NOTE: I obtained this with permission to re-post from the author. It was posted in their blog in a writers forum. It comes as little surprise this user's account was blocked and the blog posting was removed. Forums are not suited to freedom of speech. It might be a bit harsh and opinionated but I'm not sure it should have caused them to remove it and it's author.
What do you think?
Passive and Active Voice -The importance of understanding what it is.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a small problem identifying misplaced usages of either Passive or Active voice and that in many cases I am guilty of not paying attention to them. One certain eventuality is that in a critique forum it will come up and rear it’s head.
This is why it is clearly best to be prepared to accept my ignorance, regret my lack of diligence, and be thankful that I came forewarned and forearmed. Except remembering, in this forum I’m not allowed to shoot the ignorant messenger.
When addressing the issue of Passive and Active I first assumed I was being too sensitive to what was occurring. So, I did what I always do- research. Then I had the forethought to remember that I could address this best in a blog. Anger leads to the dark side and the ignorant are allowed to hide behind the rules, which were made to protect the forum from utter chaos.
I found some interesting articles and then I found some corresponding evidence on the web.
I was quite surprise when, for a change, wiki-had some extra help and guidance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English…...
There is also an older article of enlightenment:
http://chronicle.com/article/50-Year…...
And lastly my old fav Grammar girl.
Some gems of note I found:
Many language critics and language-usage manuals discourage use of the passive voice.
This advice is not usually found in older guides, emerging only in the first half of the twentieth century.
In 1916, the British writer Arthur Quiller-Couch, criticized this grammatical voice.
This would mean that there is a lot of literature prior to 1916 that doesn’t even know of this guideline - and there is evidence even within the work of George Orwell, who thought he agreed with the guideline yet violated it as though it didn’t apply to him.
———Now days we have people who sweepingly proclaim these gems.————
Sometimes passive voice is awkward and other times it’s vague. Also, passive voice is usually wordy, so you can tighten your writing if you replace passive sentences with active sentences.
Most writing authorities agree that the active voice is both more engaging and easier to read than passively-constructed writing.
———-making the guideline.their rule of thumb——-
————————-Here’s my favorite—————————-
A recent study suggests that less educated people—those who dropped out of school when they were 16—have a harder time understanding sentences written in the passive voice than those written in active voice. We should stick with active voice if you’re writing for the general population.
——Can we think of a more creative way to say talk down to the reader ————-
——not to mention: we’re arrogant enough to believe we’ve trained them to expect things this way.—-
this guideline is partially based on this faulty example ::to paraphrase:
Strunk and White mis-apply the passive voice to several active voice to a tune of three out of the four.
“At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard” is correctly identified :
“There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground” no sign of the passive anywhere.
“It was not long before she was very sorry that she had said what she had,” also nothing passive.
“The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired,” not here.
——back to the issue at hand————
As some background I will point out the observation that in a critique forum we have a huge portion of us OCD people some of whom are obsessed with the flavor of the day. Choppy sentences were being targeted. Many followers were gained. The villain was Purple Prose. Riders were assembled for the posse. Tell becomes a victim to show. This goes on.
To be fair there are those of us who are obsessed with punctuation and grammar and spelling for the good of all. We are the do-good-ers who pave the way for a happy substantive edit. Although, sometimes we get just a bit over eager while forgetting that the victim (er… subject? author?) is intelligent enough to take a few examples and run with it. We the mighty ones are not happy until we squash all the offenders and repeat offenders with our red and blue. Sometimes happily creating a wonder that is bloated twice the size allotted for the original piece.
The problem is that our obsessiveness leaks over into the area of style. And style has guidelines not really rules. And there are exceptions that sometimes (check the above articles) even the style guide misses or fails to identify properly. This all leads to the author spending too much time fixing things that stand because we were jarred by what may have been a few legitimate lines of, in this case, passive passages.
What ultimately scares me here is that there are programs that help us authors to identify these offensive passages, which are based on faulty guidelines. So, It falls upon the us all to carefully go through and discover, which are offensive and, which stand as they are and, which are smack dab in the middle of the guideline that says we should use a passive here. I’ve seen many of us, in our enthusiasm, rewrite them all on the pretext of erring in the directions of caution.
What makes things difficult is there are rules that prevents the author from determining if I the critic who pointed out the problem even know all the guidelines or just some or if I am parroting what’s happened to me. There is no way to determine or verify this so it devolves on the author to realize that as he makes this seemingly more readable for me, he might be offending the intelligence of another. And I am hidden behind a notion that the author need make no changes if he so chooses. But, since he came for my advice, which I’ve so graciously given to him, he likely will do my bidding even if I haven’t done all our homework.
This, tied with backwards rule that I as a new person, one who might well need to learn more about these style guidelines, cannot post for critique until I have 30 post and those 30 post can easily be critiques of someone else work even though I’ve possibly never critiqued before. Basically I will learn the guidelines while critiquing and after giving 30 I’ll learn more from those who were, at best, self taught the way I am. That’s not to say that when I reach a 1000 post or 10s of thousands that I might have done my homework, because I might not realize there is homework yet to do.
This adherence to flawed guidelines as though they are rules does not confine itself to just this small example. It extends into such things as purple prose, show versus tell,use of cliche’s, and onto the length of individual lines of prose. I have heard the whole gamut criticized. Too many long sentences and then two many short choppy sentences and then too much alternating between long and short. That last is clearly wrong yet there is a highly numbered poster who is constantly complaining of that and saying a scene should have the same style of sentence structural length throughout meaning most if not all longs or shorts when clearly its recommended that for the smoothest flow there should be a balanced mix.
So the guideline followers can’t even follow the guidelines.
What makes me deeply afraid here is that this environment is a quick and easy way to remove creative, from writing. There have been other attempts to create mass productive writer shops that would profess to produce many writers of equal high caliber skill. The problem is that they would all speak with one voice and the truly creative part of writing will be lost. Not to mention the lack of proper understanding of the real guidelines and that they are guidelines.
Every writer wishes to come up with the new - never before thought of idea that will hook the reader, the editor, the agent, the publisher. That’s not the only place where writing is creative. In fact some sources will have us believe that there are no new plot ideas. For something fresh and new, personal style and voice are the best place to start and I constantly see those two discouraged and given second and third row seats (often pushed into the nose bleed section) with the hope they will eventually leave the auditorium.
This is not to say that there is no place for a critique forum. It can do wonders to help locate many problems that I can’t see in my own writing. What it will not do is prepare me to publish my own ideas with my own style. It will show me the value of a simple edit by other eyes. There is no way for the forum to complete this edit job on any given work so its not that much help with grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Those will all be fixed during the real edit cycle in the real world anyway.
Most of all it will allow me to stroke my ego by thinking I am helping.
And it’s taught me the value of doing my homework before I try to help everyone else or let them help me.
Nov 8 2012 —Egregious GhostWriter
Friday, November 9, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Japanese Steampunk alternate universe
Japanese Steampunk alternate universe. subtitled how to peeve off your readers.
Just a random thought/ question::
Hypothetically::
If someone writes a novel about Japan- an alternate Japan - with steam punk ish air cars and hunts for gryphons. How important is it that this novel be true to the culture and language of the Japan in our reality?
Is it okay to miss-use the language and misplace the flora and fauna and perhaps even throw in some Chinese folk lore or characters from such into the mix?
Is it worth the risk of peeving off a few readers who are die-hard fans of everything authentically Japanese. Or should you tuck tail and perhaps write about the same stuff only transport it to some far off place like Barsoom.
In other words- when writing fiction how important is it to keep your facts straight? I’m not talking about internal facts in the novel I’m talking about external facts in reality. Reality:: which is not what they are writing about. This is fiction after all.
We all know the importance of making our science in science fiction sound intelligibly workable. But most of the time we know it’s not real. (off in the distance we hear a sharp and anguished, “It’s not?”)
But some parts need to be believable. Some of the character development has to make some sense but how much has to be verifiable and real when compared to this reality?
And if you’re going to use an alternate language (based on one which is real and the author may or may not be have some knowledge of) should you stick strictly to the rules that apply in our reality or can you bastardize it a bit? Keep in mind this is an alternate universe.
What is artistic license?
And when does a reader have the right to revoke the authors license?
Should we levy fines?
Just some thoughts begging Others thoughts.
Just a random thought/ question::
Hypothetically::
If someone writes a novel about Japan- an alternate Japan - with steam punk ish air cars and hunts for gryphons. How important is it that this novel be true to the culture and language of the Japan in our reality?
Is it okay to miss-use the language and misplace the flora and fauna and perhaps even throw in some Chinese folk lore or characters from such into the mix?
Is it worth the risk of peeving off a few readers who are die-hard fans of everything authentically Japanese. Or should you tuck tail and perhaps write about the same stuff only transport it to some far off place like Barsoom.
In other words- when writing fiction how important is it to keep your facts straight? I’m not talking about internal facts in the novel I’m talking about external facts in reality. Reality:: which is not what they are writing about. This is fiction after all.
We all know the importance of making our science in science fiction sound intelligibly workable. But most of the time we know it’s not real. (off in the distance we hear a sharp and anguished, “It’s not?”)
But some parts need to be believable. Some of the character development has to make some sense but how much has to be verifiable and real when compared to this reality?
And if you’re going to use an alternate language (based on one which is real and the author may or may not be have some knowledge of) should you stick strictly to the rules that apply in our reality or can you bastardize it a bit? Keep in mind this is an alternate universe.
What is artistic license?
And when does a reader have the right to revoke the authors license?
Should we levy fines?
Just some thoughts begging Others thoughts.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Ay' get me me other crutch will ye, I need to get me dictionary out of stowage!
When did it become poor form for an author to send his readers to a dictionary?
I don't know how many times now that I've perused a review blog or lurked through a writers forum and found so much negative response to the use of large words or words whose meaning has changed enough over the years that someone would suggest that using it for what it was intended was a grand sin.
I have heard every argument from it being purple prose to perhaps trying to talk over the reader's head. But, the truth seems to lie in that no one wants to pick up a dictionary anymore. And in this age when the dictionary is a few clicks away on a keyboard that seems even more phenomenally idiosyncratic at the very least.
I recall when I was young, yes I really do, and maybe I don't remember it all exactly the way it was, but I think that I've got this one correct. I was assigned reading, which required the use of a dictionary. I was encouraged to read those novels that would introduce me to new words and I was, eventually, never in fear of entering a library where my mind would be devoured by the vagaries of an author who was too high handed with his vocabulary.
Perhaps it was just me, I remember even times when first delving into Mark Twain's universe that I had to find the meaning to a word. Oh, but, then, I didn't always try to rely on just the context to tell me the meaning. And I knew well the pitfall of trying to use context because there were words used in his time that meant something different today. No context does not define the word it helps determine which definition the writer is using. The dictionary still defines the word.
In recent years I've actually found small innocent words that have been sorely abused. Oh, sure by context you can figure out what the writer wanted to say. They merely slipped up and used the wrong word without looking up the meaning. It's only four letters so why would anyone look it up? Now there is the root of this whole problem. Some people simply do not want to use a dictionary for anything.
The question is: how did we reach a point where the so called professionals of reading and the help desk for writers have been allowed to lay claim to knowledge that readers don't like using the dictionary and that they have to be coddled into the understanding of the meaning of every word by its context and that no single word should actually encompass that context unless its such a simple small word that the simplest of readers might glean the meaning and the context without all the fuss of verification.
Yet to hear that someone would put a book down rather than constantly run to the dictionary makes me cringe. How many times have Poe, Dickens, Melville, Conrad, and Doyle, been cast aside for this very reason today? I still have my dictionary at hand whenever I read Charles Dickens. Might as well just burn Dumas and Cervantes.
The worst argument I have heard yet is that, for a new author, it is forbidden. If they want to become a well read author they must use simple words that everyone understands. Since they are not established as the authors mentioned above, they have no right to use outdated and long words that are mostly an obvious show of purple prose attempts to create great flourishing phrases that will stand out.
And, there might be some truth to that.
But, these same people who spout these truisms have time and again shown an unswerving inability to gain context of the material to even begin to determine what is and is not purple prose. Their method is: if it looks, smells, tastes, and sounds like purple prose then it must be. The ability to determine context seems to blow completely from their head.
Even the famous phrase such as "It was a dark and stormy night..." can have relevance. Of course it's often what follows that is determined to be Purplish. Sure they all recognize that one as purple prose. But, if something happened on that dark and stormy night that could never happen on any other sort of night, then what do you do?
The sky was devoid of light and there was a dearth of open space between the angry clouds. Even the few voids in the cloud mass seem belligerent with the occasional flashes and their cacophony of sounds like drum rolls. Behind that blackness was even greater darkness as the elements shed their frustration over the earth below. Coming ever closer ever faster towards revealing the many flaws in the very structure of the great Manor House.
I use a dictionary when I write. Often to check spelling sometimes to make sure of my definitions. If I have to look it up that could bode ill towards my reader. Should it stay or should it go. That depends on the context and how well it fits the structure of the writing. It should never be determined by how often I might send a reader on some mad dash to get that dictionary from under their bed or from off the pressed leaf collection.
It should never be decided by a quorum of "writers" who have determined that the readers are not smart enough or will be distracted if they have to look up a single word.
On the other hand the reader still may just toss the book aside because they really are lazy and indigent. That's just a risk you take- and obviously with all the unsolicited help out there one that need not be taken at all if you want to play it safe.
Copyright J.L. Dobias
I don't know how many times now that I've perused a review blog or lurked through a writers forum and found so much negative response to the use of large words or words whose meaning has changed enough over the years that someone would suggest that using it for what it was intended was a grand sin.
I have heard every argument from it being purple prose to perhaps trying to talk over the reader's head. But, the truth seems to lie in that no one wants to pick up a dictionary anymore. And in this age when the dictionary is a few clicks away on a keyboard that seems even more phenomenally idiosyncratic at the very least.
I recall when I was young, yes I really do, and maybe I don't remember it all exactly the way it was, but I think that I've got this one correct. I was assigned reading, which required the use of a dictionary. I was encouraged to read those novels that would introduce me to new words and I was, eventually, never in fear of entering a library where my mind would be devoured by the vagaries of an author who was too high handed with his vocabulary.
Perhaps it was just me, I remember even times when first delving into Mark Twain's universe that I had to find the meaning to a word. Oh, but, then, I didn't always try to rely on just the context to tell me the meaning. And I knew well the pitfall of trying to use context because there were words used in his time that meant something different today. No context does not define the word it helps determine which definition the writer is using. The dictionary still defines the word.
In recent years I've actually found small innocent words that have been sorely abused. Oh, sure by context you can figure out what the writer wanted to say. They merely slipped up and used the wrong word without looking up the meaning. It's only four letters so why would anyone look it up? Now there is the root of this whole problem. Some people simply do not want to use a dictionary for anything.
The question is: how did we reach a point where the so called professionals of reading and the help desk for writers have been allowed to lay claim to knowledge that readers don't like using the dictionary and that they have to be coddled into the understanding of the meaning of every word by its context and that no single word should actually encompass that context unless its such a simple small word that the simplest of readers might glean the meaning and the context without all the fuss of verification.
Yet to hear that someone would put a book down rather than constantly run to the dictionary makes me cringe. How many times have Poe, Dickens, Melville, Conrad, and Doyle, been cast aside for this very reason today? I still have my dictionary at hand whenever I read Charles Dickens. Might as well just burn Dumas and Cervantes.
The worst argument I have heard yet is that, for a new author, it is forbidden. If they want to become a well read author they must use simple words that everyone understands. Since they are not established as the authors mentioned above, they have no right to use outdated and long words that are mostly an obvious show of purple prose attempts to create great flourishing phrases that will stand out.
And, there might be some truth to that.
But, these same people who spout these truisms have time and again shown an unswerving inability to gain context of the material to even begin to determine what is and is not purple prose. Their method is: if it looks, smells, tastes, and sounds like purple prose then it must be. The ability to determine context seems to blow completely from their head.
Even the famous phrase such as "It was a dark and stormy night..." can have relevance. Of course it's often what follows that is determined to be Purplish. Sure they all recognize that one as purple prose. But, if something happened on that dark and stormy night that could never happen on any other sort of night, then what do you do?
The sky was devoid of light and there was a dearth of open space between the angry clouds. Even the few voids in the cloud mass seem belligerent with the occasional flashes and their cacophony of sounds like drum rolls. Behind that blackness was even greater darkness as the elements shed their frustration over the earth below. Coming ever closer ever faster towards revealing the many flaws in the very structure of the great Manor House.
I use a dictionary when I write. Often to check spelling sometimes to make sure of my definitions. If I have to look it up that could bode ill towards my reader. Should it stay or should it go. That depends on the context and how well it fits the structure of the writing. It should never be determined by how often I might send a reader on some mad dash to get that dictionary from under their bed or from off the pressed leaf collection.
It should never be decided by a quorum of "writers" who have determined that the readers are not smart enough or will be distracted if they have to look up a single word.
On the other hand the reader still may just toss the book aside because they really are lazy and indigent. That's just a risk you take- and obviously with all the unsolicited help out there one that need not be taken at all if you want to play it safe.
Copyright J.L. Dobias
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Being a frequenter of GoodReads.com I came across this gem of a book as The Nine Inch Bride. It was probably a title far from what would interest me. But, with goodreads I always get the free offers about three days too late and I expected that to be so with this book anyway. To my surprise I saw that it was offered for a much longer time than usual. The caveat being that I would have to write a review.
Being no stranger to the need for reviews I thought this was quite reasonable and download the book which it turns out is the first half of a whole, which has been split and is named Book one: Conundrum.(the first conundrum being that my copy calls itself the Stone of Conscience)
I must admit that the beginning of the book intrigued me. But as with some other readers it segued soon into something less bearable for a time. For me it was just that it was bit too morose with the downward spiral of the life of our protagonist. It's when the suspension of belief occurs that the story picks up pace again. So does our protagonist's life.
At this moment it is almost safe to say that one might wonder that the events that follow isn't just a fabrication of our protagonist. But slowly we get the notion that the fantastic has happened and it is all real. But, the most interesting and intriguing part of this portion of the novel is that it becomes almost a political science diatribe. Unfortunately it takes getting about half way through the book to get there.
It's worth the trip.
In some way the long political discussion borders on perhaps a intimation that this might be a commentary on socialism. The real and elusive never quite attainable socialism that lives only in philosophical discussions.
The character that delivers it runs their own gamut of potential - from angel to devil. They just draw the reader in with what seem like selfless acts- to what seem like intelligent conversation about current political failing in democracy - to a bit of an imp suggesting almost the unthinkable.
Ultimately we're led to believe the goal is to help the real and elusive never quite attainable democracy that lives only in philosophical discussions to finally come to full bloom. Something that possibly is being held back by circumstances of today's global economy and capitalism.
I mentioned socialism earlier because along the line there is a familiar thought mentioned about how once the system is allowed to purge itself- capitalism will dissipate or just sort of go away to make way for the true democracy. Our protagonist's new friend wants to help this process along.
I want to see how this works out for them, that means I will have to obtain the next half.
(Which might be named A Stone of Conscience.)
It's a shame the author is Anonym-ous but there seems to be a measure of paranoia in writing when simple names are misspelled deliberately to inadequately obfuscate the reference of whom they are speaking.
J.L. Dobias author of Cripple-Mode Series
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Murder on Michigan Avenue is not your average mystery.
It's also not your average LGBT novel.
It is a literary masterpiece that puts its author Jere Myles on par with other favorites of mine such as Hemingway.
Certainly there is a heap of murder within this trilogy. And a large mystery that unfolds to the reader. There is no doubt that the bulk of characters intersect or have lives that are bisected by gay and bi-sexual themes. Strangely, though this is not really just a mystery and certainly not an in your face LGBT novel.
This is a primer for a large discussion of an ever growing problem in the community of man. This is a story of love and how much our world today does to stifle anything related to it. The characters of Jon and Mieko and Eileen could be considered dysfunctional by many in the world because of their confusion of orientation. But, such a judgment would overlook the obvious. Their dysfunction is that they live in a world that has taught them to hold onto their love out of fear. Fear of rejection and fear of being misunderstood. The lives of these adults is only the tip of this iceberg. There is much more that is involved here. In these books we only see this piece. I wonder if Jere Myles will return to these characters and help explore the rest.
We have been carefully eroding love from society. If two close and old friends meet and hug and kiss. If they are women it may go unnoticed. If they are men it might raise eyebrows or more. We are taught from childhood onward that certain types of display of affection for members of the same sex are not appropriate. This of course in direct opposition to "Love thy neighbor as thy self." I'm talking about love here and not that sticky love/sex thing that people get hung up on.
Today we live in a world that is beginning to facilitate the denial of love of parent for children just out of fear of it appearing to be the wrong things to onlookers. We have even legislated ourselves to a point where protecting the young takes away a parents ability to reach out and lovingly care for their children. The lives of the people in these books is a mirror of the symptom of these problems. And it all goes much deeper. Because there are those who would point at these peoples lives and try to justify their problems with what they have chosen as a lifestyle while overlooking some fundamentals.
It's rather ironic since sex is more common to eating, sleeping, breathing, sensing. All pretty much autonomic responses. All at sometime necessary for continuing life. All at sometimes subject to subjective urges that go beyond the norm.
The shame is that society places Love as a lifestyle decision. Man was made to love whomever he chooses to love not whomever some lifestyle dictates. When a lifestyle chooses whom we love it restricts our ability to love to the fullest and that is definitely dysfunctional.
Yes. I suppose someone else could argue I took too much from these novels- but, I think not.
This book this trilogy is for everyone who's ready to handle it with a mature attitude.
For those who have read the other two- what are you waiting for?
For those who haven't- there is enough here to give you the full picture. But, I'd advise reading the other two.
J.L. Dobias author of Cripple-Mode Series.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
I prefer my own voice, but if you want a ghostwriter go forum it!
Writers Forums:
Now lest someone get me wrong. I'm not against writer groups or workshops. There is a lot to be had from the notion of a peer review. A place where I can throw out my ideas and some of my prose to be playfully bashed or shaped and reformed. I just believe this should be in a place where I sit eye to eye with a comfortable understanding that this really is meant to assist each person present in honing their craft. It should also be a place where each person's qualification in the craft are visible for all to see so that I know whether I'm interacting with a peer or a mentor. It does make a difference if a peer makes an observation and it is validated by a mentor, in my decision to consider the thought or dismiss it out of hand.
There are many ways I have seen in which forums online can work toward undoing all the hard work I've put into building my craft. There are many ways that forums online create a falsely comfortable atmosphere while engendering disassociated sociopathic bullying. And forums employ all of these nasty ways in a most creative fashion.
There is no doubt that the need for online writers forum has been driven recently by the proliferation of self-publishing on the web. I am certain that the first response internet team was well meaning in its initial intent to do a good deed. There is truth to the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It has taken little time for all sorts of writer forums to crop up. In my brief limited foray I sampled some dozen in my genre alone.
Who can start a forum? Well today almost anyone with internet access. There was a day when it took someone who was savvy about the computer the internet and some programing and lots of geek knowledge of linux. Now there are so many tools and free resources that a twelve or thirteen year old could start one.(That age group oddly and actually is valid with the savvy computer internet community I mentioned earlier.)
My experience is that most writer forums are started and administered by people who have not yet published but are hoping to publish soon after they get some help from their sites users. Very few- in fact only one of the twelve I sampled- have a qualified published author (advertised) on their 'staff'. Staff consists mostly of people whom the ADMIN has given admin privileges. I focus on the one with the 'qualified' professional. - with several books in publication the one I read was mediocre and violated many of the tenants taught in the forum.
The forums have rules:
These rules arise from way back in the age of slow modem bbs. Written at a time when they felt the only way to deal with what they considered rude people was to gang up and flame them causing a flame war resulting in chaos in that particular bbs. So, I've no problem understanding the need for rules to control that type of situation/behavior. The problem is that it does not control it as much as it puts that type of conduct (flaming) into the hands of the ADMIN teams, elite squad. So the first rule is that I must be civil in my correspondence online and civil is as is defined by the ADMIN. Or suffer being flamed by the ADMIN who will then bury the body.
Because the forum's all offer what they gladly proclaim is a benefit of the knowledge of its membership given freely at their own considerable expense. (In brain matter and time.) There arises another rule of necessity. Since it's common for the existence of transient membership (people who are looking for possibly some form of ghostwriting to enhance their work) who drop out after getting help and don't seem to contribute anything to the community. There are rules for a minimum number of posts to ongoing threads before I, a new person, may be allowed to post my own thread- for critique or assistance. Typically this can be 10 to 30 qualified comments in other people's threads. By qualified that's that the post must pass certain admin standards. It does not in any way imply or infer that I have to make qualified comments within my own knowledge. In fact I'm free to go way above and beyond my knowledge to offer any assistance I feel I can get away with.
The next important rule: the one for when I obtain the ability to post my own thread: is probably the most insidious yet justifiable because of the flame factor.
When I post I must keep in mind that these people are all taking time out of their busy lives and generously offering their valuable help to me- an assumed novice( who incidentally fleshed out 30 mandatory 'brilliant' critiques just to get here)- and I am prohibited from responding to any of their critique or otherwise noted helpfulness. (Unless to say thank you for the insightful response.)They explain there will be disciplinary action taken for any transgression. What is not explained is that if I am perceived as failing in this rule, the whole mass of anointed will descend upon me with flaming until I'm banned for starting the whole thing. ie; I lit the flame that caused their gasses to ignite.
This is the insidious part:
I now face a community of slightly definable noobs who are less than x posts old in the community. And a more undefinable quantity who are above that bar some to the tune of having thousands of posts. Having thousands of posts does not make them an expert writer but most of them think that it does. The recognized professional sometimes makes comments- but not that much.
So basically I am throwing my work to a vast number of people who haven't or can't publish their writing. These people are supposed to be helping me accomplish what they have not yet accomplished. And- they are hiding behind that clause that says they are taking their valuable time to help me and I should be so grateful to them. Keep my mouth shut unless I'm offering the help.
Now this is all not that bad because you have the same thing in a writers group/discussion /workshop. But you also have someone there to moderate and recognize when someone is way out of line. In a forum the moderator shows up much beyond the point when you ignited the flame.
And what could possibly bring this on:
Well on the lighter end there are the obvious OCD people.
I am Mr. punctuation I will never be happy there either is a lack of punctuation or too much- never enough. I cannot help the writer without tossing screen after screen of corrections. Filling in red and blue from top to bottom. Nor can I refrain from observing that I will not offer corrections at all with the grammar and spelling because I'm simply exhausted by the mass of incongruity in the punctuation.I am incapable of offering up perhaps two or three examples and trust that this writer- who obviously is incapable of judiciously applying punctuation- can complete the task.
I am the Grammar and Spelling gatekeeper. Not only will I find and destroy all relevant errors I will point out words which simply no one in their right mind uses today. I will not be satisfied until I've reduced the writers work to the level of drivel that any reader might understand without the need of an overrated and too heavy to carry dictionary. God forbid that the writer should interrupt the reader with a necessity to learn. And when I am finished though it may take three times the words that are allotted I shall have created the great American masterpiece and it shall be mine. But I shall liberally allow the writer to claim it for their own. Disregarding the fact that I probably belong in the GhostWriting threads.
I know that Spelling and Grammar and Punctuation are important enough for everyone to try to have these taken care of so they don't distract the rest of the knee jerk OCD responses. Still I should explain that I can not resist the urge to totally rewrite your work once its out there.
I am Character development. I am a gestalt of all my parts and get very disturbed if you separate me by too many words or god forbid across several paragraphs. Never tell of me- show me but please for gods sake show me all in the first paragraph so that everyone may know me within the first 20 words or so. Oh and while you are at it squeeze in some excitement and tension maybe a bit of conflict lest the reader think I'm too boring to bother with. It doesn't help if you spread me across the whole piece- then the reader will lose interest before getting to know me.
And once all the above have been broken and beaten several times and way beyond the scope of human understanding, I shall resort to reminding you that the reader does not have a mind of their own. We have trained them to only be comfortable with third person and past tense writing. If this writing so much as tries to deviate I will find so much wrong with it to make any writer sorry they ever thought they could put two words together.
Lastly-because the work must stand mute- because I have been so generous with my time and knowledge- I stand firm with the knowledge that I didn't even read this once through before I took the red pen to it. No I started at the very first sentence and with my brilliance I dissected this evil piece of garbage line by line. Knowing that even as each sentence that unfolded answered the questions I so brilliantly brought forth to display your misguided ignorance, I had no need to back-peddle because the light of my brilliance will be seen by all and none shall dare dispute what I say. I shall allow my light to be used to replace the dimmer glow of the wretched soul I condemned today and will so generously allow the author right to claim my brilliance as their own. --I.M. GhostWriter Egregious
Now lest someone get me wrong. I'm not against writer groups or workshops. There is a lot to be had from the notion of a peer review. A place where I can throw out my ideas and some of my prose to be playfully bashed or shaped and reformed. I just believe this should be in a place where I sit eye to eye with a comfortable understanding that this really is meant to assist each person present in honing their craft. It should also be a place where each person's qualification in the craft are visible for all to see so that I know whether I'm interacting with a peer or a mentor. It does make a difference if a peer makes an observation and it is validated by a mentor, in my decision to consider the thought or dismiss it out of hand.
There are many ways I have seen in which forums online can work toward undoing all the hard work I've put into building my craft. There are many ways that forums online create a falsely comfortable atmosphere while engendering disassociated sociopathic bullying. And forums employ all of these nasty ways in a most creative fashion.
There is no doubt that the need for online writers forum has been driven recently by the proliferation of self-publishing on the web. I am certain that the first response internet team was well meaning in its initial intent to do a good deed. There is truth to the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It has taken little time for all sorts of writer forums to crop up. In my brief limited foray I sampled some dozen in my genre alone.
Who can start a forum? Well today almost anyone with internet access. There was a day when it took someone who was savvy about the computer the internet and some programing and lots of geek knowledge of linux. Now there are so many tools and free resources that a twelve or thirteen year old could start one.(That age group oddly and actually is valid with the savvy computer internet community I mentioned earlier.)
My experience is that most writer forums are started and administered by people who have not yet published but are hoping to publish soon after they get some help from their sites users. Very few- in fact only one of the twelve I sampled- have a qualified published author (advertised) on their 'staff'. Staff consists mostly of people whom the ADMIN has given admin privileges. I focus on the one with the 'qualified' professional. - with several books in publication the one I read was mediocre and violated many of the tenants taught in the forum.
The forums have rules:
These rules arise from way back in the age of slow modem bbs. Written at a time when they felt the only way to deal with what they considered rude people was to gang up and flame them causing a flame war resulting in chaos in that particular bbs. So, I've no problem understanding the need for rules to control that type of situation/behavior. The problem is that it does not control it as much as it puts that type of conduct (flaming) into the hands of the ADMIN teams, elite squad. So the first rule is that I must be civil in my correspondence online and civil is as is defined by the ADMIN. Or suffer being flamed by the ADMIN who will then bury the body.
Because the forum's all offer what they gladly proclaim is a benefit of the knowledge of its membership given freely at their own considerable expense. (In brain matter and time.) There arises another rule of necessity. Since it's common for the existence of transient membership (people who are looking for possibly some form of ghostwriting to enhance their work) who drop out after getting help and don't seem to contribute anything to the community. There are rules for a minimum number of posts to ongoing threads before I, a new person, may be allowed to post my own thread- for critique or assistance. Typically this can be 10 to 30 qualified comments in other people's threads. By qualified that's that the post must pass certain admin standards. It does not in any way imply or infer that I have to make qualified comments within my own knowledge. In fact I'm free to go way above and beyond my knowledge to offer any assistance I feel I can get away with.
The next important rule: the one for when I obtain the ability to post my own thread: is probably the most insidious yet justifiable because of the flame factor.
When I post I must keep in mind that these people are all taking time out of their busy lives and generously offering their valuable help to me- an assumed novice( who incidentally fleshed out 30 mandatory 'brilliant' critiques just to get here)- and I am prohibited from responding to any of their critique or otherwise noted helpfulness. (Unless to say thank you for the insightful response.)They explain there will be disciplinary action taken for any transgression. What is not explained is that if I am perceived as failing in this rule, the whole mass of anointed will descend upon me with flaming until I'm banned for starting the whole thing. ie; I lit the flame that caused their gasses to ignite.
This is the insidious part:
I now face a community of slightly definable noobs who are less than x posts old in the community. And a more undefinable quantity who are above that bar some to the tune of having thousands of posts. Having thousands of posts does not make them an expert writer but most of them think that it does. The recognized professional sometimes makes comments- but not that much.
So basically I am throwing my work to a vast number of people who haven't or can't publish their writing. These people are supposed to be helping me accomplish what they have not yet accomplished. And- they are hiding behind that clause that says they are taking their valuable time to help me and I should be so grateful to them. Keep my mouth shut unless I'm offering the help.
Now this is all not that bad because you have the same thing in a writers group/discussion /workshop. But you also have someone there to moderate and recognize when someone is way out of line. In a forum the moderator shows up much beyond the point when you ignited the flame.
And what could possibly bring this on:
Well on the lighter end there are the obvious OCD people.
I am Mr. punctuation I will never be happy there either is a lack of punctuation or too much- never enough. I cannot help the writer without tossing screen after screen of corrections. Filling in red and blue from top to bottom. Nor can I refrain from observing that I will not offer corrections at all with the grammar and spelling because I'm simply exhausted by the mass of incongruity in the punctuation.I am incapable of offering up perhaps two or three examples and trust that this writer- who obviously is incapable of judiciously applying punctuation- can complete the task.
I am the Grammar and Spelling gatekeeper. Not only will I find and destroy all relevant errors I will point out words which simply no one in their right mind uses today. I will not be satisfied until I've reduced the writers work to the level of drivel that any reader might understand without the need of an overrated and too heavy to carry dictionary. God forbid that the writer should interrupt the reader with a necessity to learn. And when I am finished though it may take three times the words that are allotted I shall have created the great American masterpiece and it shall be mine. But I shall liberally allow the writer to claim it for their own. Disregarding the fact that I probably belong in the GhostWriting threads.
I know that Spelling and Grammar and Punctuation are important enough for everyone to try to have these taken care of so they don't distract the rest of the knee jerk OCD responses. Still I should explain that I can not resist the urge to totally rewrite your work once its out there.
I am Character development. I am a gestalt of all my parts and get very disturbed if you separate me by too many words or god forbid across several paragraphs. Never tell of me- show me but please for gods sake show me all in the first paragraph so that everyone may know me within the first 20 words or so. Oh and while you are at it squeeze in some excitement and tension maybe a bit of conflict lest the reader think I'm too boring to bother with. It doesn't help if you spread me across the whole piece- then the reader will lose interest before getting to know me.
And once all the above have been broken and beaten several times and way beyond the scope of human understanding, I shall resort to reminding you that the reader does not have a mind of their own. We have trained them to only be comfortable with third person and past tense writing. If this writing so much as tries to deviate I will find so much wrong with it to make any writer sorry they ever thought they could put two words together.
Lastly-because the work must stand mute- because I have been so generous with my time and knowledge- I stand firm with the knowledge that I didn't even read this once through before I took the red pen to it. No I started at the very first sentence and with my brilliance I dissected this evil piece of garbage line by line. Knowing that even as each sentence that unfolded answered the questions I so brilliantly brought forth to display your misguided ignorance, I had no need to back-peddle because the light of my brilliance will be seen by all and none shall dare dispute what I say. I shall allow my light to be used to replace the dimmer glow of the wretched soul I condemned today and will so generously allow the author right to claim my brilliance as their own. --I.M. GhostWriter Egregious
Monday, August 6, 2012
Dog Eat Dog Publishing!
To publish traditionally or not to publish that is the question...
I was going to pontificate on the virtues of self publishing while bashing upon the traditional methods when it occurred to me that I have better things to do with my time.
So here's a link to a website that will be extra helpful if you intend on writing Sci-Fi or Fantasy.(For those who don't know true Science Fiction is non-existent- at least by my crippled understanding of most formal definitions and that's a whole 'nother' discussion.
http://www.tarakharper.com/faq_pub.htm#who_publisher
This is not a rant but it might be long and since I'm not expert it might be opinionated. I did try to keep it somewhat informed. Lacking in citations though.
The above site is written by an established writer who has an agent and a publisher. I don't need to emphasize the focus will be on extolling the virtues of having both. ie: It is heavily biased. But, it is informative in demonstrating the monster that every writer-new author- will have to face to get published. And though it will also relegate those who subvert the system to the label of Vanity Publishers there are many important pieces of valuable information to be had from here no matter how you intend on publishing.
Particularly pay attention to the 39 steps (I loved that movie-not even related to these steps though)
http://www.tarakharper.com/k_steps.htm 39 steps
Now back to the question. Of course there is a third option. That is to self-publish. While most seasoned-monied- authors will recommend that you abide only by the first two which seems to make some sense. I have often wondered if they might be treading carefully so as not to bite the hand that feeds them. But, if you read the material in the above links carefully I think you will agree there is something much more simple and perhaps sinister in their motives.
If you have read the above then you know some of this but I'll try to paraphrase.
A suggestion is that .03 percent of a 10000 sampling of books are published in a year. Of one genre it was said 1800 books were published in a year. That means it took roughly 60000 selectable choices to get that. Of these there are reprints of old titles and there are old standby producible income authors that cover a large portion of those depending often on the publisher and how much they focus on that genre. This gives the new author a miniscule chance of getting his foot in the door.
Even then with the foot in the door there is a one in ten chance that that new author will make more than his initial advance.(in a case where the house has a small commitment to the genre there might not be a new author) One primary reason is that they have no presence(except in some exceptions where they have presence somewhere else). Mind you publishing companies (traditional that is) do have dollars for advertising. Those dollars will mostly go to the tried and true authors and books so don't hold your breath. You will need to market you and your book if you want any or many sales.
Bottom line: Its a dog eat dog business this publishing. The ideal is to get the tried and true authors out as quickly as possible to suck up the most reader dollars before the competition gets those dollars. There is a finite amount spent on books and reading and it's every man for himself. The brick and mortar and e-commerce stores only make this ever more evident by flushing their brand of marketing into only the books they know they will sell the most. It is all about the bottom dollar- making the most profit to help defray the cost of that crappy book the new author snuck into the system. (Could be a really good book but if they are unknown it might not matter. Maybe a good argument to get your crappiest piece published first. By at least one authors account that would only alienate the three people who purchased it.)
Always keep in mind that some publishers might only have 0 to 10 open slots for a book in your genre so they may not even get to your manuscript before they fill them. You might get the form letter because they didn't have that 11th slot.
Also it is possible for a very good book written by a new author going to publication and failing against the very poor work of an established author within that same publisher's domain.
That said if you pass the .03 percent to make it into that big lottery you still haven't won and your chances of winning are minimal.
If you go with self publishing your chances are not going to get better. I will not sugar coat this. All you have done is subverted the system to get a chance at the bigger lottery. It does not ensure that your name will appear in the long list of potential winners. There is a lot of marketing that would have to happen unless you are already somehow an established house hold word.
Remember the Dog eat Dog part though, because what it does do is cut into that market, which is not what these published authors want to see.
Is it greed or self preservation- you'll have to decide.
This is the reason established traditional published authors like to call self publishing, vanity publishing. That is an interesting term because if you go with the traditional publishing it makes you feel better and you might get some help with marketing and you might get your name out there and you will have hard volumes to offer to friends and family and you will probably finally qualify for some specific writing clubs that require traditional publishing to qualify. If that doesn't sound like vanity publishing then I don't know what would.
Vanity vanity all is vanity. Its just nice to see your name even if its a pseudo name on a hard copy or even the e-cover of a book.
What they have that self publishers don't have is that cushion of someone else money invested and possibly thrown away on their work. If the self publisher's work incurs cost its to the self publisher. And when there is no profit that may well be construed as a hobby- not vanity. A hobbyist painter who sells their own paintings is not considered a vanity painter- er; at least I don't think so. There is probably less likelihood of them cutting into other painters income. So, you don't see other painters shaking their head pointing and saying shame vanity painter.
So you might ask is that finger pointing meant to convince both the vanity publishers and the readers to stay away from these mavericks who infringe on their territory. Once again I can't judge this. It's just my curious observation.
One negative side of self publishing as noted is the lack of a system to market yourself and your book. If you already have a presence that condition markedly improves. ie: You are a star doing your memoir or auto-biography- You have a website with interesting content that people have been begging you to put into book form. You've committed the crime of the century and have too much time on your hands in prison.
This can lead to the next 'bane of the dog'. One really good marketing tool is to give your first book (e-book) away. If your writing is good this will lead to selling your next book. One hint here; try to have the next book close to finished before the new readers lose interest.
This definitely will grind on the traditionalists who don't generally have this as an option. It will also cost you whatever you've invested.
The good news is that now with some sites you can do free e-books with relatively no cost. The only cost will be money spent to have editing done and covers made. And- if its difficult for you -maybe having someone convert your file to acceptable format.
This takes us to the next wave of attack.
There seems to be a prevalent notion that self publishing will automatically mean the exclusion of certain variable that the publishing industry has 'trained' the average reader to expect.
These would include:
The use of first person:: We've trained the reader to be familiar only with third person. A new author couldn't possibly have the genius to pull off first person writing.
The use of present tense: see above: Not only is present tense going to grate upon the reader if used too much but will be impossible to sustain along with first person.
Over use or under use of punctuation: doesn't matter that they are polar opposites the new author is guilty as charged.
Use of cliche's: (I'm unclear if this includes some idioms, but it doesn't matter.) we reserve the right to determining whatever we think is a cliche is one and the new writer will use a dozen or more so it's just no good.)
Poor grammar will be rife in the new author's work.
The new author's work will lack the tight nature of the traditionally published as it will lack substantive editing.
New author's characters will lack depth and clarity(especially if we convince them not to use the cliche's and idioms and poor grammar.)
I can go on for days, but the list will not contain anything that the self publisher can't have fixed. The most difficult is the substantive editing because to get an outside professional job is costly. More so if you have over 150K words.
The self publisher will have to be careful about keeping an eye on the editors and very careful about any offers to help market his work(which is very costly). Marketing is probably the toughest job you will have. But chances are unless you are the author of a famous series of books about a wizard you will have to deal with that reality in the traditional publishing venue also. So far for myself the best marketing tool has been the book giveaway. I went from no books downloaded to 200 downloads in three days. Its not a best selling number but it's something.
I cut myself short on the critical errors in writing because I'm lazy. Also because I will address later, in the trial and tribulation of trying to use online forums to hone your skills.
As a hint I'll possibly entitle it:
If you want someone to ghost write it for you then go forum it.
I was going to pontificate on the virtues of self publishing while bashing upon the traditional methods when it occurred to me that I have better things to do with my time.
So here's a link to a website that will be extra helpful if you intend on writing Sci-Fi or Fantasy.(For those who don't know true Science Fiction is non-existent- at least by my crippled understanding of most formal definitions and that's a whole 'nother' discussion.
http://www.tarakharper.com/faq_pub.htm#who_publisher
This is not a rant but it might be long and since I'm not expert it might be opinionated. I did try to keep it somewhat informed. Lacking in citations though.
The above site is written by an established writer who has an agent and a publisher. I don't need to emphasize the focus will be on extolling the virtues of having both. ie: It is heavily biased. But, it is informative in demonstrating the monster that every writer-new author- will have to face to get published. And though it will also relegate those who subvert the system to the label of Vanity Publishers there are many important pieces of valuable information to be had from here no matter how you intend on publishing.
Particularly pay attention to the 39 steps (I loved that movie-not even related to these steps though)
http://www.tarakharper.com/k_steps.htm 39 steps
Now back to the question. Of course there is a third option. That is to self-publish. While most seasoned-monied- authors will recommend that you abide only by the first two which seems to make some sense. I have often wondered if they might be treading carefully so as not to bite the hand that feeds them. But, if you read the material in the above links carefully I think you will agree there is something much more simple and perhaps sinister in their motives.
If you have read the above then you know some of this but I'll try to paraphrase.
A suggestion is that .03 percent of a 10000 sampling of books are published in a year. Of one genre it was said 1800 books were published in a year. That means it took roughly 60000 selectable choices to get that. Of these there are reprints of old titles and there are old standby producible income authors that cover a large portion of those depending often on the publisher and how much they focus on that genre. This gives the new author a miniscule chance of getting his foot in the door.
Even then with the foot in the door there is a one in ten chance that that new author will make more than his initial advance.(in a case where the house has a small commitment to the genre there might not be a new author) One primary reason is that they have no presence(except in some exceptions where they have presence somewhere else). Mind you publishing companies (traditional that is) do have dollars for advertising. Those dollars will mostly go to the tried and true authors and books so don't hold your breath. You will need to market you and your book if you want any or many sales.
Bottom line: Its a dog eat dog business this publishing. The ideal is to get the tried and true authors out as quickly as possible to suck up the most reader dollars before the competition gets those dollars. There is a finite amount spent on books and reading and it's every man for himself. The brick and mortar and e-commerce stores only make this ever more evident by flushing their brand of marketing into only the books they know they will sell the most. It is all about the bottom dollar- making the most profit to help defray the cost of that crappy book the new author snuck into the system. (Could be a really good book but if they are unknown it might not matter. Maybe a good argument to get your crappiest piece published first. By at least one authors account that would only alienate the three people who purchased it.)
Always keep in mind that some publishers might only have 0 to 10 open slots for a book in your genre so they may not even get to your manuscript before they fill them. You might get the form letter because they didn't have that 11th slot.
Also it is possible for a very good book written by a new author going to publication and failing against the very poor work of an established author within that same publisher's domain.
That said if you pass the .03 percent to make it into that big lottery you still haven't won and your chances of winning are minimal.
If you go with self publishing your chances are not going to get better. I will not sugar coat this. All you have done is subverted the system to get a chance at the bigger lottery. It does not ensure that your name will appear in the long list of potential winners. There is a lot of marketing that would have to happen unless you are already somehow an established house hold word.
Remember the Dog eat Dog part though, because what it does do is cut into that market, which is not what these published authors want to see.
Is it greed or self preservation- you'll have to decide.
This is the reason established traditional published authors like to call self publishing, vanity publishing. That is an interesting term because if you go with the traditional publishing it makes you feel better and you might get some help with marketing and you might get your name out there and you will have hard volumes to offer to friends and family and you will probably finally qualify for some specific writing clubs that require traditional publishing to qualify. If that doesn't sound like vanity publishing then I don't know what would.
Vanity vanity all is vanity. Its just nice to see your name even if its a pseudo name on a hard copy or even the e-cover of a book.
What they have that self publishers don't have is that cushion of someone else money invested and possibly thrown away on their work. If the self publisher's work incurs cost its to the self publisher. And when there is no profit that may well be construed as a hobby- not vanity. A hobbyist painter who sells their own paintings is not considered a vanity painter- er; at least I don't think so. There is probably less likelihood of them cutting into other painters income. So, you don't see other painters shaking their head pointing and saying shame vanity painter.
So you might ask is that finger pointing meant to convince both the vanity publishers and the readers to stay away from these mavericks who infringe on their territory. Once again I can't judge this. It's just my curious observation.
One negative side of self publishing as noted is the lack of a system to market yourself and your book. If you already have a presence that condition markedly improves. ie: You are a star doing your memoir or auto-biography- You have a website with interesting content that people have been begging you to put into book form. You've committed the crime of the century and have too much time on your hands in prison.
This can lead to the next 'bane of the dog'. One really good marketing tool is to give your first book (e-book) away. If your writing is good this will lead to selling your next book. One hint here; try to have the next book close to finished before the new readers lose interest.
This definitely will grind on the traditionalists who don't generally have this as an option. It will also cost you whatever you've invested.
The good news is that now with some sites you can do free e-books with relatively no cost. The only cost will be money spent to have editing done and covers made. And- if its difficult for you -maybe having someone convert your file to acceptable format.
This takes us to the next wave of attack.
There seems to be a prevalent notion that self publishing will automatically mean the exclusion of certain variable that the publishing industry has 'trained' the average reader to expect.
These would include:
The use of first person:: We've trained the reader to be familiar only with third person. A new author couldn't possibly have the genius to pull off first person writing.
The use of present tense: see above: Not only is present tense going to grate upon the reader if used too much but will be impossible to sustain along with first person.
Over use or under use of punctuation: doesn't matter that they are polar opposites the new author is guilty as charged.
Use of cliche's: (I'm unclear if this includes some idioms, but it doesn't matter.) we reserve the right to determining whatever we think is a cliche is one and the new writer will use a dozen or more so it's just no good.)
Poor grammar will be rife in the new author's work.
The new author's work will lack the tight nature of the traditionally published as it will lack substantive editing.
New author's characters will lack depth and clarity(especially if we convince them not to use the cliche's and idioms and poor grammar.)
I can go on for days, but the list will not contain anything that the self publisher can't have fixed. The most difficult is the substantive editing because to get an outside professional job is costly. More so if you have over 150K words.
The self publisher will have to be careful about keeping an eye on the editors and very careful about any offers to help market his work(which is very costly). Marketing is probably the toughest job you will have. But chances are unless you are the author of a famous series of books about a wizard you will have to deal with that reality in the traditional publishing venue also. So far for myself the best marketing tool has been the book giveaway. I went from no books downloaded to 200 downloads in three days. Its not a best selling number but it's something.
I cut myself short on the critical errors in writing because I'm lazy. Also because I will address later, in the trial and tribulation of trying to use online forums to hone your skills.
As a hint I'll possibly entitle it:
If you want someone to ghost write it for you then go forum it.
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