The Writers Network News, Gains and Losses, June 2020
In This Issue
One: From the Editor's Desk: Gains and Losses
Two: Ask the Book Doctor—Participles and Gerunds
Three: Subjects of Interest to Writers
Four: Contests, Agents, and Markets
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The Writers Network News
No Rules; Just Write!
Editor: Bobbie Christmas
Contents copyright 2020, Bobbie Christmas
No portion of this newsletter can be used without permission; however, you may forward the newsletter in its entirety to fellow writers.
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Excellent editing for maximum marketability since 1992
770/924-0528
https://www.zebraeditor.com/
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Meet Fellow Writers
Do you live in or visit metro Atlanta? Sign up for notices of local (but sporadic) meetings today! Send your name and email address to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com.
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Some links in this newsletter may be shortened with help from www.tinyurl.com, a free service that converts long links to short ones.
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Writer's Quote of the Month
“In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.” —John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and the author of OF MICE AND MEN, THE GRAPES OF WRATH and EAST OF EDEN. Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as a manual laborer before achieving success as a writer. His works often dealt with social and economic issues.
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One: From the Editor's Desk: GAINS AND LOSSES
Dear Fellow Writers:
Today I pondered all our gains and losses as we seesaw through this crazy time.
Most of us, for example, have lost the ability to work out in a gym, but some have gained the knowledge of how to work out at home. We lost our ability to dine out whenever we wanted, but many of us gained the knowledge of how to cook healthful meals using whatever resources we had available. We lost our ability to run to the supermarket simply to pick up a quart of milk, but we’ve gained the knowledge of how to use online shopping, bulk buying, and no-contact delivery of our groceries. We lost our ability to participate in sports, so we’ve gained a few pounds from snacking while idly watching TV. Whoops! Not so good.
Writers with children at home lost their privacy for writing, but they gained time with their children in ways the kids will always remember. We also gained firsthand experience that will help us write about difficult times in our novels and educational books in the future. Some of us gained time we never would have “found” on our own, because we had failed to schedule specific times for writing.
Some of us have found new hobbies and interests, such as gardening, painting, or even putting puzzles together.
These times are insane with their ups and downs, our losses and gains. The worst, of course, is the loss of loved ones while we’ve been unable to be with them. On the bright side, though, good things keep going on. I’m impressed with the outpouring of help and donations for those in need. On a personal note, my niece and her boyfriend had to cancel their wedding, but within days after the restrictions in Georgia were loosened, they visited my sister, who quickly and legally married them, masks and all. We will celebrate as a family sometime in the future.
I hope you are doing well with all your gains and losses and are planning to use all your newfound knowledge in your future writing.
Yours in writing,
Bobbie Christmas Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or bzebra@aol.com
Author of two editions of WRITE IN STYLE, owner of Zebra Communications, director of The Writers Network, coordinator of the Florida Writers Association Editors Helping Writers service, and senior editor of Enjoy Cherokee Magazine
If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, please sign up to get your own subscription. Simply go to https://www.zebraeditor.com/ to subscribe to The Writers Network News. My promise: I never share your address or send out spam.
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Two: ASK THE BOOK DOCTOR: About Participles and Gerunds
By Bobbie Christmas
Q: I’ve looked through all my grammar books and cannot find an explanation of why starting a sentence with a participle is a problem. I’m not talking about dangling modifiers.
Have you a source where I could find a paragraph explaining why something like this doesn’t work:
Swinging the door open, he reached inside.
A: The reason you can’t find anything negative about your example—Swinging the door open, he reached inside—is that nothing is wrong with it from a grammatical sense. In a creative sense, however, a problem can arise when too many sentences rely on participles or gerunds (“ing” words), because the usage grows repetitious. Worse, of course, is when sentences have dangling participles, such as in this example: Swinging the door open, the chair in the corner became apparent. As written, the chair swung the door open, because no other person or thing is said to have done the action; therefore, the sentence has a dangling participle.
Q: Here are two sentences that say the same thing but in slightly different ways:
a) He rode the bicycle, pedaling with quick bursts of speed.
b) He rode the bicycle and pedaled with quick bursts of speed.
Is the verb “pedaling” a gerund or a present participle? Second, is one way preferred over the other? Why?
A: I hate to quote grammar, because it’s confusing and boring, but here goes:
A gerund is a noun that is formed from a verb. To be a gerund, the word “pedaling” would have to be used as a noun, such as “Pedaling the bicycle was something he enjoyed.”
Participles join verbs to form complex tenses (as you suspect, a present participle in this case), yet can also be used as adjectives, as this sentence: “His pedaling hobby involves unicycles as well as bicycles.”
Where does that information leave us? Confused, right? You probably asked the question because my book WRITE IN STYLE advocates avoiding gerunds and participles, although they cannot always be deleted. Also you’ll note I refer to them simply as “ing words,” because their classification doesn’t matter.
Why do I recommend that creative writers remove “ing” words when possible? For two reasons: Their overuse leads to repetition, plus many sentences with “ing” words often rely on weak verbs, such as forms of the verb “to be.” Weak verbs don’t show action, whereas verbs in active voice do. This sentence uses passive voice: He was dancing in the dark. This sentence uses active voice: He danced in the dark.
All that information aside, to answer your question, both your sample sentences are grammatical; the choice of which to use depends on the words and sentences surrounding that sentence. If one or more “ing” words appear nearby, choose sentence b); if not, sentence a) is fine.
Your examples both use strong language, but here is an example of weaker writing:
He was riding the bicycle, pedaling with quick bursts of speed. (This formation has two words ending in “ing” and relies on the weak, passive verb “was.”)
Q: I am curious to know why you attack the use of “snuck.” Why not give guidance on the proper use of the word instead of telling people to do blanket searches to remove it? This site defines “snuck” as the past tense and past participle of “sneak.”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snuck
You shouldn’t be urging people to drop the colorful irregular verbs in our language.
Please revise your information to reflect that “snuck” is good grammar and your advice is only your personal preference.
P.S. How do you feel about “shone” and “shined?”
A: I appreciate your challenge to my statement that “snuck” is substandard. I was not stating a personal preference, however. I was stating a fact, and I can back it up with a reliable resource.
Dictionaries reflect spoken language, and English certainly is a changing language. Spoken language is one thing, however, and written—literary—language is another. The fact that a word appears in the dictionary does not make it acceptable in all literary circles, and my job is to teach people how to write well. When writing dialogue, then, it’s fine to show characters using the word “snuck” when they mean “sneaked,” just as some people say “ain’t” when they mean “am not.” When writing narrative, however, use “sneaked” for past tense.
The word “snuck” has sneaked into our spoken language, but literary gurus are not prepared to embrace it in written work. As a book editor, I therefore must tell people not to use “snuck” in narrative, only in dialogue, as I said in my original post.
For the record, my resource is THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE 17TH EDITION, the standard in the book-publishing industry. Entry 5.250 says this: “Sneak is conjugated sneak—sneaked—sneaked. Reserve snuck for dialect and tongue-in-cheek usages.”
As for your question about my opinion about “shone” and “shined,” both are acceptable in literary circles. Sometimes writers have choices.
Thank you for your challenge and for being alert to English and its quirks. People like you—those who pay attention to the details of English—are my heroes. You keep English a vital, evolving language.
Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style: Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or BZebra@aol.com. Read Bobbie’s Zebra Communications blog at https://www.zebraeditor.com/blog/.
For much more information on these subjects and hundreds of others of vital importance to writers, order PURGE YOUR PROSE OF PROBLEMS, a Book Doctor’s Desk Reference Book at http://tinyurl.com/4ptjnr.
Bobbie Christmas’s award-winning second edition of WRITE IN STYLE: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing is available from Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/y7ppcdkd or buy it directly at https://tinyurl.com/y7p9xkbb.
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Three: Subjects of interest to writers
MEMBERS WRITE
Pat Gresham writes, “Thank you so much for your newsletter. It is so much appreciated. You have provoked a question from me. How does one express that a ‘thinko’ has occurred? ‘Uh oh. I made a thinko.’ There is a ‘thinko’ in that logic. The conclusion to that story is not reasonable, for a ‘thinko’ guided the author. Which is right?”
My response:
Because "thinko" is slang, I assume all uses are fine, although I wouldn't put it in quotation marks (as I have), except to express that it is a word used as a word (as I did). For more information see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thinko.
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Ann Favreau sent me her original poem, "Crisis Coping,” which made me smile. She sent it off for possible inclusion in a future newsletter from her writers association, but we don’t know yet if it was accepted. If you’d like to read Ann’s poem, send her an email: favra1@comcast.net.
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Carole Madan, better known as Momma Nature, writes, “I've been having a blast with this epidemic. Don't ask me why, but this brings out the best in me and fortunately with the people I'm affiliated with.” She went on to tell of how her neighbors have been helpful, generous, and kind. She adds, “There are other examples of graciously coping.” She had a tiny mask made to fit the plush lamb that went into her granddaughter’s Easter basket. She says, “I love having fun like this. I'm pretty sure I'm able to cope on a high level because I'm a middle child, left handed, and with curly hair, and I never fit in anywhere. Right now I feel like I've got things under control in spite of the disaster around me."
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THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR AUTHORS
https://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-right-social-media-strategy-for.html
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EDITING TIPS
SHOW, RATHER THAN TELL, AND DO NOT DO BOTH
If narrative tells a fact that is also related through action and dialogue elsewhere, delete the narrative portion to avoid repeating information.
[excerpted from PURGE YOUR PROSE OF PROBLEMS]
To illustrate the point, below are some excerpts (with identification removed) from books I’ve edited that showed AND told the same information. All or part of the narrative could be deleted, and the result is tighter, stronger writing.
Joe held his head as if he were in pain. “My head is throbbing.” [Stronger: Joe held his head. “My head is throbbing.”]
She realized the latch was locked, and she needed a key to open it. “He locked it,” she growled. [Stronger: She reached for the latch. “He locked it,” she growled.]
“What’s your opinion?” she asked, wanting to learn more. [Stronger: “What’s your opinion?” she asked.]
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EASY ACCESS TO BOBBIE’S BLOGS
Read creative writing tips as well as some of my personal experiences. Access the Write In Style blog here: https://www.zebraeditor.com/blog/
On the other hand, for my relationship-related blog, see my blog titled “Neurotica: Crazy Stories of Love, Lust, and Letting Go.” If you like to read about disastrous dates and ridiculous relationships, I’ve got a ton of them, and they all happened to me. Some are funny, some are a little sexy, some are sad, and all true. My latest addition is a little scary, because it happened when I was only six years old. Read it here: https://neuroticastories.blogspot.com.
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SNEAKED OR SNUCK—WHICH ONE IS CORRECT?
Most of my clients know my preference for using “sneaked” instead of “snuck” for the past tense of “sneak.” Merriam-Webster finally bowed and allowed its use, so I will too, but only in dialogue. I can’t emphasize the point enough. M-W has an interesting article on the subject. See https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/snuck-or-sneaked-which-is-correct
As you may note in my “Ask the Book Doctor” column this month, I address the same issue and note that although the word “snuck” is in the dictionary, THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE still promotes the use of the standard “sneaked” as past tense of “sneak” in all narrative, although not necessarily in dialogue.
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CMOS ONLINE Q&A
This month someone posed the following question to The Chicago Manual of Style Online:
Q. Does Chicago prefer “COVID-19” or “Covid-19”?
To get the answer to this question and many more based on Chicago style, go to http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/latest.html.
THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE sets the standard in book publishing for issues such as punctuation, capitalization, and much more. If you write fiction or nonfiction books, you will want to know about Chicago style or be sure to use a professional book editor intimately familiar with Chicago style.
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FACT OR FACTOID?
Merriam-Webster online says, "We can thank Norman Mailer for the word factoid; he coined the term in his 1973 book MARILYN, about Marilyn Monroe. In the book, Mailer explains that factoids are 'facts that have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.'"
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WRITE IN STYLE: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing
Five-time-award-winning WRITE IN STYLE leaves grammar to the grammarians. Instead it uses humor and expertise to show writers how to strengthen their writing style and create a fresh voice. Available as an e-book or printed.
Order your copy today at https://tinyurl.com/y8fp5nym.
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SELF-PUBLISHING VERSUS TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING
Can’t decide whether to self-publish or seek a publisher? Whether to print on demand or lower the cost by printing a large quantity? This free white paper shows you all the options as well as the advantages and drawbacks of each potential method of publishing. https://tinyurl.com/ycjesrcg
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Four: Contests, Agents, and Markets
HELLO GIGGLES
We’re especially interested in personal essays and cultural criticism with unique and diverse points of view, LGBTQ perspectives, smart articles with original reporting, and illustrations. We want stories that you’re passionate about and that only you could tell. We want to hear what you’re obsessed with, whether it’s Dolly Parton’s sequins or female Olympians or the perfect red lipstick or your grandmother’s pie recipe.
We love essays that highlight creativity, dream jobs, positive body image, learning to be an adult, friendships, the weirdness of relationships, and learning how to work through tough times (whether it be the big crises, or the small “I just don’t like myself this morning” moments). We want stories that make us feel like we’re all in this together, whether it’s an essay on how a celebrity inspires you or the way a news event connects with you personally.
For full query guidelines, see https://hellogiggles.com/contact/.
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THE NEW MODALITY
The New Modality is “a new publication and community about experiments in culture.” They cover art, culture, science, spirituality, sexuality, technology, business, philanthropy, society, and more. They ask contributors to specify in the pitch whether they would like to be considered for their honorarium rate or their professional rate. Their honorarium rate is $100 per piece. Their professional rate for a reported non-fiction piece is 50 cents per word. Their rate for professional science fiction and fantasy writers is $100 or 15 cents per word, whichever is higher. For details, see http://thenewmodality.com/contributor-commitments-rates-guidelines/
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SMART MOUTH
I’m looking for writers to contribute to the upcoming, twice-monthly Smart Mouth e-newsletter, a companion to my Smart Mouth podcast. (Articles don’t need to have anything to do with episodes.) This will be published on Substack and will print a mix of paid and free content.I’m open to a wide variety of pitches, but here are two things I’m specifically looking for:
- 300 to 500-word posts, either essays or reported, about food/culture/food culture topics. Histories of restaurant chains and food items, consumer-facing farm issues, eating guides to various cities, school lunches. A mix of history, progressive food politics, and just fun frothy stuff. Think Texas Monthly, Civil Eats, Bitter Southerner, Sarah Taber, Soleil Ho. Absolutely no “wellness” stories; the phrase “clean eating” may only be used sarcastically. :) Pay: $400.
- 200 word-ish blurbs about a recommended restaurant or dish at a restaurant, with an excellent (excellent!) photo of its food to accompany the post. (This, of course, would be a good assignment for photographers.) I’ll be looking for dispatches from around the world, but probably not Los Angeles, since that’s where I’m based. Pay: $200.
Please email pitches to katherine at tablecakes dot com.
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Do YOU have news for The Writers Network News? Send it in the body of an email to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or bzebra@aol.com. Deadline: 18th of each month.
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Send a copy of this newsletter to all your writing friends. Tell them to join The Writers Network F-R-E-E by visiting https://www.zebraeditor.com/ and signing up for The Writers Network News.
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With the exception of Zebra Communications, information in this newsletter is not to be construed as an endorsement. Research all information and study every stipulation before you enter a competition, pitch or accept an assignment, spend money, or sell your work.
The Writers Network News: a newsletter for writers everywhere. No Rules; Just Write!
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