Jason at Clarity of Night has a very well-written serial going right now. He writes in very small portions, and has that rarest of gifts, the ability to evoke complex imagery with very few words. You can start following the story here with part 1, but the latest is part 6, or follow the link to the serial label and scroll back.
Author: jevlir
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The Point of Research
I’m not anal-retentive about accuracy in a story, book, or movie, but I can sound like it. There’s a point where excessive accuracy gets in the way of telling a story, but there’s also a point where inaccuracy makes the story less authentic and interesting.
Susan Lyons (whose work I confess I’ve never read) wrote a post on Fresh Fiction that catches the drift:
The point of doing research isn’t to dump it all into the middle of a story, but to give the authentic details and “feel” that make the characters and story come alive and ring true. . . .
Just so! The post is from back in May, but I just saw it yesterday. Go read the whole thing.
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Added to my Blogroll: Fresh Fiction
It’s all dressed up for women, but I already see something this guy can sink his teeth into. I’m adding Fresh Fiction to my Bloglines subscriptions, and I’ll be linking to a post tomorrow.
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Added to my Blogroll: Short Mystery Fiction Society
I’m not all that excited about recent posts on statement of purpose, but the Short Mystery Fiction Society blog seems to have potential. We’ll see how often I feel led to link!
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Copyright Enforcement – Same Standard for the Holders?
Cory Doctorow has a column in the Guardian, which I unsurprisingly found via his blog.
Now I believe that copyright holders have the right to protect their property. They even have the right to be stupid, as many of them are when they go after marginal fair use issues. If it’s marginal on fair use, you’re probably benefiting more from the publicity than any imagined damage.
But there is an important principle of freedom, I think. I’ve applied it to accused child molesters. There is no crime that is so horrible that you should punish the wrong person for it. In other words, child molestation is truly horrible. I want the offenders prosecuted and put away. But at the same time it is truly awful to contemplate someone innocent accused and unable to defend himself or herself. And we know that false accusations do happen.
Copyright infringement doesn’t even fall under that “incredibly horrible” category. It’s a money crime, and most infringements are somewhere between innocent and careless. If true infringement can be proven, by all means prosecute. As a publisher, I want copyright protected. But nothing, ever is bad enough that someone should be regarded as guilty without proof.
In other words, I agree completely with the column.
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Metastory – On Bookselling
I’m always amused by stories about writing or about publishing, or news articles that talk about journalism. Of course, such things must exist, but they still feel funny to me.
Cory Doctorow wrote a very good short story for theBookseller titled The story so far . . . and beyond (HT: Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com.
It’s great fun in a small package.
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Christian Carnival Broken Things Edition
… is posted. I plead server problems and issues with the Moderate Christian Blogroll that prevented me from posting a link until now!
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Cleaning Up the Blogroll
I spent some time cleaning up my blogroll today as some of the sites had disappeared, and some hadn’t been updated for several months.
At the same time, I added a “Writing” folder to my bloglines account, where hopefully I can keep better track.
As a normal practice I will make regular posts of things I make more than one short paragraph of comment on, and Asides of shorter material. Often my Asides (see the sidebar, top right) will simply be links to material I find worth reading.