HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dcamp@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (douglas camp)
Subject: Re: Marketing -vs- Content: Which makes a 'Bestseller' - ?
Organization: Indiana University
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 21:27:08 GMT

In <BvEK7H.Mv9@unx.sas.com> sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:

 >[On a side note, our editors did occasionally acquire rights to books
 >because they liked them, or because they felt our particular audience

Nice to know this happens occasionally :>

>By the way, as a bookseller, you're probably already aware of this, but
>other net readers may not be--the bestseller status of a book is usually
>determined by bookstore orders, not by how many copies leave the
>bookstores in the hands of customers.  Thus, a determined sales force

This is true -- and it's amazing how aggressive sales reps can
be. More than once we received large quantities (40+) of a title
when we'd only ordered 1 or 2 copies. I always suspected the
reps had faked the sales to inflate some statistic. We just
had UPS pick 'em up and take 'em back :>

Douglas 

--
Douglas Camp
dcamp@ucs.indiana.edu
From: lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Venues for Playscripts about Africa
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:48:01 GMT
Reply-To: <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Kabu Okai-Davies, a playwright from Ghana, is sitting next to me in my office
right now, and wants to know venues for scripts about Africa and African-
American experience.  In August I attended "In Another Man's Name," his
brilliant play about being a Ghanaian in Newark.  The play highlighted
conflicts and resolutions between Africans and African Americans.  It was 
performed by an ensemble group out our Symphony Hall.   It is a play that
people in many other locations would enjoy seeing.  But networks for plays 
of this sort are not established as they are for many 'home-grown' scripts.
Kabu has strong support from Baraka and other playwrights in the NY region.
Do any of you know of ways that he could bring his material to the attention
of producers and directors elsewhere?  And not only his plays, but the
plays of many of his African compatriates?

Since he does not have an email account now, you may write to him at

   P. O. Box 943
   Orange, NJ 07051
   201-642-0133 office; 201-783-3059 (home)

Or if you prefer, reply to me and I will get your message to him.

Long live Africa!


-- 
  ==========================================================================
  Louie Crew, Assoc. Prof., Academic Foundations Dept., Rutgers U./NWK 07102
  lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu                                   201-485-4503
                            Closets are for prayer!
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Agents:  Where Do I Go?
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:01:06 GMT
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: jimoates@panix.com's message of 25 Sep 92 18:45:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.184531.22810@panix.com> jimoates@panix.com (Jim Oates) writes:

>I know, I know: I sound like 90 million other people.
>I've written a screenplay, and I think it's pretty
>good.

Well, not 90 million (I hope!), but you're one of the many.

>Now I want to find an agent, someone to represent
>me on a non-exclusive basis. What do I do?  

Try reading some books on screenwriting.  I don't know of one that
doesn't discuss this in more detail than you're going to get here.

>Any suggestions?

The Reader's Digest version:

1.  Get the list of signatory agents from the WGAw in LA (310)
550-1000.  Write query letters to all of them that will accept
unsolicited manuscripts.

2.  Hit every friend of a friend of a friend who's in the Biz to get
them to read the script and recommend you to someone.

3.  Write another script that's even better.

4.  Submit the first script when agents say they'll take a look at it.

5.  Have the second one ready if any ask to see what else you've done.

>Thanks in advance,
>Jim

Good luck in advance... you'll need it.

jas
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan             | Research Scientist et al.
jas@isi.edu (Internet)          | Information Sciences Institute
72511,402    (Compuserve)       | University of Southern California
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: Jonathan_B_Bellack@yccatsmtp.ycc.yale.edu (Jonathan Bellack)
Subject: Re: Work in Progress
Organization: Yale University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 05:55:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.194704.23123@tamsun.tamu.edu>, mfc1493@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Frank Caver) writes:
> 
> >"I thought everybody wrote two to
> >three times as much as would fit in the finished book."
> >
> >You're joking, right?
> 
> Please tell me that you are!
> 
> Ratboy
> 

One of the guiding principles of a work in progress, which I'm still getting
used to, is not to get attached to anything.  For example, I wrote a 2-scene,
20-page prologue to my novel.  The first part was a scene from when a character
was 12; the second was a scene/flashback from 5 years later.  After spending
a LOT of time working over both sections, reworking them, rewriting them,
pondering them, re-re-writing them, editing them, altering them, etc., I
realized the first section, while nice as a free-standing 8-page short story,
was too redundant with the 2nd part, which overall was more important.  I
LIKED the first part.  A LOT.  I tried to think of ways to make it more
relevant.  But when push came to shove, I realized it had to die.
  I think that's what people mean by writing 2-3 times as much as the finished
product.  The final product should be distilled--no extra chapters, scenes,
pages, paragraphs, sentences, words, letters, or punctuation marks, and few if
any that could be removed without damaging the whole.

Write early, write often, and cut extensively.  If you can't justify it, you
shouldn't keep it.


                      --Jonathan Bellack
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: ren@Turing.ORG (Karen Prestemon)
Subject: Re: Screenwriter's Product
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 18:08:36 GMT

In article <22491@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.221406.25801@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ren@Turing.ORG (Karen Prestemon) writes:
>
>>
A pathetic attempt at being humerous...

>>This is the stuff Oscar dreams are made of.
>>
>
>Ouch!  Heh.  A little bitter, eh?
>
>jas

Bitter, no. Realistic, yes.  Take Ghost for example.  In Bruce Joel Rubin's
first drafts, Demi Moore's character was a sculptor, but one of the producer's
reworked it so that she ended up a potter.  Sure, it made for a sexy
scene, but it was done BECAUSE THE PRODUCER'S WIFE WAS INTO POTTERY-MAKING.
Or take Pretty Woman, which ended up looking nothing like Three Thousand,
the original script the movie was loosely based on, where the Julia
Roberts' character grows up, gets a brain, and leaves Richard Gere, and 
where the Laura San Giacomo character overdoses.  I would have prefered
to see that movie  over the drivel that was eventually made.  Of course,
the role probably demanded a little too much of Julia Roberts (like she
plays a strong, intelligent young woman).

I lament the death of artistic integrity.  If that makes me appear bitter,
then I am a bitter woman!  *sob*
From: dcamp@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (douglas camp)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Marketing -vs- Content: Which makes a 'Bestseller' - ?
Date: 30 Sep 92 15:19:19 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Indiana University

After 5 years running a general interest bookstore, I'm 
convinced that most 'Bestsellers' achieve that status more as a 
result of the marketing efforts of their publishers rather than 
the intrinsic worth of the book. And I suspect that every year
hundreds (thousands?) of absolutely marvelous mss die quiet deaths
for lack of publisher interest. 

This is not to say that a truly awful book by an unknown author
can be made into a bestseller, although I think this happens
occasionally (case in point: Harvey MacKay's _Swim With The
Sharks_ -- maybe business/MBA types (caveat: I'm one) are unusually
susceptible to the siren call of marketing? :>).  

I'm curious whether writers (particularly of fiction) agree?

Douglas

--
Douglas Camp -- Index Group
dcamp@ucs.indiana.edu
Phone: 812/330/8101
FAX: 812/330/8205
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: any screenwriters out
Date: 30 Sep 92 20:17:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: venera.22518
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com's message of 29 Sep 92 23:40:17 GMT

In article <57680033@hpscit.sc.hp.com> fish@hpscit.sc.hp.com (John Fisher) writes:

>jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:
>glenn.devlin@canrem.com (glenn devlin) writes:
>
>>>I evny you for being able to meet and pitch. 
>
>>Don't.  It's a bloody, painful process.  I'd give anything to be able
>>to avoid it, but it's a necessary part of the biz at this point in my
>>fledgling career.
>
>Jeffrey, did you ever consider using Robert Kosberg?
>

I know of Robert; a friend of mine used to work for him.  He's read
some of my stuff, but I have had no other contact with him.

The script he read he didn't love (it's since been optioned), and he's
too small-time for me to waste any more time with, frankly.  The last
thing I want is someone attached to a script or idea simply to pitch
it for me.

jas

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan             | Research Scientist et al.
jas@isi.edu (Internet)          | Information Sciences Institute
72511,402    (Compuserve)       | University of Southern California
From: jerryn@glnserv.UUCP (Jerry Norris)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: ScriptTex is *the* best!!!
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 17:14:10 CDT
Organization: Vermi-net, Houston, Tx. 77098

Ernie Oporto <EAO102@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

> What exactly do you use on the Mac for scriptwriting?  I'm using
> MSWord 5.0a, but I have to do all the formatting by hand.

Dunno if MS Word on the Mac is much different than what it is on the PC,
but if not, then you can set up formatted paragraphs in the gallery and
then all you have to do is call up the formatted paragraph (formatting
includes character, indentation, the whole banana!).

As an example, if I'm writing a business letter to someone (requesting
writing guildelines, etc.) I load FULL.STY (full style), then use the
different formats as I write (RA for return address, IA for inside
address, DA for date, etc.).  I call th formats up by pressing the alt key
and then the two letter name I've given the paragraph.  I do the same when
writing my mss., with two different formats within the WRITING.STY file
(draft and NLQ).

I'm certain that you could come up with some way to get Word to take care
of script formatting without too much trouble.

later,
jerry.

email address:  xcluud!glnserv!jerryn

All flames judged on original content and local color, with preference
given to those using cobalt as a coloring agent.
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: troyer@mitre.org (Tom Royer)
Subject: Re: Carefull, studied splatting
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:39:35 GMT

In article <15928@mindlink.bc.ca> Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan 
Barclay) writes:

> In _my_ arrogant opinion, what a one is better off doing is learning to
> write clearly the first time.  Then you don't have to rewrite half as 
much.
> I believe a writer can learn his tools (words, grammar, etc.) well enough
> to write clearly out of habit.  One time-saving habit is reviewing the
> meaning of each sentence as it is written--then one can rewrite the 
sentence
> on the spot and in context of the thoughts that produced it.  For me 
this is
> such an ingrained habit that it directs my sentences as I write them.

True, but one learns to write clearly by writing a lot.  In my experience, 
if I spend too much time reviewing each sentence as it's written, I lose the
thread of thought.

So I'm firmly in the camp of "splat it down."  Different strokes, I guess.

By the way, I like your analogy to Zen painting.  By writing a lot, the
need to rewrite is diminished and the creation process can be carried
out without worrying about the writing process.
--
Tom Royer

Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: mfc1493@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Frank Caver)
Subject: Re: Work in Progress
Organization: ~/lib/organization
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 19:47:04 GMT

>"I thought everybody wrote two to
>three times as much as would fit in the finished book."
>
>You're joking, right?

Please tell me that you are!

Ratboy
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: rydzewjh@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (John H. Rydzewski)
Subject: Information Needed
Summary: Looking for information on receent studies                            
Keywords: Alcohol, Eskimos, Native Americans, College Students
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 18:34:59 GMT


I am looking for information concerning the following recent
studies:

	College Students With Lower Grades Drink More
	Native Americans/Eskimos 3x Likely to Die in Auto Accidents

	Any information concerning these studies is very welcome...
I'm trying to put together an article on research and would like
to use these findings as examples.

	Also, does anyone out there have any information about
the man-in-the-boat study where a man will sail for  400 days
around the world and not come into contact with anyone so as to
help researchers learn the effects of isolation in mental health.
This is being done through Goddard Space Flight Center, and 
will give NASA people an idea of what a trip to Mars will do to
an astronaut.

	Thanks.

	All replies can be sent to:

	rydzewjh@sun.soe.clarkson.edu

	or

	rydzewjh@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
From: meachem@acsu.buffalo.edu (The Meach)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Mental baggage (was Re: New Definition of SF et al.)
Date: 26 Sep 92 14:58:58 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <PNNaRB2w165w@mantis.co.uk> jonathan@mantis.co.uk (Jonathan Egre') writes:

>But my best guess is that your friends are not *really* interested in 
>your writing, yet they feel obliged to ask to read, to read thoroughly,
>and to praise intelligently your writing for social reasons.  This means that
>they come to view your writing as "work" to be done to maintain a friendship,
>rather than something that they are doing solely for their own enjoyment
>and relaxation.  Hence their procrastination.

 
Jonathan. . . I *hope* you are not tarring all friends who offer to 
read/critique with this rather broad brush!  Granted, there are those who
will make the offer, because they think it is 'expected'. . . some of us do
offer out of a genuine interest, and desire to help.  I do think it is 
important for the writer who receives such offers to take a couple of things
into consideration before sharing a work with 'a friend':  1) if you are 
seeking intelligent criticism. . . is the reader knowledgeable enough to
provide it?  2) If it is a friend, are you willing to accept constructive
criticism from this source, without it interfering with the relationship?
3) Is the friend the kind of person who will dare to offer honest
constructive criticism, without fear of consequences to the relationship?

As one of those friends, I well remember the first time I offered my
opinions on a work in progress. . . I chose to be honest, and responded
in a timely fashion. . . but my heart was in my throat, wondering if this
was to be the end of a very pleasant friendship!  I feel very fortunate
that it was well enough received that a second work was soon committed
to my scrutiny, and the friendship is still very much intact!  This will
not always be the case, so more often than not, I really feel that it
might be best to simply thank friends for such a kind offer, but perhaps
let them read it much later, or, if you choose to share, then don't
hold up your revisions for that particular person's input.  Get your
help from sources you know you can trust . . .

--jm
Jo Meachem  -  meachem@acsu.buffalo.edu
From: miuvdd@lure.latrobe.edu.au
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Work in Progress
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:10:42 GMT
Organization: VAX Cluster, Computer Centre, La Trobe University

In article <1992Sep29.194704.23123@tamsun.tamu.edu>, mfc1493@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Frank Caver) writes:
>>"I thought everybody wrote two to
>>three times as much as would fit in the finished book."
>>
>>You're joking, right?
> 
> Please tell me that you are!
> 
> Ratboy


I won't have thought so. :)

Morgana
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: electro@access.digex.com (Gary Ehrlich)
Subject: Re: caught in the net
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:43:43 GMT

In article <mtan-220992141047@maureen.cen.uiuc.edu> mtan@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Maureen Tan) writes:
>The speaker suggested that time spent "corresponding" on the net
>was potentially destructive to  writers 
>
>I  know that the net can be a real time-killer, but I think
>that (for me, at least) the interaction offered has been extra-
>ordinarily helpful.

Well, let's see.  Through my interaction on GEnie, I've gotten to know
most of the staff at Baen Books quite well, as well as a couple of editors
of semiprozines, and I am sure many other editors on-line (in the SF 
RoundTable, I'm talking here) recognize me by post.

Considering I'm submitting stories to these folks, I think I could argue
I'm spending my time constructively :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
      ELECTRO  | Gary J. Ehrlich           | "Real filkers don't document;
     E         | Live from Columbia, MD    |  if it was hard to write it   
    ELECTRO    |                           |  should be hard to scan!"     
   E           | electro@access.digex.com  |            *
  ELECTRO      | G. EHRLICH on GEnie       |           \|/ 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
positive energy projector * master of the t-square * punster extraordinare
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
      ELECTRO  | Gary J. Ehrlich           | "Real filkers don't document;
     E         | Live from Columbia, MD    |  if it was hard to write it   
    ELECTRO    |                           |  should be hard to scan!"
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Screenwriter's Product
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:05:34 GMT
	<DONAHUE.92Sep25131054@atlantis.csc.ti.com>
	<1992Sep25.221406.25801@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: ren@Turing.ORG's message of 25 Sep 92 22:14:06 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.221406.25801@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ren@Turing.ORG (Karen Prestemon) writes:

>In article <DONAHUE.92Sep25131054@atlantis.csc.ti.com> donahue@atlantis.csc.ti.com (Dan Donahue) writes:
>>
>You might as well write pages that look
>like this:
>
>FADE IN:
>
>EXT. SOME PLACE--SOME TIME
>
>We may or may not be in the present.  As the original writer, I like to think
>that we're sitting in a restaurant, but if the executive producer prefers
>a park scene, that works too.
>
>Enter the heroine.  She is tall, willowy, aloof, but if Julia Roberts isn't
>available, she'll look like whoever ends up making the deal.  She's a
>script doctor's wife.
>
>She talks about stuff, but we don't know what yet, because the airhead
>they'll get to play her probably won't be able to use multi-syllabic
>words, and her lines will have to be rewritten several times a day.
>
>Usual happy ending.  Everyone in the cast gets what they have been
>complaining they didn't have throughout the entirety of the film. 
>
>FADE OUT.
>
>This is the stuff Oscar dreams are made of.
>

Ouch!  Heh.  A little bitter, eh?

jas
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan             | Research Scientist et al.
jas@isi.edu (Internet)          | Information Sciences Institute
72511,402    (Compuserve)       | University of Southern California
From: frisinv@alleg.edu
Subject: Names, Trademarks, alien lifeforms, big macs, this guy named Bob......
Organization: Allegheny College
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:52:53 GMT

  I would like to use that pop culture icon in a sci-fi story, but I don't  
wish to be sued. Do I need some sort of written permission? In case it  
makes any difference, they are not portrayed in the best light. They make  
hamburgers out of an intellegent lifeform which earthfolk are at war with. 
   For all you sci-fi writers out there, what is the status of using  
aliens which are believed to exist (ie Greys) as characters?
From: Alan_Barclay@mindlink.bc.ca (Alan Barclay)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Carefull, studied splatting
Date: 2 Oct 92 23:41:31 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada

In a message #4543731 Fred Welden says:

"What you want
to do, in my arrogant opinion, is to splat down what you think you want
to say on the page as close to all-at-once as you can manage.  Then go
back and read it carefully to see if anything seems to contradict the
sense of what you were trying to say, or to lead off to undesireable
tangents, and fix those things by splatting down something on top of
them and then repeating the review process."

In _my_ arrogant opinion, what a one is better off doing is learning to
write clearly the first time.  Then you don't have to rewrite half as much.
I believe a writer can learn his tools (words, grammar, etc.) well enough
to write clearly out of habit.  One time-saving habit is reviewing the
meaning of each sentence as it is written--then one can rewrite the sentence
on the spot and in context of the thoughts that produced it.  For me this is
such an ingrained habit that it directs my sentences as I write them.

I like the analogy of the Zen painter.  As a novice the painter will study
strokes of the brush and uses of paint.  After his control of the brush
becomes a nearly unconscious response to desire, the painter can produce
beautiful work in one sitting without corrections.

I think we can learn something from both your approach and the one you were
commenting on.
--
Alan Barclay


alan_barclay@mindlink.bc.ca
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: Semantics of "to be"
Originator: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 20:40:06 GMT
Organization: Dobonia


In article <1992Oct6.184847.4225@news.iastate.edu>, bible@iastate.edu (Anthony E Bible) writes:
|In article <BvpDK2.2wF@unx.sas.com> sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
|
|[main subject matter deleted]
|
|>
|>My conclusion?  A writer needs to have a better ear for paragraphs that
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| [what is ...]
|
|       Seems to me there *is* and implied "to be" in the question.

Congratulations and throw the man a fish!

My grandmother taught reading and writing to Hopi Indian children back
around the turn of the century, and one of her grateful students gave
her a very nice rug that his mother had woven (and which now hangs on my
parents' dining-room wall).  He proudly pointed out to her the tiny
mistake in one portion of the pattern where a line jags out instead of
in, as symmetry would dictate that it should do.  He explained that a
perfect work of art would have no flaws through which the evil spirits
that attended its creation could escape; therefore every artist should
allow a small imperfection to remain to let the evil spirits out.

In keeping with this theory, my mother deliberately created a unique
tiny imperfection in each of the needlepoint seatcovers she made for the
dining chairs in that room, each of which derives its pattern from a
portion of the Hopi rug on the wall.

I take consolation from the thought that no evil spirit need ever fear
being trapped in anything I've written.

-- 
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |