[authorme] PUBLISHING NEW WRITERS, OCTOBER 2005
- From: "Bruce Cook, AuthorMe.com" <cookcomm@xxxxxxx>
- To: authorme@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 06:54:52 -0700 (PDT)
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In this issue...
THE TIME WAS WHEN: REFLECTIONS ON WRITING TIME TRAVEL
TALES, BY DAVE CASSEL
THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF MEDIA, BY BRUCE L. COOK
THE BASICS: POINT OF VIEW (Part 4), BY SANDY TRITT
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============================================================
THE TIME WAS WHEN: REFLECTIONS ON WRITING TIME TRAVEL
TALES, BY DAVE CASSEL
I have four rules for spinning time travel stories.
1. Time travel can only be accomplished by
supernatural means.
Science fiction writers effect time travel by using
great speed. Arrive somewhere else before leaving
here or finish an activity before beginning it, and
you?ll go backward in time. Let?s call that traveling
super-fast.
But it doesn?t work. To finish your night?s rest
before starting it means not sleeping, because you got
up before you lay down. To spend no time traveling
means not traveling?not even super-fast?and not going
backward in time.
How about going forward? That should be the opposite
of going super-fast?which is what? Standing
exceptionally still? ?Springing forward? to daylight
savings time? Maybe it?s going back backwards: While
brushing your teeth super-fast, you face away from the
sink.
Fantasy writers can make believe, but sci-fi authors
must make sense?which they apparently cannot do with
time travel stories.
Can God travel in time? Scripture doesn?t say, so my
stories have God?and demons?enable time travel.
2. A journey to the past cannot change
history.
Since God works all things according to his will, he?s
not going to use time travel to undo what?s happened.
Additionally, if Joe could change the past, he could
erase his own existence. But then he wouldn?t exist
to go back in time and eliminate himself. So the
possibility doesn?t exist. And it therefore seems
unlikely he could make other changes to history.
3. God-empowered time travel won?t do anything
God doesn?t want done.
The demon Morodek can make time travel do evil
things?which it won?t do under God?s control.
4. Keep time travel data consistent, and
pursue all of their implications.
I would be inconsistent if I sent Joe forward in time
to accompany himself, but put one body inside another.
Or if I sent him from several different times into an
activity, placing three bodies there, I?d create a
repeating event:
· Body One goes through it with Two and Three;
· Two goes through it with One and Three;
· Three with One and Two;
· Repetitions always have new Ones, Twos, or
Threes, requiring infinitely more repetitions.
Time travel stories are intriguing. But since I don?t
believe in real-world time travel, I?ll journey
according to these rules; I have my speed limits.
But they don?t apply to God.
BIONOTE
Dave Cassel is a Baptist minister who has pastored for
19 years and has recently retired after nearly 16
years as a prison chaplain. A husband, a father of
two adult sons, and a grandfather of one beautiful
ten-year-old girl, he?s run seven marathons and has
hiked and backpacked extensively in Oregon. This is
his fourth published work.
============================================================
THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF MEDIA, BY BRUCE L. COOK
Short stories by popular authors, $0.49. (A new
service just announced by Amazon.com.)
Short stories by new authors, $0.29? (Don?t expect
Amazon to offer this.)
Could this be done? It is possible. Think what Napster
did for audio.
Unlike writers in the 1960s, we can offer our stories
online. In fact, I?m willing to list them on
Author-me.com and ReserveBooks.com for $.29 to start.
For every sale, 9 cents to the publisher and 20 cents
to the author. Deal?
Try me. Send me the story and I?ll set it up.
Contracts and all.
Think of what?s happening out there.
Two weeks ago Bruce Wilkinson of Claritas, Inc.
addressed the Fifth Annual Midwest Publishers Forum in
Chicago regarding new media. Having reviewed new media
developments, Bruce concluded that we are seeing an
increased ?democratization of media.?
It?s true. We have access now.
The shift is profound.
A personal website by a guy named Drudge jarred the
journalists. Fox Cable TV exposed blatant bias at the
New York Times.
And, for writers, we can leave our scribblings in
BLOGS which are far better read than the old Usenet
newsgroups that started well before the advent of
browsers.
Wiki editing now gives us a chance to write copy for a
new encyclopedia (Wikipedia) and to revise copy
online. Further, it lets us ?Wiki enable? our
manuscripts on Author-me and elsewhere, inviting other
writers to freely comment and even revise the copy we
have posted. (Of course, the Wiki system remembers the
original so nothing is lost).
Further, our audience has expanded, as readers can now
listen to our stories (which we can read into a
telephone - see www.reservebooks.com). Readers can now
read our stories on cell phones via the WAP Protocol
and phone browsers.
Soon, within a few years, laptops will have
flexi-screens so readers can curl up with our epics.
In all this, there is a place for new writers to
compete with the Amazon/novelists? Every bit as much
as Fox News can compete with the New York Times. We
can do it. We should do it. So let?s go!
Write me at cookcomm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
============================================================
THE BASICS: POINT OF VIEW (Part 4), BY SANDY TRITT
THIRD PERSON, CONTROLLED CONSCIOUSNESS, RAY?S
VIEWPOINT:
Ray walked the mile from the hospital to Bob?s Sunoco.
He found Gary in the bay, changing the oil on a pale
blue Cadillac. He kicked his brother?s feet until Gary
rolled from beneath the car. ?We gotta talk.?
?I get off at three.?
?Now.?
Gary stood and wiped his hands on an oily rag. ?What?s
up??
?Let?s walk.? Ray feared his brain was going to
explode. Too much was going on, too many things were
changing. He?d read the front page of the newspaper
over and over while waiting in the doctor?s office.
The Apollo 7 astronauts were heading home after eleven
days in space. President Johnson was negotiating for
the release of fourteen North Vietnamese POW?s. And
Jackie Kennedy, the dead President?s wife, was
marrying a Greek billionaire the very next day. He
didn?t even know if it was legal for the President?s
widow to marry a foreigner.
Gary followed Ray outside and toward town. ?What did
the doctor say about Mom??
?He put her in the hospital.?
Colorful leaves swirled around their ankles, the drier
ones crunching under their heavy steps. Gary kicked
them out of his way. ?Why??
?He got the tests back.?
?And??
A young mother, her sweater flapping in the wind,
pushed a baby carriage over the uneven sidewalk with
one hand and pulled a stubborn toddler with the other.
Ray stepped into the street to let her pass.
?What did the doctor say?? Gary repeated.
?She?s got cancer.?
Gary stopped walking. ?Cancer??
Ray slowed down until Gary caught up.
?Something about a mass in her brain.?
Gary was quiet for a long time, then spoke softly.
?Does she need surgery? Does she have to take chemo?
Or radiation??
?He says there ain?t nothing they can do. He says it?s
too late.? Ray remembered that part very well. He?d
argued with Dr. Brown, insisting there had to be
something. She had three young boys who needed her.
?Too late? Too late for what??
?Dr. Brown says . . .? Ray rubbed his head. ?He says
it?s too late. He says she ain?t coming home.?
They walked slower, silently, past the library and
into the park. Pre-schoolers played on the swings and
slide, laughing and shouting.
Gary leaned against an oak tree, his dirty gray
jumpsuit blending into the trunk.
?What?re we gonna do?? he said.
?About what??
Gary took a new pack of Marlboros from his pocket and
tapped it against his palm.
?The boys.?
?I guess we gotta pick them up from school and fix
them something to eat.?
?I don?t mean now,? Gary said, opening the cigarettes.
?Until they?re grown.
Who?ll take care of them??
?Mom will.?
?You okay??
Ray scratched the five-day-old stubble on his chin.
?They made a mistake. We just gotta find Dad and get
this all straightened out. Dad will know what to do.?
Gary lit a cigarette and slowly exhaled.
Ray watched the smoke disappear into the October-blue
sky. A foreigner. Two hundred million people in the
United States and the President?s widow was going to
marry a foreigner. No wonder the world was so damned
screwed up.
=============
Notice that by changing our viewpoint character, we
get a different account of the action. Therefore, we
need to carefully choose whose viewpoint to use so we
can get the greatest power from each scene.
Even within third person omniscient, we should have
only one viewpoint character at a time, only one
character whose thoughts and mind we visit. We have
the option to change viewpoint characters, but we must
do it very carefully, preferably at a scene or chapter
break. However, if we must switch ?heads? within a
scene, we should clue the reader to what we are doing
and allow for a transition. I prefer to do this by
ignoring the previous viewpoint character for a
sentence or two, then have the new viewpoint character
touch his face ?rub his forehead, scratch his ear, any
action as long as it involves his face or head ?to
clue the reader that this is our new ?head.? Once the
switch is made, stay with it. ?Head-hopping? is
confusing for the reader and should be done only when
absolutely necessary.
Oftentimes when we get a vague feeling that something
isn?t right but can?t quite put our finger on it, the
problem is a breach in point of view. This means we
have inadvertently changed viewpoints or switched from
one type of point of view to another. So study point
of view. If you?re not happy with the way your story
is reading, try changing the point of view or try
changing your viewpoint character. Just be consistent.
(continued next month)
(c) copyright 2002 by Sandy Tritt. All rights
reserved, except for those listed here. October be
reproduced for educational purposes (such as for
writer's workshops), as long as this copyright notice
and the url: http://tritt.wirefire.com are distributed
with the pages. For use in conferences or other uses
not mentioned here, please contact Sandy Tritt at
tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for permission and additional
resources at no or limited charge.
Keep writing!
Sandy Tritt
Inspiration for Writers tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
============================================================
West Virgina Writers Conference. Selected by The
Writer Magazine as a "best Conference for the money."
We're going to have literary agent Jeff Herman there,
who will be willing to meet one-on-one with people who
submit a synopsis in advance, children's writer Marc
Harshman, poet and Pudding House publisher Jennifer
Bosveld, Antioch Writer's Workshop co-director Ed
Davis and many more nationally-known presenters. Rates
are only $90 for three days (which can be reduced by
early registration or by being a member of WVW),
lodging starts at $12 a bed, and meals are $5, $6, and
$7. For details, you can download a copy of the
brochure at
http://tritt.wirefire.com/wvw-2005-brochure.doc
(from Sandy Tritt)
============================================================
Keep writing!
Sandy Tritt
tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sandy's website:
http://tritt.wirefire.com
============================================================
Publishing New Writers, October, 2005 (No. 6010)
Publisher: Bruce L. Cook, P.O. Box 451, Dundee, IL
60118 USA.
Submissions and comments to cookcomm@xxxxxxxx Links
are welcome. To receive monthly e-mail copies of this
periodical, go to:
www.Author-Me.com/member.html
To review our archive of past issues, go to
www.Author-Me.com/newslist.htm.
AuthorMe.com is dedicated to the memory of David C.
Cook III
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