Tag: review

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The Creative Writer’s Style Guide

The other day I mentioned I was looking for a book. I don’t know if I called it by name. Most likely I referred to it as a writing book—maybe a grammar book. I’ve found it improperly shelved between two outdated software manuals for 3D modeling. “The Creative Writer’s Style Guide” by Christopher T. Leland (dude! where’s you blog?) reads surprisingly well for an instructional book on writing. I credit Leland’s conversational style, terse but varied examples, and lack of assignments for my success in reading his book cover to cover.

The first half of the book outlines technical grammar rules by reflecting examples from fiction writing. He begins with nouns—in case you didn’t know what those were—moves through verbs, then parts of speech, sentences, capitalization, punctuation, and concludes with dialogue and thought. Thankfully he doesn’t use an extended example throughout with the same characters and same scenes playing out only with a new focus on the next topic.

If the first half of the book teaches you how words work, the later half teaches you how to work the words. This last part covers language and style. I’m sure there are excellent topics left out, but looking over the table of contents the gaps don’t spring to mind considering that Leland covers images, slang and dialect, offensive words, description, pace, accuracy, allusion, and experimentation. For me, the book is like a personally designed Swiss Army knife. It matches the appropriate amount of blades with the necessary array of gadgets and leaves out the useless awl and magnifying glass.

I am glad to have it back on my desk—maybe now I’ll get to using that dash correctly.

Word count: 274
Day 215

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Almost Like Writing

The outstanding looking Scrivener software for the Mac stumbled into my Internet surfing yesterday. As a result I began googling ‘scrivener for windows’. Most of the hits were people wishing there was such an app, but a very few proposed candidates. I installed and played with three contenders: yWriter, Liquid Story Binder XE, and Celtix.

I’ve been aware of yWriter by Spacejock Software for a number of years. It hits every time I search for writing software. The most recent addition, version 4, shows maturity and a better thought out design than I recall earlier versions sporting. If I were only needing subtance and practicality, I think this would do the trick, but I’m a little bit of a gloss whore. yWriter, the best of the three, is not chrome-tastic.

Celtix is chrome-tastic. It’s also focused on script writing with the ability to handle plain text—you know, for mere mortals. The link I followed didn’t make it out to be so industry specific, so maybe it’s unfair in this line up. Most of the bits can be coerced into use for novel writing and probably serve just fine. The rest of the bits just hang out there screaming let’s write a movie. For me that is distraction enough to avoid further use.

Liquid Story Binder XE comes the closest at a glance to Scrivener. Once I installed it and poked around I discovered that it’s not flexible and complex, but a mess. Some dude cobbled this up to his own specific writing needs. If your specific writing needs and his are parallel then great, you’re set. Mine aren’t.

What do I need you ask.

I’m not entirely sure. Since I haven’t written a novel or long piece of fiction I can’t say for certain what I need. What I want though scans out something like this:

  • Foldering to organize the chunks of writing
  • Character sheets
  • Location sheets
  • Prop sheets
  • An intuitive way to inventory characters, locations, and props across the chunks
  • Word count and task duration statistics
  • Integrated submission/rejection tracking
  • Looks cool
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The BBC’s Coupling

Think of this as practice for techniques other than the exposure of a great television program(me).

I year or so back I became absorbed by a BBC America “Coupling” marathon. In the middle of a work day I sat down to eat a late lunch at my in-laws–where the TV is always on–and began flipping channels. I probably watched three episodes and could have watched more. I returned to work vowing to find that show when I got back home.

Last week I remembered that vow and fired up the search and record feature on the satellite to accomplish my aging goal.

I’ve either heard or read that “Friends” was based on, derived from, or just often compared to “Coupling”. I can see how either of those first two might be true and I can understand why the last certainly was true. My simple opinion is that the British program was both more and less what the American one was.

The first five shows I’ve seen were more extreme in their sexuality. I guess in Europe they can get away with just a touch more than we can here. Friends limitations forced very topical crude humor when it came to sex. [place examples from episode here when you think of some]. Coupling’s story propelling dialogue is what I’ll call intellectually bawdy. Maybe it’s just the accents. Maybe it’s just that I’ve watch so few episodes in comparison. That’s just my take on it.

Coupling’s characters are less than Friends. Stylized and compartmentalized characterizations mark American sitcoms’ mainstay. If Joey is a womanizing playboy in season one, he’ll be one in season eight. Along the way he may have become more lovable, but he won’t have become more like Chandler or Ross. Coupling’s characters are already more like each other than we are used to here in the States. While you can make out the general distinctions between the three male characters, there doesn’t seem to be any rule why one can’t be as sarcastic or as athletic or as kooky as another is the plot calls for it. In all that they still maintain enough of a distinction that the roles aren’t interchangeable.

Word count: 345
Day 191