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No doubt what a target audience wants, needs, and when, where, what, why, how, who are monumental challenges. I'm not a writer for "the reader." Oh how that term grates my teeth. Who is this the reader anyway? Like the proverbial they who no one ever meets and from which all suffer a barrage of interminable ruin? I am a writer for a target niche I have yet to reach on shared essentialists' existential plane. Hello, are you out there?
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Ubiquitous or not, THE READER is your target audience. Writer aesthetics aside, if you want your message read it is essential to appreciate the things your reader's feel they need. They may prefer form to function, or not. But if you misread their wants they may not read on.
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A reader of one who represents a sufficient number of readers' tastes, sentiments, sensibilities to warrant publication is my target audience. I'm still shy of a full definition for that one reader, closer than before, though. An area shy of the mark before me and elusive is appreciations of a fellow pluralist.
Easy to argue for or against any particular issue; hard to refute and support both yet blaze a true path forward while all the others do is hypocritically talk about how wicked the other side is.
Lightbulb joke in that latter. How many people does it take to change a lightbulb? One, the custodian at town hall changes the burnt-out lightbulb in a cellar closet. He's suspended for failure to requisition the replacement in triplicate, not notarized by an authorized official and not drawn from government inventory, investigated and fired after due process, because someone on the council has a shiftless relative in mind for the job.
Everyone talks about how noble the old lightbulb was and how wicked the new one is. Legislators empanel hearings, lawyers size up sides, for and against the new lightbulb, for and against the custodian's termination, for and against the custodian's severance pay and/or pension, for and against the custodian's trial and conviction for malfeasance of office and abuse of power, for and against the janitor department, the council, the mayor, the chief of police, the dog catcher, the government, lightbulb makers, unions, insurance companies, and reporters.
Reporters report how salacious the custodian's private life is, the councilpersons' salacious private lives, who backed his termination or forgiveness, about lightbulb life cycles and state-of-the-art light technology, life-long corruptions of all and sundry, and invent corruptions if none are available.
The old lightbulb is displayed in state and then interred with full honors. The new lightbulb is removed, ordered replaced at 600 times the usual shelf cost, after crony and patronage and nepotism "low bid" requests for proposals run awry. A mayoral candidate touts that the lightbulb-less closet saves taxpayers eight cents a day electricity costs. The closet remains lightbulb-less, forgotten for a century while the wranglers grapple the mangle.
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I'm sorry E. but there is one fact you have failed to acknowledge in your colorful light bulb story: you thought the old light bulb died of natural causes, but in truth, it was--MURDER! There's a witness, Some backroom closet floozy had come around to turn him on when she heard the sound of a loud POP just before the old bulbster's light went out. She said she'd seen him crossing wires with a few grungy burnouts who'd been sparking a lot of trouble lately. You know, dimmer bulbs, all high on fluorescent. Rumor is they had been juicing him, threatening to blow his filament out if he didn't step down. Now he's dead, and everybulb's acting like it's just another case of voltage as usual. But something smells funny about this outlet and I'm not going to stop until I close this circuit.
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Though variant from the lightbulb joke tradition, the lightbulb is itself an active influence persona of the drama, now that you mention it. "Everybulb," exquisite metaphor! Altogether, Maria Edgeworth and Jonathan Swift Irish-anglo Bull satire territory.
quote:Originally posted by walexander: Thanks, E. It took away a little boredom.
Go for broke? A lightbulb joke interpreted as a full-blown dramatic narrative, lightbulb and similar motifs, say, camera personifications, has yet to be done in print or motion picture. A lightbulb true-crime and political intrigue noir satire strikes me as ripe for publication success.
quote:Originally posted by Jack Albany: I also seek a single reader; yet representative of many similar to me.
Not to be contrary for contrariness's sake, several audience target considerations; "preach to the choir," so to speak, sermonize to the congregation, express persuasive appeals for personal social reform and maturation purposes to the as-yet unrepentant. Though I target one reader, the latter is my true target motivation, meantime, capture the former audiences, too, and each by and through the others.
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Here we are on the snow drifts of Idaho. I'm out in the blizzard to interview the survivors of SV day. "Excuse me, sir, are you a veteran of SV (Saint Valentine's) day?
"Yes, cards, candies, movies, flowers, dinner, over and over my company tried to take that hill but failed. The enemy outmaneuvered us. Shifting this way and that. Soon I realized it was hopeless. Whatever we did, it was countered with ruthless precision. Then I saw a break in the bombardment, a lull in the endless strikes against our soft targets. I said to myself and the men, "This is our moment. Our chance to rise above those who falter and fade away. Our moment to prove whether we are men or mice. Who's with me?"
And they responded, "Squeak."
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Saw my first statue of liberty yesterday. Realized that I no longer drive by some Liberty tax services so they could have had some out on the corner and I would n't have seen them. But I am sure that last year there were more statures hanging out on street corners.
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Saint Valentine's day usurps an earlier traditional northern hemisphere winter celebration day, long before any arbitrary ancient Greek or Roman or Christian celebrations; that is, a waymark celebration of a midpoint between the winter solstice and vernal equinox.
Celebrants shook off the doldrums of being cabin bound for half winter's deep freeze season, met up for maiden and young buck ritual display dress rehearsals, and general revelry overall, really, to share potluck root pit, grain sack, and smoke rack overstocks in exchange for shortfalls met, for dietary nutrition health benefits. The feast made the next winter stretch into spring more cope-able. And reminded all and sundry the spring season fast approaches.
Chocolate and blossom and such are mere commercial exhortations calculated to support consumer materialism industry. Back to basics and forward to exhalation celebrants realize the sincere thought, speech, action, gift counts most to signal genuine affection: familias, philia, storge, agape, amor; or eros, if one must. Imagination lackers go the convenient spender habit route. Immediate, effortless gratification is as hollow as a loveless romance or affection and respect-less kinship or friendship-less friendship.
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Those who have said, "Can't teach an old dog new tricks," have never wanted to be a published writer.
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Great, all this in-depth study on editing is screwing up my enjoyment of reading. Now I'm starting to see errors I would change in already published books.
If I keep this up, soon I will be red marking them, and putting notes on the side.
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Well, every time I hit, say, a typo, or a bit of information I know to be wrong, it's like everything stops dead for me.
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One of the costs of learning about writing (and editing), sad to say.
I've gotten to the point that the best thing I can say about a book is that I'm anxious to get back to it. (No more "couldn't put it down!") And I fear that I don't say that about many books any more.
And if I don't feel that way, I may not bother to finish the book at all.
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I couldn't agree more. When you are stuck in editing mode it's near impossible to even read a book.
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With practice and a full grasp of craft, grammar, and rhetoric's figurative language, the occasion of a glitch becomes a contributory part of the reading experience. I have yet to read a "perfect" writing. The art is itself far from perfect, except that, like life, perfectly messed up, like precious gems' occlusive flaws distinguish identity and enhance value.
Glitches, to me, anymore speak volumes about a writer, an editor, publisher, and the culture, and deepen my appreciation for a narrative's difficult composition challenges and shortfalls and the importance of writing skills. I read with several hats on my head and several-lens glasses before my eyes.
Anymore, when I read other than for work, a sticky notepad at hand, I mark errors. Delays reading, yes, little, if any, fatal disruption for the works I choose to read for entertainment and craft analysis, And, yet a further facet through which to engage. Afterward, a thought process a publisher might compensate for a diplomatically couched correction sheet and adjust subsequent editions, if any, if they will, delights me. A rare few compensated me.
Rarer yet, a few houses extended vague employment teaser innuendoes. No joy there. Willingness to work in an office, say, New York City, where nine out of ten prose U.S. houses conduct business, daunts me no end, is a deal breaker. No takers yet on telecommuter arrangements. Houses that do arrange telecommuter editor work, those require start as entry-level submission screener unpaid interns -- gophers. If I were much younger, less strapped for revenue, and not a dissociative-affect agoraphobe . . .
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I haven't started writing yet, let alone starting editing, but after six years of studying story construction I've given up trying to read someone else's work. I keep editing and critiquing them.
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I should also say that this doesn't prevent me from leaving all sorts of errors in my own work, that I don't see till it's well past any point of correction.
(In my Internet Fan Fiction work, I had someone taken out under arrest by blue-wearing city cops, then, some time later, had someone taken out in the exact same location by green-wearing sheriffs. I should have noticed---don't know whether anybody else did, but I should have. Bothers me every time I think about it.)
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I just got done reading - self-editing for fiction writers.
I learned a lot, but at the same time found it strange that they point out Dan Brown for bad dialog tags, though his books have made him rich beyond belief. Same as I pointed out about JK Rowling.
I guess my question is: What if they had changed those tags? What if they read an editing book and decided I better change this. Could that have completely changed their fate? Would the books have been better? I don't know.
Reader POV, narrative distance, and reader's level of English comprehension have been plaguing me also. There are so many examples of different levels of each of these to combine into a strong flow. It does start to give you pause and make you think about your target audience, and how broad of an appeal you want.
But the number one element I see that breeds success is - Unique times twenty. Followed by - consistency.
The one thing that both Rowling and Brown share is multiple unique ideas that have been executed in a way that an average reader can follow along and enjoy. Think of what the Potter books would have been like without the unique spell language that rolls off the tongue.(Based mostly on Latin, some Arabic) Rowling then strings one unique idea after another, there imaginative, but simple, like Quidditch. Brown tackles multiple puzzles challenging preconceived notions from all sides. Isaac Asimov used this trick to, so did Well's, and Verne. (Yes, and OSC.)
And herein lies the complication: Can you come up with intersecting multiple, uniquely great, ideas that have a cohesive bond? Only time will tell.
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Great writers' works contain facets that are by and large reader inaccessible, often writer inaccessible, too, until after considerable thought effort. The Potter saga contains such facets, as does the Brown cycle, and G.R.R. Martin, ad infinitum. Rhetoricians label the facets' factors method, message, and moral; and those often arise from a writer's subconscious, rarely, if ever, anywhere near the surface of an experienced writer's conscious thoughts, else a narrative does preach overmuch.
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Not always, extrinsic. The trick is to realise that the moral underpinnings of a story, essentially what the story is really about, are separate from the story's narrative arc. Something I've only just come to understand in an early,nebulous form.
walexander, the reason the writers you mentioned made it big is they wrote stories which moved the human heart, sometimes erroneously labelled as addressing the human condition. It's that simple, no tricks or special gifts other than knowing what moves the human heart right now.
Consider this: the youth of today happily acknowledge that most of their private lives are on the Internet; in a future world where there are NO secrets and no privacy, what would you do if you did have a REAL secret, one that would change the world? Story ideas tumble out willy-nilly.
[ March 08, 2018, 06:37 AM: Message edited by: Jack Albany ]
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Several narrative types are worth a grist for the mill look-see for what they're really about, moral-wise, and how the types differ, and differ from the classic Aristotlean senses of tragedy and comedy, and as well these below are the same and more common across modernist literature's canon than might be supposed.
Bildungsroman -- education novel Entwicklungsroman -- development novel Erziehungsroman -- formal education novel Künstlerroman -- artist novel, artist development and self-growth
Definitions and explanations of those at Wikipedia, for a start, an article or two; "Bildungsroman."
The Potter saga is at least three of those four types.
Note each type's definition anticipates self-growth and its companion moral maturation, without much due consideration of the personal costs and losses attendant upon moral maturation: a contest's struggles costs, physical and emotional, loss of youthful bliss innocence, and loss of societal tolerance for minor indiscretions.
In an alternative, a poetic injustice scenario: good punished; wickedness rewarded; Naturalism's pessimistic nihilism; might be labeled Poetische ungerechtigkeitroman, poetic injustice novel, for German auditors. Or Reifungsroman, maturation novel, for another distinct type independent of age and setting contexts.
Within the types above, their attendant moral contests and outcomes, a subtext contest arc that attends a surface dramatic contest arc, are distinctions that set great and popular works apart from the mediocrity fray.
"Roman" and "novel" mean the Latin sense of a dramatic narrative of whatever length, irrespective of fiction or creative nonfiction, (novellus: new).
posted
It still stands to reason that multiple unique twists have to be present. The potter series does zero to touch on our current world crisis. It mainly touches on bullying, abuse, friendship, family loss, and the hero's journey.
Because; let's take a different example, Martin's song of ice and fire, I didn't like the books or Kirkman's comics of The Walking Dead, or Fifty Shades, Twilight, and Hunger Games. Each of these uses a core idea with a twist. War of the roses, the night of the living dead, the Marquis de Sade, Dracula, Spartacus.
They just bring something that was past and put it in a modern setting. The unique is in the change of venue.
But think about unique multiples. Let's use Star Wars, you can say it's the hero's journey but you get, the force, Jedi Knights, lightsabers, R2D2 & C3P0, the death star, the Millennium Falcon, Wookies. Sure you can say there's a hero, a rogue, a princess, a wise man, and an evil lord, even a comedy team, but it how it's all packaged that's unique. What would it be without, The force, Jedi, lightsaber, death star, the sith, Yoda, the dark side. Not just pulling on one archetype, but several, with a twist.
If you look at the spells in harry potter - each new spell has a unique incantation and effect within the story. Each wand is unique. The classes are unique. The houses, Gryffindor, Quidditch, etc, you get the point. And yet it follows the typical hero's journey.
You'd think there would be a key in this, right?
But then I sit back and ask myself about some of the books I love the language for, The Patrick O'Brien novels, Dickens, Melville, Fitzgerald, and ponder where do I draw that line, how scholarly do I wish to write, because great literature is not always for the masses.
Which always leads me back to - What do I want to write? Do I even have a moral or care about the human condition? What's driving me to want to write, over all the other things I could be doing. Why is it so important to me?
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Why write? Why climb Mt. Everest? "Because it's there"? Reasons are as individually different as the differences between the Homeric Cycle and John Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire, 2017, apparently sufficient to warrant television production, too: motion picture rights optioned. And yet similar drama. The similarities and the differences and intangibles are part of the writer equation. In the end, though, because, like life, self-expression is a conversational force, a need to share a message.
This, from the above "Bildungsroman" Wikipedia article, plot convention: "The goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he/she is ultimately accepted into society—the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over." Yeah, right, never over.
And from "Künstlerroman," "[Tends] to depict the conflicts of a sensitive youth against the values of a middle and upper class society of his or her time." As well whatever station and age, etc., an artist viewpoint agonist encounters a larger-than-life life-defining art and social crisis.
"Sensitive" to mean a socially aware individual, not per se a fragile persona. Why is the individual sensitive? Due to alienation, and the isolation of it cause for a sensitive kind of madness; that is, efforts to socially reintegrate through observant, lively, vivid, fresh self-expression. No individual can long remain intact on a desert island utterly apart. The individual's voice would be heard or else abreactive antisocial madness transpires. Self-expression affords social reconnection opportunities predicated upon social identity security enhancements. After all, humans are a social species.
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walexander, you seem to have two questions: Where do some writers get their unique and original ideas from, and why do you want to write. The second question is an existential conundrum: how long is a piece of string? Same answer, different question. As for where a writer gets all their original ideas, such as Jedi Knights, light-sabres, magical incantations etc.. They all come from simple world-building. It isn't hard, anyone can do it if they are able to disconnect their preconceptions and put in the required hard work. World-building isn't something you can make up as you go along; it requires careful forethought and examination of consequence.
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Selection choices reduce doubt, do not eliminate all doubt. For instance, choose a genre and subgenre, a length, an audience target, a form, a narrative type, like picaresque, noir, cyberpunk; voice, message and moral, event setting milieu, dramatic personas, narrative point of view, etc. Reduces doubt. The opposite is true for a narrative -- its setup, follow through, and outcome -- maintain doubt of outcome until the bittersweet end.
The latter is the true function for "plot twists," inevitable surprise dramatic turns that keep doubt and certainty in contention, pivots that turn more than a few degrees off course from full speed straight ahead -- zigzag. Two essentials for dramatic turns are, profound, abrupt revelation and reversal, anagnorisis and peripeteia, respectively, facets of a complex plot. A straightforward dramatic movement is a simple plot, minor, if any, turns.
Nine possible points within a full movement dramatic narrative for such turns: start crisis, incitement crisis, action rise crisis, crisis realization crisis, climax crisis, tragic crisis, action fall crisis, denouement crisis, outcome crisis to a new normal emotional equilibrium state. Anecdote, vignette, and sketch are forms that entail a dramatic snapshot instead of dramatic movement. Hatrack's thirteen lines principle favors start crisis turn development that upsets emotion equilibrium from the outset.
What's dramatic? Antagonal, causal, tensional, emotional crisis influences of personas' lives. How intense? A near infinite range of possible intensity; and varied degrees oscillate throughout a narrative's movement.
posted
Jack, you shouldn't use "isn't hard" and "the required hard work" in the same sentence. It is kind of counteractive but I got your point.
I'm just talking out loud, stirring the pot, so-to-say. That's why I put this under random musings instead of writing.
I'm just pondering single book/dramatic/historical/fiction/literature. VS versus hero journey epic series. The pluses and minus. Both are huge endeavors that consume mass amounts of life. I'm just making sure it's worth it to me to spend that time writing about life rather than living it.
It's like what E. said, It's your Everest. Very few make it to the very top, the question becomes and each writer has to ask themselves: was it worth it just to try? All the time lost that could just be spent enjoying the sun, the snow, the ocean, your kids, etc. Will it be worth it when all is said and done? The endless hours of study, writing and rewriting, the doubts and the doubters, does this outweigh the time spent.
Therein lies the question I have yet to fully answer.
That's why I call it a rant,
I know what I'm going to do: Keep writing of course. It just gets tough when others around me have so much free time to enjoy life while I have to pass in order to get some writing done.
If it were easy . . .
W.
I'm sitting and enjoying just listening to the soundtrack of La La Land right now. Taking a breather.
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A literature instructor-mentor once quipped in class that she probably didn't write creatively because she lived a comfortable life. The quip responded to a classmate question, Why are all these reading assignments so bleak? Such is life.
A reason why many writers write, and succeed, is for a survival instinct strategy: declare an opinion position, figuratively, attract a like-minded support cult, bask in a companionable milieu, ignore detractors, survive the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I).
Write about the personally suffered slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and how those were survived.
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The bleakness is one problem I have with a lot of lit instructors.
I really balk at the idea that art has to be bleak. I'm okay with suffering in a story, but I want to see the ray of hope, the refusal to be beaten down, the stick-to-it-ivity.
Nihilism is not the only way to make art.
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I attended a writers workshop for writers who wanted to write for young readers several years ago, and it seemed that every single instructor emphasized the bleak and the depressing.
For young readers!!! (!?!?!?!)
I finally couldn't take it any more, and when my class was given an assignment to write the next sentence for an opening that had a child coming home and finding Mom sitting on the couch and weeping. When asked what was wrong, the mother replied through her sobs, "It's your father!"
My next sentence was "He's inventing again!"
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Maybe slights for slings? And arrows then means insults aimed deep and true?
Rhetorical figures of substitution, per Silva Rhetoricae, Gideon Burton, rhetoric.byu.edu:
Acoloutha: "The substitution of reciprocal words; that is, replacing one word with another whose meaning is close enough to the former that the former could, in its turn, be a substitute for the latter."
Anacoloutha: "Substituting one word with another whose meaning is very close to the original, but in a non-reciprocal fashion; that is, one could not use the first, original word as a substitute for the second."
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Having had a literature and composition and pedagogy instructor-mentor range, I noted some did accentuate the bleak. Others accentuated the positive. A third space found emphasis points between those extremes and others outside the box. Left me to choose for myself. "And that has made all the difference." (Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken.")
I'm not a fan of bleak for bleak's sake anymore than positive for positive's sake, nor schadenfreude, though obtain delight from observed situational ironies and serendipitous fouled-ups backward, especially when those are combined.
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March 2018 came in an enraged lion, not weather-wise hereabouts, personal. Six major setbacks this month so far: three computer issues on two computers, a few car problems, and a new R&D project development setback. When it rains it pours.
A car hassle is yet outstood. The ever-lover horn sounds when the car corners. Pedestrians and other drivers glare dirty looks -- risks a road rager's scorn and rage in my face. Failed steering column clockspring, the maker no longer offers a replacement, not available from an aftermarket parts store. Lo and behold, a few auto salvage yards around yay might have it used and abandoned. Self-removal part, $ to $$. Low $$$ labor to shop install. Risky work due to the airbag system is also part served by the clockspring. Yikes.
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Yeah, a bomb. Seems simple enough in practice, de-energize the system to safe it, do the repair and replace work, re-energize and test before use. Got a how-to manual for it. Nope -- let a shop take the risks and warranty the work.
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Stephen Hawking passed away, may he enjoy the great beyond. He finally knows all the secrets he was searching for. I hope it is an enjoyable moment of insight.
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A few paper wedges, folded and placed just so, resolved the horn issue -- priceless. The other hassles also resolved. The R&D project leapt ahead, nearly fulfilled anticipations. One more development prototype phase before implementation.
And the writing project(s) moves ahead, too, as well.
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I loathe duct tape -- chewing gum fixes, too. Have used bailing wire, wire clothes hangers, roadside leavings, and leftover wood, metal, plastic, and fiber scraps of all kinds.
The R&D project, for example, an abandoned plumber's rubber gasket material repurposed for a wood sandcarver stencil mask, cut by a die cutter appliance, adhered to artware with spray adhesive. Production mask material to come from an industrial supplier. A blast cabinet is next on the punch list -- for safe toxic material handling, silicon dust, silicosis hazard, mesothelioma; filter mask, goggles, hearing protector headset, overalls suit, and face shield to wear regardless.
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Had to take in a friend who lost his place to live after his brother passed away. So much for my fortress of solitude. Trying to make adjustments to noise again.
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Yesterday, in South Africa, all Australians were betrayed by our national cricket team. All those involved in, or who had knowledge of, this heinous act of bad sportsmanship should be sacked and banned from the game for life.
Our sporting reputation for fair play has been irretrievably tarnished.
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Up to a close dissection -- or vivisection -- of the Last Antecedent Clause doctrine, overtly in terms of legal contexts, laws, legislation, litigation, and country, state, municipal, corporate constitutions, and contract documents, covertly in terms of expression overall, in particular, conversation and stream of consciousness and how readers infer intimations, how syntax and punctuation inform reading and comprehension ease.
The doctrine asserts that a subsequent clause only applies to the prior antecedent clause if the two clauses and other previous clauses are separated by commas or other nonstop punctuation. Linguist scholars disagree for many contexts, yet allow the doctrine is valid for some contexts.
A notable example arises from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Recast to test whether or not the final and main clauses apply to the entire sentence, stray comma removals: //A well[-]regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.// Rearranged: //The right of the people to keep and bear arms being necessary to the security of a free state, a well[-]regulated militia shall not be infringed.//
All valid, correct grammar, too, emphasis shifts, though, and equivalent validity across the board. The Last Antecedent Clause doctrine, therefore, does not apply, though is taken as the supreme basis for inviolate Second Amendment rights. "A well[-]regulated militia" also being an operative phrase. Misses an essential hyphen, too: //well-regulated.//
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It means the people are expected to have their own guns, and to bring them when the militia was called up.
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