When it comes to matters of typography, I am clearly a babe in the woods and sit at the feet of people such as Dick Margulis, who had this to say about my weekend post on the evils of using the Courier font:
Times New Roman was a terrible, terrible choice for a default serif font in Word–and the fact that it is the Word default font is the reason so many people use it. It was designed to be used in a narrow newspaper column (the Times of London), and as such it is a semi-condensed face. That means that with normal (default) margins on US letter-size paper, there are too many characters on a line for comfortable, extended reading.
If you’re going to recommend TNR for mss., you need to recommend, as well, that margins be bumped up to 1.5 inches. That leaves a 5.5 inch type column, and 12 point TNR is satisfactory (if boring) on that measure, because it averages 65 characters per line–close to the limit for extended reading.
However, there are much better choices, even within the default font set that installs with Word, for reading comfort.
So there it is. Times New Roman isn’t your friend, any more than Courier is; so be aware of that, and that there may be issues with your favorite font, as well.
To clarify, I’m speaking here mostly of printed documents that will be sent out as queries and proposals, not as manuscripts to be read on-screen, where one can, of course, change the font so that one can read in whatever way makes one comfortable.
Dick does add:
Oh, and I completely agree with you about Courier. I see it recommended all the time in books about submitting to agents. I even see it listed as a requirement on agent sites. But there’s really no good reason for it that I can see.
Learning about fonts (as I clearly still am) is part of being … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Tools, Doing the Right Thing, Words, Usage on July 21st, 2008
I was talking to a friend recently about a poet’s collection that I’d like to see put into a chapbook, when my friend said, “what’s that?” And while I’ve used the word here, there, and a little of everywhere, I had to admit that I … didn’t actually know.
So for those of you who, like me, tend to sometimes use words without knowing mch about their origins, here’s a little history lesson. Chapbooks originated in the Renaissance. Paper was fairly scarce, but a growing number of people in Europe were learning to read. Chapbooks were small printed books containing stories, poetry, songs, even sermons or essays, and were sold fairly cheaply. The men who bought them from the printers and then turned around and sold them on the street (the precursors, perhaps, of modern newsstands), were called chapmen … and the books, chapbooks.
These days, chapbooks are often used for poetry collections or essay collections, and are often given as well as being sold. They are also used by some publishers as a “teaser” of sorts for an author’s forthcoming book, a promotional/marketing tool to entice readers to purchase the book itself.
As Wikipedia would have it,
No exact definition can be applied. Chapbook can mean anything that would have formed part of the stock of chapmen, a variety of pedlar. The word chapman probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for barter, buy and sell. The term chapbook was formalised by bibliophiles of the nineteenth century, as a variety of ephemera (disposable printed material.) It includes many kinds of printed material, such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales, children’s literature and almanacs. Where there were illustrations, they would be popular prints.
Want to read more? Someone at MIT did some work on chapbooks that can be found here.
And this just in: According to reader and book producer extraordinaire Dick Margulis, “Aldus Manutius commissioned the first italic types specifically to cram more words onto the pages of chapbooks, for a competitive cost advantage.”
So next time you want to mention collecting a friend’s poems into a chapbook, you’ll know whereof you speak (as will I!). And then, like me, you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, About Writing, Words on July 17th, 2008
A client recently confessed to me, “I wouldn’t know the subjunctive if it bit me on the nose!” He sounded, if anything, somewhat pleased with the assertion, and part of me mourned as I heard it … just as I mourn the passing of any part of the language I love so well.
It reminded me of a conversation with Terry Bates, publisher of a wonderful series of ESL books, and I happily received Terry’s permission to reprint that conversation here:
Many people insist that English use the subjunctive mood more. This will probably never happen looking at the tendency during the last one hundred years. Other languages still heavily apply the subjunctive and this can be an essential learning experience for English speakers who usually have a weak subjunctive understanding.
First of all, you must remember that the subjunctive is not a verb tense in the sense of directly expressing time. Rather, it tries more to express attitude or manner. For that reason it is called mood.
The structure of the subjunctive in English is very easy in relation to other languages. It usually uses the root or base form and that’s it. Other languages go through very complicated conjugations of which are sometimes even difficult for native speakers. Even modern English has some complicated subjunctive structures. Many wish that the subjunctive were easier to understand.
In the examples that you give (”If she finish the day without company,” “unless she be blonde,” and “whether he do it or not”), they all express condition. If, unless, and whether communicate a sense of condition. Put into their historical context, they are put into a subjunctive mood.
Modal auxiliaries are related to mood. Notice that the word modal comes from the word mood. With the modal auxiliaries we express requests, possibilities, necessities, intentions, ability, etc. The English language has developed a very complicated and intricate use of modals for daily expression. This could be a answer to the slow loss of the subjunctive mood.
Mood and modals expose a very interesting aspect of language. They go beyond the superficial act of simple communication and begin to reveal the human condition. They reflect a people, their culture and the way they deal with each other. By fully understanding mood and modals, you begin to be more aware of the language and life of a society whether it be in the historical past or in the present.
The use of mood and modals is in constant change reflecting the change of society and the communication it demands. Even though many people feel that it is necessary that language stay static, changes within the English language reflect modifications that have taken place with the cultural demands of its speakers. Language changes just don’t happen illogically. They are due to cultural and historical reasons which in many cases are deeply hidden within tradition and trends of a society.
May the subjunctive live forever!
Terry Bates
terrybates@andeanwinds.com
www.terrybates.andeanwinds.com
And I think you’ll agree that Terry Bates (and Andean Winds!) is far … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in About Writing, Grammar, Words, Language on June 11th, 2008
It’s a sad fact of modern life, but most people, once published, spend an inordinate amount of time checking their book’s ranking on Amazon. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. We’ve all done it. We don’t necessarily know what it all means, mind you, but we do it anyway.
If you’d like to feed the obsession and have someone else keep up with the comparisons for you, then you might want to check out TitleZ, a website mysteriously still in its beta version (and therefore still free) that will help you navigate the complexities of Amazon ranking for your particular title.
Want to learn more about what it all means? Then check out this article, written by one of TitleZ’s developers (looking oddly like Harrison Ford, gotta love PhotoShop…) who gives the following bottom lines:
Bearing the above very much in mind, here’s a temperature gauge you can use to get an idea about a particular title’s success. The following numbers apply to average sales ranks over time:
- Less than 100: Best-seller. Author, publisher, agent are all getting rich
- 101-1000: Extremely good performer. Any publisher/author would be thrilled.
- 1001-10,000: Very successful book. A few of these can sustain a small publishing company.
- 10,001-50,000: A successful book by most industry standards.
- 50,001-100,000: Not bad.
- 100,000 - 500,000: Not good.
- 500,000 or more: Poor.
Keep in mind that books with average ranks above 100,000 may have performed much better before we started tracking them on TitleZ. However, books that launch with ranks above 100,000 are probably not considered successful from a publishing industry point of view. Of course, the book could be selling well through non-bookstore channels such as trade shows, speaking events, etc. In general, though, we’ve found that Amazon sales ranks provides a good indicator for how a title is doing throughout the book market as a whole.
Bear in mind, also, that Amazon isn’t everything. Write a good book, develop an aggressive marketing plan, and leave the counting to others.
If you can.
And then you’ll be .. beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Books, Publishing, Getting Published, Publishers, Words on June 8th, 2008
I was going through some old bookmarks in my web browser and came across an article published last year in HR World, a super compilation of why it makes sense to do what some of us do: 101 Reasons to Freelance.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone. If you need some sort of external discipline and structure in order to get things done efficiently, then it’s probably not a good thing to consider. If you’re just starting out as a writer or editor, it’s probably not a good idea, either: there’s something to be said for an apprenticeship, for learning one’s craft in a place where there are others to consult, to guide you, to show you how it’s done.
But if you read the article and it seems attractive, then it’s perhaps something you might want to explore. There are a number of books and websites available to help you with the nuts and bolts of freelancing, but you also need to consider the emotional side of the work.
I work best in silence and solitude. At the end of the day — literally — it’s nice to “go down the pub” and have a Guinness and talk to people; it’s good to have a writing group, as I do, and friends I can contact; but the core of my work happens in silence and solitude. And to me that’s really the best and the worst part of freelancing.
If that thought scares you, then it’s probably not for you. If you’re smiling at the thought, though, take a look at the article and see if it speaks to you. Either way, take a moment and consider what your life might be like if you made that choice, challenge yourself to see your life taking a different turn. No matter what you choose, as long as you’re always challenging yourself, you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Process Matters, About Writing, Words on June 5th, 2008
It’s been a lovely Sunday here in Provincetown, center of (my) universe: just warm enough, a breeze coming from the harbor, the Cape Cod Times consumed with lunch at an outdoor café. Sitting there I perused a brochure from a yoga studio that I’m considering attending — a great brochure, nicely designed, and it noted that the studio features an “alter.”
Was it me, or did a cloud just pass in front of the sun?
Now my family, of course, was quick to point out that no-one else in their right mind would have noticed, much less cared that altar is not spelled with an “e.” My spouse quickly envisioned a world in which I’d be the Spelling Queen, sitting on a throne of semicolons and exclamation marks, sentencing to die those who make sloppy mistakes such as those. We all had a good laugh about it.
But the reality is that I’m probably not going to go do yoga at that particular studio, and, yeah, it’s because of the brochure. If someone’s that sloppy about writing/proofing, they may well be sloppy about other things as well. Probably not; but I’m not taking that chance.
When I approach companies about doing marketing communications for them, most people’s first reaction is along the lines of, “I can write; anybody can write; we don’t need you to write.” Well, respectfully, no: many of us have been taught to write (though I’ve seen some of the grammar used by my stepchildren’s teachers and hold out no hope that schools are doing anything to increase correct spelling, usage, and grammar); but that doesn’t mean that we can all do it well. Or even correctly.
That yoga studio just lost a potential client. Can all businesses afford that kind of loss? Paying someone like me to write — or even simply edit — marketing communications is, at the end of the day, a bargain at any price. Those saavy enough to know their limits are the ones who will continue to prosper, even in a recession. And they’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
(Oh, and if you hurry, you can probably still get that brochure out of the rubbish …)
Posted in Frustration, The Writing Life, About Writing, Words, copywriting on June 1st, 2008
There was a time when printers lamented:
The typographical error is a slippery thing and sly
You can hunt til you are dizzy, but it somehow will get by.
Til the forms are off the presses, it is strange how still it keeps.
It shrinks down in a corner and it never stirs or peeps.
That typographical error, too small for human eyes.
Til the ink is on the paper, when it grows to mountain size.
The boss, he stares with horror, then he grabs his hair and groans.
The copyreader drops his head upon his hands and moans.
The remainder of the issue may be clean as clean can be,
But the typographical error is the only thing you see.
Printers used to set every word by hand: they picked metal letters out of a box of two cases (upper case and lower case — get it?); and typographical errors (we call them typos today) crept in, some said at the behest of a creature known as the “printer’s devil.” I rather like the idea of a small horned form coming in at night and moving those metal letters around at will, but then, I’m not a printer.
Typos are everywhere, and aren’t new to the modern world of computers, though they’ve certainly multiplied since the advent of rapid typing and even more rapid sending. In 1631, some print versions of the Old Testament showed up without the fairly vital word “not” in this injunction: “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The devils were having a fine time for themselves that night!
You do it. I do it. Anyone who has ever set keyboard to paper, so to speak, has done it: and we can’t all blame the printer’s devil. Take a few minutes next time your finger hovers over the “send” button and make sure that what you wanted to say is, in fact, what you did say. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in About Writing, Words on May 29th, 2008
If you’ve ever wondered what poetry can mean to those who don’t always have the chance to be heard, here’s a video to open your eyes…. last year, Bill Moyers interviewed the American poet Martin Espada, a nominee for the Pulitzer prize.
Please do listen to the whole thing, because voice is perhaps more important in poetry than in any other kind of writing. But I’ll still share a couple of excerpts:
We’re talking about a young Latina. A young Dominican from the inner city. There are millions of people in this country who have all kinds of prejudices and mistaken assumptions about such an individual. Among other things, they believe she doesn’t belong here. Among other things, they believe she represents a threat both economic and cultural to the fabric of this society. There are all kinds of invisible pressures upon this person to prove them wrong. And I believe it’s absolutely essential for somebody like that to write poetry. Because poetry humanizes.
That was Martin Espada speaking. One of his own poems, Return says:
245 Whitman Avenue, east New York, Brooklyn. Forty years ago, I bled in this hallway. Half-light dimmed the brick like the angel of public housing. That night, I called and listened at every door: In 1966, there was a war on television.
Blood leaked on the floor like oil from the engine of me. Blood rushed through a crack in my scalp; blood foamed in both hands; blood ruined my shoes. The boy who fired the can off my head in the street pumped what blood he could into his fleeing legs. I banged on every door for help, spreading a plague of bloody fingerprints all the way home to Apartment 14F.
Forty years later, I stand in the hallway. The dim angel of public housing is too exhausted to welcome me. My hand presses against the door at Apartment 14F like an octopus stuck to aquarium glass; blood drums behind my ears. Listen to every door. There is a war on television.
My writing group includes two poets, and I am constantly amazed by the way poetry can cut through all the unnecessary stuff––not just words, but thoughts, feelings, all the accoutrements that we think need to be part of writing. They’re not, necessarily: stripping down to the bone, to the bare necessity of what needs to be communicated, can be a liberating thing.
Poetry, Espada says, is a political tool:
Both involve advocacy. Speaking on behalf of those without an opportunity to be heard. Not that they couldn’t speak for themselves given the chance. They just don’t get the chance. And to me, there’s no contradiction between being an advocate as a lawyer and being an advocate as a poet. I mean, to me, it was all in the same spectrum.
And that understanding will bring anybody … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Process Matters, Creativity, Words on May 25th, 2008
All authors know that a good book review is worth its reviewer’s weight in gold. Reviews can be posted on the web at bookselling sites to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be used on book jackets as blurbs to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be quoted in sig lines to encourage potential readers to buy. Yeah, there’s a theme here: while it’s great ego candy to read a terrific review of one’s work, the bottom line is still, always, the bottom line: to keep selling, to stay in print, to make a living.
And reviews help. One of my publishers, in fact, absolutely swears by reviews, believing that they, more than anything else, are what sell the book. Whether reality is that extreme or whether success is a mix of many factors, book reviews still count.
Getting a reviewer to look at your book, however, may be a lot easier said than done.
There are certain good places to start. Your local newspaper or regional magazine is best: be sure to obtain the name of the correct person to send a review copy to, and add a very big note that says, “LOCAL AUTHOR.” Short of already being on the bestseller list, this is your best bet for reviews.
Don’t overlook Amazon. Amazon has a list of top-hundred reviewers, whose reviews carry more weight than those of your Aunt Edna who was “happy, dear, to write something nice about your little book.” With a little sleuthing, you can obtain their email addresses and politely request a review (and, of course, offer to send a review copy!).
The Big Boys of book reviews are tougher to get to, and I’m going to leave it to your ingenuity to figure out how; but I’ll start you off with a gift — the venues themselves:
So there it is. Write a fabulous book, get it critiqued via an online or real-time group, get it professionally edited, interest a publisher, sign a contract –– and start getting those reviews! And then you’ll be … beyonf the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Words on May 18th, 2008
Google anything, and chances are the first page of results will come up with a Wikipedia article. And it’s an incredibly quick and convenient way to look things up, there’s no question about that. I was reading an article that referenced Langrangian points, and the Wikipedia article (first in Google’s search returns) explained them in language that was accessible to a non-scientist like me. So far, so good.
There’s a catch, of course. As you probably know, anyone can write or edit a Wikipedia entry. That leaves a lot of room for erroneous and/or biased information to be included in any of the thousands of entries. And, yes, readers are encouraged to edit entries, either to correct mistakes or to add information not already there, the hope being that slanted material and inaccurate material will eventually get sifted out.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. And we tend to get seduced by the former, and ignore the latter.
Besides all that, thinking about Wikipedia raises the perennial issue of web anonymity. It’s been observed that, when shielded by anonymity, people will say and do things that they’d probably never dream of doing were their real name associated with the statement or act. We see this all over the web: some anonymous users are trolls, some are hateful, some are probably dangerous (as we saw with the horrible threats made to a female IT blogger last year). None are very nice. Just as people seem to morph into the lowest common denominator when in groups, so too do they seem to lose all civility and accountability when posting anonymously on the web.
What does this have to do with Wikipedia? Plenty, when you stop to realize that edits can be made anonymously there. Imagine the individual with an axe to grind and plenty of time on his hands, and you can imagine what havoc can be wreaked … and we’re not talking chatrooms here, we’re talking about a site that is perceived by many (including Google) as an authority site.
CIT graduate student Virgil Griffith did us all a service, I think, when he coded and released a tool called Wikiscanner; it allows one to see who has been editing Wikipedia entries anonymously. When Wikiscanner first came out, the expectation around the net was that the annymous posters who were furtively changing articles were what journalist Annalee Newitz has referred to as “some blogger writing in his basement in his pajamas.” Not so, as it turned out: Big Names were involved. As Newitz noted in a 2007 article on AlterNet:
“Turns out that all the anonymous propagansa nad lies on Wikipedia aren’t coming from basement dwellers at all––they’re coming from Congress, the CIA, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the ACLU. Somebody at Halliburton deleted key information from an entry on war crimes; Diebold, an electronic-voting machine manufacturer, deleted sections of its entry about a lawsuit filed against it. Someone at Pepsi deleted information about health problems caused by the soft drink. (…) And of course, the CIA has been editing the entry on the Iraq war.”
So there it is. The political ramifications of this discovery can be discussed ad infinitum, ad nauseaum, but the point for this particular blog (which is, after all, about words) is this: check out biases before you’re quick to see a source as authoritative. I recently edited two books that relied on Wikipedia for their source material, and had to have very long, very candid discussions with the authors over the wisdom of using something that is in many ways a moving target, to back up one’s points.
Don’t trust the net. It’s a fabulous tool but it can take over one’s thinking very quickly and very insidiously. When you receive a chain email, check Snopes before forwarding it to 346 of your closest friends. And use Wikipedia as a beginning for your research … but never as an end.
And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Tools, Process Matters, About Writing, Words on May 15th, 2008
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