So instead you're talking about me, personally, and declaring that what I have to say is "dogma and rhetoric, while your own views are, of course, pure and accurate? Look at how many times you highlight "you." Not a word about any specific technique I've mentioned. Not a word about the people I quote. Only a personal attack against me and anything I might say here or in my blog. Were I, or anyone else to say anything like that about another member you would, without hesitation, chop that poster from this site. I'm talking about what it takes to please an acquiring editor, according to the professionals of the business. You're talking about me. And you're relegating the teachings of some of the most honored educators in the profession to a difference of opinion, or a religious view, where all opinions are equally valid. Given the number of people who have become successful by making use of the craft of the writer as a publisher views them, as against those who form a consensus among those who have not acquired that knowledge, it would seem obvious that you can choose to not use the tools you own but cannot make use of the tool whose existence you aren't even aware of. This discussion isn't of my choosing. I didn't attack or denigrate anything you've said. But the reverse isn't true. I simply responded to the poster's question. and as usual, a small group of those who believe that they will someday be successful if they continue with their own personal views make the usual personal attacks. And of course if I respond that makes me a villain. Seems to me that if we limit what we say to the subject and let the viewer decide who to believe—and discuss the message, not the messenger—none of this would have happened. I, invariably suggest that the hopeful writer take the time to try it the publisher's way first. You disagree. That's your right. But calling my views, as a whole, dogma and rhetoric isn't a discussion, it's a attempt to silence a dissenting voice. If you want to discuss writing technique I'd be more than happy to oblige. That is, after al one of the purposes of the general writing forum. Certainly, I've not learned anything from people who agree with me. But wasting time tossing mud simply because you dislike one o the posters is a waste of time and changes the entire tenor of the site, while hardly serving those who come here for help in becoming a more skilled writer.
Naaa. You say something people like, no matter the forum, they push the like button. I find it interesting that you're working to discount the people who did like those posts without knowing what they read to make them do that, or even if what I said was accurate. Seems a lot like finding fault with the messenger without having read the message. Surely you're not saying that the people who liked my posts should be discounted, while yours are simply people who noticed your superior qualities? To repeat what I've said so often: I'm not giving my opinion as to writing craft, but passing on what the establishment has to say. I'm only giving my own opinion when I label it as such. I'm passing on what authors, agents, and editors have told me, plus what such teachers as Bickham and Swain say. I believe strongly in education, both formal and informal. Making such suggestions was something I did for my clients until I retired. And as I mentioned earlier, I have one person so far this year who, because he educated himself in what publishers are looking for has a publishing contract. Usually there are a few each year. They're not people following my advice, other then to take the time to learn the craft of writing fiction for the printed word. Is it any wonder that people who take the time to look at the books and articles I suggest push the like button? They're not liking me, they're pleased that they've been directed to useful knowledge. Now do you see what I'm getting at?
No. No. No. My highlighting of the word you (and its various derivations) in that first post was to point out the logical fallacy in supporting a point being made by you with you yourself as the cited source of proof. Nice try at misdirection, but this isn’t my first rodeo. Your argument was logically fallacious and a sophomoric bid at self-promo-ing your franchises. The klieg light remains on that bit, much as you might try to turn it off-stage. So I can disagree… … but I can’t voice the why of that disagreement? I’m going to have to get that martyr’s robe refit. I don’t think you’re the same size as the last one to don it. No. Saying that your endlessly iterated dogma is exactly that is not silencing your voice. It is using my own. I’ve not deleted your post, have I? Seems to me that it’s there. You had your say and your say remains in place despite the vertigo inducing twists and turns you've given to my words. You are factually in error, sir. You have not been silenced. You have been given a differing view that does not fit with the one to which you hold with religious zeal (you did at least catch that bit). You are feeling chafed at having been called out twice (and I guess now thrice) in argumentation that is logically broken. This sits poorly with you. Understandable. Wow. Pots and kettles.
@JayG It's hard for me to follow your posts. Could you please stop quoting within the quote you are replying to? Thanks.
Dude, you've seriously misunderstood everything what I've been trying to say, so I'm going to try once more, and hopefully it'll get through this time. If not, I can't help it (maybe it's a sign that I need more practice as a writer ). It's great you have a great post / like -ratio, okay? And the people who have liked your posts, they didn't do anything wrong, there's nothing wrong with them liking your posts, and, well, it's all good, okay? What I am trying to get across is that so many posters here, who actually have good advice to share about writing, also post a lot in meaningless chitchat threads, topics discussing their favorite movies, posting their favorite music, arguing about recipes, talking about beer, girls, men etc. etc, i.e. posts that usually don't get likes because they're just everyday stuff that doesn't usually help anyone, but those posts still increase their post count. Can you see how that distorts their post / like -ratio in comparison to someone who mostly posts into writing-related threads, usually helping out others, offering advice (be it good or bad, doesn't matter one bit in this context)? The fact that someone has, say, 10 000 posts and 100 likes is no indication of their skill level, the amount of knowhow they possess about writing, the publishing business etc. taken that most of those 10 000 posts are not related to writing. Also add to that what @thirdwind said; the like system is very new, so new members have far superior post / like -ratios in comparison to old members who have lots more posts but fewer likes since back in ye olden times the like system was so different, it didn't really translate into the new system, so it's only natural that, say, your and my post / like -ratios are better than those of plenty of active older members here, but does that mean we are superior to them as sources of writing-related info? I don't think so. That kind of data wouldn't fly in any academic discourse. Okay, that's about as clearly as I can put it. So again, I'm taking nothing away from you, just saying that someone with a lesser post / like -ratio isn't necessarily an ignorant douchebag and that someone with a great post / like -ratio just might be, depending on how and where and when they got their likes, how, when, and where they posted their messages, who saw them, who liked them etc. Some even have friends here and they often like each other's posts more than those of folks they don't know. That, too, distorts the whole post / like -ratio, so hence it's not a reliable or even valid way to judge a person's qualifications as a source of writing-related information and knowledge. That's it, over and out. ETA: @JayG, I fixed your quote tags.
And I repeat, oh Great and Mighty Misdirector, since you have come to a conclusion so profoundly non-sequitur that it would seem you did not even read his post... You've missed your calling, sir. Put down the pen and take up prestidigitation. I see a huge future for you thither.
@Wreybies, you joke, but ask @Garball and @GingerCoffee, I'm psychic! It's real. The truth is out there.
I can only testify that you have claimed to have this skill. If you actually had it you should concentrate on winning James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge.
That is not true! I can go back and find in a message that when I sent you a message, you said, "You must be psychic I was just about to message you!"
I don't deny making that statement. But keep in mind, my stating, "you must be" in that case would only refer to a single observed event. In order to confirm the hypothesis, one needs to rule out coincidence and rule in causation.
It's fairly simple, really. We're all readers. So if reading taught us the process of creating a work of fiction we would all be selling our work—or at least a higher percentage than there are would be doing it. Of course I do. A look at someone's writing will show, in a paragraph or two, if they're still writing with business writing techniques we all learn in school, or if not, how knowledgeable they are. A look at yours, for example, says you're not. Acquiring editors can do it in a line or three. And I've talked to a few who are proud of the fact that they reject most work before the end of the first pararaph. And an insignificant number have been published who took no meaningful steps to learn their craft. So what's your point? Sure only a few will make it. But you have to know what you're doing to even get into the game. It's tiny because out of every hundred submissions 97 aren't written on a professional level and two of the remaining three are wrong for that house. You need to work with real-world data. In fact, you might want to read this excerpt from DMYM because he has interesting things to say about the industry that are directly applicable to your argument. With those first four words you establish that you haven't taken the simple and basic step every writer should, which is to talk to the people who know, the agents and editors. I've sat down to lunch with a few, like Noah Lukeman and Donald Mass (Don is a great guy and a fascinating speaker). Maybe it's because I have an engineering background, and know that Mother Nature has no patience with guesswork. Were you to attend any writing conference you could sit in the room with publishers and agents who make their living by knowing what the market is and how it functions. And the information they have to give is invaluable. And that beats the hell out of "it seems to me," because it's real.
at the same table, chatting personally with them?... or only as one of many attending a writing conference lunch, as you sat 'in the room' but with no personal 'face time' with either of the name-dropped guys?
Being a published writer doesn't guarantee one is a good writing teacher, just as being an excellent writing teacher doesn't require one be a best selling author. As for learning by reading, without some research to back your claim up I'd have to say it's likely fallacious logic. I read with a different eye now that I've started learning to write. "Business writing technique"? What school did you go to? Thanks for changing your quoting, by the way.
My apologies for going back to the beginning of this, I'm late to the debate. The problem I see here is defining 'expert'. It is so loosely defined in this discussion as to be meaningless. The problem with Lisle's statement is without defining professional and expert, it lacks meaning. Clearly Lisle has some stereotypical definitions in mind, but even if we know what they were, they're stereotypes. They don't apply across the board. Stephen King and Orson Card are professionals, but I didn't find their advice for writers series useful at all. Other people rave about them. The best writing advice in a book I've seen so far is Lisa Cron's "Wired for Story". Besides her blog, I believe it is the only book she's published. But her credentials aren't shabby. http://wiredforstory.com/ Here's what she wrote on her bio and why she and I see eye to eye: That's not something I got from Card's and King's writing advice. Their advice was to flesh your character out, build an interesting world, and conflict conflict conflict. Those are important, of course, but you only need to tell me once and I get it. What Cron adds to that is the inner workings of the story, the meaning of the conflict, the reason we hate or love a character. I'm a new older writer. One skill I come with though is, I know how to learn. I also know a tiny bit about how to teach, there is a science to teaching. Learning to write is, as learning anything, individual. By that I mean, what works for one doesn't necessarily work for everyone. As for writing forums, I only have this one to go by. There are some very insightful writers on this forum. And, there are a lot of other people. Then there are a few who insist they are experts, with some skill and insight but not necessarily as much as they apparently believe. It doesn't take long to figure out whose advice is sound and whose one should take with a grain of salt. But even with the latter one sometimes picks up a jewel or two. Blanket statements that demonstrate stereotyping are not very impressive. Telling me who to listen to rather than what to listen to is not useful advice. I will take a look at Lisle's writing guides since you so highly recommend her. One thing I've done is read skim through as many advice books as I could find in the library, reading some and tossing others that didn't do much for me. I'll let you know what I think of her advice but she has a high threshold to achieve if she's going to beat out Cron for my most useful writing advice reference. I'm writing a story, not pumping out chapter books or dime store novels because they might have a better chance of being published.
A John Harvard Brewpub, as I remember it, though not Don and Noah at the same time. Lots of industry people came to my RWA chapter to during the six years I was with them, clost to one a month, and they almost always stayed for lunch. We had a really good chapter, very active, with more than a few multipublished writers, close to NYC, so we had access to editors and agents. People like that are surprisingly generous with their time, and in a setting like that we didn't get the canned, big room speeches, but more of an up-and-back. Over and above the chance to talk to people who knew, it was great fun being the only male in a room full of women thinking about romance. I wasn't dropping names or trying to impress. Those are nice people, who give of their time to groups like mind, conferences, and more, and are incredibly patient in the face of being asked the same questions, over and over. I mentioned them because, over and over, the claim is made that I'm just giving personal opinion and "rhetoric." I'm not. And I'm not making this stuff up. I'm passing on what the pros say because someone has to counter the supposition, and "everybody knows" suggestions that, while meaning and sincerely believed are often in diametric opposition to what the people we hope will buy our work say is necessary.
But on the other hand, asking someone who hasn't been able to sell their work what needs to be done to make my work salable pretty much guarantees the advice won't be on point. At least with a pro—and I mean people who make a steady living through their writing, a real publisher (as against someone with a computer who declares themselves a publisher). or a teacher who has earned te respect of those publishers.—you know the advice works for them. Different, yes. Wait till you find yourself mentally editing what people say to you in conversation. But "different" doesn't mean either better or worse. And if you've been basing those changes on what you hear on a site like this because it sounds sensible, you have absolutely no assurance that it is unless you know for a fact that it helped result in a sale for the one giving it, because the measure of advice is that it works for the one giving it. That's why I take my advice from the pros. =sigh= no one ever notices. Look, the purpose of public education, from when it began at the start of the undustrial revolution, has been to provide industry with workers who have a standardized education that they could add to as necessary for that profession or trade. It's a set of general skills of use to most adults. It is by no stretch of imagination the toolset of a professional writer in any branch of the profession. We're taught to write in an author-centric and fact based manner, to provide writing that is concise, accurate, and informative. It's nonfiction technique meant for reports, essays and letters—business writing. We learned none of the specialized techniques needed to be a playwright, a screenwriter, or a journalist. We don't learn what a scene is in fiction, or even the most basic of information on what POV actually is. Why would you believe you know even a fraction of what the profession of writing fiction for the printed word requires? Fiction has a primary goal of entertaining the reader. It seeks to manipulate the reader's emotions. Horror, for example seeks to scare the crap out of us, not make us know the details of the plot. It seeks to place the reader into the scene in real time, in the viewpoint of the protagonist so as to form an empathetic bond. On the other hand, has that "better" advice resulted in a sale? I say that not to denigrate your writing, only to point out that you cannot know it's either better or worse till it either does, or does not result in a sale. Sure you like it better, but the goal is to please someone we will never know, who is of a different socal and age group, background, and possible another gender. That's harder. And you have the advantage over me in this, because while you can look at my work to see if the advice of the teachers I recommend works or not, you have nothing posted or linked to so I can't evaluate what your favorite teacher has done for you. But in any cases, you're absolutely wrong. I don't tell people they must only study under one master. I advise people to go to the pros. Sure I suggest several, but that's because they not only seemed to be the best of the fifty or so books on the subject I personally own (I was the librarian of my chapter so I saw a lot more), they literally worked for me. Before I read Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer I thought I was writing as a pro should, but garnered nothing but rejections. Immediately after reading it I sold my first novel. And if a no talent guy like me can do that think of what someone like you could do with that same information.
Well you can blame the site software for that. There's a bug in it. If you manually type start and end quote code it has a habit of inserting extra quote start and end codes. In the post above I had to edit four times before it finally accepted the post without inserting three end quote codes at the end. In one case it changed a leading start of quote to an end. This is new, and I hadn't noticed it or I would have fixed them.
Must be in your end; the quote function works perfectly on my and @KaTrian's accounts on multiple computers. Whenever such problems occur, it's a good idea to start a thread in the Suggestions and Feedback subforum and the issue will be investigated. Or you can just PM a mod and we'll look into it.
It's not really a bug. It's a matter of paying attention to agreement in one's opening [QUOTE] and closing [/QUOTE] tags and making sure none of them are broken like: [QUOTE="random member, post: 1225433, member: 12345" <-- missing end bracket The missing end ] on the detailed opening quote is the most common break when people nip portions out of the text to focus just on a particular part and they nip the bracket off as well. VBulletin forums (our old platform) just leave broken or unpaired tags as they are rendering a "broken quote" while Xenforo™ tries to remedy the situation when it can (sometimes it just leaves it alone) by adding the missing opening or a closing at the beginning or the end, respectively, to even up the pairs. That's what causes it. ETA: I've added this to the QUICK START GUIDE
