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Author Topic: But, what's it all about?
Denevius
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Well, now I'm once again confused by the point you're making concerning YA fiction. If you think teens can handle complicated premises, then where are you trying to caution perspective YA authors?
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extrinsic
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Grumpy old guy spoke about young adult readers, not prospective writers. Writers of young adult literature can be any age. More often than not, older writers write successful young adult literature, and they may misapprehend a younger reader's capacity to process, not "complicated premises," but generally complex age-consistent cognitive faculties.

Young adults, for example, generally use cynical sarcasm, a less sophisticated type of irony, and can easily process that cognitive attitude. Subtler irony may elude or disorient or disturb them. And not written down to either, rather written to, or up to that persuasively challenges their cognitive faculties.

And not everyone develops a full aptitude for irony. Ability to process irony emerges from a sequence of adverse double bind reconciliations that a receiver experiences as part of an individual's public and private social, spiritual, and intellectual life.

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Denevius
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quote:
Young adults, for example, generally use cynical sarcasm, a less sophisticated type of irony, and can easily process that cognitive attitude. Subtler irony may elude or disorient or disturb them. And not written down to either, rather written to, or up to that persuasively challenges their cognitive faculties.
I'm left baffled by what this means.

Not only that, but my English classes in high school were filled with Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens and Moby Dick. Yes, this isn't YA fiction, but to assume that teens will be "disturbed" by nuanced irony when they're regularly assigned classical literature full of different literary approaches in school seems absurd.

I guess I simply don't get what you're getting at. To my mind, the main thing that makes YA fiction what it is is that the characters are usually the same age group as the readers. This doesn't make all fiction with young characters YA, but YA fiction tends to have teen characters. This increases the chance that teens will find the material relatable because the characters aren't doing things that are completely beyond their realm of experience.

This, however, doesn't mean that they *can't* understand non-YA fiction, or that they don't have cognitive facilities to grasp non-YA fiction. They are regularly called to handle non-YA literature in school. It's just that classical literature, as presented, usually bores the bejesus out of them (though I thoroughly enjoyed Poe and William Blake and other non-YA literature in high school, and I'm sure I'm not alone).

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Grumpy old guy
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The issue wasn't the premise, it was the subject matter--definitely not YA. I don't know what the next step up the rung of readers is called, but even then, it's a bit edgy.

Phil.

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Denevius
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quote:
The issue wasn't the premise, it was the subject matter--definitely not YA.
I haven't read it, so you could be right. I think, though, that for instance, the graphic novel WATCHMEN's intended audience was teenagers. Sure, older people read it also, but Alan Moore, or Frank Miller's graphic take on BATMAN were intended for younger readers.

I was going to mention this earlier, but it might be that as an older guy, Phil, that you think certain subjects are too mature for teens. I think, though, that teens will disagree with you.

Again, though, since I haven't read the novel you were editing, I can't say either way or the other.

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Grumpy old guy
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Is my dotage showing? But, seriously, this subject was dark, even for me. As I said, I had whittled it down to two possible story lines: one hard to write, which would still have been acceptable for a YA audience as it focused on an act of revenge, the other, well, just doing the research would be traumatic.

Phil.

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extrinsic
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Early adult or sometimes new adult is the next age stage after young adult. Early adult is between ages 18 and 25. Primary grade, middle grade, young adult are divisions that followed an education paradigm shift that previously had been solely distinguished from adult literature as children's literature. An intermediate term distinguished later-age childhood literature as juvenile literature. Negative connotations of "juvenile" quickly ended that category's fashion.

Early adult as opposed to new adult recognizes 18 to 25-year-olds are not new adults, adulthood beginning at onset of puberty, the beginning age of the young adult category. Also, early adult coordinates with young adult, middle adult, and late adult; new adult is a non-parallel outlier in the continuum from young adult to late adult.

Objective age-range categorizers generally concretely term subject matter suitable or inappropriate for young readers. That's not my philosophy, however, rather accessibility, appeal, and figurative language arts skills are my method for categorization by age range. Literature marketplace and culture generally overlap the two, as is apropos of mass-market and mass-culture generalizations. I give a nod to the objective, quantifiable and qualifiable criteria, though favor emphasis of subjective, subtextual criteria, like cognitive faculties and aptitudes and intellectual maturity, if not emotional maturity.

[ February 08, 2015, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Denevius
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Saw this quote by Robert Frost and thought of this thread. I think it's an apt sentiment for prose, too.

quote:
I have never started a poem whose end I knew. Writing the poem is discovering.

Read more: Poets on Poetry http://www.infoplease.com/spot/pmpoetry1.html#ixzz3R8IvOrmY


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extrinsic
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infoplease.com misquotes the New York Times 7 November 1955 Robert Frost interview. "I have never started a poem _yet_ whose end I knew. Writing the poem is discovering."

Frost was a master of ironic expression; each and every word is essential in order to understand his intent and intended meaning. "Yet" means so far in a literal denotation and is essential to the meaning of the sentence. Note also the first sentence says nothing about starting writing a poem. The meaning can ironically be understood to mean as well starting reading poems by other poets. In that light, a profound insight about outcomes.

From the New York Times obituary of Robert Frost, 30 January 1963:
"In an interview with Harvey Breit of The New York Times Book Review, he observed:

'If poetry isn't understanding all, the whole word, then it isn't worth anything. Young poets forget that poetry must include the mind as well as the emotions. Too many poets delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well, the mind is dangerous and must be left in.'"

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Denevius
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quote:
"Yet" means so far in a literal denotation and is essential to the meaning of the sentence. Note also the first sentence says nothing about starting writing a poem. The meaning can ironically be understood to mean as well starting reading poems by other poets.
Your interpretation of the quote lessens its value. It would be odd for Robert Frost, one of America's renown poets, to say he's *never* started 'reading' a poem in which he couldn't guess how it would end. Like, really? A two-bit poem and you can't figure out how it's going to end?

Frost probably read, and studied, hundreds of poems in his lifetime. Did each one literally have an ending that he couldn't see coming? I mean, he's no psychic, but I'm sure he saw where many of the lesser poems from lesser poets were going.

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TaleSpinner
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I think we come to writing with our experience of other walks of life, and try to use what we know from previous experience in our writing process. For me, I'm coming to writing from the software industry: Where the idea that one should know the whole thing before starting the detailed writing is taught by theoreticians as "the waterfall model", which says that the software development process starts with architecture, then design, then detailed design of the components, then writing the program code itself. It's a sequence where each activity follows the previous one, like a waterfall in the sense that there's no going back upstream to redo earlier activities in the event they go wrong. But with the no going back it relies on each stage being accomplished without error. In story-telling, this idea of planning out each scene, each line of the story, is very like a waterfall process model. And if one makes an error the whole can be very time-consuming to fix--and no fun.

Modern software engineers understand the strengths and weaknesses of the waterfall model: respectively it can create for anxious managers the illusion of management control and secure deadlines and costs; and on the downside it can go horrendously wrong when the project includes significant areas of uncertainty-- which in my experience is common when writing software for new unproven computer hardware and for complex control systems like the switches and multiplexers in telecom networks. In more complex cases, to manage uncertainty, engineers don't use a simple sequential waterfall process, they use a more iterative, incremental process, building the end product a little at a time and checking it works before proceeding to the next bit. This gives them opportunities to experiment, and find out what works without committing to a large scale design that might be flawed.

That's why, when I get a round tuit, I'll start my novel with a simple premise "what if <not telling the idea until the darn thing is written>" and then. as Phil suggests, I'll rough out a chapter outline and sprinkle in some scenes that I care about -- the big budget action sequences, if you will. But I won't know the details, despite there being character sketches for each main character.

To misquote what Frost is said to have said, for me, the writing will be the discovering, as it was with the short story version I wrote some while ago and shall use as the prototype. I fear that if I plot it out in detail (the outline will not be fixed, but subject to judicious change), the characters will become cardboard cutouts, motivated more by the requirements of a fixed outline design, and unable to respond to events in character. For me the detailed writing is an opportunity to get into each character's head, see the milieu and the events thus far, feel as would the character, and let them make of their world what they will: this is what happened with the short story: its ending surprised and pleased me with a resolution I liked to the story's "What if" premise. The novel version will explore this milieu in more detail... I guess I better put pen to paper...!

On Frost, I think Denevius is right; I don't think he meant his answers to the interview questions to be analyzed with extrinsic's unique intensity. When he (Frost) says "yet" he's not being ironic, he's just not committing himself for his future writing method. With the second sentence he's surely talking about writing poems. He surely didn't mean his individual sentences to be taken out of context for analysis.

I think that this kind of discovery model for writing stories relies upon a personality that's not discomfitted by uncertainty and a belief in one's creativity.

As I write I realize that my novel-in-waiting has grown from one premise to two, one involving how this imaginary, complex milieu would be to live in, the other about the evolution of some innovative technology, and writing down the two premises will help me keep a potentially bewildering mulititude of sub-stories in check.

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extrinsic
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Always only the most literal interpretation leaves out so very much of meaning. Take Edgar Allen Poe's writing, for example. The degree of exact language and motif decisions he made are superficially meaningful; however, the subtext and irony of his works is sublime.

Poe planned his writing to exacting degrees too; he knew the ends he had in mind before he started composition. He says so in several of his aesthetics texts. Also, the depths of his motifs' meanings and their ironies evidence careful planning and decisions.

"The Cask of Amontillado," for example. The namesake Amontillado is a famous dry sherry in its own right. Yet the vintage exactly fits several of Poe's intents and ends. The way the sherry is made reflects the short story's action to an nth degree. The story itself was composed and partly inspired as a response to a literary rival's narrative caricatures of Poe, who, likewise, caricatured the rival: Thomas Dunn English, 1844, or, The Power of the S.F.

Without a plan and ends in sight, Poe's short story would ramble as much as English's novel and be an obvious and direct a caricature of English. Poe's depiction of English in "The Cask of Amontillado" does not entail a direct, one-to-one correspondence, though direct enough English understood he was parodied as Montressor.

Each and every word, motif, part, parcel, and whole of the short story expresses depths and ironies that appreciating enhances reading experience. The characters' names, for example, Fortunato's jester costume, the city-wide carnival concurrent with Montressor's plot, the Montressor coat of arms and motto, the catacombs, the nitre on the walls, the other vintages Montressor gives Fortunato, the cask and Amontillado, etc.

Robert Frost also carefully chose his words, his motifs, perhaps not the exact end he wrote to, though as certain he did have a plan overall and specific to each composition. "The Road Not Taken," for example; Frost's use of the verb to take possesses multiple entendres. His congruent usage of the verb's denotative, connotative, and idiomatic meanings expresses sublime ironies and profound meanings.

Worth note, The Atlantic Monthly rejected Frost's poetry for twenty years. Ezra Pound "discovered" Frost while both were in England and promoted Frost's poetry internationally. When Frost returned to the U.S., The Atlantic Monthly sought Frost out and pleaded for his poetry. Frost submitted poems the journal had previously rejected.

Ezra Pound "discovered" and promoted many of the writers of the Modernist era, many of the artists of the Lost Generation, an expatriate writing community living in Paris between the world wars. A recent, somewhat comparable "discoverer" and promoter of writing talents similar to Pound is Oprah Winfrey -- her book club selections.

Publisher, editor, poet in his own right, Ezra Pound's literary culture promotion and editorial guidance example this present era could do with again.

Note that above on Poe I use "end" similarly to how Frost uses to take. One of Poe's "ends" was to caricature English, not to mention figuratively wall him up alive as Fortunato and ironically as Poe too, in the Montressor catacombs as a cask of Amontillado, a step in the making of the exquisite vintage.

[ February 09, 2015, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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TaleSpinner
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If some writers plan, it doesn't mean that all writers must.

If one chooses to base a story on a premise, a plan isn't mandatory and, as noted earlier, it can spoil the fun and discourage discovery and destroy the serendipity that can lead to what I consider good art.

To plan or not to plan: a matter of individual writer's choice, methinks.

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extrinsic
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Planning was more common than intuitive writing prior to the Postmodern era, probably beginning with the Beat Generation, who set the bar for the method. Nowadays, the ratio of planner to intuitive writer favors intuitive, even in conventional publishing circles.

Me, I choose to follow a different path than the either/or fallacy that only two choices are possible. Part planner, part intuitive, part intuitive planner, part and mostly revision writer, which also lost fashion during the Postmodern era.

Are we, as in literary culture, yet in or ready for a new movement? I believe so, and see its infancy dawning, though no standouts yet like masters of the past. J.K. Rowling scratches at the edges of a new movement paradigm, like a moth drawn to a candle flame: intuitively, not overtly, though she planned intensively otherwise. Jonathan Franzen comes closer, though also intuitively, to the proxyism of reality imitation's direct discourse -- Realism fully realized as direct discourse, not the indirect discourse narrative methods of Realism's pivotal era. The time has come for Postmodernism's toxic cynicism to wane.

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babooher
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quote:
Originally posted by Denevius:
Saw this quote by Robert Frost and thought of this thread. I think it's an apt sentiment for prose, too.

quote:
I have never started a poem whose end I knew. Writing the poem is discovering.

Read more: Poets on Poetry http://www.infoplease.com/spot/pmpoetry1.html#ixzz3R8IvOrmY


I have read or seen several interviews by well established authors who have discussed the joy that comes from a story he or she is writing taking a surprising turn or from having a character do something unforeseen. Perhaps these authors weren't ready to write, yet somehow they have produced work that has garnered them followings, money, and acclaim.
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Grumpy old guy
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Perhaps you have all taken my observations that, first, every line and every scene must have a purpose and, second, that if one of your characters surprises you, then you aren’t ready to write, to be an all-encompassing observation on writing methodology. Aint so.

All my stories grow from an idea, usually a character in a situation. From this I develop a dramatic want and conflict and well as some basic character traits for the major agonists. What this gives me is a fully formed narrative idea from which I can then say, “This story is about (some form of the human condition—greed, love, envy, ambition, hate, etc.).” Once I have that I can start to consider premise. From there, I create the bare skeleton of a plot, a sort of roadmap with a beginning, some sights to see along the way and a destination. Now I’m ready, I hope, to write Draft Zero.

So, I sit down and write, and write, and write the story until I write: The End. The biggest was 80K words in ten days. It is in this draft that I get all the character and plot surprises I ever intend to get with that particular story. The improv/ad-hoc font is now dry. However, this is where the exceptional, and the really cool, ideas are born.

I dissect, dismantle and eviscerate Draft Zero and start plotting structure against dramatic form and delve deeper into my character’s lives, wants and dreams than I have ever done before. At the end of this I know everything that will happen, why it will happen, and when it will happen. Now, it is time to start creating and designing the individual scenes that will make up the whole until, finally, I can sit down and start agonising over word choices and placements so the prose and story is as tightly bound together as I can possibly get it. No dull bits, no flat spots, and no meandering detours down picturesque, but pointless, by-ways. This is where the drafts from one to whatever-it-takes are written.

But, in the end, a draft is a thought bubble; a manuscript is a finely honed instrument.

Phil.

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Denevius
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quote:
But, in the end, a draft is a thought bubble; a manuscript is a finely honed instrument.
I guess I still don't get it. Obviously most of us would agree that an edited novel is a finely honed instrument. Are we talking about finished and edited novels, or works in progress?

Funny enough, this brings me around full circle to my first response to the thread:

quote:
Actually, I'm still not sure what I would comment upon.
Like, what was the original premise of this thread? And yes, the irony here abounds in that a thread called 'But, what it's all about', is having difficultly in projecting what it's actually about.

Are we talking about the process, or are we talking about finished works?

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Denevius
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quote:
Poe planned his writing to exacting degrees too; he knew the ends he had in mind before he started composition. He says so in several of his aesthetics texts.
I haven't read these aesthetic texts, but let's say your interpretation of them is correct.

Ok, well, so Poe's journey of discovery was in the note-taking first. Obviously he doesn't have the whole project composed perfectly in his head. But following his method, before he sets pen to paper to write a first draft, he's basically already written numerous drafts in the form of notes.

Well, I don't write notes first, but I don't see how that process is much different. Oh, I suppose I could call my first drafts notes. I do write the entire story in pencil in a notebook before I type it up. And for novels I write numerous back stories before I even begin the novel. But I don't see how someone writing notes creates an inherently more brilliant, cohesive, or professional piece of work.

Nor do I not see how the discovery one has in the taking of notes is any different from the discovery one has in simply writing the first draft and then editing it over time to perfection. I mean, it took me three years to get my novel to where it is today. Would it somehow be markedly different if instead of writing it and revising it for three years, I instead wrote two years of notes before setting pen to paper?

And last, I'm almost completely sure Poe had an editor, or readers who he trusted to give him advice on his writing. I bet Poe had his 'Aha!' moments when someone pointed out something in his work in its earlier drafts that he himself wasn't even aware of.

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extrinsic
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From the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore: Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Philosophy of Composition" [Text-02], Grahams Magazine, vol. XXVIII, no. 4, April 1846, 28:163-167. Web.

The essay is both general and specific to Poe's thought processes, planning processes, methods, aesthetics, composition and revision processes, and specific as regards "The Raven."

Poe's other aesthetics texts, essays, and works are also available through the Baltimore Society website, links at the above cited page. Poe published during an era when editors for writers or poets were largely not done; writers knew their materials and tools -- maybe a print shop's proofreader-typsetter might note a few overlooked nondiscretionary grammar faults prior to production, if that.

Writer-poet-critics publicly through similar or same publications acclaimed or disapproved or allowed a weighted proportion of strengths and shortfalls of their contemporaries' works. An unforgivingly brutal crucible's forge. Poe certainly did; again, links available at the above site's page.

The culture of the time was an ongoing, robust, often well-thought out, well-supported, constructive inductive reasoning conversation between contemporaries. The caliber of their discussions reflected long-honored reasoning traditions and persisted from antiquity until the Postmodern age, with a medieval lull.

Recent writers, though more technologically connected, are more socially isolated from meaningful, supportive, influential composition networks due to the Postmodern age socio-cultural revolution. The workshop paradigm was constituted as a studio model during the Postmodern age to replace the prior networks and that abandoned most of the strengths of its forbears and retained most of the shortfalls. Technology destroyed that culture: introduction of mass-market, industrial publication technologies, mostly.

By the way, I don't see an irony between the thread's title and insightful, contributory responses to the thread's central topics. I see an unsatisfiable and ongoing debate, one that arises at Hatrack every eight to twelve weeks and recycles the same tired air -- by unyielding, dissenting factions, and disparagement of the opposing faction, and cognitive dissonance.

[ February 09, 2015, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Grumpy old guy
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Originally posted by Denevius:
quote:
Like, what was the original premise of this thread? And yes, the irony here abounds in that a thread called 'But, what it's all about', is having difficultly in projecting what it's actually about.

Are we talking about the process, or are we talking about finished works?

All I did was post some observation by Lubbock, Egri, and moi, and then ask if any would care to comment.

That some took this to be an attack on people who write by the seats of their pants is a misrepresentation that I am happy for them to make; thus displaying their own proclivities. What I am wondering is why some of the contributors to this thread seem so aggrieved by the idea that planning a story before you actually write it is such anathema and stifles so much creativity?

Of course it's about process, what else? The premise isn't that shrouded in obscure meaning.

Phil.

[ February 09, 2015, 02:47 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]

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Denevius
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I don't know, Phil, this seems like some pretty opinionated statements:

quote:
Denevius, if one of your characters surprises you, then you don't know enough about them to write a story that includes them.

And this one:

quote:
Denevius and TaleSpinner, you are both right in the developmental stages of storytelling; but not in the writing of the story.

And this one:

quote:
In my opinion, if, as you sit down to write your story you don't know the purpose of every line and every scene then you are not ready to write.

You don't see why these earlier statements by you rose some eyebrows? And how your last statement actually doesn't seem to reflect these above ones:

quote:
What I am wondering is why some of the contributors to this thread seem so aggrieved by the idea that planning a story before you actually write it is such anathema and stifles so much creativity?
As I said, if your process works for you, go for it:

Denevius:
quote:
But if the method you're espousing works for you and is getting you the results you want from your audience, go for it! I can't tell you you're wrong if that level of plotting works for you, but I have no interest in it.
I'm not aggrieved in the least. If the process you're espousing works for you, just do it!

But, I guess I did have a problem with how the thread began:

quote:
All I did was post some observation by Lubbock, Egri, and moi, and then ask if any would care to comment.

I don't particularly care about Lubbock and Egri, and honestly, in the original post, I didn't see you particularly offering any opinion at all. As I noted, of the 612 words, less than half were yours, and some of yours were the titles and names of authors and books. Your original words amounted to:

quote:
I often see this question posed in response to a submission in the Fragments and Feedback forums. Also, in response to a comment made by extrinsic in another post, I've begun reading Percy Lubbock's book The Craft of Fiction.. In analysing and critiquing Tolstoy's War and Peace, he makes this statement:...

...Unless, of course, you start writing stories where you have no idea of what they are actually about or where your final destination will be. I mention this because, in the processing of Editing a 110K novel, I had cause to ask the author what his premise was? My reason was that he had four separate stories masquerading as one. Once I had his answer, That one event does not necessarily define a life, I could advise him that he had to choose between one of two stories and dump the other two--unceremoniously and immediately.

He was left with two, one of which would be hard to write and another almost impossible--it would have meant him writing literature, not YA fiction. But, in my opinion, he was capable of it. He chose the safe path, neither of the two stories with meat in them.

Cowardice? Perhaps. I'll never know because I cancelled the contract for that book. Not because he didn't follow my advice, but because of his refusal to change, a change that would have caused him to kill some of his darlings.

Anyone care to comment?

Phil.

Again, from your words, what were we supposed to comment upon? On a book none of us have read?
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Grumpy old guy
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Of course they're opinionated, they're my opinion. But, to suggest this:

quote:
Nor do I not see how the discovery one has in the taking of notes is any different from the discovery one has in simply writing the first draft and then editing it over time to perfection.
Seems to be admitting that a first thought is the best one and why explore new ones when you can edit old ones.

Phil.

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TaleSpinner
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I think this thread has become dysfunctional, with contributors writing not reading.

Phil asks, "What I am wondering is why some of the contributors to this thread seem so aggrieved by the idea that planning a story before you actually write it is such anathema and stifles so much creativity?" I guess "some contribuors" includes me and assuming it does I think I answered the question, Phil, in an earlier post--I did it because I hoped it might be helpful to some, sorry if it wasn't. "Aggrieved" is a bit strong-- but your advice did seem to me overly prescriptive. In offering what I'd call (not an intuitive but) an evolutionary incremental process I hoped to offer an alternative to "plan it in detail then write it".

I thought the topic for the thread was the concept of using a "premise". Then somehow it drifted off into the writing process - which for me is a personal thing.

If "aggrieved" means the appearance of passion, what's wrong with passion for what we're doing and how we do it?

I think that when we start a thread we need to define the topic clearly, and explain it when asked for clarification. When someone wanders off topic, we need to call it politely and for the wanderer to wander back on-topic with grace.

Well for me this topic wasn't a complete waste of time-- although sharing the evolutionary, incremental model I imported from the software industry does seem to have been a waste of time-- because in writing my posts I discovered, yes discovered, that the novel I'm planning, yes planning, has two premises, and thus two intertwined stories, not just the one I started with. Now, where's that round tuit....?

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Denevius
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quote:
Seems to be admitting that a first thought is the best one and why explore new ones when you can edit old ones.

With a tired sigh, I say, "Ok."

quote:
I thought the topic for the thread was the concept of using a "premise".
But what about premise?

To be honest, I feel like the point of this thread was to post some obscure excerpts to sound intelligent. Not one unique thought was originally offered. Sure, I've been dancing around just coming out and saying it, but there it is.

I feel like a teacher who got a report from a student, and the student copied and pasted from Wikipedia without offering any personal insight into what they actually think of the text.

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Grumpy old guy
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quote:
quote:
I thought the topic for the thread was the concept of using a "premise".
But what about premise?
No. it wasn't.

The topic is clear: "But, what's it all about?" What's that have to do with premise? A premise is a literary device a writer uses to maintain a consistent narrative thread, it doesn't tell you what a story is about.

It's a simple question, Denevius. What's your story all about? Can you tell me in 10 words or less? If you can't, then you don't understand your story. That's what the thread is about.

quote:
I feel like a teacher who got a report from a student, and the student copied and pasted from Wikipedia without offering any personal insight into what they actually think of the text.
Really? And who was it that posted a misquote of Robert Frost? At least I transcribed from an original publication instead of copying and pasting the url of a website that is the purveyor of obviously inaccurate quotes.

Phil.

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Grumpy old guy
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Gosh, TaleSpinner, planning? And you say you discovered something? Congrats!

I see no difficulty in having two story premises (not buildings) so long as you can successfully integrate them. Otherwise, you may seriously want to consider either two separate stories or having two primary points of view; two stories in one that collide.

Phil.

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babooher
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Man, it sure took this thread more than 10 words to explain what it was about.

About that 10 words gimmick...

All that really is is an elevator pitch, a pitch to an agent or editor you bump into in an elevator or some other time and place with limited time to offer to pitch your story.

Does knowing the premise mean knowing or understanding the concept?

I'm stealing this from author Larry Brooks and it can be found at storyfix.com:

"Concept: a story landscape, arena or stage; a notion or proposition, a time or place, a setting or an issue, that is inherently compelling BEFORE you add character and plot. NUMEROUS stories could be told upon such a story landscape.

Premise: a hero with a problem/quest/journey to take, against opposition, with stakes hanging in the balance (on other words, the PLOT)."


I'm currently working on a tale where the premise is "A girl is hunted by through a deserted city." (and look under 10 words!) Overall, a pretty simple premise.

However, that premise is set in a concept that is much larger. The concept for the tale is "What would it be like to be an outdated life form?". Or even better, "What would it be like to be an intelligent but outdated life form?"

Now, I suppose I could try and combine concept and premise into a statement under 10 words. "A vestigial form is hunted by technologically evolved beings." However, I think that loses a bit in translation.

So when you ask what's my story about, I feel like I could give two answers. I could give the premise, or the concept.

Can a story not have a concept? I think so. Can a story not have a premise? Maybe. Would it be better if they were both there? I believe so.

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Grumpy old guy
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But, babooher, is your story about fear, isolation, the struggle to survive, the urge to procreate? Or, as is said of humans, is it the reflex action of a super-predator to try and kill anything that threatens its species survival.

The notion of reducing a story down to 10 words is not to buttonhole an editor in a lift, it's to distill all the various competing wants and ideas into a single whole.

Once you know the essential kernel of your story, its ultimate distillation, which must address some aspect of the human condition, then you can you expand upon it to create a coherent whole.

But, that's an opinionated answer; which is obviously mine. I'm not asking you to agree with it, after all, this is commentary, not a gladiatorial contest of ideas. And, I would opine that your premise isn't actually a premise at all; it's more like a nine word synopsis. However, your concept is an appropriate question to ask in order to start a story. As for Larry Brooks' notion of the value of concept, I reject it; both where he places it and the importance he assigns to it. Again, just my opinion.

Phil.

[ February 09, 2015, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]

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TaleSpinner
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quote:
Originally posted by Grumpy old guy:
But, babooher, is your story about fear, isolation, the struggle to survive, the urge to procreate? Or, as is said of humans, is it the reflex action of a super-predator to try and kill anything that threatens its species survival.

The notion of reducing a story down to 10 words is not to buttonhole an editor in a lift, it's to distill all the various competing wants and ideas into a single whole.


Phil.

I understood 'premise' as babooher reflected it back, as meaning the equivalent of an elevator speech telling "what the story is about". But if that's wrong, then I am none the wiser and the purpose of the thread has escaped me.
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extrinsic
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"But, what's it all about" and the central topic is, as Grumpy old guy expressed in the original post, and was overlooked mostly, is unity, as cited from the Lubbock and Egri texts. I've read them. I responded to the post's prompt as such.

"Premise" is a necessary unity feature from Egri's theory. The Poe essay linked above, "The Philosophy of Composition," asserts unity of effect is necessary, a basis of Poe's writing theory. Aristotle, Freytag, Lubbock, Egri, Poe: Larry Brooks, unity of concept -- unity of expression by an identifiable matrix in each's aesthetics texts, Frost too, and our host Orson Scott Card's MICE theory also distinguishable as a matter of unity of milieu, idea, character, and event, with one predominant.

Unity, But, that's what it's about.

Now, we're not supposed to psychoanalytically criticize each other and with good reason -- disunity ensues from misapprehensions and causes harms to personal feelings, and harms to Hatrack. I won't then, though what constitutes psychoanalytical criticism is a fluid set, not only mental state, but the human range of emotional, personality, and identity matrix criteria as well: education, age, maturity, financial status, lifestyle, religion, politics, beliefs, sexual orientation, family life, gender, etc.

I will, however, note that disunity of this discussion postures at or about or over the hard bright line of inappropriate psychoanalysis. Now, if that makes me a hypocrite for psychoanalyzing the overall tenor of this discussion, then I am. The topic of discussion is unity.

I appreciated Grumpy old guy prompting intelligent, open-minded discussion about unity as a narrative theory, and from texts I've studied as bases of unity theories. I am delighted that a prompt of mine led to his study of those texts, more so encouraged and optimistic about his progress on the Poet's Journey from studying those texts.

I'd hoped the discussion would lead to further appreciation of unity as an important feature of narrative skills, for my benefit not least of all. Instead, the discussion was derailed by contributors unfamiliar with the texts, who instead dissented with tired and worn out and impossible-to-argue-against arguments against planned writing, and disparaged posts and excerpts generously offered to familiarize unfamiliar auditors so they might meaningfully participate in the topic discussion.

I do not mean to assert that dissent is a disunity and to be rigorously avoided, only that unity, at least in this instance, of purpose and subject matter, and, overall, harmony demands dissent be topical, reasoned, insightful, open-minded, considerate, and meaningful to the topic at hand.

Yes, I strayed; yeah, I'm a hypocrite, which is one of my trigger buttons I'm least able to cope with when hypocrisy rears its proud green head against me. However, I did not stray far from general writing discussion and as pertains to unity as a writing topic and the prompt of the discussion.

Unity, please.

---

Of note, Lubbock allows ten words to sum a narrative's unity factor. How about one word? The Spanish provincial idiom salao used by Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea sums the novella; the meaning is cursed. One word for this thread's topic: Unity.

[ February 09, 2015, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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TaleSpinner
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Nope sorry extrinsic I'm still bemused. And disappointed that the qualifications for entering the discussion (read war and peace or whatever) were not made clear.

I guess I'll leave you and Phil to your elite discussion thread.

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extrinsic
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Confusion is impossible to clear up in the face of denial and no justification for further insult.
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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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So. Are we done?
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Grumpy old guy
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If I may, Kathleen? If I may not, then please feel free to delete this post.

I don’t know whether to laugh or weep. The responses to a simple proposition about what Freytag calls unity of action are both hilarious and appalling. At least it is a comfort to know that Darwin’s theory also applies to other fields, not just staying alive.

I shall gird my loins and brace myself appropriately when I dare to mention significance in storytelling.

Phil.

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TaleSpinner
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I'm not laughing.

So now it's "unity of action".

And now there are suggestions from extrinsic that someone might be in need of psychoanalysis and someone is in "denial". Is that insulting or what? It's certainly not in the spirit of not criticizing each other that we all signed up for. It abides by the rules, sure, but not their spirit.


I would suggest, Phil, framing the question in clear English, defining whether reading a stack of book is a necessary requirement, as extrinsic appears to mandate, for joining the discussion, and refraining from giving prescriptive advice. Oh, and when someone says something is not clear to them, they're right and they deserve a decent answer. And when they attempt to join in and clarify, why not encourage instead of pouring cold water upon their contribution?

We're all trying to learn here; what happened to mutually supportive encouragement? So when I say that my story in waiting has two premises, not one, please celebrate that new insight with me instead of assuming I'm dumb (I assure you, I'm not) and warning me they might be two stories- patronising prescriptive advice that's uncalled for because it's obvious from the nature of what I thought was a discussion on "premise".


Thanks Kathleen for all your hard work facilitating Hatrack, and thanks for all the learning that Hatrack afforded me: it's now time for me to move on, methinks. I'll return to lurking for now.

So long, and thanks for all the fish,
Pat

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babooher
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Grumpy Old Guy, I would like to suggest to you the topic of clarity instead of significance. People often learn a lot by trying to teach a concept.

Often, writers who don't understand something can't express what they mean clearly. Seriously, how many posts did it take you to get to Freytag? Maybe in a few more posts you might get to Aristotle. In any event, instead of playing with your loins you should read some books about clarity. I'd suggest a few, but I too have to go fish lest I fall pray to some Darwinian forces.

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extrinsic
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The original post contained ample content for discussion prompts: unity, premise, how they connect and connect to a plan or to a direction of writing, and considerations of content and organization targeted for a selected audience.

Reading the full texts of the cited works was not assigned reading. Lubbock alone is 400,000 words; the four showcase and dozen other texts Lubbock contrasts and compares from his text each also number words in that range. Likewise, Freytag, a number of lengthy showcase texts and other texts and a lengthy aesthetics text itself. And tedious, though, from an open-minded and passionate approach, they are informative and delightful texts. Aristotle, Poe, etc., too. And none of the texts cost any monetary toll.

Self-selection, not assigned reading. Self-selection, too, whether to contribute to the discussion, whether to ask for clarification, whether to elaborate on topical subjects, whether to provide further sources for similar texts, self-selection too whether to follow, study, and cognitively process and understand the discussion, and whether to muddle the discussion instead of participate.

Self-selection, too, to succeed, to get by, or to underachieve in life, in writing, in unity. Self-selection is the order of the times. No one here is under compulsion of force majeure, mandate, imperative, or assignment. Self-selection is voluntary participation.

[ February 10, 2015, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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I'm not laughing either.

Best wishes, Pat.

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extrinsic
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Oh well, in for a penny, in for a Benjamin.

The lamented liveliness and courteous discussion of an earlier Hatrack era evidences mutual respect, passion, and efforts to understand difficult topics and contributions and struggles. Chest-thumping dominance displays or peer pressure abuses of accusations that shared knowledge exhibited dominance displays happened far less much. Dissent was, when expressed, considerate, topical, and respectful.

What happened between then and since? I don't know. Though to be blunt, not least of which about myself, negatively, emotionally charged terms or comments disrupt conversation. Disruptive deviations disrupt conversation. They are changes of subject likely to contaminate productive discussion. In rhetorical theory, as at times expression vice or virtue or both, diversions strategically avoid a topic for self-involved agendas.

For example, fallicious argumentation: ad hoc; ergo, propter hoc: cum hoc; ergo, propter hoc; post hoc; ergo, propter hoc fallacies assign illogical causation to influences. Ad hominem, ad nauseaum, and tu quo que fallacies emphasize pathos appeals at the expense of logos and ethos appeals. Pathos appeals are a prose priority, though ideally not at the expense of logos and ethos, as well as other matters of rhetorical decorum: kleos, kairos, and, at last a common term that's not graecismic, audience.

The above laundry list of Greek and Latin terms are accessible, defined, and illustrated by examples at mostly the Silva Rhetoricae. Or Wikipedia, or in dictionaries, or two or more sources. For a minimum of effort and at no other expense, not assigned mandates.

They are offered in their Greek and Latin forms because their meanings and uses in English provide a stable vocabulary of composition topics that, otherwise, are informally invented and limited-to-individual group idioms that are widely and wildly inaccessible due to their idiomatic unconventionality. They are both offered to instruct -- more anon -- and to enhance at least my grasp and interested individuals of their timeliness, timelessness, and relevance to artfully crafted prose and, possibly, poetry composition conventions.

Sharing is learning. Instruction is learning. Learning, sharing, instruction, are share-able and each to another enhancements of the others. This is what propels education passion: learning, sharing, and instruction. A dispassionate instructor burns out from single-minded, one-direction tell directed to equally dispassionate auditors in rote and unimaginative lecture methods. For example, one plus one equals two. That's it. Learn it. After a semester or more of drilling that expression into resistant memories, it becomes tired air. A passionate instructor continues to learn and explore sharing, learning, and instructing methods.

For one, a convention of instruction methods used across society: informally, formally, publicly, and privately is Socratic irony. Socratic irony, like most, if not everything, in creation spans a continuum of negative, neutral, and positive emotional charge.

The negative charge is motivated by a gotcha ambush trap of a naive, hapless, trusting individual. Socratic irony's negative agenda poses feigned innocence and ignorance for the sake of luring an unwitting victim into a logic trap. One and what equals what, for example, deliberately leaves out a variable necessary to satisfy the expression. Gotcha if the answer is limited to, well, doesn't one and one equal two? An algebraic expression expresses the whole variable set: a + b equals c. The satisfaction then is the variable values' set for when a + b equals c.

Neutral Socratic irony holds no agenda except persuasion for a shared good, perhaps mutual outcomes, perhaps reciprocal outcomes, certainly noble outcomes regardless.

Positive Socratic irony entails an agenda and noble outcomes. In the case of a math instructor teaching, not rote memory repetition methods, though, mathematical reasoning skills. Solutions to expressions are withheld so that, one, a learner develops mathematical reasoning skills; and, two, more if not most, persuasively valuable, self-satisfies a puzzle and is able to independently satisfy similar puzzles, and is self-rewarded by those learnings.

Who of an age consistent with independent privilege and obligation wants a puzzle solution or a plot outcome prematurely revealed, told, mandated? The term "plot spoiler alert," for example, evidences that consideration. Productive instructors similarly offer ample cues and hints and clues so that an individual who makes a likewise productive effort may self-solve a mystery, a puzzle, a plot and develops skills and aptitude for independent, self-managed reasoning of considerations and solutions and satisfactions. A passionate instructor leaves room for self-solutions.

Perhaps an instructor, deficient in full realization of a concept, scratches at the edges of an idea and uses Socratic irony to conceal that lack, then, through instruction processes, learns more or as much as practical about the topic as simultaneously do puzzle solvers. Maybe, ideally, for a time, this instructor maintains a lead on instructees so that kleos and ethos continue, for a time, to persuasively maintain auditors' interests and attentions. Perhaps, an instructee may exceed an instructor, too.

Perhaps an instructor, unsure of a focal idea and intent, uses Socratic irony and the positive benefits therefrom to develop and narrow the idea so that manageability develops. Informal conversations, publicly and privately, express through whichever Socractic intent for common or individual well-being or ill-being.

I feel respect and courtesy demand that discussion remain topical, civil, and, most of all, patiently understanding of motivations, purposes, and outcomes and, you know, strugglers, of which we are all of equal standing.

Now, human hypocrite that I am, I've also used negative emotionally charged comments. For me, their use is a lose-lose outcome, which of a least worse lose to weigh of a lose-lose double bind. Hypocrisy triggers my emotional explosions. I too become hypocritical and am grievously wounded because I trespass. My patience and resilience wear thin, as I expect and know and note does others'. I explode as well because I feel triggered to abreact, for which I confess and sincerely feel sorrow for those I trespass against directly, indirectly, uncontrollably or intentionally, individually, socially, publicly, privately, and for my wounds personally.

To wit, getting down and around tu-it: I don't care for negative heat, it upsets me and withers my resilience. Yes, I'm weak, though that's no cause for punching my or anyone's trigger buttons or my punching others' triggers. The hypocrisy I most loathe is when an individual or individuals enrich his or her self-esteem at the expense of others' esteem. My explosion, so to speak, then takes the form of hitting back to inform, caution, castigate, control that vile, maladjusted behavior. Yet I am admittedly maladjusted myself. Who do I think I am? Better than others? Am I the final authority on behavioral matters? God? How can I be if I'm as flawed or more, and frail, as the others I instruct? I'm a human being who is as privileged and obligated as any otherwise reasonable adult to express my behavioral misgivings. If it takes a village to raise a healthy child, it takes a village's cooperation; and a divided village raises an unhealthy child.

Those latter considerations are for me guiding values when understanding and patience are foremost strained up to a break point. Yet an ongoing constant barrage of thinly veiled negative and derisive emotionally charged commentary following me across the cosmos, harried and harassed, from and directed at anyone or me exceeds my resilience capacity. I explode.

Get and stay off my back, like it's a personal grudge to be worried persistently and that demands personal satisfaction through opposition's total annihilation on the field of honor. And I won't explode. Stop hitting and hitting back, please. Employ it in the expression on the manuscript page instead.

[ February 11, 2015, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Denevius
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I think my mistake also was to not just let Phil and Extrinsic converse with each other. I'll keep that in mind in the future. These obscure texts and overly dense responses aren't worth the effort.
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Grumpy old guy
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To all those, except extrinsic, who couldn't read and comprehend plain English text and who started remonstrating about things they demonstrably don't understand, let me re-post part of my reply to Denevius' first attempt at dismissing the subject matter out of hand.

quote:
Setting that detour aside, the point of the post was to wonder if contributors, when writing their stories, actually know where they are going and what the point of the story is before they start writing . . .
Kathleen, would you please close this thread now? If no-one actually understands what it's about, or is interested in expanding their understanding, what's the point?

Phil.

[ February 11, 2015, 03:19 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]

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babooher
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Now who doesn't understand plain English? Maybe you should look up what "gird" means. Noah Webster wrote a wonderful book that might contain some helpful insight into the term. You can also use it to look up "loins."

As for calling you stupid, I did no such thing. I suggested, rather helpfully I might add, that you look into clarity. For example, your statement where you said many people didn't understand you. "To all those, except extrinsic, who couldn't read and comprehend plain English text and who started remonstrating about things they demonstrably don't understand...." You interjected extrinsic into the main structure of that sentence: "To all those who couldn't read and comprehend plain English text and who started remonstrating about things the demonstrably don't understand...." The way you exempted extrinsic still groups him with "those...who couldn't read and comprehend plain English." You've only excluded him from the next clause. Think of it this way. Imagine I'm watching a group of kids consisting of seven boys and three girls. Four of the boys and Jennie need to pee but the restrooms aren't clearly marked (buoys and gulls or some other claptrap). So to clarify I tell the group "To all of you who need to use the restroom, let me suggest you use the restroom on the right except Jennie." I could also say, "All of you who need to pee, except Jennie, let me remind you to use the restroom on the right." I didn't exclude Jennie from needing to pee, only from using the restroom on the right.

To go back to your comment, you've specifically called out extrinsic and said some negative things that I think might deserve an apology. Either that, or you're lacking clarity.

And that, Mr. Grumpy, was a demonstration of how I believe you're writing things you think are clear, but in actuality are not. I tried to help you clarify the vague term "premise" earlier by providing some clearly defined terms and examples, but you simple refuted the terms while providing none of your own. You didn't demonstrate how my terms were bad terms, however, you simply said (perhaps with a grumpy stomp) that you didn't agree. Perhaps that's your didactic style. Perhaps you're not taking into account your audience when you write. Perhaps you are just smarter than all of us and we just can't comprehend your brilliance.

I hope this thread doesn't close so that others can read it and see your idea of discourse compared to the discourse models of others. I think people would be able to learn a lot. I know I have.

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Grumpy old guy
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So, babooher, you are so obsessed with refuting anything I say that you are slavering at the bit to refute a post I left up for three minutes before deleting. Oh, what pitiful stuff.

And, just to clarify premise in a literary sense for you, in case you're confused: A proposition containing a conclusion; for example, obsessive love leads to death as a premise to Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet As for loins, there is the butcher's definition and the Biblical and poetic one. That definition is: The part of the body that should be clothed and girded, or which is regarded as the seat of physical strength and generative power. Please note: Generative power. However, the dictionary definition of loincloth also refers specifically to a cloth to cover the hips and loins. So, just what location on the body are you talking about?

Have a nice day. [Smile]

Phil.

[ February 11, 2015, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]

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Denevius
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Haha. There's something so "male" about all of this. I'm reminded of grade school where the boys would get in a fight, but it was always important that they shake hands afterwards.

The virtual reality of the internet doesn't allow for that type of physical relief, however.

Phil and Extrinsic, I have no particular dislike towards you. Please don't take this too seriously. And what I've taken away from this is to be even more selective in what I respond to. I don't comment in every thread, and this is a thread that I should have left alone because of my initial misgivings.

So, 괜찮아요? Be good, guys!

[ February 11, 2015, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Denevius ]

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Robert Nowall
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I admit I'm at a loss to understand what's going on here.
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Denevius
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quote:
I admit I'm at a loss to understand what's going on here.
Much ado about nothing.
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Grumpy old guy
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Oh, my. Was that last irony?

[Razz]

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extrinsic
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The phrase which excludes extrinsic and then the subsequent restrictive subordination clause singles extrinsic out as the individual who can't read and comprehend plain English. Proximity of non-numbered though by default singular pronoun "who" to antecedent subject "extrinsic" connects the phrase and clause to each other and lends "who" the number value of singular.

The restrictive subordination clause after the conjunction "and" and by default plural non-numbered "who" about remonstration then connects plural pronoun "they" to farther proximity plural antecedent subject "To all those" and lends "who" the plural number value. Prescriptively anyway.

I understand the intent, though. I am delighted, too, by the unintended situational irony of intent and meaning disparity that are nonetheless readily interpretable and reconcilable.

[ February 11, 2015, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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extrinsic
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quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Nowall:
I admit I'm at a loss to understand what's going on here.

quote:
Originally posted by Denevius:
Much ado about nothing.

quote:
Originally posted by Grumpy old guy:
Oh, my. Was that last irony?


More than one rhetorical figure of irony, one or more through invoked allegory to Shakespeare's play of the title name. And, for examples, see "Paralipsis" and, more specifically, "Proslepsis."

[ February 11, 2015, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Closed topics can still be read, they just can't be responded to -- within the topic.

Deleted topics can't be read.

I'll just close this.

Before I become tempted to delete posts and find that I can't stop myself.

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