You are receiving this periodical because you marked a request on a website in the www.Author-Me.com group. If for any reason you'd rather not receive this periodical, simply write an email to PublishingNewWriters@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and write the words "no more" in the subject box. Thank you. Visit our new websites... Innisfree Journal! A new poetry website - Greg McBride, Editor WWW.INNISFREEPOETRY.ORG Enskyment - Dan Masterson, Editor WWW.ENSKYMENT.ORG Also new this month... WWW.RESERVEBOOKS.COM 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 Please rate this Ezine at the Cumuli Ezine Finder. http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/ra79672.rate Note: This issue is sent as plain text. For an html View, go to http://www.author-me.com/newsletters/current.htm Start monitoring our RSS feed with frequent updates on manuscripts posted at Authorme. To use this service, download a free rss reader (for example, from http://www.feedreader.com) and link to http:www.author-me.com/rssfeed.xml ============================================================ 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 Delete Reply Forward Move... Previous | Next | Back to Messages | Search Results