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Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
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The
Write Way
11 January 2008 The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of its Parts Greetings, We're a funny lot, we humans, aren't we? We like everything to be where it's supposed to be and if that's not the case, we can get very disturbed. Allow me to illustrate ... When I was a mere slip of a girl, long straight hair, à la Judith Durham in The Seekers, was all the go, so my friends and I all strove to have the longest, shiniest and straightest hair we could (not a difficult ask for me since my hair could never hold so much as a wave despite my mother's most earnest efforts with the Curly-Pet and all the crusts I diligently consumed during my childhood). So there we were, swishing our long, shiny locks from side to side throughout our teen years and into our twenties; looking coyly up from under straight fringes as we flirted our way through a variety of romantic encounters and then efficiently tying back our crowning glory as we tended to a growing brood of ankle-biters. All very lovely, I hear you sigh, but ...? Well, the point is, dear reader, that hair is an important part of our self-image, it figures prominently in advertising campaigns, it makes a motza for multi-nationals and it has featured in love scenes since the first talkies graced the silver screen, but ... To maintain this fond place in our affections, hair must be affixed firmly to the head. Have you ever been standing in a queue, quietly minding your own business and idly glancing around the room then let your gaze wander to the back of the person in front of you, only to be jolted out of your reverie by the sight of loose, stray hairs on his or her shoulders? Do you edge further away from the offending follicles in case some of those strays slip silently off the shoulders and then furtively float their way onto you? Or have you ever been invited to dinner by hirsute friends, and as you move the last morsel of food to your fork, you discover a long hair, curled malevolently in the gravy? Shudder ... My most unnerving experience of the unattached hair variety was one I think I've mentioned before, and it occurred when our kids were teens and we'd booked a holiday in a flash unit at the coast. This unit, being flash, came with a spa bath, and in the days before water restrictions, we didn't feel guilty filling up a water-guzzler, so I happily waved goodbye to the family as they headed for the beach and took myself off for a nice, relaxing soak in the spa. Since we were on holidays, I decided to do the whole Outrageous Indulgence thing, so I opened a bottle of bubbly, poured a glass, found my trashy novel, filled up the spa and hopped in. Once settled, I decided it was time to turn on the bubbles, which came on with a roar. As the water swirled around me, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something doing a merry dance. Curious, I switched off the bubbles, looked a bit closer and was horrified to discover it was not one but a collection of short, dark, curly hairs floating around in the spa. Now, no-one in my family has short or dark or curly hair, but this was a rental property ... I was out of that spa faster than you could say, "Eeeuwww!" The moral of the story is, of course, that the parts are definitely not the same unless they're part of the whole! It's a bit like those movies where a shot of a hand moving towards a door handle can send shivers of fear up your spine, but as the camera pans back, you see it's just the milkman, not a caitiff villain. Yes, it is a little ripper, isn't it? Caitiff is one of those ever-so useful words that can be both adjective and noun. It means 'base and despicable' and comes from the Latin captivus (prisoner). Presumably the Romans didn't have a very high opinion of anyone who fell into their clutches ... If you've had an experience illustrating the very big difference between the whole and its parts, why not use it as the basis for a short story? This week's Little Something Extra has lots of helpful tips as well as details about a great competition. This is a genuine contest, not one of those poetry competitions that charge you a fortune to enter and then do nothing with the entries. This one is organised by one of Ireland's leading fiction magazines and offers excellent prizes, as well as publication in the magazine, for winners.
This week's quiz: Here are some words that might inspire you to write that short story and enter the competition ... Match 'em up: resistentialism, trichology, denouement, cereologist, revenant, lamia, antagonist, gothic, Chekhov's gun, Deus ex machina 1. person who returns as a spirit after death; ghost 2. a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates or works again the main character in some way; doesn’t necessarily have to be a person 3. theory in which inanimate objects display hostile desires towards human beings 4. any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot; miraculous (often offstage) solution to an otherwise insoluble problem 5. one who specialises in investigating crop circles 6. a fictional element (threat, character, mystery, prize, challenge) introduced early and with fanfare and in which the author expects the reader to invest 7. action of untying; final outcome of the main complication in a play or story 8. literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th; usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other "dark" subjects 9. the science dealing with the study of the hair and its diseases 10. one of a class of fabulous monsters, commonly represented with the head and breast of a woman and the body of a serpent, said to lure youths and children in order to suck their blood And here are some timely tips if you ever find yourself in a horror movie ... Never speak to clowns in sewers Don't fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you're really sure you know what you are doing If appliances start operating by themselves, you are in danger And finally ... As a general rule, don't try to solve puzzles that open portals to Hell Did you know that every newsletter is archived? So if you've missed anything since 1998 or want to revisit some favourites, you can do so any time! Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!) If you've received this little missive from a friend, you can get your very own issue, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every Friday morning by clicking here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogrups.com And I'm even prepared to offer a shameless bribe. An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot! Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark. Last week's quiz: My apologies for the missing word last week ...Chris Polonis, another of our Merry Band and a teacher from Toronto, Canada, spotted this first and told me about it. He didn't believe me when I suggested it was a test to see if you were paying attention, so I don't suppose you will either ... fluorescence, evanescence, effervescence, efflorescence, candescence, luminescence, iridescence, emollescence, spumescence, rubescence 1. degree of softness in a body beginning to melt which alters its shape; the first or lowest degree of fusibility - EMOLLESCENCE 2. glowing; incandescent - CANDESCENCE 3. the event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight - EVANESCENCE 4. becoming red; blushing - RUBESCENCE 5. emission of light that does not derive energy from the temperature of the emitting body; caused by chemical, biochemical or crystallographic changes, the motions of subatomic particles or radiation-induced excitation of an atomic system; light from non-thermal sources - LUMINESCENCE 6. light emitted during absorption of radiation of some other (invisible) wavelength - FLUORESCENCE 7. foamy; foamlike; frothy - SPUMESCENCE 8. the process of bubbling as gas escapes - EFFERVESCENCE 9. the visual property of something having a milky brightness; a play of lustrous, changing colours - IRIDESCENCE 10. gradual process of unfolding or developing; growth of salt crystals on a surface caused by evaporation of salt-laden water; the time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms - EFFLORESCENCE And in case you haven't worked it out yet, the suffix -escence indicates 'becoming' or 'resembling.' A Little Something Extra Albedo One, Ireland's Magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, has announced its 2008 fiction contest. As Frank Ludlow (one of our Merry Band) writes, the contest is "open to submissions of up to 8000 words (no minimum word limit) in any speculative fiction genre, from Fantasy and Science Fiction to Horror or anything in-between or unclassifiable. The judges have very broad tastes in this regard. The grand prize is 1000 euro and publication in Albedo One. Thanks to the success of last year’s Award, we’ve been able to add a second and third place cash prize of 200 and 100 euro respectively for this year. The second and third place stories will also be published in Albedo One." So, if you have an idea for a story floating around in those little grey cells, get cracking! The contest "opens 1st January 2008 and runs for four rounds throughout the year. The submission deadline for the first round is March 31st, the second round June 30th, the third round September 30th and the final round November 30th. The final round is of two months duration, the rest of three months. Each round begins immediately after the end of the previous round (i.e. you may submit at any time from 1st Jan to 30th Nov)." Frank explains that "The contest is open to writers from all nationalities, though the entries must be written in English. Indeed, we’re keen to have entries from as many nationalities as possible!" You'll find full details and guidelines for entering the Award on the Albedo One website here. If you're looking for some help in organising your ideas, keeping track of your characters, making sure there are no plot problems etc, here are some useful resources: Brush up your vocab with these quizzes. This software uses the same methods that are used in England's leading university creative writing course and can help anyone start that novel that's lurking in all of us. (It's also based on the same methods J K Rowling uses to write her Harry Potter novels ... I read that the latest HP film had grossed over $500 million in its first 10 days ... Not a bad act to follow, if you ask me!) This isn't put out by some fly-by-night mob, either, in fact, there are over 51,000 happy writers using Newnovelist as we speak. All tapping away at their keyboards in more than 60 countries. Click to read more. We're all the same when we write. You know what you want to write, and what you meant to write, but this often makes it difficult to pick up little mistakes (and sometimes big ones) in your own writing. If you can't afford to have a professional editor proofread your work, and your friends and family suddenly get really busy when they see you approach with your draft in one hand, then the next best thing is a software program that sits quietly in your PC ready to edit your work like a professional at a moment's notice! It's a ripper! Word of the week: Anabiosis (n) a bringing back to consciousness; reanimation after apparent death; state of suspended animation, especially one in which certain aquatic invertebrates are able to survive long periods of drought This word, like so many of our scientific terms, comes not from Latin, but from Greek. From ana (back) and bios (life). Oxymoron of the week: best horror story And this week's Latin phrase is for those who dwell in darkness ... Ooooh, scary ... Carpe noctem [KAHR-pay NOHK-taym] Seize the night Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Click here for these and more. Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Just $17 a year seems a small price to pay for all this wit and wisdom, don't you think? C'mon, that's just a tad over than 30 cents a week! Here's how to toss a few pennies in my Running Away Fund: 1. Pay by PayPal:
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