How texting is fuelling illiteracy

Hey kids! I hope you like wearing hats!

Anyone who loves a good book and reads regularly may find the following statistic disturbing. According to the most recent U.S. survey by the National Endowment for the Arts, the proportion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 who read a book not required at school or at work is now 50.7 percent, down from 59 percent 20 years ago.

And that trend isn’t likely to change. Why? Texting. That’s right. Today’s youth caught in a flurry of LOLs, TTYLs and OMGs aren’t expected to muster enough sit-and-stay to consume more than a tweet at a time and that’s leading to illiteracy.

In fact, according to an article in Newsweek last month written by Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson, Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 send and receive an average of 3,339 texts per month. Teenage girls send and receive more than 4,000.

What does it all mean? It means the U.S. (and Canada) is producing a generation of illiterates who won’t be able to compete against their global rivals. And that’s bad.

Read the full article here to learn more about how texting makes you stupid.

The difference between a long story, a short story and a short-short story

Isaac Asimov knows.

100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories

In his introduction to the anthology 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories (Avon, 1978), Isaac Asimov gets to the point about why some stories are better short and why some short stories are better short short.

In science fiction, experience seems to show that long stories have an advantage over short ones. The longer the story, all things being equal, the more memorable.

There is reason to this. The longer the story, the more the author can spread himself. If the story is long enough, he can indulge himself in plot and subplot with intricate interconnections. He can engage in leisurely description, in careful character delineation, in thoughtful homilies and philosophical discussions. He can play tricks on the reader, hiding important information, misleading and misdirecting, then bringing back the forgotten themes and characters at the moment of greatest effect.

But in every worthwhile story, however long, there is a point. The writer may not consciously put it there, but it will be there. The reader may not consciously search for it, but he'll miss it if it isn't there. If the point is obtuse, blunt, trivial or non-existent, the story suffers and the reader will react with a deadly, "So what?"

Long, complicated stories can have the point well-hidden under cloaking layers of material. Academic people, for whom the search for the point is particularly exciting, can whip their students to the hunt, and works of literature that are particularly deep and rich can elicit scholarly theses without number that will deal with the identification and explanations of points and subpoints.

But now let's work toward the other extreme. As a story grows shorter and shorter, all the fancy embroidery that length makes possible must go. In the short story, there can be no subplots; there is no time for philosophy; what description and character delineation there is must be accomplished with concision.

The point, however, must remain. Since it cannot be economized on, its weight looms more largely in the lesser over-all bulk of the short story.

Finally, in the short short story, everything is eliminated but the point. The short short story reduces itself to the point alone and presents that to you like a bare needle fired from a blowgun; a needle that can tickle or sting and leave its effect buried within you for a long time.

For advice and development of your long, short or short short story, visit http://www.suddenpublishing.com/. 

Fiction Faults Checklist

Ray Nelson, science fiction writer

Ray Nelson is a science fiction writer and inventor born in New York in 1931. Over his writing career he published dozens of short stories and 10 novels.

His short story 8 O'Clock in the Morning was turned into the comic book story Nada, and Nada was made into the paranoid cult classic movie They Live in 1988. He is also famously (or infamously) credited with inventing the “propeller beanie” when he was in high school.

Nelson compiled on his website a checklist of fiction faults from his perspective as a reader, but he didn’t stop there. He also added tips and suggestions on what to do about them.

To mention a few of these faults / tips, Nelson says, “In the beginning, I do not like premature flashbacks.” He suggests, “Don’t tell me about the past until I am worried about the present.”

He also says narration in the present tense is tricky to use. “Though some modern writers use it, they pay for it in obtrusiveness. Stick to the simple past tense unless you have very good reason not to.”

As for characters, Nelson says he doesn’t like “A passive protagonist who is, at best, a spectator and, at worst, a professional victim.” He says, “Select someone more suitable to be a protagonist, or give your present protagonist some spunk.”

Nelson also underscores the problems with “dream endings”, showers of trivia and clichés. Check out the entire list, here: http://raynelson.com/fictionfaults.html.

Reading fiction helps you evolve

A new essay by UofT professor Keith Oatley on the Literary Review of Canada's website argues that fiction allows readers to improve and evolve by subconsciously connecting with the lives, decisions and conflicts of fictional characters.

From the essay:

"Stories were the very first simulations, designed to run on minds thousands of years before computers were invented. If we are right, then just as pilots’ skills dealing with unanticipated events improve when they spend time in a flight simulator, so people’s skills understanding themselves and others should improve when they spend time reading fiction."

Read the full essay, here.

NEWS: Self publishers aren't hopelessly naive fools! Who knew?

Here's an interesting post about the state and future of publishing:

"Since starting this blog, I've been startled by the volume of people who have contacted me about self-publishing. And these are not the people the publishing industry would have you believe they are. These are not egocentric idiots with all the grammatical skill of a mentally deficient teenager. Neither are these hopelessly naive fools who are going to get taken by the next scammer to come along.

"In fact, some of these people are authors who have been put in print by the legacy publishers."

Read the whole thing, here: http://blog.prodigal.ca/a-sudden-explosion-of-self-publishers-104

New office in Victoria, B.C.'s Chinatown

Sudden Publishing recently opened up shop in Victoria, British Columbia's historic Fan Tan Alley specifically Suite 300, 3 Fan Tan Alley.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the alley:

Fan Tan Alley is an alley in Victoria, British Columbia's Chinatown. It runs south from Fisgard Avenue to Pandora Avenue in the block between Government Street and Store Street. It was originally a gambling district with restaurants, shops, and opium dens. Today it is a tourist destination as it contains many small shops including a barber shop, art gallery, Chinese cafe and apartments. It is most famous for being the narrowest street in Canada. At its narrowest point it is only 0.9 metres wide.

For more information about Sudden Publishing and our services, please visit http://www.suddenpublishing.com. 

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

Great cover art.

Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories is a collection of 14 ghost stories as chosen by acclaimed writer Roald Dahl. [From Wikipedia: Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter. Born in Llandaff, Cardiff, to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander.]

I read the first six stories: W.S. by L.P. Hartley, Harry by Rosemary Timperley, The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith, In the Tube by E.F. Benson, Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperly and Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie.

The stories are solid as ghost stories go. My hang up is ghost stories don’t have pop! A third to half the story is concerned with how the ghost came to be a ghost, the other half sets up the main character to somehow get caught alone with the ghost. Most times the character doesn’t know the ghost is a ghost until the predictable “reveal”.

In The Corner Shop, no shit, the last paragraph reads:

“Oh, now I understand!” She exclaimed. “You mean Bessie’s father! But Bessie and I are only step-sisters. My poor father died years and years ago.” 

You mean the creepy old man in the antique shop, w-w-was … a-a-a … g-g-ghost! SHRIEK!

But as Dalh puts it in the introduction, I good ghost story should, “give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts.” The stories were vaguely tired, but as a read I couldn’t help imagining some interesting things.

Read the book if only for the intro. In 1958, Dahl was commissioned to collect 24 short ghost stories and write one of his own for a new television series called “Ghost Time”. Apparently this series was supposed to compete with the likes of The Twilight Zone, which was launched in 1959, but it was never made it past the pilot stage. Ghost Time was scrapped by producers because they felt the story the pilot was based on would offend Catholics—a target demographic.     

Whoops.

If you want to write a book, contact Sudden Publishing at http://www.suddenpublishing.com/.