posted
I spent this evening at a free writing seminar presented by the only writing sanctuary in the area. The woman who presented it has been successfully self-published for many years now, and has sold to magazines and has an actual $$ book deal in the works.
This is more than me, so she must be good right?
She gave us examples of descriptions. I thought, "this should be interesting. She just gave us some bad things to see how not to do it."
Wrong. These bits of writing I saw as terrible examples, were her bits of good descriptive writing. Most were too wordy but others had poor grammar, were weak or difficult or just run on sentences.
"It was a guitar melody appearing as if from nowhere..." Music does not appear.
"Restaurant L'Hotel-de-Ville" I believe translates to The Restaurant in the hotel of the home. What is that?
A 120 word paragraph should have more than 3 sentences in it.
And she offered to charge to have our writings professionally critiqued by her.
Ok, I thought, I am too critical.
My mother had come with me. She has written a biography of my father that is in desparate need of editing. I just doesn't flow. So I was greatly surprised whem my mother told me how bad this woman was.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:"Restaurant L'Hotel-de-Ville" I believe translates to The Restaurant in the hotel of the home. What is that?
It actually translates as 'Restaurant The Hotel-de-Ville' (City Hall), which makes very little sense unless only the "The Hotel-de-Ville" bit is actually the name of the restaurant and is spoken as a description as in
"Lets go the the restaurant "L'Hotel-de-Ville" tonight."
EDIT: Ville by itself translates as "city" not "home", just for future reference .
You're right though. This woman seems to have very little idea of what she is talking about.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Every small town in france has a Hotel-de-Ville. I'm fairly sure that the are the equivalent of the German "Rathaus" the Englishh Town Hall or the US City/County Building.
Given that you see these places all over france, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see a Restaurant L'Hotel-de-Ville in the US.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I suppose that the Restaurant could have a sign like
quote:Restaurant L'Hotel-de-Ville
I want to put a d'Hotel de Ville instead though, which would be Restaurant of the Hotel the Ville, which too me works a little better.
EDIT: Or de l'Hotel de Ville. We should ask Choobak or something. Or someone else who really speaks French.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It all depends on whether this Restaurant was in France of the US. I suspect that the French at many US "French" restaurants is on the average no better than the German at many US "German" restaurants.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
From my perspective, "Restaurant L'Hotel-de-Ville" is no worse than calling something "Grand Canyon Cafe." I'm pretty sure it translates directly as "City Hall Restaurant," which would be like the very, very common practice of naming a booze joint in America something like "The Office Bar."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I've run into the same situation as you just did, Dan. If it's a writer's group or a seminar given in the basement or meeting room of the local library, look out. Especially if you've never heard of the writer.
Here's what rules out these kinds of seminars to me:
1. If they list self-publishing at the top of their resume`...
2. If they're still working out that first book deal. Heck, I'm still working on that, I need someone who has gotten past that hurdle.
3. If they have more poetry awards than pay checks for their writing. Poetry awards are getting kind of a dime a dozen. Actually they usually cost a $10 reading fee... and $35 for the "special anthology featuring YOUR work!!!"
4. If they ask the guests to bring refreshments.
5. If it ends up being a sales pitch for a critiquing service.
Publishing is a sea full of sharks and a few aggressive guppies...
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Heh. I went to a one day website class because I'm taking over managing our church website. The teacher had us spend a half hour searching the internet for animated gif images "to liven up" our sites. >_<
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Hey dan, I'll edit your mom's book for her. *G* I love biographies. I love to remove commas for money. Hehe. Most people use too many commas. I do it, too.
I'm sorry that your expert was a bust. Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: "It was a guitar melody appearing as if from nowhere..." Music does not appear.
Sure it does. Read definition 6. So what exactly was so bad about her writing? You didn't actually show any examples of bad grammar, run-on sentences, or wordiness.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote: I went to a one day website class because I'm taking over managing our church website. The teacher had us spend a half hour searching the internet for animated gif images "to liven up" our sites.
Why would you do this to yourself, Dana (the class, I mean)? You've got Russell, Lead, Dagonee, me, and probably at least five or six other geeks on here who'd help you for free. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Because the website was made with FrontPage, which is also what is installed on all five computers at work, and I didn't want to argue about why I'm not learning a different system right now?
The instructor was, as I said, fairly useless, but the eight hours of sitting in front of the computer concentrating on just one thing was priceless. I would't have gotten that if I'd tried to learn it on my own -- I'd have had to sneak a few minutes here and there and just ended up frustrating myself.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
This reminds me that I need to find a real ball-breaker of a grammar course. Most of the ones offered locally seem to be of the "this is what a verb is" variety.
I have always regretted not taking the one offered in college, but when you take four years of coursework in three years something has to be sacrificed. I think maybe I should have nixed the second year of koine Greek instead. I mean, since I'm a heathen now, and all. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: Because the website was made with FrontPage, which is also what is installed on all five computers at work, and I didn't want to argue about why I'm not learning a different system right now?
For what it's worth, I'm actually maintaining our college website in FrontPage right now. Of course, it's because our boss is MAKING me, but.... Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Olivia, you could always just buy the Chicago Manual of Style and read chapters 5, 6, and 7 (plus parts of others) straight through. It's a dreadfully boring read, but you'll be enlightened, I guarantee it.
However, the 14th edition's usage guide is incomplete at best and weird at worst. I'd skip that. Posts: 537 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Jon Boy, while you can stretch the word appear to fit music, its most common references are visual. When reading about music appearing I was thrown out of the story by this. What a writer strives for is keeping the reader in the story.
Another paragraph she extolled which I disliked--"I lay sprawled a few feet behind the steel trails of gun two, one of six 105 mm howitzers." There are so many numbers in one small section of that sentence that I had to stop and re-read it to make sure I was getting them in the correct order. Even she misread them when she read to the class, and had to go back and clarify.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Well, I have Strunk and White (plus a few others). I justthink a class situation would be more motivating for me. I feel like I missed out, since I didn't take that final exam everyone was talking about afterwards. Diagramming a page-long sentence sounds like fun... Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I wouldn't recommend reading CMS to learn grammar. It's a good style guide but a horrible grammar book. I wrote in once and pointed out a pretty blatant error, and they insisted that it was right.
posted
I did indeed. I had quite the rant about it over on GalacticCactus when I got their stupid response. The error is in 5.113 in the 15th edition. It reads, "If an inflected form of to be is joined with the verb's present participle, a progressive conjugation is produced {the ox is pulling the cart}. The progressive conjugation is in active voice because the subject is performing the action, not being acted on."
Anyone notice the glaring contradiction in the last sentence that disproves this entire statement?
I think the addition of chapter 5 was a really bad idea, and on top of that it was very poorly implemented. One chapter in Chicago is no substitution for a good usage guide and grammar book.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
If by that you mean that "being acted on" is both progressive and passive, which is an impossibility according to that paragraph, then you are correct, sir. The progressive and passive aspects are not mutually exclusive.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:"It was a guitar melody appearing as if from nowhere..." Music does not appear.
I'm going to jump on the side of disagreeing with your nitpick here. I don't mind this phrase at all. I know that appear is usually associated with sight, but this phrase works for me.
quote:--"I lay sprawled a few feet behind the steel trails of gun two, one of six 105 mm howitzers."
I agree with you here - I don't like this for the same reasons you expressed. I had to read it a couple of times to get what she was saying and that's not a good thing.
I think the answer to your title question is you disregard them. I mean, obviously, if you don't trust her expertise then you should look elsewhere for advice on good writing.
I ran into that when I was first looking online for writing support (before I came here, actually, so a pretty long time ago) and the so-called expert was listed as having published two books. When I tried to find the books I discovered they were only available from the author's website because they were self-published. Color me not impressed.
That's not to suggest that self-publishing is always bad or that anybody who does self-publish has nothing of value to say, but it does mean you should do as you did - evaluate what they say carefully and be ready to take any advice from them with a grain of salt.
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