HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: How to Investigate a Murder?
From: miuvdd@lure.latrobe.edu.au
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 03:55:01 GMT
Organization: VAX Cluster, Computer Centre, La Trobe University 

In article <2304@sousa.tay.dec.com>, shursky@wecrow.enet.dec.com (Stanley Shursky) writes:
> 
> In article <brein-301192160722@128.149.100.150> brein@gpvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Barry S. Rein) writes:
>>I would like to find out how a private investigator would go about
>>investigating a 20-year old murder for a story I'm researching.
> 


Writer's Giest recently released a crime writers reference book to the
scene of the crime (including who does what ie police etc)

(opps typo...that should read Writer's Digest :)


I'll dig up the full title and publishing details and post as sson
as I can. I think they also have one on poisons! :)


Morgana
**********************************************************************
Forget fire and brimstone! Hell is a black screen infront of a blank mind! :)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
Subject: Re: Grammar
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 22:37:07 GMT

Charlton Wilbur makes some very interesting points about breaking the rules,
and in general I agree, but I have to take issue when he argues:

In short, I guess, the eighth-grade, sentence-diagramming, right-and-wrong
concept of grammar has to be abandoned. It simply doesn't work for writers.

--To which I reply that Norman Mailer can write run-on sentences, and so can
lots of amateur writers, but Mailer knows when he's doing it. (The dangling
participle that begins Harlot's Ghost, however, is another story altogether!)
In my fiction-writing classes, students are quick to grasp basic concepts of
plotting, characterization, symbolism--but can't punctuate dialogue to save
their lives (or their mss.); slip from one point of view to another without
even noticing; trip over their grammar; and spell no better than the
Sorcerer's Apprentice.

This frustrates me because the whole point of my course is to help them put
together a sendable package by the end of the semester, and the basic English
errors are *the* major barrier to that goal. I know an occasional illiterate
manages to become a successful writer (and the bane of his or her editor's
life), but I'd suspect most fiction mss. from unknown writers live or die on
the impression they create in the first couple of pages. If the editor sees
that the author is innocent of English basics, the story is close to doomed;
and why not? Why should anyone expect literary success without troubling to
master simple craft? As soon expect innumerates to get serious attention from
professional mathematicians, or tone-deaf pianists to fill Carnegie Hall.


--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Date: 14 Dec 1992 18:46:30 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley CS Dept.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Dec14.144232.21162@syma.sussex.ac.uk> mapd1@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nigel Ling) writes:
>>
>>If you want poor people to be able to read, you should give
>>them money - not libraries.
>
>Heaven help us! Well, I may say this for you: you're probably in
>tune with a few government officials these days, but not, I hope,
>the majority of people.

This debate has strayed rather too far afield from writing, and I
think we should end it, but I can't resist explaining myself here.

When you spend X dollars on libraries for the poor, instead of giving
the poor X dollars, what you are saying is:

"You do not have enough money to spend on things you need, but we do not
trust you to decide what things you need.  Therefore, instead of giving you
money, which you would not spend wisely, we will give you what we think
is best for you."

If you approve of this attitude, probably the less said the better.

c
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: thiessen@emr1.emr.ca (Tracy Thiessen)
Subject: Re: Stream of consciousness
Organization: Energy, Mines, and Resources, Ottawa
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 13:28:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.212651.22944@lclark.edu> larryw@sun.lclark.edu (Larry Westdahl) writes:
>
>I already have my own ideas on this, but I wanted to know what others thought
>about this technique.  Do you think that stream of consciousness can be 
>a valuable tool in a story, or do you think that the form, because it is
>so rarely used, may only a distraction?  Joyce and Faulkner were able to 


Rarely used?  It seems to me that stream of consciousness is
a favored technique among neophyte writers and, in my 
estimation, is a lot harder than it looks. (Read any bad
poetry lately?)

Anyway, I think that S of C can be a great device in a story
in the way that it can change the rhythm of language, as well
as break down descriptions of emotion to its basic element, well
recognizing that there is a fine line between tense writing and
boring introspection.

Tracy


Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: mtan@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Maureen Tan)
Subject: Re: Engineers must communicate better.
Followup-To: misc.writing
Organization: UIUC
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 22:45:13 GMT

In article <11DEC199215182870@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov>,
ecaxron@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Ron Graham) wrote:
> 
> In article <10DEC199214271963@csa3.lbl.gov>, jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov 
>      (Ad absurdum per aspera) writes...
> 
> >You can also learn a thing or two from the newsgroup misc.writing.
> 
> No you can't, either.

Sure you can.

> There is no newsgroup in all off Usenet in which more indignant eighth-
> grade English teachers can be found.

Hey, wait a minute.  Eighth grade????  You obviously weren't following
the verb conjugation thread of the past week or two.  That past perfect and
future perfect participles stuff  was at least h.s. level.    I'm sure it
was
probably taught on a day when I cut classes.

>  I have asked questions in misc.writing
> several times - honest questions, for which I wanted an honest answer, and
> I have never failed to be flamed.  It's a club, not a useful tool.

I've found our little club to be a useful tool, but it doesn't hurt to be
flame-
proof.  Writers, as a species, tend to have poison pens and swift
tongues--the
net is a wonderful place to exercise both.  On the other hand, when I've
gotten scorched I've often deserved it.  (I admit it--I'm the one who
forgot it was "sealing wax" and started a thread called "ceiling wax." 
Sorry.)

> And to think I helped campaign for it.  I oughta be shot :-).

No wonder you get flamed.  Talk about an opening... 

> I might also add that the Society for Professional Communication, although
> it claims to deal in such areas, will not issue more than token assistance
> to non-members.  You have to pay the toll first.

But magazines and books about writing effectively are free at your local
library and
back issues of journals from organizations like the Society for Technical
Communication are available at many college libraries.

What the hell...  Take a chance and ask your question of misc.writing.
Just don't ask anyone how to utilize our input to optimize the
dissemination of cutting-edge research to various constituencies on into
the 21st century.  (I don't work for a college of engineering for nothing!)

Maureen (a.k.a. Jane) 
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: rmr@sgi.com (Robert M. Reimann)
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Organization: Technical Publications, Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 19:59:15 GMT

curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:

>...it often happens that government-funded competition in a
>niche field is enough to drive the rest of the pack off the cliff.
>There are already damn few enough publishers who make a profit off
>lit; how many could go ten rounds in the ring with Uncle Sam?  

The fact is that the large majority of publishers of lit
already get grants from one place or another to survive.
Many of them are affiliated with Universities (the Georgia
Review, Mississippi Review, TriQuarterly, etc), and most
are non-profit.  At the other end of the scale are big
publishers, who are in the lit business because of the
educational market (for the "classics"), and because
some editors there have an interest in it, and can balance
the books against the bestsellers in such a way that they
can afford it.

Needless to say, cuts to education (a public good as well)
and govt. endowments have hurt the small presses.  The
only good news is that in the wake of the homogenization
trend in big publishers, more people have become interested
in the non-homogenous small publishers.  But this to me means
that funding is even more necessary, because the small
presses simply do not have the distribution channels
necessary to get to their potential audiences.

				Robert.

PS.  Since I'm sure by now that everyone is hitting the
     'n' key except me and Curtis, I'm going to call it
     quits on this thread, and I invite him to do the
     same.  We can harangue each other ad nauseam in
     person.  :^)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Subject: Soft-core porn
Originator: elf@halcyon.com
Reply-To: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 09:47:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.010351.959@reed.edu>
     ehudon@reed.edu (Elizabeth Hudon) writes:

>At luch today a friend of mine and I got into a debate about how much
>soft-core porn pays.  He was claiming $5000 a book, and I was claiming
>much less.

>Can anyone settle the dispute?

   Really depends on what you call "soft core" porn, who publishes it,
and how well it takes off.  Some romances are relatively soft-core
erotica, and they pay an average of $3500.00 pers, after royalties,
which could take up to two years to finalize.  Plain 'ol porn pays very
poorly, unless you're Anne Rice, in which case it pays very very well.

   Basically, there's no way to put a price tag on "soft core porn."

         Elf !!!
--
Elf Sternberg.   (elf@halcyon.com)
Due to a bureaucratic error, you are offered the job of county coroner.
You seriously consider accepting the job because it offers:          __
A. Unclaimed watches and wedding rings.                              \/
B. Gold fillings and bridges.
C. Free blood.
D. A constantly changing array of new friends who aren't at all stuffy
   about what happens to their genitalia.
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Date: 12 Dec 1992 22:12:11 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley CS Dept.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <th092g0@zola.esd.sgi.com> rmr@sgi.com (Robert M. Reimann) writes:

>Have we beaten this to death yet?

Thwack, thwack.  Whumpa whumpa!  Ooch.

>curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>
>The answer is no.  If the best argument you can
>come up with is that Europeans are bloodthirsty,
>and therefore aren't somehow justified in supporting
>their artists, you should stop while you're ahead.

Aha!  But no.  My argument is that supporting artists is
an _inherently bloodthirsty act_.  I brought up the
Renaissance because fangs look sharper on a lion than
on a pussycat; but one should not forget that they are both
carnivores.

Hopefully we have got down to the Fundamental Moral
Disagreement, and can stop here.

c
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: bjones@denitqm.uswest.com (Brent Jones)
Subject: Rejection Slips
Followup-To: misc.writing
Organization: U S WEST Information Technologies
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 16:06:45 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.150526.1@ducvax.auburn.edu> wkeown@ducvax.auburn.edu
writes:
>
>
>How about this one?
>I fugure he was having a bad day, and I won't even say what magazine
>sent me this (I have it hanging on my wall).
>
>
>	I can almost see why you would waste your time by writing
>	this, but I cannot even comprehend why you would waste mine,
>	by sending it to me.
>
>			     sincerely,
>					[sig deleted]
>
>Hand written too.

I don't think you need to maintain the anonymity of someone who wrote a
rejection letter like this--apparently a few editors out there think that
they can insult and degrade the works of others with impunity.

Given that the writer has sent a clean, properly formatted manuscript to an
appropriate journal or magazine, and that the writer has done the research
and *knows* the magazine publishes the style of writing he or she produces,
there is no excuse for a magazine that accepts unsolicited submissions
to insult a writer's efforts in this way.

--
Brent Jones, Lead Tech. Editor, U S WEST IT, bjones@denitqm.uswest.com
"of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have 
to watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, 
as the monstrous darkness approaches."--V. Nabokov _Signs and Symbols_
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Eeyore's Evil Twin)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Soft-core porn
Date: 12 Dec 92 22:29:24 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pooh Corner Country Club -- A Planned Community

ehudon@reed.edu (Elizabeth Hudon) writes:

>At luch today a friend of mine and I got into a debate about how much
>soft-core porn pays.  He was claiming $5000 a book, and I was claiming
>much less.

>Can anyone settle the dispute?

Less, unless you're Erica Jong. You won't see $5000 out of companies like
Pageant or Blue Moon.

Of course, since you can write one in a week or two if you're good, who
cares?


-- 
            Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX)
                      Member, SFWA =+= Editor, OtherRealms
                chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ 

                       Sterling Holloway: We'll miss you.
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Date: 12 Dec 1992 18:16:58 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <tg9dhtk@zola.esd.sgi.com> rmr@sgi.com (Robert M. Reimann) writes:
>
>Humor aside, the obvious fault in reasoning here 
>is to equate financial support with "institutionalization",

The difference is only in degree; and no real line can be drawn,
so it is very easy for the one to slide into the other.

>Are you therefore also against public funding of 
>libraries, because of the power librarians are given
>over selection of titles?

No; library sales don't have much effect on book profits.  I'm
unhappy about public funding of libraries for two reasons:  that
libraries are not a public good, and that public libraries make
it impossible for private libraries to exist.

If you want poor people to be able to read, you should give
them money - not libraries.

c
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: ehudon@reed.edu (Elizabeth Hudon)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Soft-core porn
Date: 12 Dec 92 01:03:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Dec12.010351.959
Distribution: usa
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR


Please, please, please don't flame me for this posting.  It's really
mundane--promise.

At luch today a friend of mine and I got into a debate about how much
soft-core porn pays.  He was claiming $5000 a book, and I was claiming
much less.

Can anyone settle the dispute?

Not really as strange as I sound,
Elizabeth Hudon (ehudon@reed.edu)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: wkeown@ducvax.auburn.edu
Subject: The ultimate rejection slip
Organization: Auburn University, AL
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:05:26 GMT


   I found this article on rec.humor.funny (moderated by Maddi Hausmann)
and thought this group could truly appreciate it.

Originally from: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)

The Humanist Association of Canada Spring 1992 Newsletter
contains the following item:

	For writers only -- Every writer has received rejection
	slips; too many of them for most.  The "Financial Times"
	has quoted the "mother of all rejection slips", translated
	from a Chinese economic journal.  It goes like this:

	We have read your manuscript with boundless delight.  If
	we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for
	us to publish any work of lower standard.  And as it is
	unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see
	its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your
	divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to
	overlook our short sight and timidity.


Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: bjones@denitqm.uswest.com (Brent Jones)
Subject: Re: Publishers of the wierd response to flames
Followup-To: misc.writing
Organization: U S WEST Information Technologies
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:08:58 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.102843.1@hamp.hampshire.edu>,
bgardner@hamp.hampshire.edu wrote:
> 
[snip
>
> As for gramar,it sickens me.  Writers, good writers, get away with very poor 
> gramar.  In order to have propper gramar you have to be half insane, because
> the rules on gramar change twice a year.  One month you have to put coma's
> in between and and something no matter what, then... six months later you
> only have to do it if it's the final word in a string... then you only don't
> have to do it in those instances.  Gramar is meant to help the reader no
> when to put pauses... if a writer can do that without a coma then that, to me,
> is a wonderful thing.  
>
> 						Brian

Not sure you have a good grasp of what grammar entails, but hey.

As far as grammar and writers go, of course good writers can use bad
grammar, but they generally do it with a full understanding of what's
involved and to achieve a certain effect. Bad grammar does not a good
writer make, and it *will* hurt your chances of having your work
published as a first-timer in the hard, cold, elitist world of
publishing. But good luck, and keep up your spirit!

--
Brent Jones, Lead Tech. Editor, U S WEST IT, bjones@denitqm.uswest.com
"of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have 
to watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, 
as the monstrous darkness approaches."--V. Nabokov _Signs and Symbols_
From: JTCHEW@lbl.gov (Ad absurdum per aspera)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: LIBRARIES
Followup-To: misc.writing
Date: 17 Dec 1992 00:30:46 GMT
Organization: Honest Ernie's Used Ions
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.252.152

>  online, ASCII-format collections available for browsing/ftp/etc. over the Internet?

The University of California's MELVYL online catalog can be accessed
remotely.  I am somewhat embarassed to admit that I don't know how
to access it at Cal except through a hardwired terminal in our library,
but on the net I sometimes do TELNET UWIN.U.WASHINGTON.EDU
to get at it through University of Washington Information.  (Washington 
also seems to have a database of its own on UWIN -- I use MELVYL
because often I can just go down to campus and pick up the book I
identified.)  

I don't know the official terms and conditions of using either service, but
someone local to Washington announced the availability of UWIN over on
alt.usage.english and I haven't seen any subsequent indications that it's
uncool for outsiders to use it or MELVYL.  *Be a sport and do this during 
off-peak hours,* obviously.

Happy netting,
Joe
"The pallid pimp of the dead-line/The enervate of the pen" -- Robert
Service
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Date: 12 Dec 1992 06:04:08 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley CS Dept.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <tecc2j4@zola.esd.sgi.com> rmr@sgi.com (Robert M. Reimann) writes:
|
|"'Works of art' that are not capable of being understood in themselves, but
|need some pretentious instruction book to justify their existence-- until
|at long last they find someone sufficiently browbeaten to endure such
|stupid or impudent twaddle with patience-- will never again find their way
|to the German people!"
|                               A. Hitler, from speech at the opening of
|                                           the House of German Art

But they flocked to see the Decadents anyway.  

Wonder who made more at the box office?

c
From: yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: support for the arts in the US
Date: 18 Dec 92 01:48:24
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: yuggoth.ces.cwru.edu
In-reply-to: mbrownel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca's message of Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:41:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.204100.7116@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> mbrownel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Mark Brownell) writes:

>For any of you Americans who are considering adopting a Canadian style
>of funding for the arts, I would like to point out some fundamental
>problems with our system that merit some thought. 

>1) Ossification of the bureacracy:

>2) Creation of artistic fiefs: 

>3) "What is Art?":

>4) Artists turn into grant writers!

>5) Juries begin shying away from politically incorrect material until
>all that remains is watered down pablum that no one has any interest in.

>6) ...the list goes on...

>Before my fellow Kanucks flame me to a crisp (no doubt they have all
>received council funding!) I would like to close by saying that I
>support government funding of the arts. The system may not be perfect
>but I've yet to see a better way. If you Yanks spent 1/10th of your
>military budget on the arts, you would be the envy of the world!

Yeah, but if we spent that much (~$30 billion) then Congress would
impose the same sort of oversight and cost accounting that makes
working for aerospace such fun...

"Okay, Mr. Fitzgerald, just remember to fill out this timecard
correctly.  Hours spent writing get charged to account WTX30393; hours
spent thinking about story ideas get charged to account MDL44212; and
hours spent on aquiring writing materials get charged to account
WSP7775."

	"What about hours spent lost in existential angst?"

"Just charge that to overhead.  Be sure to itemize all writing-related
purchases, and remember that you can't use government-purchased
pencils for personal use.  Oh, and do you have that timetable for
completion of your new novel?"

	:-)
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi			Case Western Reserve University
yamauchi@alpha.ces.cwru.edu	Department of Computer Engineering and Science
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: larryw@sun.lclark.edu (Larry Westdahl)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Stream of consciousness
Date: 13 Dec 92 21:26:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: lclark.1992Dec13.212651.22944
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR


I already have my own ideas on this, but I wanted to know what others thought
about this technique.  Do you think that stream of consciousness can be 
a valuable tool in a story, or do you think that the form, because it is
so rarely used, may only a distraction?  Joyce and Faulkner were able to 
pull it off with great success, but as a writing technique it never 
picked much steam.  Like the second person narrative, S.O.C. must
be used for some specific effect, and not just so the writer can be 
different from everone else, and often when I see someone use S.O.C., it
seems a little affected.  Also, do you think that the short story form might
be a little too restricting for the deployment of a stream of consciousness
passage?  Within the context of a novel there is enough room to show off, and
the reader can forgive the the writer these moments.  In a short story, is 
there enough room?  I would say yes, if the passage was appropriate, and just
about perfect.  I would appreciate hearing what others think on this matter.

- Lawence

-- 

_____
larryw@lclark.edu | *L.Westdahl is a caring nurturer, a member of several
writer, musician  | twelve step programs, but not a licensed therapist.