(Part 2) Best writing reference books according to redditors
We found 900 Reddit comments discussing the best writing reference books. We ranked the 397 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
. Orientalizing Mid/Far Eastern culture
. Opening with a huge chunk of worldbuilding
. Overlooking melee mechanics (this has helped me with that: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fight-Scenes-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B005MJFVS0 )
. Understanding horse mechanics. They only go faster than walking if you press them. Keep forcing and the horse will die. Usually they're used by travelers to hold supplies and for long term relief.
. Ancient evils
Just a few off the top of my head. Hope this helps.
Been a lot longer then 5 years since free speech and anti-censorship was a liberal aka progressive value. Libertarian yes. Classical liberal yes. The people you're talking about on the right pretty much tossed those people out 20 years ago in most western countries. In the late 90's, you could see this pro-censorship stance in the left here in Canada with the Liberal Party, and NDP.
What you missed, and a lot of people missed is that the right moderated itself tossed out a lot of the shitty people. Many of those shitty people however were welcomed with open arms by the left no less. There were various reasons, they were big names(had media pull), were well known pundits, had access to lots of donors for money and so on.
If you need an example over the last 10 years just in the US? Look at the RINO's who were 'big time bush' people, and couldn't find a war they didn't like. Yeah, open arms by the left. Probably one of the big names you'll recognize is David Frum. Progressives absolutely love him now that he's on their team, but his policies haven't changed. He sure was screeching that "the republicans left me!" They sure did, that was the point of the Tea Party groups, despite the attacks by the media. Something every GG should recognize by now.
While I'm at it, I'm going to plug Sharyl Attkisson's book, The Smear. Read it.
One of my favorite travelogues is Miles from Nowhere, by Barbara and Larry Savage.
They biked around the world (2 years, 25 countries) in the early 80s. Weeks after returning home, Barbara was killed by a truck.
Number 1 New Release From Our Girl!
The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote Hardcover – June 27, 2017
by Sharyl Attkisson (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Smear-Shady-Political-Operatives-Control/dp/0062468162/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
> Would starting off one or two weeks earlier make a big difference?
You'll be at the tail end of the SOBO bubble. An August 1st start will likely have you finishing sometime in January, if you keep up an average pace. Getting through the White Mountains (and the Greens) before cold conditions set in likely won't be a huge challenge, but other areas to be aware of include southern VA and the Great Smoky Mountains portion of the AT. Early season snow-storms are possible in both of these areas, and if you're not prepared to at least zero until conditions improve, such a situation at higher elevations in the south could prove dangerous if not fatal. For a taste of what a late-season SOBO is like, I'd suggest reading the Bearfoot Sisters' first volume chronicling their yo-yo- Southbound.
To be clear- I don't think that your time frame adds a considerable about of additional challenge to the already considerable challenge of a thru-hike general, but it does add some level of additional difficulty nonetheless, and you'll want to be prepared for cold conditions accordingly. Don't assume that Summer (or even early-Autumn) conditions will follow you south- unless you're a super hiker capable of finishing the trail in 2-3 months, cold weather conditions will catch up with you sooner or later as your work your way south.
Will starting 1 week earlier make a difference? Probably not. Will starting 2 weeks earlier make a difference? Maybe... Maybe not. Climate and weather are pretty variable, and 2 weeks may or may not be enough time to stave off the worst of the cold weather. I'd say starting a month earlier would definitely make a considerable difference in the conditions you experience towards the end of your hike. If you can swing 1-2 weeks without burning bridges at your job that you'd rather not burn, I'd say go for it- but if keeping your post-hike employment opportunities open is dependent on you seeing your job through until the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
> I'm going to be hammocking. Should I get a TQ and UQ for summer weather (40º rated maybe) to keep the weight down and switch partway through, or stay with the TQ and UQ that I have the entire time.
> Will a Palisade 30° TQ and 20° Wooki be warm enough, or conversely, too warm for parts of the season?
Those bags are good to start with. Even August can see nighttime temperatures approaching freezing at higher elevations in the Mountains of the northeast. If you carry quilts rated to only 40 degrees I can pretty much guarantee that you'll regret it sooner rather than later.
However, you will also need to switch to an even warmer setup at some point during your hike. If you're still in the Whites (or the even the Greens) when September comes rolling around, I'd think about securing at least a bag liner if not switching to a warmer setup entirely. After the the Whites especially you'll probably be able to breath easy for a few hundred miles until you start hitting higher elevations again in the south. By the end of your trek, you'll probably want want a sleep setup rated to the teens, if not something in the 0-10 degree range, especially since you won't have the added warmth of a tent.
> Do I have enough clothes for layering? I've got a down jacket but no fleece. Add a fleece layer for fall?
I don't think you'll need both a down jacket and fleece to start out with, or for the first month or so on the trail, but you'll want extra layers sooner or later for hanging out in camp/sleeping in during particularly cold nights. Like /u/SongBirdUL says, have extra warm layers ready to be mailed to you when needed.
I would suggest adding a pair of long underwear (tops and bottoms) to your setup. You probably won't ever want them for hiking in (barring a possible snowstorm in the south) but you'll be glad to have them for sleeping in sooner or later. I'd say you should even start with them- August won't be that cold overall but there will probably be 1 or 2 nights even early in your trip when you're camped high up and you'll be glad you have them.
You'll want pants to hike in sooner or later. Instead of a pair of shorts, you might look into zipoff/convertable pants to have the functionality of both without substantial added weight.
You can probably ditch the bug net. Come August, bugs in the northeast are reduced in most places. The few that are still out and about will be killed by frost before long. (It's light enough that it's probably worth carrying until you're sure you no longer need it, though.)
I would let your rain pants double as wind pants rather than carrying both.
You can ditch the trowel. You'll probably stay at established tent sites and shelters most frequently, and nearly all of these have outhouses or composting toilets (remember not to pee in them!). When stealth camping, it's usually not hard to find a stick to dig a hole with. (BTW, you have the trowel listed twice on your list.)
I would also consider at least a lightweight sleeping pad. As the Autumn progresses, and the backcountry grows quiet and cold weather becomes more frequent, staying in shelters and lean-tos is going to become more and more desirable. You'll almost certainly have at least some cold, wet nights down south where the prospect of setting up your hammock and tarp in the rain is pretty unattractive when there is an empty and dry shelter nearby. EDIT: I see you haven't ordered the hammock yet- if you get the Double Blackbird XLC, it will add some additional weight to your setup (although the lightweight double is only 6.5 ounces heavier than the single), but you can slide a sleeping pad in-between the two layers. This would allow you to use the pad for added warmth in your hammock in addition for comfort in any of the shelters.
Keep in mind also that canister stoves lose efficiency in colder weather. They start to lose efficiency around freezing temperatures, and as the temps approach 0 degrees they can cut out entirely. This may not be a huge issue for you, depending on how quickly you move and the weather you encounter. You can also keep the canisters in a jacket pocket during the day, and sleep with them at night, to keep them warm prior to use to help minimize the impacts of the cold. If winter finds you with substantial mileage remaining, though, you might look at getting a canister stove with an inverted canister design, or an alcohol stove with a primer, as alternatives for increased stove efficiency.
EDIT: One other suggestion- You'll rarely have a campsite to yourself during the first month or so of your trek, but sooner or later you're likely going to experience some serious alone time. Give some thought now to how you're going to deal with that. A light-weight E-Reader with a ton of books preloaded is not the worst idea. There will be other long distance hikers out and about even late in the season, but you may find that it will take some effort on your part to find a solid group to hike with. You'll know who is ahead of you from log book entries, however, catching up to a group that is only 3 or 4 days ahead could require big mile days on your part over the course of even a week or longer.
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I hope this helps. Good luck!
The books I'm using are:
Anybody have any other book recommendations while we're at it?
Note: none of these links are affiliate links.
Edit: formatting
Seen it before and watched it again. Glossed over her twitter feed and she's BASED AS FUCK!
She retweeted this pic: free at last
She's got a book out: The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives & Fake News Control What You See What You Think & How You Vote
> Now, the hard-hitting investigative reporter shares her inside knowledge, revealing how the Smear takes shape and who its perpetrators are—including Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and, most influential of all, "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin" (National Review) political operative David Brock and his Media Matters for America empire.
> Attkisson exposes the diabolical tactics of Smear artists, and their outrageous access to the biggest names in political media—operatives who are corrupting the political process, and discouraging widespread citizen involvement in our democracy.
https://www.amazon.com/Smear-Shady-Political-Operatives-Control/dp/0062468162
AND a show that will air this Sunday :
> This week on Full Measure in The Sum of Knowledge, we dig into the tactics used by paid forces to manipulate opinion. These include fake social media accounts operated by software and paid actors; zombie profiles; zombie likes; and “Fake News.”
And:
> Also Sunday, Joce Sterman examines what changes in police work could be in store under the Trump administration. Under President Obama, some police say they felt unsupported and, as a result, it’s feared that some backed off of using aggressive tactics in communities that need policing the most. Will things be different under a Trump Department of Justice?
https://sharylattkisson.com/the-sum-of-knowledge-fakenews-bias-censorship/
We must embrace this centipede! Why is she not mentioned here more often?
Have you heard of the barefoot sisters? Isis and Jackrabbit yo-yo hiked the AT barefoot! (ME>GA>ME). They have a book about their journey, might be worth checking out.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Journalism/dp/1592576702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479692513&sr=8-1&keywords=journalism+for+dummies
This would be useful i think.
There's a great book by Kansas author William Least Heat Moon called "River Horse" where he takes his boat Nikawa from the Atlantic Ocean at NYC to the Pacific at Portland Oregon via America's lakes and rivers. All told he has the boat on a trailer for something like 28 miles. They use a canoe and a jet boat at parts, but 90% of the journey is aboard Nikawa ('River Horse') through America's rivers. Great read. http://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606 Sorry for not formatting the link I'm late for my bus
It's being so inside the character's head that the author or narrator disappears. Deep POV can be in either first or third person. Generally, to get deep POV, an author would remove tags and all references to the narrator, even in first person. There tends to be a lot of tagless inner dialogue, and it's more fragmented in style. In third person, the dialogue isn't italicized, has no tags, and feels first person. Many authors will pull in and out of deep POV, depending on how they want their readers to feel about the situation at the time. It's extremely popular with current readers and many publishers.
The go to book for this is Rivet Your Readers With Deep POV by Jill Nelson.
These are a bit oversimplified, but here are some examples:
I saw the sun. (First person, distant/narrator POV)
Pinpricks of heat clawed. What is this explosion of light? (First person, deep POV)
"Is it morning?" she said. (Third person, distant/narrator POV)
The shutters bounced against the vinyl siding. Heat wrapped her face in a fleece blanket. Hello sun, old friend. (Third person, deep POV)
I just spent a week on each of four different Hawaiian islands. It is summertime even in February there.
I found I spent an average of about $30 a day through the month, mostly because of daily little emergencies that would crop up... (eg I had to buy new brake pads, or i needed to have my wheel trued, or I needed to do laundry after a rain... etcetera). It turned out to be more expensive than I thought. I also ended up losing a lot of valuables in the last week of the trip to a thief - including my camera and all my vacation photos.
There was a great book I read when I was a child called "Miles From Nowhere" about a couple who went on a round-the-world bicycle trip. I'd highly recommend it.
If you're not a good concise writer, your scripts will taste like ass.
See: Michael Straczynski's book
All of that, and at the end he goes with Goldman's two memoirs? What about Linda Seger or, gasp upon gasps, J. Michael Straczynski?
The book you are looking for is called Plotto: https://www.amazon.com/Plotto-Master-Book-All-Plots/dp/1935639188
It's from the 1920's, not the 1950's. There's a more recent clone; I think the copyright lawyers were sleeping.
>Who is to say who is & who is not a journalist anyway?
Who is to say who is and who isn't a professional in any field? If I make a blog in Wordpress, am I suddenly an IT engineer? If I floss, am I a dentist?
Why is it that people outside of word-based professions feel they can claim to be professionals, whereas no one does that with number-based professions? Is it because everyone uses language?
if you want to learn what journalism is, I suggest you start by reading these:
http://www.journalism.org/node/72
http://www.pcc.org.uk/cop/practice.html
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Journalism-Newspeople-Completely-Updated/dp/0307346706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317881819&sr=8-1&tag=acleint-20
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Journalism/dp/1592576702/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1317881819&sr=8-3&tag=acleint-20
http://www.amazon.com/Associated-Press-Guide-News-Writing/dp/0768919797/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1317881819&sr=8-8&tag=acleint-20
http://www.amazon.com/Journalistic-Writing-Building-Skills-Honing/dp/1933338385/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1317881819&sr=8-9&tag=acleint-20
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/
There really isn't much difference between third person/first person except the use of I/She/He and how much you're allowed to reveal to readers. One thing you want to avoid (I find it easier to look for this in editing so that I'm not slowing down on my first draft) is to keep an I out for the words -I think/thought, I feel/felt, I see/saw, ect. Anytime you have these words are similar, it's telling.
Ex. I felt a shiver run up my spine vs. A shiver ran up my spine. Those words tend to draw the reader out of the book, disconnecting them.
I found the book Rivet You Readers with Deep POV to be helpful. The last book in the chapter is dedicated to first person, though, like I said, most of third person show vs tell applies.
https://www.amazon.com/Rivet-Your-Readers-Deep-Point-ebook/dp/B007PUMQ1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494940914&sr=8-2&keywords=deep+pov
I'm all about biking! :) This book sparked this utterly MAGICAL idea while I was a teenager that if I had a bike and just kept at it I could go ANYWHERE, but my parents weren't even remotely interested and I was broke and had a few other adventures over a couple years. It wasn't until I scraped up enough money in my first year of college before I bought my first bike. That was over 25 years ago, and I'm still riding around every chance I get.
But yeah, you just have to give things a whirl and see where they take you, sometimes more than once to really get a feel for it. I went to multiple 'aerobic classes' at various places back in the day and found I detested every minute- I'm hopelessly uncoordinated and self conscious enough already. Lifting, cardio machines, etc on my own.... that's more my speed as far as the gym goes.
My real love is being outside though. The longer the better.
Structuring Your Novel by K. M. Weiland is a great concise look at structure, and affordable at only $4.99 for the ebook. I refer back to this book all the time.
The Road to Sata and I second the Will Ferguson book.
I have been reading Plotto and it is like being dropped down into the plot well. It is so rich with nearly every conceivable plot, including which threads link to which, that I had weird, surreal dreams for three straight nights.
For me, it always comes back to character. A story is about your main character and the transformation they undergo over the course of the story.
I don't know if you're interested in reading about writing, but I'd suggest James Scott Bell's Write Your Novel from the Middle. It's a $4 ebook and it's short, only 100 pages; you can download it and read it on your phone in an afternoon or two.
Bell's idea here is that there's a point in a book where your main character takes a good long look at himself. Usually he's tried over and over to solve the "story problem" without success, and finally he has a decision to make. Once your figure this point out, you finally know who your main character is. This point balances the story, as on a fulcrum. Once you nail this down, the rest of the book practically falls into place. ;) I've found this very helpful.
This isn't specific to romance, but Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View has been immensely helpful in shifting my writing from shorter "tell" style of smutty shorts to more immersive "show" style of better written novellas/novels.
As a bonus, "showing" instead of "telling" will also explode your word count!
Originality Workshop by Dean Wesley Smith: https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/youtube-videos/originality-workshop/
Plus his book on "writing into the dark": https://www.amazon.com/Writing-into-Dark-without-Outline-ebook/dp/B00XIPANX8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1511018627&sr=1-1&keywords=writing+into+the+dark
If you have the good fortune to take a class in fiction writing, they talk about the mechanics of storyform, how stories are composed, what sort of structures they have, what the parts are and how they are related. It can be invaluable information.
Out here in the world, there's no one to tell you how to write a novel. You're supposed to just try doing it until you can somehow teach yourself how to do it, I guess. But that could take 20 years...
So one of the best things you can do to help yourself is to read a couple good books on storywriting.
Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell is $4 and 100 pages. Put it on your phone and you can read it in a couple afternoons. Bell's premise is that most great stories have a special type of scene, and that if you can nail that scene, the rest of the story, forward and back, will practically fall into place. It's an inspirational book that will get you pumped.
And if you find that helpful, you should get Bell's Plot and Structure. I've read a lot of books on writing, and this has been one of the most helpful.
Beyond that, How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey is great.
Writing Active Hooks by Mary Buckham is indispensable. No one tells you how to manage hooks, but they're a critical part of a story.
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Beyond that, you just have to write shit. Your writing ability is a muscle; you need to exercise it to make it grow stronger. Every day, seven days a week, sit down and force yourself to pound out 1000 words of...whatever; nonsense, dreams, freeform imagery, snippets of scenes or ideas. Type it all into one big file, and make a new file every time you get above 100K.
You need to train yourself not to write awkward phrases. In order to do this, you first need to write all those awkward phrases.
Write 1000 words, every day, for 3 months.
Then look at the results. You'll see a tangible difference between when you started and when you finished. It really does work.
Have you read Paddle to the Amazon?
Mary Roach does a pretty in depth analysis of this claim in her book SPOOK: Science Tackles the Afterlife. His scale was actually extremely accurate, however the number of individuals exhibiting the weightloss was abysmally small compared to the number of experiments and as yet no one has been able to reproduce his results (although ethically it would difficult to reproduce.)
The Barefoot Sisters hiked a good portion of their SOBO trip with a family with several small children, one of whom was carried the entire way. So it's doable, but as has been mentioned, it'd be hella tough with a lot of extra considerations.
I can't watch these shows. I think it's because they break some social/psychological rules. In trying to be "reality TV" they violate the suspension-of-disbelief for me. I can, and like to, do that for a movie, but not for TV for some reason.
However, if you find this sort of thing interesting, I would recommend the book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. It's not going to blow your mind, but it's a good read.
The Barefoot Sister's book is pretty good. Also check out As Far As the Eye Can See by David Brill. These two come highly recommended by both me and the trail legend Ernie from Sunnyside Inn in Hot Springs NC, a veritable wealth of knowledge about all things AT
Not surprising considering how many baddies Don starkell and his kids ran into whilst paddling to the Amazon from Bronx park in Winnipeg
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.ca/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568&ved=0ahUKEwj4v8GlmLTWAhWBKWMKHXeZCCIQFgiBATAL&usg=AFQjCNGFqCAiD_jAWXzT3OyCOxWQzaqqog
If you are interested about the screenwriting process, Straczynski's The Complete Book of Scriptwriting is excellent.
For scifi fans, an added bonus is the complete script of the Babylon 5 episode The Coming of Shadows, which won the Hugo in 1996.
His other book, Dogs and Demons is really good. Looking for the Lost is an excellent read that's somewhat related to Dogs and Demons by the author Alan Booth. He walked the length of Japan in 1977 and wrote a book about his travels called Roads to Sata, which I highly recommend, especially if you liked Looking for the Lost (In fact you may want to read this one first).
And if you find you enjoyed Roads to Sata, then read Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson, who hitchhiked the length of Japan.
Check out Writing Into The Dark.
Maybe this will help
Someone gave me an interesting book that documents a guy attempting to boat across the US in a small cabin cruiser. He was able to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific on rivers, canals, etc with only a brief portage across the Rocky Mountains (And maybe some portages around dams IIRC). https://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606
1)https://www.amazon.com/Far-Journeys-Robert-Monroe/dp/0385231822/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1486765938&sr=8-4&keywords=robert+monroe
While not completely on topic, I feel that I can't miss the opportunity to warmly recommend this insightful guide to violence in general.
Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell.
How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey.
I highly recommend the book "Violence: A Writer's Guide" by Rory Miller. Rory was, among other things, a correctional officer in Oregon for 17 years and a civilian advisor to the Department of Justice in Iraq. Needless to say, he knows his stuff.
River travel today = best case scenario:
“In his most ambitious journey ever, William Least Heat-Moon sets off aboard a small boat named Nikawa ("river horse" in Osage) from the Atlantic at New York Harbor in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon.”
Whaaat? Across the entire US, by boat??!! NYC to the Oregon coast??
Add the SHTF concerns discussed here and I think it’s on point to your question. (Also a good read in itself.)
“River-Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America” by William Least Heat Moon.
There's a writing manual on the subject, if anyone's curious:
https://smile.amazon.com/Writing-into-Dark-without-Outline-ebook/dp/B00XIPANX8/
This book is more for writers describing combat, but I find the same principle applies:
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fight-Scenes-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B005MJFVS0
If you’re trying to write to trend, then you may want to consider the “accepted” standard for the genre you’re writing in. For example, paranormal romance tends to be third person and generally two alternating POVs (the h/H...and potentially the villain as the third). Urban fantasy, on the other hand, although similar to PNR, tends to be mostly first person (it appears to be shifting to 3rd person, 1 POV).
The biggest error I see with third person POV is making the POV too omniscient or all knowing. You should strive to write in deep POV and stay in your character’s head, regardless of whether you’re writing 1st or 3rd.
Of course, at the end of the day, you can do what you want. Writing is an art, after all.
Good luck
ETA: when I refer to 3rd person, I’m referring to 3rd person limited
ETA: i forgot you asked for resources/link. Rivet your reader with deep POV - https://www.amazon.com/Rivet-Your-Readers-Deep-Point-ebook/dp/B007PUMQ1O
You can read the author going over the basics in the preview
>All i'm saying is, Scientists would never even begin to try to study a soul, life after death or any such things because it's a taboo subject
Actually, while I almost entirely agree with everything you've said so far (I avoid the /r/atheism circljerk like the plague), science has tried to tackle at least some of the spiritual unknown. I personally have not read it, but it is highly recommended and I have read other books by Mary Roach.
http://www.scribophile.com
Scrivener
Pinterest
Aside from this subreddit I find https://www.reddit.com/r/Writers_Block/ and their discord helpful.
Edit: I also found these two books very helpful for outlining and checking my novel structure. I got them both on Kindle and read them religiously.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978924622/ref=r_soa_w_d
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EJX08QA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
That's right. I think the most common way I've heard that is by comparing learning writing to learning music? Like, you have to learn your scales before you can start playing Bach or whomever. (I'm not actually a musician so I don't know how good of a comparison that is.)
If you aren't looking for feedback, ignore the following paragraph. I thought how the original post was written was clear enough already. I just had a thought I figured I'd share:
You might consider using examples of whatever concept you're talking about from published stories. There's a book called Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Barroway that's structured this way: they'll address a concept like characterization, talk about it in the abstract for a little while, give some more concrete advice, then they usually end with a couple examples pulled from actual, published stories. Maybe that would help shift some of the burden from coming up with your own, single line examples that people can get up in arms about, to just finding whole paragraphs/scenes so there's more context? That, and people generally seem less interested in arguing with published work.
But setting that aside, I'm glad you tackled an obviously controversial topic. I guess reddit just isn't keen on being told what to do, even when you're just giving suggestions and explaining terms, not actually telling them what to do. I hope there's more of these craft-focused Pubtips.
> So you think yours is the original article
...you mean the link to the original article, by the media outlet that researched and published the content? I mean... yeah. I appreciate you feel comfortable enough w/ me to share that you don't understand the difference between original/illegible photocopy/aggregator, though. That at least clears up this whole misunderstanding.
There are some wonderful resources out there that might help.
Cheers.
Archives for the links in comments:
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No. In River-Horse he has a twin outboard motorboat with a pilot house that he and his mate take from the Hudson Bay to the PNW traversing the US E to W with a few overland portages. It has some history about the Missouri and the Mississippi. It's a good read, but I liked his debut Blue Highways better. You'd have to have a lot of money and a deep support network to do his River-Horse journey, whereas the Blue Highways journey path is open to a much wider segment of the population.
Jeff Greenwald did this quite some time ago and wrote "Size of the World". http://www.amazon.com/The-Size-World-Jeff-Greenwald/dp/034540551X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397060106&sr=8-2&keywords=Size+of+the+world .
While it may have been written in 1985, I would say that The Roads to Sata: A 2000-mile Walk Through Japan by the late Alan Booth (also a compatriot of yours) would be a must-read before coming to Japan as you are - for an extended visit. Reading it may inspire you to look up some of the obscure places that he visited - although not necessarily all on foot as he did. Another of Booth's works published posthumously "Looking for the Lost" is also worth a read (not to be confused with Alex Kerr's Lost Japan - which is also decent although I think Kerr's book could benefit from a stronger editor when he delves too much into his pronounced artsy-fartsy fetishes)
In her book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife Mary Roach explores the OOB/operating table phenomena, among other things. Conclusion: inconclusive, all reports are anecdotal.
There is one scientist doing a controlled study, by placing a computer monitor on top of a shelf in the OR, aimed at the ceiling. The images change randomly. The theory is that someone leaving their body and looking down at the scene should be able to describe the image on the monitor; to date, this hasn't happened. Study has been running a few years now.
The Size of the World by Jeff Greenwald is the one that really gave me the travel bug. His Shopping for Buddhas is also excellent.
Others that are all pretty light and fun:
Some resources I have found useful:
Wordplayer - a series of columns on the art of screenwriting by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio speaking from many years of direct experience at the epicenter of Hollywood craziness.
TVTropes - dangerously mesmerizing index of every conceivable story telling paradigm you can imagine.
Plotto
I hope I hear more about your thoughts one day in the form of a book. Your's is one of the more incredible travel stories in recent memory. It brings to mind Jeff Greenwald's The Size of the World.
I think I disagree, but guess I haven't read a ton of books about writing. In my experience, they can be helpful, especially to people who are just starting out. Maybe not as helpful as reading the types of books that you want to write (and reading the stuff you don't want to write—it's important to read widely), but I don't know if I'd call them a waste of time. King's book is great (but that might be because I got the impression that I'd like him as a person while I was reading that), Strunk and White Elements of Style and Zissner's On Writing Well are helpful for tightening beginners' prose, Writing Fiction: a guide to narrative craft has great exercises at the end of every chapter, and I'm reading Benjamin Percy's essay collection Thrill Me right now, and it's great. I feel like a large part of /r/writing would really connect with the first and titular essay in that collection, actually. He talks about reading a lot of so-called trash genre fiction before being exposed to literary fiction and how he kind of overcorrected and became a super-fierce advocate for that-and-only-that before he realized that you can take the good parts of both to create amazing stories. I've also never read any other respected literary person mention reading R. A. Salvatore, which was cool to see since I forgot I was a big Drizzt fan when I was younger.
That's pretty good. I like Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. It's short, $4; you can download it onto your phone and read it in an afternoon. There's a certain point in the middle of a book where the hero takes a good, hard look at himself, then decides what he needs to do. Figure out that point, and the rest of the book falls in place.
I also like How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey.
I'd recommend you pick up two books to read that will go much further in depth than anything here:
https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Guide-Weapons-Practical-Reference-ebook/dp/B0108VCP9E/ref=as_li_ss_tl
and
https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Writers-Second-Rory-Miller-ebook/dp/B00CWGH46I/ref=pd_sim_351_1
This book will help you.
Paddle to the Amazon- written by Don Starkell. Don and his son set out from Winnipeg by canoe and got all the way down to where the Amazon meets the Atlantic. It's written in the form of a journal, as he recorded everything that happened and wrote it when he returned. The things that they went through! http://www.amazon.ca/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568
He also kayaked the Arctic years after this- I haven't read this book yet but I imagine it would be just as badass: http://www.amazon.ca/Paddle-Arctic-Incredible-Story-Across/dp/0771082657/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
I would be happy to.
https://augtellez.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-nature-of-dreaming/
http://www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html
https://www.amazon.com/Far-Journeys-Robert-Monroe/dp/0385231822/
The biggest mistake you can make is deciding one of these is truer than the other.
Yea that's a problem but it's definitely not the problem with Reddit. The real issue is the fact that this site is an astroturfer's paradise. Create a thousand bots, have them create a thousand accounts, post a thousand reposts, then post comments from the original posts in the reposts and upvote upvote upvote. Do this for 3 months and sell the accounts to social media marketing companies. The absolute worst aspect isn't even the corporate advertising which I think is as benign as commercials. The real sinister astroturfing is the political type. Whether it was r/the_donald posts on the front page daily during the election or the daily anti-trump r/politics posts today. These are almost certainly not organic and there is evidence for it. It is propaganda pure and simple. Social and political manipulation on a mass scale.
I strongly recommended anyone who reads this post check out the book The Smear by Sharyl Attkisson. The book is truly eye opening and you will never look at social media the same way again. The media in general too. There's a reason the media seems to reflect reality so poorly, it's because it doesn't.
In the book she outlines how partisan political groups game internet algorithms to put their content in front of as many eyes as possible. She even interviews some of the people involved in the work. Reddit really makes it easy for them. They even prepared for 2020 by quarantining the only pro Trump sub on this site so that democrats are the only ones who can successfully game the system during the next election.
A large percentage of viral events on the internet are staged these days. Considering the potential profit of making something go viral, why wouldn't they? It's like a multi-million dollar ad campaign that costs a few thousand dollars. It seems people have no imagination when it comes to these things. A perfect example is that Popeye's chicken sandwich that people were mysteriously obsessed with beyond rationality.
Somehow I highly doubt that Don Starkelll would have approved this method to reach the Amazon from Winnipeg Canada:
https://www.amazon.ca/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568
I suspect most authors at least start out as pantsers. It's like riding a bike: you don't plan a long road trip your first try. You aim for reaching the end of the block without falling off, and try to decide if you really like doing this. It proves to be fun, you do it more and you get better. At some point you may find you have mastered the difficult skills involved in basic story telling (character, setting, action - resolution cycles, dialog, etc) and you want to take better control of the big picture stuff: theme and plot.
You also start thinking about the realities of making money doing this. That raises the question of efficiency. Ramming out 5,000 words a day sounds great, but if you have to rewrite it 7 times and cut 3,000 of those words, or worse yet, all 5,000 because you drove your plot into a dead end, then it isn't 5000 words, its about 10% of that. So outlining suddenly looks more productive.
How detailed? David Drake, a very prolific author, has posted the outline for one of his well-known Lt. Leary books because of all the requests. It's interesting to see how one pro does it: https://david-drake.com/2014/plot-outline/
On a personal side note, I'm switching from pantser to planner for two reasons: first, its easy for a plot run away from me. I've always got one more great idea or a cool plot twist. Suddenly, I'm trying down to edit a 240,000 word scifi novel. That editing is a lot less fun than writing it was.
The second reason I'm switching to planning is co-authoring. I'm working on a novel with another writer. We started by exchanging chapters. It became a contest over who controlled the plot and who could create the coolest characters. About the same time we discovered there are expectations from editors for plot arcs, and hard rules if you ever want to make it into a screen play. After 10 chapters we agreed we needed an outline. We followed "Structuring Your Novel" by Weiland, which gave us a model we could understand without too much study.
The proof of being a successful author is in SALES; whats the use of writing if you don't get read? I hate to admit it, but I've got almost a million words on paper in various projects, but none clean enough to sell. I blame pantsing for that; which is why I've switched to planning on everything new I start over 2500 words.
But however you choose to do it, don't feel trapped, just write on!
Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!
Here are your smile-ified links:
On Writing Well
Elements of Style
Thrill Me
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
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^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot
Even better: http://www.amazon.com/Plotto-The-Master-Book-Plots/dp/1935639188
Read Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. She goes into detailed research about infrasound and electromagnetism being the causes of ghost sightings.
That was unnecessary. Though I know nothing of OP's novel, there are definitely some types of stories and ideas that lend themselves more appropriately to a cinematic presentation. I think it is entirely fair for OP to be inquiring into what the technical aspects of screen writing are.
You may not be a scifi fan like me, but J. Michael Straczynski has solid credentials as an accomplished screenwriter. I have not read his book, nor explored the literature in this niche myself. Nonetheless, I think it would be worthwhile for /u/jennifer1911, regardless of her level of writing experience, to check out related titles for yourself. YMMV.
I know it's not explicitly geared for short stories but The Nighttime Novelist is my go-to text for how to think about structuring a larger work. Though I have yet to publish my first novel.
Short story writing is very different. Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction and Stephen King's On Writing are both wonderful craft books that shed some of the practicalities of the Nighttime Novelist and look a good writing in its simplest form.
Much more important than nonfiction books, though, is finding short story markets you'd like to read. Figure out what kind of place might accept the most perfect form of the fiction you'd like to write, and then read those magazines religiously. While you're reading, do what you can to consider what these stories are doing well and how they are pulling off what they are pulling off. Use the vocabulary learned from craft books to better articulate (to yourself, mostly) what these stories are really doing, and begin to generate a sense of what good writing looks like. Then practice, practice, practice, write, revise, and write some more until you've got something worth sending out.
At this point in your writing development, the name of the game is simply learning to write well--keep that in mind, and try to make decisions based on what will help you become a better writer. And finally remember, there is such a thing as "practicing well."
Alan Booth made a similar observation back in the 80s in The Roads to Sata: A 2,000-Mile Walk Through Japan, finding all manner of rubbish washed up on Japan's western shore.
Shame about the litter, but cool photo all the same.
Best wishes :)
I think it's fine if he means it. If not, I agree he shouldn't be saying it. However, ISIL has lost 1/3 of its territory under President Trump's strategy for the military. President Trump also wasn't afraid to bomb a Syrian airbase after Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.
He's clearly not very patient--and nor should he be.
> Hence, other world-leaders could use mere words as a prod, rendering Don-Don's actions & replies as both predictable and VERY susceptible to being twisted and used for propaganda.
Well, as a matter of fact, HR 6393 passed by Obama in 2016 legalizes counterintelligence propaganda to be used on American citizens and against foreign countries such as Russia (Russia is especially specifically stated in this bill). So you're right about it being twisted and used for propaganda.
This was when Obama found of the pre-existing evidence of Trump's relation to Russia. There is no "new evidence" of the past; the tailored ops group had already captured and analyzed it.
The media are playing games. Some members of Congress acknowledge this (i.e. Trey Gowdy).
This is a great book to read about a somewhat similar journey though not as much open ocean - https://www.amazon.ca/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568
Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots!
Oh Robert Monroe's books are an absolute delight to read. He's very articulate.
In short, he had a business in radio in the 50s. Then he started having spontaneous OBEs. This goes on for 10-15 years, and he wrote down every single experience he had. He then developed Hemi-Sync, a series of binaural beats to help people concentrate, sleep, etc.
Not overly dramatic, very down to earth books. Even if you don't believe one yota of what he says it's still a freaking awesome read. But I'm certain you'll identify with the three books. You have to read them in chronological order, that is: Journeys Out of The Body, Far Journeys and then Ultimate Journey.
Having read these books and some books on shamanism it's very interesting how often the two make similar points.
As somebody also just starting out in the horror genre myself, my first advice is to try reading some horror novels. If you're trying to write something tense and psychological, read a psychological horror story. If you'remaking something gory, try and find something close but not too close. Once you have an idea of how they achieve what you're trying to achieve, give it a practice.
I would say the best way to achieve strong horror writing is to focus on a scary experience of your own and extrapolate. Think of how you felt. If you have to, simulate scary experiences. Go down the basement in the dark (or just generally around your house if you don't have one) after watching a scary movie (just make sure nothing is going to injure you like stuff on the stairs), or go on a rollercoaster, or whatever scares you. There are plenty of places like escape rooms as well that offer scarier packages too. Concentrate on what being scared feels like, both mentally and physiologically. Or even just play a scary game. I can recommend plenty if you want.
The only thing left is just to practice. Your first story is probably not going to be great. But that's fine.Do your best. Then write another. And another. And another. I personally recommend writing different types of horror as well - try your hand at slow burning horror, ghost horror, creature feature horror, haunted house horror, serial killer horror etc. Once you begin to understand how the horror works in each of them it should help you understand how to construct it in your work.
What name you submit your work to is up to you. Whatever you are most comfortable with. If you're not sure orr afraid, by all means do it under a different name until you feel more confident.
Lastly there are plenty of online articles and even books to give you guidance on writing horror and building tension. I quite like Rayne Hall's guidance books. They give step by step guides that allow you to slowly build it layer by layer and give you little exercises for each. Try this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Scary-Scenes-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B008IEJTSE
If you have any other questions, feel free to reply or send me a direct message. I do have a sci-fi horror published. Well more sci-fi thriller but still elements of horror and tension.
Read Robert Monroe's books Journeys Out of the Body, Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey. It may help alleviate some of those anxieties.
Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898861098?pc_redir=1407574165&robot_redir=1
Any book by Joe Kurmaskie
http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Kurmaskie/e/B001K8XLH0
K. M. Weiland's book Structuring Your Novel is awesome. She also has other books about outlining and character arcs that were super helpful for me.
More travel than food, but Jeff Greenwald's The Size of the World is excellent.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/034540551X?pc_redir=1412656929&robot_redir=1
I recommend these highly.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CWGH46I/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o04_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U5GIGGY/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o03_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Noticed some of your writing and see that you're applying the tag "journalist" to yourself.
You seem a bit confused as to what journalism actually is.
This should help you out:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Idiots-Guide-Journalism/dp/1592576702