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Use discount code: RAP2011
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Debut Novel: Spreadsheets Used for Plotting and Revising a Novel
Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. I featured Revision Stories from the Classes of 2k8 and 2k9 and this feature returns this year with the Class of 2k11.
Trinity Faegen, THE MEPHISTO COVENANT, YA, Fall 2011
Revisions: Literary Fast Forward
Guest post by Trinity Faegen
Ironically, I’m writing this just after receiving the editorial letter and line edits on my first YA novel. The editor has an issue with my timeline and asked me to extend it.
How long is your story from beginning to end? A day? A week? A year? Mine is about a week, and he feels this is too short, that I need to extend it to ten days or even two weeks, but how can I lengthen the timeline without adding extraneous scenes that read like filler?
The answer is the literary equivalent of fast forward.
First, I’ll find one or more areas within the manuscript that are already transitional, such as the end of a scene that draws a subplot to conclusion, or one that ends a dramatic confrontation. I’m fortunate because one of my plot elements involves a character’s need for information, which can’t be had quickly. I will find a scene ending that lends itself to a lapse of dramatic action until things begin to happen again. I’ll add a few paragraphs to the beginning of the next scene, in the appropriate point of view, to let the reader know time has passed, but nothing happened off-screen. The characters ate, slept, went to school, lived their lives, until now, when we are picking up the pace again.
The paragraphs might read something like this:
“After her miserable first day at Telluride High, Sasha didn’t think it could get worse. She was wrong. As the lie Brett told about her spread, it morphed into something even he, in his twisted, pervy little mind, couldn’t have dreamed up. Not only did everyone believe she had sex on the Internet, they now thought she did it for money. She was like a leper, always alone, everyone avoiding her as if she was contagious.
By Friday, her fifth day in Hell, she’d had enough. Somehow, she had to turn the tables on Brett, and since she had not one single friend to help, she’d have to do it alone.
First period began like always, Mrs. Redmon calling on another victim to read from The Metamorphosis. Sasha could feel Brett’s eyes staring at her, knew he was smirking, smug and pleased with him
Salon.com reports on Jimmy Wales’s latest project - a for profit Open Source Search Engine.
Noteable highlights include the making the ranking system transparent, indexing data from a network rather than a bank of computers, and wondering whether anyone can actually take a successful run at Google.
-PC-
To add on to Sabina’s earlier post … now that Siobhan Stevenson’s call for keeping the public domain in public libraries has cracked into the public domain itself through First Monday, it’s time to talk turkey.
First, let me wax poetic for a moment and say that isn’t it great to be a part of a profession that shares information amongst each other, just because we want to? It will never cease to warm my heart. Second, our commitment to information sharing means that private interests from Gates and vendors alike, with their prepackaged sales pitches and honourary Harvard degrees, can’t measure up to the library community’s capacity to educate and inform the public, critically. It’s what we do.
That said, when terms such as Free and Open Source Software and Community Informatics arrive on the scene, they may not make the best first impression. FOSS and CI at first seem like brash guests at the party. They talk over your head, interrupt and confuse the humble and loyal guests, eat too much finger food and then question your menu choices, all while being nervy enough to recommend a better place for you to get your veggies.
Humph. So much for an invite back. However, if techie terms such as these crash the party again and continue to be so obtuse and unreachable, I urge you to see past their initial lack of manners and see them as the bold and renegade newcomers that they are, and simply need a guiding hand from some of the more experienced kids on the block. (And hey, they’ve got a solid point when it comes to buying more organic and locally grown food.)
If I were to have a standing list of block party invitees to mentor these newcomers into our midst, who would be on it? First, I’d make it a potluck. Second, I’d invite the ppl with whom FOSS and CI are already good friends and regularly exchange recipes.
The usual suspects of course:
Sarah Houghton-Jan. Too many ideas to mention.
Aaron Schmidt . Great blog title, appreciated the Gmail Greasemonkey tip.
Erica Olson. Another great blog title, probably helped me stay in library school at a moment of weakness. Includes some in your face techie goodness.
The Team at Lifehacker. (Still getting acquainted).
Casey Bisson. From whom there is recommended reading: Open Source Software and Libraries; LTR 43.3
And for a few Canadian based suspects
Dean Giustini - Open Medicine.
… this list is a work in progress. Any suggestions?
-PC-
