Wednesday Whoo-That's-Creepy

Speaking of the inevitable computer-d'etat to be staged by our networked overlords, here's an idea I find simultaneously brilliant and creepy:

Internet Applications That Heal Themselves

This is such a good idea, I'm astonished no one has tried it before. It would be so great to not have to worry about updates or trying to fix corrupted files anymore. Also, a sophisticated-enough, self-healing, self-protecting computer program is probably the one thing that could completely stymie human spammers/hackers. (That just means they'd write programs to counter the programs, but oh well.)

And at the same time, this is a creepy development, because it's yet another concrete step toward creating programs that are, unambiguously, life forms.

Wednesday Wackiness: PH34R M3, M0R74LZ

~~~Today's paranoid fantasy brought to you by caffeine and my desire to entertain you.~~~

The machines are taking over the world, starting with our brains.

Admit it; you have an electronic device which, if it committed plastic-burning seppuka this second, would leave you hamstrung in some pertinent way. Maybe you wouldn't know your mother-in-law's phone number anymore. Perhaps you would miss a career-breaking meeting at work. Mayhap you would forget to stop by the store, and your children would be forced to eat instant potatoes and Fruit Loops for dinner.

Is it a plot? (Imagine the scary music of your choice inserted here.) Are computers already sentient and, in their cool and superior way, manoeuvring us into submission?

No coat-hanger sculptures wrapped in Arnold Schwarzenegger's skin are required; no cool-voiced HALs. Violence is the solution of messy meat-bags such as ourselves! No, the machines would choose the elegant path, the smart method. They'd just use our natural inclinations against us.

Inclinations such as laziness. After all, machines exist to make our lives easier, right? And so they make it easy, and after a while, we rely on them. They calculate our square roots, call out street-map directions for us, turn down the thermostat for the night, and--most insidiously--they both think and remember for us.

With the rise of the internet, the next stage of their dominion is possible--and oh, how subtle it is.

Divide and conquer, baby.

If you lost internet access right now, how many people in the world would you suddenly be incapable of contacting? How many friends do you talk to only through Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, or some internet forum? How many of your business associates do you contact only via email? Is there anyone whose office phone number you have just never written down because you can always get it off their workplace's website?

And it's deeper than that! Google Reader: Awesome way to keep up with your blogging buddies, or fiendish destroyer of human interaction?

I started using Google Reader about a year-ish ago, and while I love being spoon-fed only the updates on my favourite blogs, I also find it screws up my ability to have a discussion with anyone.

I used to check on my blogging buddies by having Firefox's lovely "Open all in tabs" function pull up a batch of blogs all at once. While this meant I was checking inactive sites several times a day (with cookies blocked! Thank me for your stellar hit count), it also served to remind me to go back and check for replies to comments I had left. Many a merry discussion was had.

But with Google Reader, I forget to go back. Once I've read a post, it disappears from the Reader and, often, my brain. You see? First the computers provide the medium for our interaction, then they begin to weaken our connections to one another. It's diabolical, I tell you.

Even more frightening is the fact we would inevitably voice our first inklings of impending computer-coup-d'etat right here on the internet, where they see everything we type and control who gets to view it. In fact, can you imagine anything more likely to give us a false sense of security than to be allowed to discuss these things openly? And all the while, we're still using the internet to do it, still relying on the machines, and all the while, the computers slowly tighten the noose around-- Shit!

My stupid owner forgot to plug me in and now I have to do an automatic power-down. Damn it; I was totally on a roll there.

More Tuesday Cool: But Where's Cthulhu?

Click here to see a gallery of incredible Lego monsters (made by various artists.)



Found via Geekologie

Tuesday Twitter

In a wonderful case of synchronicity, I furtively created a Twitter account last night only to have Stuart Neville coax me into using it for the first time today. He's running a contest!

Specifically, Stuart's running a contest to hype the release of his much-anticipated debut novel, The Ghosts of Belfast--which, if you live in the States, you can buy this Thursday! Squee! (Canadians have to wait until Nov. 2nd, apparently. Sniffle, grumble, whine.) The contest runs until Hallowe'en, so you can tweet-to-win at your leisure.

I'm, um, more than slightly ignorant about the subtleties of using Twitter, and I suspect it'll take me a while to figure out what I want to do with it (spam the world with bad haiku? Probably.) However, I'd love to follow any of you who already have a Twitter account providing you help me figure out how the hell to do so if you'll let me know what your Twitter-handle is.

My page is http://twitter.com/jjdebenedictis, and chances are, if you follow me, I'll follow you. After all, the only Twitter-buddy I've scored so far is a spambot.

But he's cute. *pets little spambot*

Tuesday Cool: Retractable Roof?

How would you like a retractable roof on your house?



Yep, it's the future already. Bet this guy has a flying car, too.

Scan from Graveyard Shift, in the March 2009 issue of World of Interiors.
Picture discovered via (In)decorous Taste

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (3 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)


Technique 3 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Avoid Cliches and Choose Fresh Language

When I say the phrase, "She was at a crossroads in her life," what does that mean?

I know this sounds silly, but please humour me: actually come up with an answer to that question. Got it? Okay.

When I say the phrase, "He took a stab at assembling the toy," what does that mean?

Got an answer? Okay.

My final question is: did you, at any point, actually picture two roads that cross one another? Did you picture a guy stabbing something with a pointed instrument?

Probably not, because the phrases "at a crossroads" and "took a stab at it" are cliches. The phrases have been used so many times people don't think of them as metaphors anymore. The literal meanings have evaporated from our collective memory, and what we understand, when we hear those phrases, are only their figurative meanings.

I'm not sure I'm being clear, so let me try putting this another way: consider the phrase deja vu. We use that phrase, in English, as if it were a word meaning 'to feel like you've experienced something before when you haven't'.

But it's not a word. It's two words, and to someone who does speak French, deja vu means 'already saw', as in 'I already saw your new car.' It's just a part of the language.

Your (English-speaking) brain interprets deja vu as a word. In a very similar fashion, your brain interprets a cliche like it's just a word. If the cliche was originally a clever analogy or witty phrase, overuse has sapped it of that meaning, and now it's just shorthand for an idea.

For this reason, you want to avoid using cliches in your writing. Your Show-Don't-Tell goal is to get the reader's mind to actively imagine what you're describing, and a cliche is a wasted opportunity because when the person reads a cliche, their mind just slides on by it without picturing anything.

So how do you force a person's mind to imagine something?

One of the most useful techniques I've found is novelty. When something is worded clearly, but in a surprising manner, your brain kicks into gear. I think one of the examples I used last week...

Her perfume crawled up his nose and clung to the back of his throat.

...is a good example of this. The sentence is clear enough, but it's an atypical description of a familiar phenomenon--having to breathe someone's overpowering perfume. My hope is the reader's brain is just puzzled enough by this description to try to imagine that sensation--and if I succeed in getting it to do that, then I have succeeded in pulling the reader into the world of the story. Remember that this is the goal of using the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle.

This technique of using atypical and imaginative language can be applied in smaller ways throughout your prose. Instead of saying:
- Her face turned red.
- A piano tinkled in the back of the lounge.
- The air smelled of pine.

You might consider saying:
- Embarrassment painted roses on her cheeks.
- A piano giggled in the back of the lounge.
- The scent of pine prickled the nose.

In the first examples, you can probably see why this is more like 'telling' than 'showing'. The descriptions are perfectly acceptable, but they aren't working hard to make the reader see/feel anything because the descriptions are so commonplace. They're not cliches, but they're familiar enough the reader's imagination isn't necessary.

In the second examples, the language is just a little odder (hopefully without being intrusive) and so the reader's imagination is more likely to be engaged. The more it engages, the more 'real' the story will feel to the reader.

I tend to think the deeper you can draw the reader in to the world of the story, the less likely they are to be able to crawl out before the book ends, and we writers naturally want a strangle-hold on their attention for the whole novel. Thus, on the assumption that every little bit helps, I recommend trying to use fresh, imaginative language throughout your prose.

At the very least, you'll have a lot of fun and feel like a better artist for it.

In summary, a cliche is a wasted chance, because the reader doesn't need to engage their brain to understand what you mean. Clear yet fresh language is more likely to kickstart the reader's imagination, and having the reader's imagination in gear means you have their full attention.

---

If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (2 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

This week's two entries are some of the most basic. Depending on where you're at as a writer, all this may seem blitheringly obvious, so do skip this post if you like, but please do come back for next week's instalment! I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)


Technique 1 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Dramatize the Scene

If one character tells another character in words about some trauma or event, then you, the writer, are 'telling' the reader something.

Likewise, if your story is in first person, it's common for the protagonist to 'tell' the reader about events as if the reader were a person the protagonist was speaking to.

The problem is, it's always duller to hear about something than see it. If you have a happening in your novel that affects the plot, it should be dramatized. That means you write the scene when and where the events occur so the reader can live that moment along with the characters.

I think it's often fear that persuades a writer to avoid dramatizing a scene. Often, those scenes are the ugly, messy, difficult ones, but be brave and write them anyway! It's the only way to get better at writing the tough stuff, and they're also often the scenes that make you feel most proud of your abilities once you do successfully claw them out of your heart and onto the page.

Caveat: Backstory

Please note that if the dramatic events in question took place long before the story started, you may wish to leave them out of the novel. If the events are really juicy, however, you should at least consider a flashback or a prologue to dramatize them. Your readers do crave the exciting bits, even if it makes the story a bit non-linear.

If you do decide to leave the scene out, but the information is still necessary to the reader, it's acceptable to have characters 'tell' the reader this in some fashion. However, 'telling' always makes for dull reading, so you want to be careful about how you do this. Please come back in a few weeks for Technique 5, The Art of Implying Information, for tips on how to accomplish this deftly.

In summary, avoid having important events told to the reader via dialogue. Instead, put the reader into a scene that will show them those events.


Technique 2 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Avoid the verb 'to be'

Notice how often you use the verb 'to be', particularly when you use it to create sentences of the following form: '[Subject] was [something]'

Examples:
- The sky was blue.
- He is wet.
- The dishes weren't washed.
- Her perfume was cloying.
- She will be frightened.

This construction is almost always 'telling'. Remember that 'showing' strives to engage the reader's imagination, to make them feel/see the scene in their mind. When you use the construction '[This] was [that]', you are informing the reader of a fact. That doesn't form an image in their mind, and thus it's not effective storytelling.

Compare the above examples to the following:
- The sky glowed as blue as silk.
- Water drips from his hair and his clothes cling, dark and wrinkled, to his body.
- A smell of burnt spaghetti sauce hovered over the pots left on the stove.
- Her perfume crawled up his nose and clung to the back of his throat.
- Her heart will beat so fast, she'll feel her kneecaps vibrating.

If you're describing a visual, try to convince the reader's imagination to picture it. If you're describing a sensation, try to make the reader feel it. You want them there, inside the story, not merely aware of what's happening.

Breaking yourself of the '[This] was [that]' habit is difficult but very rewarding, because it's easy to spot the problems, and yet it takes quite a bit of mental effort to think up a better way of saying something so straightforward. However, once you do, the results will immediately make you feel like a better artist, because the improvement is so obvious. '[This] was [that]' is simply bland; you can do better.

So how do you convince the reader's mind to imagine the sensation? You need to think carefully about what the sensation feels like and viscerally describe what it does to the character's senses.

For example, if the character is half-frozen, you might describe how their shivers seem to radiate from the centre of their chest, how their cheeks burn when they try to grimace, how their knuckles ache and their fingers resist being uncurled from a fist.

For reasons I'll discuss more when I talk about Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information, it's often useful to focus on one tiny, vivid detail.

For example, if the character is looking at overturned sod, you might say the soil is haired with tiny white roots. The reader's imagination will fill in the rest of the picture spontaneously.

I'll come back to this subject more next week, when I cover Technique 3: Avoid Cliches and Choose Fresh Language.

In summary, every time you use the verb 'to be' (outside of dialogue), think of a better, more visceral way to describe what you mean. Remember your goal is to get the reader's imagination to recreate that sensation inside their mind.

---

If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Flakey Friday: IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Tomorrow is international "Talk Like a Pirate" Day.

Talk the talk and walk the walk, my friends. Arr.

Here is your inspiration. You're welcome.

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (1 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts, which I'll post on subsequent weeks, because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

This first week, however, I'm going to talk a bit about what the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle of fiction writing actually is and why it's preferable to 'show' your readers a story rather than to 'tell' them.

To 'show' your readers the story means to force their imagination to engage.

When a story is vividly written, the reader's mind gets slurped right into it. They see images, they hear sounds, they smell scents and feel sensations. The reader also feels emotions. They empathize with the characters, and will laugh, cry and rage on those characters' behalves. Ideally, when reading, the reader is mostly unaware of their physical reality--including the fact they are reading words on a page--and intensely aware of the world of the book.

When a writer 'shows' the reader the story, that means they have manipulated the reader's imagination into picturing scenes, feeling sensations, etc.

When a writer 'tells' the reader the story, they inform the reader of all the same facts, but in such a way that the reader's imagination does not engage. Nothing comes to life inside the reader's head, even though the reader could still tell you what the plot of the book is.

Thus, the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle is actually a host of techniques writers use to provoke the reader's brain into viscerally imagining the story.

In the coming weeks, I'll go over five ways to 'Show, Don't Tell'. Before I get to the first of these nuts-and-bolts discussions, however, I want to note one thing:

Sometimes 'telling' the story is exactly the right thing to do.

Humans have been telling stories probably as long as we've been able to speak, and your basic folktales-around-the-campsite story is usually told. This is a very primal and natural way for human beings to communicate.

However, the best folktales-around-the-campsite stories also engage the listener's imagination, causing it to picture scenes vividly, and a good oral storyteller has a bag of tricks that novelists don't get to use, such as vocal intonation, facial expression, hand gestures, and personal charisma. This is why, in written form, it's best to 'show' rather than 'tell'. The words are doing all the grunt work.

There is one situation in written stories, however, where it's also a good idea to 'tell' rather than 'show'. That's when you need to impart information to the reader but there's no way to do it that won't be boring.

For example, if your detective needs to get to the crime scene, but absolutely nothing of interest happens--either in her surroundings or in her head--while she's on the way, then you can just tell the reader, 'She drove to the crime scene.' It isn't necessary to try to make the reader picture her hopping in her car, turning left twice, and muttering at the traffic.

Please come back next week to read about specific techniques you can use to 'Show, Don't Tell' in your writing. The techniques I'll cover are:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)

---

If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

They couldn't fool us...

Ha! We knew it all along.

Linky-love | Everything's better with kittens | Ooh, so crafty

I read some good articles today. Extremely good, in fact. Please check them out:

If you're a writer, please read this:

I Will Not Read Your F---ing Script
Written by Josh Olsen, link from Et Arcaedia, Ego.

And if you're human, please read this:

Buy Low
Written by PJD.

One of the marks of good writing is it provokes a response, and for me, both these articles did--very, very different responses!

~~~~~~~

I haven't been blogging regularly, and while I'm honest enough to admit that's mostly due to laziness and my butterfly-grade flightiness, part of the problem is that I want this to be a writer's blog, and I haven't got much (of interest) to say about writing right now.

I'm trundling through a first draft still, and what could I say about that? The process consists of *tap-tap-tap* and "Oh! Right. I'm daydreaming. Stop that" and "Hmm, needs more gore."

It's plenty of fun for me, but I don't think I could impart any wildly-useful advice to anyone about this. Furthermore, I suspect reading about the day-to-day details would be like those posts from people who blog/twitter about their nail polish or what sort of latte they're drinking. Let's just admit, as a society, that we'd rather be looking at kittens than perusing such tedium, yes?

~~~~~~~

I've considered making up a list of topics, then creating articles on them. I've thought about--oh, golly--mentioning it to you here. Almost like, *gulp*, a promise.

I've decided against.

Not against doing those articles, mind you, but against promising anything.

You see, I've noticed when I blog to say things are going well with my novel, I (figuratively) face-plant soon after. When I blog to moan about how lousy my progress is, things soon pick up. This happens for the same reason we have the phrase "sophomore slump"; when you're in an anomalous high, there's nowhere to go but down, and vice versa.

And so, as soon as my enthusiasm waxes? DOOM.

So...maybe I will, maybe I won't? *shifty eyes* Best not to say.

Mayfly Memory

This is a really good post from a really good blog. Especially point #2, which I totally need to take to heart. But darn it, you're all so interesting!

I had a good idea for a blog post today. Like an unfortunate number of my good ideas, I don't remember it now. This is why I carry a notebook with me everywhere, because I occasionally get brainspurts while I'm sitting on the bus during my whopper of a commute (I mean, what else am I going to do except sit and think? I get motion sickness if I try to read.)

I have learned that these ideas MUST be written down in the moment, however, because even five minutes later, I'm losing some of the logical flow of whatever conversation I was inventing. An hour later, I only remember it was good. Not what it was.

It's a bit like when you have an awesome dream, and wake up enough to think, 'Oh, wow, I've got to remember this,' and, of course, when you really wake up, all you remember is thinking that, not the dream.

The nice thing is, unlike the dreams, occasionally my ideas do re-surface. So if I ever figure out what that good blog post idea was (and remember to write it down), you'll hear about it here.