricism that it might appear to aspire to. Feel free to throw curve balls._

___

This post arises from the following claim, that I made in my last post:

_All stories are in 3rd person omniscient, whether you like it or not. Some stories look as if they are, and they are. Some stories look as if they are not, and they are._​
So what does this mean?

I make this statement from time to time, and it's based more on a hunch than (thus far) a cogent argument. So rather than my usual rambling edifice, I'm going to try to explain why I have this hunch, or possibly instinct.

Firstly, a story needs someone to tell it. A real person. Whether he writes on the page or recounts to the room, he is a real, physical presence.

If a story has been made up, it must have been made up by someone. Since it comes from their imagination, they must know everything about the story, because anything they don't know, they can make up. Hence omniscient. The writer is always omniscient. read more&#8230;


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

You're confusing the writer with the narrator.  In the vast majority of fiction, they're not the same thing.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Harry Dewulf said:


> Hi Kary, I'm still working my way through a meaningful explanation of what I mean. I'll post it to my blog sometime soon.


Now we're getting somewhere!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

swolf said:


> You're confusing the writer with the narrator. In the vast majority of fiction, they're not the same thing.


I can never tell when you're being serious; I think it's the avatar. In any case, I'm not doing that. If anything I'm saying that if you strip away the narrator you get a 3rd person narrative told by the writer. The narrator is a sort of mannerism.

Of course, this might be one of those things that are obvious to everyone but me. There seem to be lots of those.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I see your point, here, Harry - the writer is the "real" storyteller, and she's always a third-person figure vis-a-vis the story, even if she's writing biography (because she's writing about the past as the somewhat changed person her past experiences have made her).

The problem I see is that you're treating the third-person-omniscient narrative viewpoint as though it is not itself an artificial construct created for the purpose of narrating a story. You're presenting it as somehow more real or true to the actual situation, but in truth it's just as unreal as first- person and third-limited. The mind of the writer is omniscient vis-a-vis the story the way the Christian god is omniscient -- knowing all persons and events from outside time -- but third-person-omniscient narration isn't that kind of "knowing." That kind of knowing is capacious and alinear and is inappropriate for actual storytelling. TPO narration is still a linear and controlled release of info thru the "narrative voice," which is itself constructed for that purpose.

So I don't think we should think of TPO as the real narrative voice that undergirds all the others, which simply mascarade as being something other. But I do think it's useful to think actively about how artificial all the narrative modes are (and I don't intend "artificial" in a negative way, but just as describing some that is the product of art/artifice).

Sent from my LG-VS700 using Tapatalk 2


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Harry, In regard to longbows: Will re-curved bow tips increase the power (draw weight) of a bow?


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

jackz4000 said:


> Harry, In regard to longbows: Will re-curved bow tips increase the power (draw weight) of a bow?


Recurve enables a greater draw weight while minimizing increase in draw length and in the overall length in a straight bow. The disadvantage (in straight bows) is that it can take longer to draw (as it has to be drawn with more care) and it can also reduce accuracy. Composites and steel sprung bows (like the Indian shortbows in the Wallace Collection in London) also add power without increasing bow or draw length. Fantasy writers don't make enough use of the steel bow in my opinion.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> Recurve enables a greater draw weight while minimizing increase in draw length and in the overall length in a straight bow. The disadvantage (in straight bows) is that it can take longer to draw (as it has to be drawn with more care) and it can also reduce accuracy. Composites and steel sprung bows (like the Indian shortbows in the Wallace Collection in London) also add power without increasing bow or draw length. Fantasy writers don't make enough use of the steel bow in my opinion.


You must've been impressed by those picture of Katniss with her--what would it be--20 pound bow? She could've puntured a beer can at 20 feet with weapon like that!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

WHDean said:


> You must've been impressed by those picture of Katniss with her--what would it be--20 pound bow? She could've puntured a beer can at 20 feet with weapon like that!


(I don't agree with hunting for sport, but) I understand it is possible to kill a squirrel with BFT alone using low draw weights (20lb and under), but even at 30lb if you want to kill a deer at any sensible range you'd have to place your shot extremely well. Medieval poachers used to aim their first shot to hamper the animal, their second to make it bleed, and often would then track the injured animal for many hours before finishing it off with a knife. (Think this would make a really great short film, but not much of a mainstream movie.)

I'm told that to kill a deer with a single shot requires anything from 45lb. This suggests that Katniss wouldn't have to be built like Fatima Whitbread, but you would expect to see some striking musculature in the shoulders and arms nonetheless. I've never met (or seen a photo) of a woman who hunts with a longbow, but the physique of men who do is as distinctive as those who spend all day in the saddle; it's in how they walk and how they hold their upper body. The longbow changes skeletal development.

(Ahem; this discussion arises from the blog post: Crossbows, Longbows and Skyrim)
(Further ahem: my knowledge of the subject comes from extensive research for non-fiction and fiction editing. I don't consider myself an archery specialist.)


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I can't really post a meaningful extract from my latest blog post, not least because it begins with Becca's lucid reply to the previous one, further up this page. But I think I'm starting to get somewhere with the whole question of what underlies narrative voice, and I hope I'm continuing to be either sufficiently contentious or sufficiently naive that you smart folks will respond as helpfully as last time.

Here's the next instalment.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I'm going to be spending the holiday season writing a long-ish novella using Wattpad. The story is my personal take on the Children of the Night. It is called The Little Babylon.

I'll be adding chapters every couple of days. The next one will be on Saturday. (Usually it says "read more&#8230;" here, but this is all there is.)

I write a little and often, to keep my eye in, as it were. Just trying something a little longer, and letting you know in case my regular visitors get impatient and discover something better to do that read my blog, like, for example, _writing another chapter of your own book_.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_Best Wishes for the new year everyone! Here is the first blog post of the year. I hope it sets the tone._










From left to right, the Teletubbies are: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. The spellings are of little importance, since the show was intended for pre-readers, however those are the official spellings of the names.

From a little prior research, I know that the Teletubbies was aimed at children who had not yet learned to speak through kindergarten. Their shape, colour, and their faces, were intended to reflect the infant's perception of the world in colour, movement and in terms of the parts of the face that are the most important.

The four Teletubbies are here also arranged in order of size and therefore (presumably, since young see the size and age relationship as exactly proportional) age. The youngest, "Po" has the phonetically simplest name. "Laa-Laa" (pronounced as two "long 'a's", "Lala") is only Twice as complex, by repeating the same syllable. "Dipsy" has two syllables, but they are different, and a plosive consonant followed by a sibilant - so at least twice as complex as "Laa-Laa". read more


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Harry Dewulf said:


> _Best Wishes for the new year everyone! Here is the first blog post of the year. I hope it sets the tone._
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow, what an interesting analysis. Harry, I'm glad you use all brain power to help the forces of good!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_:: Edit: I wonder how many of you are hoping that I develop the metaphor at the end of this extract in the main article... ::_

If I was one of those no-nonsense, hard hitting, no punches pulled kind of editor, this is one of those posts where I'd claim that I was trying to get you to "face up" to a "harsh reality".

Thankfully, I don't believe in natural talent or that some writers are "innately special".

Some writers are special. It's just that there are reasons for it.

And here's why this might not be about facing a harsh reality: you might be one of them.

There is a difference. The difference between a story and "things that happen". The difference between a character and a person. The difference between narration and "saying what happened". The difference between, yes, art and reporting.

Again, I don't think art is magical. Great artists are usually extraordinary people, but it takes an extraordinary person to study their art obsessively for their whole life, in an unending and insatiable search for ever-shifting perfection. So it's hardly surprising that the people who become great artists usually bend that way.

Today, there are a lot of writers who are doing something that not everyone can do. They are inventing intriguing and engaging sequences of events involving intriguing and engaging personages, and writing those into novels using sound, clear and often lively and engaging English.

And don't get me wrong - there is room on the virtual bookshelf for them. But what they are creating is, to put it dryly, lacking an extra dimension that is found in the classics of literary art. To put it more colourfully, what they are creating is a microwave lasagna. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

My son (13) is taking a look at some of the stories written by my customers, as part of the lit. crit. syllabus of his home schooling.

Among his various insights was that people didn't seem to know what year it was; instead they say "it were nobbut three summers gone" or "he'll be of age two winters hence". Even after I pointed out that the stories were set in a fantasy world more or less analogous to Medieval Europe (aren't they all?*), he insisted that people would have known what year it was even if they weren't themselves literate.

The convention of "rural folk" using "charming" expressions like these seems to have been a largely nineteenth century invention (I find very few references to it before then, but it seems to explode after Thomas Hardy. I've searched the text of four Hardys without finding it in them, yet books that are described as "reminiscent of Hardy" all seem to contain it!).

Indeed we have historical and archaeological evidence that people have know what year it was going back thousands of years. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_If the tone of this post is not in keeping with my usual stuff, then it's because I originally wrote this as an attempt at a wikiHow. My attempt was, I think, a little too wordy to satisfy the sensibly rigorous simplicity requirement of wikiHow, but I wrote it because the original how was, in my NVHO, completely wrong._

== Introduction ==

All writers and readers realize the importance of writing strong descriptions of characters and settings. To a reader, a vivid description seems well-imagined, and helps to picture either a person or a place. It may at first seem counter-intuitive, but what you expect to be a good description is all too often the opposite.

Readers do not usually "picture" a character when they are reading; they don't imagine all the visual details of the person. They get a vaguer, more general "feel" for what the character looks like. Even when the character has an important physical attribute like being very tall, or very blond, or wearing round spectacles, the reader often won't imagine the character like that. read more


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2013)

Impressive blog, you are certainly a very intelligent person. Why the advice against talking about hair color though, any particular reason?


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

glutton said:


> Impressive blog, you are certainly a very intelligent person. Why the advice against talking about hair color though, any particular reason?


People react differently to hair and eye colour. Unless it's going to be a _motif_ of your descriptions ("bombardier blue eyes", "yellow haired warrior", etc), in which case the reader will tend to ignore it because the repetition suggests a physical feature that goes against type, and as a result readers who are usually put off by flowing golden locks on their gritty NY detectives see it as a queer but ultimately unimportant quirk of nature - a cause of the character's "specialness" rather than a consequence or a proof of it.

I sometimes get the impression that some writers feel that this sort of discourse is for literary fiction only, and that in "pulp" or "genre fiction" what readers want is to "see" the characters and think their physical appearance is "cool" - like the lineup of the heroes of a Saturday morning cartoon. Personally I don't distinguish between "literary fiction" and "all the rest". All fiction is literary. What used to be called "pulp" was, after all, imitation of recognized and often innovative literary styles (like Chandler, mentioned in the thread about height). I distinguish between writing that is conscious of its technique and writing that is unconscious of it. Both types can be extraordinarily good or worthlessly mediocre or anywhere in between.

Reasons for excluding hair colour would be:


You chose the colour because you like it
You chose the colour because you think readers will like it
You just imagine the character with that colour

The third one might seem like the most legitimate reason but in fact it is the worst, for reasons that I gave in my blog post (the most recent, above).

If, on the other hand, the reason is that you think it might:


suggest something about the character's personality
create a desirable association in the reader's mind

these are very strong reasons for giving a colour.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Regular readers (to whom I must apologise for irregular posting recently) will know that I am a bit of a gamer. Not a hardcore gamer. I'm devoted to a few specific titles:


Civilization (which for me peaked at Test of Time), though V was quite good)
The Battle for Wesnoth
Nethack (which I have been playing this afternoon as I often do when I am unwell)
Assassin's Creed
The Elder Scrolls (Skyrim in particular; I came late to the series, starting from Blivvy)
The Total War series (so affected have I been by this, the apogee of strategy games, that I vividly remember buying Shogun Total War (the first title in the series) in WH Smiths in Chipping Norton Highstreet).
Deus Ex

Deus Ex is the title I'm going to talk about this time, but before I do:

For me, gaming is about two things: the learning curve and the story. The durability of Nethack derives from the sheer number of variables in each playthrough. It's learning curve is pretty sharp, and very, very long. What gave Civ its durability is the combination of story with strategy with learning curve, and according to what strategy you start with, the middle game can vary enormously.

The Elder Scrolls is fantasy roleplaying WITH dressing-up. There are huge numbers of stories to explore, quests to fulfil, tasks to complete. I still haven't done all of them and this is partly because I always refuse some quests because they don't sit well with my personal morality. That is a measure of how immersive it is. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Fantasy authors and those who have studied theatre, film, poetry or literature will likely already be very familiar with the term.

I was talking to a new customer yesterday about the relationship between storyteller and listener, between author and reader, and the discussion led me to call into question the idea of "willing suspension."

Certainly, some curious cognitive effort is going on when we are presented with a fantastical story. Somehow we are quite happy to accept that Enterprise is hurtling through space at Warp factor 9 (despite Scotty's insistence that this canna be done), provided that the behaviour of the bridge crew is consistent with our understanding of the characters. Why do we accept the unreal along with the real? And why are we happy to accept the unreal as an equal part of the plot, the action, even of the active agents of the story, along with what we know to be real or possible?

It is said that we are willing to suspend our disbelief if the rest of the circumstances of the story are sufficiently convincing. Honestly, I don't think any such willing choice is being made. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Watch the [movie trailer]. Then read the review. [links on my blog]

I have strictly nothing to say about the Mortal Instruments books, just as I have strictly nothing to say about the Twilight books. I haven't read either and (as my clients will attest) I don't give a tinker's cuss about originality. I only care about whether a book works.

Disclaimers out of the way, I intend to make a serious point about communicating with your audience. We'll see if I succeed.

___

I was looking for a movie to go see with the boy. We're pretty catholic in our tastes, so I look at the trailers of pretty much whatever is on at the nearest multiplex (Saint Dizier). I think we'll probably go see the new Cruiser vehicle. Since the absurd (but not wholly dreadful) Knight and Day (2010) and the even less dreadful Tropic Thunder (200 where the presence of the consistently terrible Mr Stiller is more than mitigated by Messrs Black, Downey Jnr, Nolte and indeed, Cruise, I have discovered that I actually don't hate Cruise any more. Feel free to miss Knight and Day, but if you haven't seen Tropic Thunder, rent it even if you hate Stiller as much as I do. Which is a lot. read more&#8230;


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Very good point about blurbs, Harry. I will take it to heart with the next one I write.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

This vaguely grammatical title comes with the following health warning: my access to "industry insiders" is limited to a handful of people who either don't want to be quoted or will only comment anonymously. I'm trying to change that but I suspect more trust has to develop first. My own experiences, vicariously through my clients, however, give me a pretty good view of the current state of the marketplace, and, of course, I rely heavily on the statements of contributors to forums like KBoards.

But before I look at that, here's today's Home Truth:

_There is not now, and never has been before now, a mechanism whereby an author who deserves to be read can be sure of being read by the readers who deserve to read him._

Because books require a medium, regardless of what it is, some additional work that has little or nothing to do with the process of creating literature is always required and someone has to do it. The availability and competence of those people (whether the author himself or a third party) can all to easily have an effect on distribution and sales that is not in proportion with the quality of the art. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Beta-reading has become a stable and staple part of the indie publishing process, and a good thing, too. Whether you pay for it or not (a few of my peers offer it as a paid service) it is a reasonable and efficient way to get a view on whether a book is "working".

There is a fundamental difference between reading a book that is published, and that you have chosen to pay for and read, and reading a book that someone has asked you to read, or is paying you to read.

Who (of the countless myriad readers of my modest blog) has never picked up a book and begun reading, out of curiosity, boredom, on a recommendation or a whim, only to abandon it after a few pages or even after a few chapters?

When that happens, at least some of the time it can be blamed on the book, and if I want to be really generous, I will say: "_that book didn't work for you._"

Before you engage the services of a content editor (which ought to be costly - another post is in preparation about that), its good to get some idea of whether the book is working, and the beta reader can do that for you.

So why "unpaid" ? read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

For the second time in as many months, a new customer has said to me something along the lines of:

"You weren't the cheapest option, but I guess good work costs."

In reality I suspect that there are two ways of getting a good edit: for free, or by paying what the job is really worth.

You can get a good edit for free. Generally speaking, when someone does you a favour, they do it conscientiously. (Is that really naive of me? I hope not.) I'd be inclined to suppose, though I admit on no evidence, that this is more true for a copy edit than for a literary* edit.

If you pay someone for an edit, there is a very simple way to work out if you are paying enough.

(1) In the USA, the minimum wage is $ 7.25 an hour. If someone quotes you $ 200 for an edit of your 75,000 word book, 
(2) that's a total of 27 and a half hours or 2,727 words per hour. 
(3) That sort of speed is perfectly "possible".

read more&#8230;


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_I know that it is unbecoming, but I am very pleased with myself that I managed to get a serious point about character dynamics into a post that is otherwise hardly related to creative writing at all..._

Here's an excellent example of point and counterpoint, and the critical sense, in argument. Read the two articles:

Why French kids don't have ADHD (link active in my blog)
French kids do have ADHD (link active in my blog)

Both are from Psychology Today's website.

In the first article, the writer argues that there are hardly any cases of ADHD in France and that this is because of better traditional parenting values. The argument seems pretty strong, and pretty convincing.

In the second, the expert professional opinion seems to run counter to the strong implication (of the first article) that there is "no ADHD problem" in France, and states that French parenting can mitigate the symptoms of ADHD in an ideal case, but may cause other problems if the ADHD is related to a pathology that should be pharmacologically treated.

Both of these articles impressed me for their focus, clarity and simplicity. Both, also, ring all my critical alarm bells. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

densewords website (www.densewords.com) has just undergone a significant overhaul. Mostly what's changed is the underlying structure; the visuals haven't changed all that much, and most of the content is the same, however I've added another "author page" for DA & MP Wearmouth, whose new title is apparently _doing okay_: read the rest here (including the sales ranks)


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I have often been at pains to point out (cliché) that a content edit can't make a book into a success. An editor can do a great deal to find and eliminate issues that will make a book fail, and also, of course, show the author what to do to make it better.

One of the joys of working with indie authors is that since most of the time the authors are not expecting massive sales, most of the time they aren't seeking them, either. The pressure is on the editor to help the author to improve his craft, not to help him improve his sales figures.

So I claim no credit whatsoever in the events that unfolded over my week of vacation in the mountains of Alsace (which are very pretty, by the way, and well worth a visit; perhaps not the most dramatic of the mountains available in north west Europe but possessed of an unselfconscious charm that - probably best not to get me started).

Darren and Marcus Wearmouth hit the big red button on First Activation on August 7th. You can get full and detailed information on the launch and promotion strategy from the podcast and program notes on Rocking Self Publishing. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_A new occasional series for my blog. I often find myself recommending books and authors to my authors, and most usually in order to influence or inform their style or teach them something that I think is important about storytelling. This post is about the author I recommend most often._

Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976) is arguably the worlds most famous crime writer, and you could probably still make a strong case for her being the worlds most famous author even today, 35 years after her death.

For authors, Christie's importance is not so much her enduring popularity, but her mastery of her craft. The cynic might argue that her success had a lot to do with being one of the most prolific authors in the most popular genre through the mid twentieth century's pulp fiction boom - she published new works from 1922 through to 1973. If you publish at least one novel every year for 53 years (and Christie published a lot more than that) then provided they are any good, your popularity can climb steadily.

Through her regular successes, Christie soon learned what the public wanted, even to the extent of occasionally mocking public tastes (The Big Four (1927) is a brutal mockery of the excesses of pulp crime fiction) and even mocking her own work (the recurring character Ariadne Oliver is a crime writer whose most famous character is "vegetarian Finnish detective" Sven Hjerson - Christie poking fun at herself and her "OCD Belgian detective" Hercule Poirot).

Her understanding of what the public wanted in a detective novel may well be a deciding factor in her popular success, but that isn't the reason why I tell my authors to read her. read more&#8230;


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

Harry Dewulf said:


> _A new occasional series for my blog. I often find myself recommending books and authors to my authors, and most usually in order to influence or inform their style or teach them something that I think is important about storytelling. This post is about the author I recommend most often._
> 
> Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976) is arguably the worlds most famous crime writer, and you could probably still make a strong case for her being the worlds most famous author even today, 35 years after her death.
> 
> ...


Harry, if a writer were to only going to read one of her books, which should it be?


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

For plot, And Then There Were None wins hands down, I reckon.


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## Not Here Anymore (May 16, 2012)

Just recently read Murder on the Orient Express for the first time and loved it. (Just my .02!)


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

For plot, I'd tend to agree with Lydniz, ATTWN, or They Do it With Mirrors (though there are so many films of this one you probably know it already). For strength of storytelling, probably Sleeping Murder or Crooked House. Death on the Nile or Death in Paradise are both full of great examples of her skill as a writer. On balance I think I'd probably go with Death on the Nile.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Authors Writers I recommend to my Authors #2: Jonathan Meades

"Torrentially articulate" is how he was described (by Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian Newspaper) on the appearance of the first "Abroad" series. Meades has a mastery of English whose match I have never heard. Of all the writers I know, he is the only one where I never really care what he is talking about - though it always fascinates and entertains - because listening to his English is like listening to Bach's Well Tempered Keyboard; it has been perfected with practice. Every word slots into your listening senses with not only precision, but care.

Meades' urbanity; his appearance of disinterest; his trademark suit and trademark gait; his lazy old-fashioned middle-class tones act as an inverted camouflage to his passion for his subject matter. Some writers may be said to make the language work for them. Meades makes his meaning work for him. read more&#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

It is that time of year where we in Lorraine start to collect ripe fruit and turn it into other things. People who follow me on twitter will know that I make Jam whenever possible, though I seldom eat Jam. Much of our Jam is given away to people who, we hope, eat Jam more often than we eat Jam, but many of them, I suspect, find that Jam is as adequate an unexpected gift as we do. And pass it on.

Recently I sent a parcel of Jam to someone in England. But I suspect he might actually eat some of it. Or at least try one pot and then give the other one to a friend who, he has reason to suppose, likes Jam.

One year in three or so, we have a very large crop of Mirabelles. The Mirabelle Plum (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) is the Patron Fruit of Lorraine. There are two main types, the Metz (which is sweeter and smaller) and the Nancy (which as it ripens develops an attractive "blush") on the yellow skin. We have two trees of the Nancy type. This year there were so many that several branches broke.

So I made Jam. Quite a lot of Jam, actually. read more&#8230;


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

You're from Lorraine, Harry? My great-grandfather was from Alsace and we still have family there, so I've been in the area several times and know both Metz and Nancy.

Anyway, I loved your post. And I actually know what mirabelle plums are and that they make great wine and brandy, though they're not all that common in my area.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_First, I apologize for the title of this post; I was careful to put it in scare quotes, but understand that in spite of the impression you might have got of me from my recent interview on Rocking Self-Publishing, the title of this post is an accurate representation of how I really talk._

I know I have already intimated that I am a regular reader of webcomics, and I may even have listed my regulars somewhere.

Among those is the generally excellent Wapsi Square. Wapsi went from being a carefully* drawn casual webcomic about a "small group of twenty-somethings getting up to hijinx with obligatory supernatural mascot" to a beautifully and distinctively drawn comic with a sense of humour that regularly deals with serious subject matter through supernatural (and increasingly allegorical) storylines that occasionally seem to retcon the only medium that can't be convincingly retconned. As such, you have to keep up to date or you can find yourself in big trouble. read more&#8230; (warning the title is uncensored on my blog... but pretty inoffensive I think)


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

Bow's require different muscles, once I brought over a Clemson football player to my house with his girlfriend present to show him that large muscles sometimes are not enough. I had a Matthews FX I believe it was called, a few years ago, anyway the bow was set to just under 65 lbs and I stood up and pulled it all the way back ten times. Next I set on the bed where I had my bows displayed in a bow cabinet I made. I proceeded to pull the bow back ten times sitting on the bed. I told him to stand and Pull it back ten times but don't let the string go and break my bow. The poor musclebound football player strained so hard and turned colors, shaking back and forth to impress his lady, He could not pull it back and his lady just snorted at him.  If you start young you can pull back a high weight bow because your muscles develop and allow you to shoot the bow.

Some states have requirements on the weight of the bow used for hunting season, I believe most are requiring somewhere between 40 to 50 lbs. The recuve bow is very hard to shoot accurately and it requires you to get very close to your target, less than 20 yards. Most hunters make to much noise and scare the animal away long before then. A compound bow with sights and a release you can shoot accurately at 30yards. People shoot 3 Darchery with it at 40 to 50 yards but their accuracy is dismal.

Every man should have a good bow and good dog, women are optional.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

... and end up generally rambling on, as usual.

A few weeks a go, I worked for the first time with (yet another) Florida Keys Noir Crime writer Jessica Argyle. It's okay. I love that stuff. And Jessica's book is as close to proper literary fiction as self-conscious modern genre fiction gets. No Name Key is part history, part crime, part sweaty-insect-bitten-marooned-in-the-everglades drama. It may be a little retro, but it is also shouting for the core of the women's movement.

Not really shouting, actually. It's more that kind of throaty growl of a she-wolf hidden in a thicket that means "we both know you know I'm here; don't make me come out there."

No Name Key is a damn fine book and I'm impatient for its publication.

Anyway, when my authors go to the trouble of recommending a book to me, I generally have a damn good go at actually reading it, and Jessica suggested I read Miami Purity by Vicki Hendricks.

This is where I try to review it. read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

_First an apology. I've been nagging Dawn McCullough-White to write a sequel to The Emblazoned Red. This is partly because I really like this book and partly because I really like Dawn's work in general. There's something very particular about the experience of reading it; an atmosphere, a sense of presence, that seems to be unique to her style and presentation, and imagination.

My apology is that while I have already mentioned the book on my blog, until today, the cover was not on the right hand column of [my blog]. I don't know what difference, if any, that would make to readers discovering this book that certainly deserves to be discovered, but it's something I ought to have done, and have not.

I'm also apologizing to Ray Kingfisher, whose excellent, slick, funny Easy Money has also not shown on this page. Easy Money is dedicated to the late Tom Sharpe who died in June of this year. If you read it, you will see why._

The Emblazoned Red is a book that manages to combined the defining characteristics of several genres into a coherent, convincing, artfully imagined world. But it really doesn't conform to any of those genres. It reads like a regency romance, but the main character is an armoured knight who fights the undead and falls in love with a pirate.read more &#8230;


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Although I'm starting out with some (I hope) helpful guidelines to avoid the common pitfalls of direct speech, this is a post about the problems of direct thought.

DST is a note that almost all my authors get, though some more often than others. It is short for:

*Direct Speech / Tagging*

and indicates that there is one of a range of problems relating to direct speech, of which the most common is a lack of paragraph breaks and the second most common is a false tag.

The remedy for a lack of paragraph breaks is fairly simple. There is a rule, and a guideline.

The rule is that *direct speech said by different people must be separated by a paragraph break*.

_"You're always so mysterious Poirot!"

"Patience, my dear Hastings."_

The guideline is that *a paragraph that includes both direct speech and narration should be mostly direct speech.*

_"Do, please, take a seat." Poirot fussed with the ornaments on his desk, aligning them carefully with the edges. "Now you must tell me everything you know. It is of the utmost importance. You can be honest with Papa Poirot."_

I used this example because it includes a _false tag_. A true speech tag states who spoke. It can also provide a modifier to the speech - provided the modifier alters the effect of the statement. read more &#8230;


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

I just finished your last post on direct/indirect thought.  It made me reconsider how much I use direct thought, so thank you!  I do have a question though.  Most of the instances where I use direct thought, I've kind of done some of the indirect things too and still want a specific idea conveyed.  And though I realize that actual thought is so much more than just a verbal idea, I guess I always assumed that actually talking to oneself was sort of universal.  So I guess my question is, should I go back through all these instances where I use direct thoughts and try to rewrite them all using indirect thought, or is it ever okay to have a sort of combination?  Is it an all or nothing sort of thing or a use sparingly sort of thing?


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

dkgould said:


> I just finished your last post on direct/indirect thought. It made me reconsider how much I use direct thought, so thank you! I do have a question though. Most of the instances where I use direct thought, I've kind of done some of the indirect things too and still want a specific idea conveyed. And though I realize that actual thought is so much more than just a verbal idea, I guess I always assumed that actually talking to oneself was sort of universal. So I guess my question is, should I go back through all these instances where I use direct thoughts and try to rewrite them all using indirect thought, or is it ever okay to have a sort of combination? Is it an all or nothing sort of thing or a use sparingly sort of thing?


The only all or nothing for me is conscious choice. Every technique you use, every device, every conceit, should be a matter of conscious choice. It should have the effect on the reader that you desire, and it should be designed, selected and structured with that effect in mind.

I think there are probably people who have learned to, as you put it, talk to themselves _because_ they think it's what everybody does. I suspect the reality is that there is a broad spectrum: from people suffering from a mania where they obsessively narrate everything to themselves, right the way through to those who only use words when talking and writing. I'm closer to the latter than the former


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

My missus, who is French, is very proud of the fact that, along with temperature and secretary, she can pronounce literature correctly. All three words are pretty difficult for most foreigners and more horrifying than Cube Zero to French people.

But literature is a pet hate of mine.

"Do you," people ask me, "edit literary fiction as well as genre fiction?"

"How," authors complain, "can I cross over from pulp to literature?"

"It's not literature," readers excuse themselves, "but it's what I like to read."

Definition #4 from Wiktionary knows what I'm talking about:

4. Written fiction of a high standard.
_However, even "literary" science fiction rarely qualifies as literature, because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories. - Adam Cadre, 2008_

Read more

______________

_Previous post (less than a week ago, so aggregated):_

Imagination and Description 

My theatrical training, in particular studying the theory of theatre, is I think what gives me a particular view of the relationship between the writer's imagination and the reader's imagination.

In the theatre, regardless of where the play is performed, the action takes place in an imaginary space. At first, in workshop and rehearsal, the actors develop a shared imagination of the space, so that by the time they get to the first performance, where one character sees a living oak tree, so the actor sees it, and all the other actors on the stage also see it. Each actor might see a slightly different shade of green, but the experience works for them because they all agree that it is the same tree.

read more

______________

Also, hear me pontificate! I was a guest on Self Publishing Round Table last week!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I again found myself faced with the "Parable of the Professional Photographer" in the context of a discussion of the impact/future/durability of e-books and self-pub.

The Parable recounts the story of the appearance of digital cameras and its impact on professional photographers, and, in accordance with the prejudice or intended conclusion of the teller, shows how digital photography:

1. Is here to stay

and either:

2a. Will eventually be used by all professional photographers
2b. Will eventually be used by all except the best professional photographers
2c. Will be an important tool to professional photographers but never completely replace film
2d. Will differentiate between "art" photographers and mere "snapper for hire"
2e. Makes all forms of photography available to everyone, thereby putting all professional photographers out of business
2f. and so on.

People draw whatever conclusions they want from the Parable. But the main reason for trotting it out when discussing the new self-pub landscape is in order to say that e-Book self pub is not vanity pub as is here to stay.

But they are not analogous. read more


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## Carol M (Dec 31, 2012)

Great posts! Thank you!


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

I have no bookings for the next six weeks so I'm offering half price editing first come first served. Available from now until the end of July. [email protected] or PM me.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

From July 2014, my minimum price for a full content edit has crept up just a little, from 0.0115 EUR per word to 0.0121, or approx. 660 USD for 40k words (~0.0165 USD per word).

In addition, I am formally adding a new service and a new payment arrangement:

*One Shot Read and Comment*

This is a content edit, where I read and analyse your manuscript and focus my analysis on a few critical factors. More details on my website. This is offered at a fixed rate of 0.005 USD per word.

*Payment by Royalty Split*

Subject to my accepting your manuscript, I am offering four of these per year, and the next one available will be Q4 2014. The split is an "earn out + bonus" arrangement. On seeing your manuscript, I will set a fee for my edit. Once your book is launched, royalties are split 50/50 until my fee is paid, then 10% (the 'bonus') until the first anniversary of the book launch. If my fee is not paid by the first anniversary, then I will write it off. In other words, you have nothing further to pay. To be absolutely explicit: if the book sells zero copies in the first year, you don't pay me anything, ever for that book.

This arrangement is intended both to encourage new writers to take a more businesslike approach to selling their books, and to defray the costs of free edits, which I want to be able to continue to give. As such it isn't really suitable for authors who are already making a steady income - you will probably lose out.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Since I'm working on a big project for next year (announcement pending, watch this space), for the rest of this year I won't be taking any more bookings for full content edits. However  I'm offering my "read and comment" service (0.005 USD/word) and since I want to fill up my schedule, I may be dropping the price further, until January 6th 2015.

I'm also looking for anyone interested in guest posting on the blog of the new service I'm gearing up to launch next year. If you enjoy writing about writing and want to direct some traffic your way, I think it will be worth your while. All this will get less cryptic in due course!

PM or email me, and feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

A couple of weeks ago I got a follow on my twitter @densewords (a rare event) from @kevandsteve. Curious as to what their "Indie Publishing Adventure" might be, I checked out their various podcasts via their website.

Kev and Steve are new to fiction and are entering the self-pub world with a spirit of adventure and experimentation. Their magnificent octopus is officially released today.

Read More


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

*Early Diagnosis - $147*​
Once you have started writing your first draft,​Send me: 

The first 5000 words of your book

A one page outline of the story
I will send you:

An intense edit of your first 5000 words

Pointers, suggestions and pitfalls
You will write the rest of your manuscript knowing that you have already addressed and eliminated a variety of issues of style, technique and process that would otherwise have cost you a lot more in editing and redrafting.

I have set aside time to do one of these every week. Book yourself in now, and write your first 5k.

_ _ _ ​
Two things come up over and over again when I talk to new writers about the process of self publishing. _read more..._


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

A year of sporadic berating, bemoaning, chivvying and chiving (is that a word?) has made, as usual, no difference to my authors' publication schedules. However, the last quarter of the year, no less than four of them have pulled their fingers out in order to bite the bull in hand. Two in December. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

Working as I occasionally do as a translator of contractual and other legalese documents, I occasionally come across the English word escrow.

It is a noun, defined by my dictionary as:

_a bond, deed, or other document kept in the custody of a third party and taking effect only when a specified condition has been fulfilled._

However this term has a tendency to terrify the French, because there is a French word, escrow which is defined by my dictionary (translated from the French, bien entendu):

_person who commits, or is in the habit of committing, confidence tricks or petty fraud._

As I'm sure you can imagine, my French customers hardly want their legal arrangements in any way associated with petty fraud or cons. read more


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## Harry Dewulf (Oct 4, 2010)

If you have a question for me, post it here or via twitter @densewords #askdewulf


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