Re: Synopsis crisis

Nicky <nicky.matthews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 27, 6:54 pm, Eric Ammadon <email_a...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nicky <nicky.matth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 27, 5:25 pm, Eric Ammadon <email_a...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nicky <nicky.matth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And your point is?

As Jacey said of me, you haven't posted anything worth a damn since I
arrived.  Enjoy your self-congratulatory life.

--
I'm sorry you thought I was being self congratulatory, I was actually
trying to be helpful, but as I didn't understand what you were trying
to say - if indeed you were trying to say anything - I was obviously
not very successful. However, from what I've seen, you like to do the
pontificating and don't respond well to other people's.

What I wrote was simply "beginnings are where we make them", is that
pontification?  Perhaps in your lexicon the word 'pontification' means
"the statement of the obvious by people we are not inclined to like"?

I state the obvious as if it is obvious.  I expect that if it is not
obvious people will ask civilly for an explanation, not with comments
like "IF YOU MEANT ANYTHING AT ALL" which I consider to be both rude
and insulting.  If you wish to be rude and insulting, I will gladly
respond with some small thermonuclear comment, but it is not my
preference.

Well then you are too easily insulted.

Let's not delve into how just much insult should be permitted, shall
we? Moderns believe that a gauntlet thrown is simply a glove in the
dirt, moderns know that governments stand ready to slap down the
naughty and thus protect the offensive. We no longer live on a
frontier where everyone expecting to survive goes armed at all times.
Do we?

It might jusst have been some
meaningless jabber which had no particular point.

Well then you know me insufficiently.

Lots of usenet posts are like that. What is obvious to you rarely
seems it to me. I have trouble following quite a lot of what you say.

Perhaps when reading them you first strain words through a screen
designed for "lots of usenet posts", much as slushpile readers strain
things through a screen designed to maximize profit?


In any book where
plot is important not losing it in endless meanderings usually
improves the story ( there are exceptions and fairly major ones at
that, but I like tight books.)

You might not be saying that one should describe the plot in the
synopsis, but what I will say is that when I read a cover-blurb I want
the general flavor but not any of the plot details -- I'd like to know
what I'm getting into without getting into it so to speak.

A synopsis, outline and cover blurb are different beasts.

Thank you for clarifying.

The first is usually a complete summary of a completed novel designed
to describe it sufficiently to convey its flavour and plot for the
purposes of persuading an agent/publisher to read it. An outline is
more usually the term given for the work that the writer does for
herself unless you are selling of outline in which case you summarise
what you think might happen before the book is written.Again it is
much like a post novel synopsis though it tends to be a bit vaguer.
I muddle things up by referring to this sales doc as a synopsis
sometimes, but I think people here tend to call it an outline.
A cover blurb is usually written by the marketing dept. and does not
need to give either a flavour of the book or any actual plot details
it is just there to make you buy the book. I have never written my own
blurb though different houses have different policies.

It might be useful to consider the purposes of those differences.

When you get to the end: the question
'what is this story actually about?' can lead to another level of
editing.

What writing experience I have leads me to the opinion that
self-editing tends to be either cursory, or never-ending and likely to
land the whole thing in the bin.  I view neither as very appealing.

Then you are very unlikely to get very far. I believe Sea wasp doesn't
edit much,but he is the only perosn I know who doesn't.

First, you assume that I wish to "get very far" in the same sense that
the average writer does. I do not have the same goals as the average
writer; to me money is irrelevant and fame is noisome.

Second, you assume that making errors during one's early stages of
development detracts from one's ability to progress, that error should
be shunned at the start. In my opinion the best way of learning to do
a thing without error is to make those things most likely to be
erroneous the least avoidable; error causes pain and pain is error's
executioner. To me that is not mere opinion, it is learning
technology established in 1972 and validated over and over since that
time; to you it is doubtless bollocks.

I have tended to miss out this stage, but I increasingly think it
might be a good idea for me to ask that question at the end as well as
the beginning and see if I get the same answer. If I don't ,I probably
need to rethink and reimagine elements of the book. One of the faults
of the Ark is I think that it is a bit sprawly and ill disciplined and
that may have been dealt with by a bit more synopsis driven thought at
the final stages.

If the Ark is sprawly and it was written to an outline that is a
matter of self-discipline, but if it is sprawly and was written as an
outgrowth of feeling or even an outgrowth of its first sentence I
think that merits a different level of judgement.  The reader won't
know, or care, but you will.  It could be that anything a mere mortal
just sits down and writes based on feeling deserves to be considered a
first-draft that is intended for shredding and recycling.

See what does this mean? Do you think that people submit a first
draft?

Yes, people always submit a first draft, and I mean that in two
senses. The first sense is that they submit a first draft to their
own internal editor, to themselves. The second sense is that any
draft they submit to another is by agreement a penultimate draft and
might as well be the first draft. It is when a thing is published, or
submitted on the basis that changes will not be accepted, then and
only then has it finally progressed beyond the "draft" stage.

It doesn't matter how the thing is produced the thing you
submit has to be the best you can do. As it happens the Ark wasn't
edited enough, but that was because I was lazy.

So it goes.

You will note the the use of 'I' here is not intended to be self
congratulatory but is a reflection on my experience which is relevant
and may be useful. I do write books for a ( not very good) living and
though I do not claim to be an expert in any objective sense, I am
probably more expert than you.

It was not anything you wrote in the immediately preceeding post that
caused me to consider you to be self-congratulating.  It is rather
your frequent reference to the fact that your publication is an
ongoing fact of your life rather than something you still aspire to.
If any of the "greats" were posting here I doubt that we'd hear a word
about their agents etc.  Or even about how they write books for a
living and how they're more expert than me, or anyone else.  It is
your self-accreditation that I find offensive, not you per-se.


But my attempts to get a new book published to meet my deadline, find
a new idea is an ongoing part of my life as it is for many writers
here. This is a group which used to contain a larger number of
published writers than it does now, but many people who turn up here
are published, have agents or may well be published any time now.
Talking about the process of compostion and publication is what this
book is about. I have been involved in this ongoing conversation for
many years and I am not going to edit my posts to omit references to
what I'm doing so that I don't offend you.

You've not concerned yourself with offending me in the past, there's
certainly no better reason to avoid it now than there has ever been.

They tell me humility is a good thing. Experience has taught me to
see the wisdom in that opinion.

I have noticed that very opiniated people often  have a lot of trouble
engaging with other people's opinions particularly where the latter's
are based on experience.

Experience and expertise are not blanket qualities as each has its own
area, and it isn't clear to me that at the moment of death either one
is particularly important, so why we should emphasize them earlier in
life remains a mystery to me.

? Now you are gibbering again. What is a blanket quality? Something
that keep you warm at night?
I don't know what you mean.

Then at risk of offending you I will say that you have allowed the
idiot child within to run amok.

The word 'blanket' when used as an adjective indicates something that
covers all portions, instances, or special cases. Thus the term
"blanket quality" indicates a quality that applies to the entirety of
a thing. Try reading it again. Experience is not a "blanket
quality", it does not apply equally to all parts of life; each of us
has much experience in some areas, little in others. Expertise is
similarly not a "blanket quality", each of us has much expertise in
some areas a little in others.

I apologize for writing beyond your comprehension, but apparently my
choice is to be accused of either "gibbering" or posting book-length
expositions, and it's less typing to be accused of "gibbering" by
those who are too "lazy" to read and think. So it goes.

I've never claimed, at least not by intention that I can recall, to be
a novelist of any skill.  The proof of my novice-novelist status is at
the url below.  What I do expect is for the book to be stronger at the
end than at the start, and I also expect my next attempt to be
stronger at the start than my WIP is at the end; that's a matter of
determination and effort, not opinionation and inexperience.

What is opinionation?

The state of being opinionated. I will assume for the nonce that you
understand what "opinionated" means, and I have no doubt that the
nonce will appreciate my abstinence.

Regardless of what a certain category of fools may choose to believe,
I am not and have never been a troll unless one's lexicon defines
troll as "anyone new who doesn't toe the party line".  I read posts by
unpublished wannabes who seldom post anything except whines about
slushpiles and who call me a troll, while I am writing and publishing
what I have written (even though it might be bad and only published
online rather than printed), and I grow tired of it which in turn
makes me seem a bit cranky.  I suppose I should simply accept the
concept that anyone new in rasc is *** and will be continue to be
*** until some undertermined point in a hypothetical future, but that
kind of crap is not my nature.

I don't think that is true. You behaved like a troll when you first
arrived you were offensive then and are still - when I read you.
There is no party line and the idea that there is has always been a
trollish fantasy. There is an FAQ and a community in which some
members have a good reputation and some a bad.

I accept that you have stated your opinion.

A while back Jacey posted a question and someone told her to begone
until she learns to ask a question, yet she says that I have never
posted anything worth a damn.  Hypocritical at best, and you can rest
assured that the next time she is attacked I'll simply shrug my
shoulders.

Jacey has been a valued member of this group for a long time. I agree
with her.
I'm afraid I have made a mistake in responding to you. I won't make it
again.

If you run out of aspersions more are available at the corner store.

--
WIP "CrecheWorld" at http://fictionfromnobody.blogspot.com
.

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