FINISHED! OKAY, NOW WHAT? Pt. 1

     It began as a mere speck on the horizon. At first, you weren’t even sure that anything was there at all. It could have been your imagination, or a cruel trick played by the dim light on your tired eyes. But slowly, inexorably
 Yes, I know. I used “inexorably” in my first article. But I wanted to see whether you were paying attention., it grew and took form, amorphous at first (not unlike the thing that appears following the completion of an incantation followed by the word, “Whoops!”), then vaguely cognizable, and finally complete and whole. At long last, the journey that began with a single typo is complete. The story is finished!

     Okay, now what? Well ... that depends on a lot of different factors, including, inter alia, what the story is about and why you wrote it. Let’s assume that the story wasn’t written to fulfill a deadline or contractual obligation.  If it was written solely for your amusement and perhaps that of your friends, then read it, show it off, and put it in a drawer. However, if the intent is to show the story to strangers, put it in the drawer anyway--at least for a day or two. Let the creative passions cool a bit before you send the story off. Give the tale a cold reading and see whether, however improbable, something in the tale might need a bit of tweaking.

     Ignoring the advice that I just wrote, last fall (as my alter ego, Ken Charles) I saw a call for submissions that was ending in a couple of hours. I had a piece that I thought would fit the call very nicely, but it wasn’t quite finished. I still had to adapt a short story that I wrote into one of the chapters. I raced through the last couple of pages and finished with minutes to spare. I gave it a quick scan, shot together a quick synopsis, and sent the work off. Happily, it was accepted and under contract the next day (yes, the next day -- that was unbelievably lucky -- be prepared to wait the full time alloted for responses in the submission guidelines, and more). However, when I got back suggested edits, there were a number of sentences that had extra spaces between words and several missing articles (mostly “the”’s, but one or two “a”’s and “an”’s)  or prepositions (mostly “of”’s). I  suspected that they were lost in transmission. Regrettably, when I went back to the original submission, I found the varmints were missing in the original. I also failed to remove two important words from the short story when I integrated it into the rest of the chapter, taking off a pair of panties at the start of the chapter (from the short story) that is described as being removed again later (in the text of the longer work). Although the tale is now edited, it definitely would have benefitted from a cold reading.

     All right (note--not “alright”-- American slang circa 1890's), the story has sat on your literary cooling rack long enough. You’ve read it over, inserted the missing words, closed the open quotations, and deemed it fit for submission. Whether the work is a haiku poem, or the sequel to War and Peace,  make sure the work is appropriate for the target submission market. Read the submission guidelines carefully. If the guidelines expressly warn against non-consensual sex for purposes of stimulation, think twice before wasting everyone’s time by sending a “rape for titillation" story. If your story is a proper subject matter and an appropriate length, make sure it follows all of the technical guidelines. If the submission requires 12 point type, don’t use 20 point or 10 point.  If the guidelines require left justified manuscripts, then do it. Whatever the particular quirks are of the target market, accept and follow them or send the story elsewhere. And yes, I have read submission guidelines that actually warn not use “alright”.

     If the market does not accept simultaneous submissions, then don’t send the work to more than one place until you hear from the first market. Sure, the first market may never find out if you do send out simultaneous submissions. On the hand, it just might. Why saddle yourself with an undesirable reputation? If the respective markets will accept simultaneous submissions, then have the curtesy to keep the subsequent markets informed if you place the work with one of the others.

    
    

    

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS--WELL, DUH, HAMLET

A way of putting it -- not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meaning.

T. S. Eliot

     I like words. I have whole books devoted to them. Truth be told, I have whole shelves on a bookcase dedicated to them. I have, inter alia, dictionaries (Oxford-Universal and OED, Webster’s, World Book, Stedman’s), thesauruses (Roget’s, Webster’s, Random House), and books of quotations such as The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations from which the above quote from T. S. Eliot derived.

     What is a word? A word is nothing more than a unit of language sufficient to convey meaning, a morphological building block if you will. Yes, some words (generally polysyllabic in nature) though morphemes (minimum units of meaning) themselves, may be divided into several smaller morphemes, each of which conveys its own meaning. But it is the “word” that gets the job done. Seriously. When was the last time you used “ed” all by itself in a conversation? 

     Whether composing an email or a novel, any writer’s job is to convey meaning in a written form. When writing for oneself, neither the word choice nor the order is of particularly great import. In short, it is acceptable to list detergent next to eggs on a shopping list. However, when the writing is intended to convey meaning to another individual, the choice of words and the order of presentation may be critical.

     If the purpose of a word is to convey meaning, why not choose the shortest and simplest word in every context? In simplest terms, “meaning” includes more than literally what something is. The connotations of a word will color the meaning to create the appropriate mental landscape to place the word in the proper context, and thereby fully convey the writer’s intent.

     “Deaving thunder in complete and total silence.” This is the second sentence in Earth Angel. Several people have asked me why I used the word “deaving” instead of the more common word “deafening”. Resisting the urge to say that “deaving” is shorter and then sticking my tongue out, the word “deaving” means “deafening”, but the connotations are “stupefying with noise”. The thunder isn’t merely loud. It is stupefying.  It was that added zing that “stupefying” adds that I wanted to convey.

     The Russians have a saying, “Repetition is the mother of learning.” As a writer, my saying is “Repetition is the mother of a major edit.”  If a writer wants to keep a reader’s interest, then it is imperative to vary descriptions. Blood may be “red” in chapter one, but it should be “crimson” or “rubescent" in chapter two. In short, writers need lots of words in their literary quivers if they hope to hit a reader’s bullseye.

    
     Science fiction and fantasy readers are a pleasure to write for, because they pick up a story with an open mind and a fully engaged willing suspension of disbelief. Their willingness to explore the unknown with an author allows the author greater latitude to use words that are uncommon or are past their heyday. It won’t bother these readers if a character dresses in a camblet. Accordingly, let me close with a luculent obsecration for my reader’s patience and understanding if my love of words sometimes strikes you as a confusing admixture of erudition and verbosity. Please keep in mind that the purpose of each word is not only to connect the dots, but also to shade and color all of the space in between.

CK Copyright 1/27/12; Moral rights to be identified as the author of the foregoing article asserted worldwide (including in Great Britain in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988) (See blog on Moral Rights).

WELCOME TO THE SEVEN REALMS EARTHSIDE COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Greetings Traveler, and welcome to the Seven Realms Earthside Communications Center (SRECC). Whether you've just arrived Earthside, or have been stranded here for a while, the SRECC will provide you with valuable information during your stay.

Access to the Golden Way is available in most metropolitan areas, and at several burned out rest stops along old US Route 66.

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FINISHING UNFINISHED BUSINESS BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS IN 2012

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. When I was a kid, I resolved never to make another resolution, and I’ve never broken it. That does not mean, however, that I do not appreciate the need to identify and act upon necessary changes in my life. With the world as we know it scheduled for demise in the coming year, there is one pressing matter that I would be remiss if I left it unaddressed. That matter, of course, is the re-popularization of the interrobang.

Say what!?

Precisely! As a child of the sixties, I can attest that there was more than duck and cover drills, sonic booms, the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical Hair, a moon landing and one of the greatest collapses in major league baseball history. The sixties marked the rise of the interrobang. Like a phoenix rising from its ashes, it is categorically time for the interrobang to rise once again.

For the benefit of those two or three of you who aren’t familiar with the interrobang (despite the redoubtable legacy of No Child Left Behind), prepare to be awestruck. In these endtimes, it may become harder and harder to discern when and whether to use an interjection, an interrogatory, or both when texting, blogging, emailing, or otherwise reducing thoughts to written form. The solution to this quandry, as you’ve undoubtedly surmised, is the interrobang.

The interrobang, by far the most exciting advance in punctuation since the cedilla (setting aside the gnaborretni or inverted interrobang for use in Spanish), is an ingenious combination of the exclamation point and the question mark. At once, one can express both wonder and incredulity. The value of this time and labor saving device will prove immeasurable as time grows short. Just imagine, your BFF in Los Angeles sends you a text message, “WTF!?! Big One just hi....” If BFF had used an interrobang, then there would have been enough time to finish the message:  “WTF

Big One just hit!”

By now, I'm certain you understand the implications of failing to act quickly to resurrect this paragon of punctuation. As the final moments approach, hundreds of millions of messages will fly through the aether and aethernet. Socially responsible use of the interrobang will remove literally millions of bytes of data from this torrent of messages, thereby forestalling the inevitable crash of the net and all telecommunications networks for incalculable, but invaluable microseconds. Remember—the missive you save may be your own!