Is that 4500 words in a single two-hour BIC session? If so, holy crap.
Continued from Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1
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It strikes me that there's a need for a thread on the art and craft of writing commercial novels.
To that end, I'd like to start that discussion. I plan to put down my thoughts on the elements of professional-quality fiction. I'll answer questions, and go where ever the discussion leads. I'll do some notes on the business of writing too.
Here are my qualifications for starting this topic:
My bibliography
A workshop I help teach every year.
My mutant talent is to make my opinions sound like facts.
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I have two basic rules: everything that's said should be true, and everything should be helpful.
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There's one other thing that needs to be said, McIntyre's First Law: Under the right circumstances anything I tell you can be wrong.
Hey Jim,
I wanted to know do you know any writing work shops in New York city?
The past, the present, and the future walk into a bar.
It got tense.
The past, the present, and the future walk into a bar.
It got tense.
Judging by UJ's posts, and his tendency to type in ms format, I'm guessing the "--" is another typewriter relic.
Do not use "smart quotes"/curly quotes or single character elipses, mdashes, etc. Use straight quotes and apostrophes, . . ., --, etc.
Jim, I was wondering if perhaps, after the holiday assignment, you might consider another ending analysis? To me that was more challenging than beginnings, but fun and useful.
3) Unless the publisher's guidelines say otherwise, use .rtf. Every recent word-processor can both produce and read .rtf. If you're Really Really Fond of XYWrite from 1991 -- get someone to convert the file before you send it it.
4) It is Totally Unnecessary to put Every Single Friggin' Page in a separate file (e.g. Page001.doc, Page002.doc, Page003.doc, ... Page497.doc). You want to make it easy for the slush reader to keep going, not make him wonder if opening the next file is Too Darned Much Trouble.