The Cult of Traditional Publishing Part 4: Da Rulez
da rulez
The Cult of Traditional Publishing Part 3: What do you really want?
The Cult of Traditional Publishing, Part 2: People don’t talk like that
A tale of hubris and envy.
“I’ve always wanted to write a book!” I hear quite a bit.
“Do it!” I say.
Writing a book has the lowest barrier to entry of any craft, hobby, art, free-time waster I can think of. Read more
The Cult of Traditional Publishing, Part 1: The math don’t lie
Mormons aren’t a cult. I know because I’m a Mormon and I was in a cult. The cult had me far more brainwashed than Mormonism ever did or ever will.
I didn’t actually do the math.
I didn’t have the numbers for one side of the colon. But based on the proliferation of newsgroups, online critique groups, publishing forums in 2008, and the number of such denizens all trying to get published, I could guess. And it was huge.
Then there was me. 1 : x6214
Mormons aren’t a cult. I know because I’m a Mormon and I was in a cult. The cult had me far more brainwashed than Mormonism ever did or ever will. Read more
Rules, broken
“Any halfway decent artist can outline,” she sneered.
You can’t sneer a statement.
She raised her eyes to his.
What’d she do, pick them up off the floor? Read more
Just stop. Please.
“Hone your craft.”
Stop it. It was clever the first three times I heard it in, oh, 1993. Now, after 3,409,320 times used and an interwebz in which I can document every instance, it’s way past cliché.
You’re writers (or editors or agents). Find a different way to say it, because at this point, every time you say it, you sound like a parrot without an original thought in your head.
The authorial beau monde
Third person narrative: Limited, Omniscient, Objective
Third person limited, with a little modification.
According to Wikipedia (that most unassailable source), third-person limited is:
Third person limited is when the narrator is an outsider who sees into the mind of one character … In third person limited the narrator is outside of the story and tells the story from only one character’s view.
However, some authors use an even narrower and more subjective perspective, as though the viewpoint character were narrating the story; this is dramatically very similar to the first person, allowing in-depth revelation of the protagonist’s personality, but uses third-person grammar.