I Killed God #2023_09_05 #vulture #maria_bamford #chapters #book_excerpt #maria_bamford #comedy #books #memoirs #sure_ill_join_your_cult_a_memoir

>> http://www.vulture.com/article/maria-bamford-sure-ill-join-your-cult-book-excerpt.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

Can we talk about #chapters again? Like, how do you build them? How do you decide how long they should be? What kind of arcs do they have to have and how self-contained are they, for you?

#AmWriting #Writerdons #Writers #WritingCommunity #Writing

‘Can We Sing With You?’ #2023_08_30 #vulture #laura_flam #the_ronettes #chapters #book_excerpt #music #rb #vulture_section_lede #vulture_homepage_lede

>> http://www.vulture.com/article/the-ronettes-but-will-you-love-me-tomorrow-book.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

Today I met John Romero, the legendary creator of Doom and Quake, at the bookstore Chapters in Dublin!

#JohnRomero #DoomGuy #ChaptersBookstore #Chapters #Dublin #Ireland #Mastodaoine #Doom #Quake #Sigil #Daikatana #idSoftware #VideoGames #Gaming #PCGaming

Off to new #chapters. #hamburg #baby

A simple plea: if you’re going to drop a podcast episode running 2+ hours, for the love of all that is holy, drop time codes in the notes or break it into chapters. I’m looking at you @TWiT — I love you, but I need an easier way to jump to the specific topic I care about.

#podcast #chapters #timecode

In Video Games, There’s a Fine Line Between Difficulty and Disrespect #2023_05_22 #vulture #jordan_minor #book_excerpt #video_games #fromsoftware #sekiro_shadows_die_twice #dark_souls #elden_ring #chapters

>> http://www.vulture.com/article/fromsoftware-sekiro-video-game-of-the-year-book-excerpt.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

@allisonwyss @orionkidder @joehumphrey

[R]eaders really do need breaks! And they like breaks! And sometimes it means they come back to the story even more ready for it.

Not disagreeing, but I believe it important to force readers to choose.

I don't often stop reading a story never to pick it up again, but one thing -- other than it being a really bad story -- that will make me stop reading is a writer resolving stuff before a chapter break. Given a choice of stopping, I might.

Stop.

Permanently.

This stuff I'm discussing here I don't do consciously, I'll admit. This is an analysis of my writing. I'm an unabashed pantster, under the spell of loquacious characters living their lives breathlessly, barreling along toward their destiny (writing toward a known ending). I throw breaks when it feels right, but not after plot or character resolution!

Except... After the climax or denouement (penultimate chapter), and again at the end of the epilogue (end of story).

For me, some of what flags that I can chapter break is a sense of mystery, foreboding the character might be doing the wrong thing, or a cliffhanger in the action that will proceed subsequently at another time or place. Something to be curious about.

#writers #WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations #writingTeacherConversations #fiction #writing

Do you know about the Superpages in almost all of our chapters?
There are three versions in alphabetical order by topic: all content in the chapter, all images (you can select which types) and virtual slides only.
The Superpage links appear in the Table of Contents just before the alphabetical list of topics.
Note that they only work when accessed from our site – copying the link will not work.
#superpages #pathology #pathologyoutlines #chapters #textbook #tableofcontents

@allisonwyss @whatzaname @orionkidder @joehumphrey When I don't break, the characters and action does. I do it only rarely, and only when it feels right. It's always a sprint not exactly a marathon, but the reader is welcome to grab a bottle of water before jumping back into the race.

In the context of the current 130K novel, one chapter wants to be like this and it's 10K. It goes from MC and love interest, each of who are competing for control, feeling a weird synergy (love, [spoilers], or both?), to dinner, dancing, desserts, and asking about his "etchings", to... uh, hem. The next chapter is the greatest mystery of the whole book, and is 600 words long.

#writers #writing #writingAdvice #writerTeacherConversations
#WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations

@allisonwyss @Trajecient @orionkidder @joehumphrey When I am at my best in chaptering or naming the books/parts of a novel, the title is always a mystery to be solved by the time you reach the end of the chapter or part. Sometimes I even do that with the title of the novel. Moreover, I like it when the cover art is a scene from the novel you have to look for, also, not merely something evocative of the spirit of the work (tho that's advertising for the publisher and you're lucky if you get consulted).

This are things that engage me when I find them, so I also do them in my stories.

#writers #writing #writingAdvice #writerTeacherConversations
#WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations

@joehumphrey @orionkidder @allisonwyss

[difference between] storytelling and story time?

CW: tM;dr? (Too Meta, Didn't Read?) 😋​

I really want to make story time one word, but that would be overloading another word used in the context of reading to children.

Both words are a meta concept.

Storytelling is how you communicate the events and ideas of the story. Story time is how you communicate how time passes in the story.

Story time can be:

• Textual, as in, "After dragging the all the stupid bricks up the hill," or "I kept on looking up from the book at the clock, my muscles twitching, as the second hand barely ticked toward noon."

• A description that requires more attention by the reader, slowing them down, or so concisely powerful it thrills and speeds them up.

• Some dialogue of multiple characters breathlessly interrupting each other, or droning on and on.

• Or... it could be a blank centered line with a # or a ##, a chapter break, or a novel composed of multiple books. I'll quote Allison responding to Orion:

Pause and consider--that's perfect. I think sometimes metafictional moments inside text do the same thing. As do other sorts of breaks.

• Others (definitely).

I recently wrote a novel that consisted of four books (180K total). Each book started with a cliffhanger chapter about the situation where the next book begins and the current ends. The rest of each "book" that followed all leading up to that cliffhanger/resolution book transition. Such things messes with how the reader perceives time passing in the story. FYI, one book starts with a fertilizer bomb about to explode. How the MC got herself into that one drives you to the end of that book!

Before you cry foul, I've recently watched a number of dramas that use this same 1-2-3 format: cliffhanger hook, story to the cliffhanger, then cliffhanger resolution transition to next episode. It works well for #mystery and #thriller genres. The last was a Korean gothic romance titled, "It's Okay to Not Be Okay." Excellent, by the way. I highly recommend it.

This is why I call story time perceptual manipulation, though, of course, storytelling does make you hallucinate being somewhere you are not, so it qualifies as perceptual manipulation, also.

#writers #WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations #writingTeacherConversations #fiction #writing #time #perception

@orionkidder @joehumphrey @allisonwyss Very interesting topics in this thread. I realize I am late to it, but a few things:

Workshops actually can be great! There's just a lot that can also go wrong.

This is very true. When I saw a person reduced to tears, I started prefacing critiques with: A critique is what one person wanted to say having read your story and thinking about your words. Some or none of it may be applicable or make sense, or they have missed the point entirely. It's only what they understood. You are under no obligation to accept any of it.

How do you think about chapters?

• Cliffhangers.
• A breaking point that a reader could choose to ignore.
• A way of organizing a story into comprehensible chunks.

Mine are usually at least 750 words long, but some are 10K.

Sometimes, with novelettes or short novellas, I have no chapter breaks and let the story run breathlessly to the end. I'm thinking of one that took place over about a week, and even dreams played a part. This is the experience of the character in a ticking clock situation of a corrupting curse who needs to win over a hostile individual that could beat her and take over as ruler.

The examples I’ve seen of anarchist texts that allegedly don’t tell you what conclusions to draw from the text are either incoherent or deeply manipulative.

It sounds like it would be either incoherent or steam of consciousness slice of life stories. You can learn something from wandering, if directed I suppose. I did like My Dinner with Andre. That I learned something is the highest praise I can give a story.

That said, I do have one novel that in the end I've carefully crafted the main character to be either mentally ill (hearing voices) or to be a actual shaman who speaks to spirits. I make sure nothing she learns couldn't have been deduced, though you'd have to be a careful reader. It's up to the reader to sit back with the book and decide which they're more comfortable with... in a hard science fiction book to boot.

#writers #WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations #writingTeacherConversations #fiction #writing

@allisonwyss

I see chapters as another tool in the writing chest. They can slow down or speed up the action by the why and when they cut the action. I've read a 400 page book where each chapter came in at 100 pages and books where a chapter could be small as a paragraph.

#WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations

A client has me thinking about chapters.

Chapters can feel essayistic (coving a topic) or episodic (covering an event). Some writers care most about their length.

I consider their shape & how they make patterns & how the breaks influence a reader's experience.

They're kind of arbitrary like paragraphs--which is fun.

How do you think about chapters?

#WritingCommunity #WritingCraft #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersofMastodon #Writing #WritingCraft #Chapters #Paragraphs #WritingConversations

1999 when I worked in the #RichmondBC #Chapters (before it was #Indigo). I was known as the #storytime #guy.

Interested in learning more about the relationship between sound and museums? Check out our new Publications page that includes links to all the materials published about and by our museum so far!

https://museumofportablesound.com/education/publications/

#Publications #Sound #Museums #SoundAndMuseums #Books #Journals #Magazines #Articles #Chapters #ColoringBooks

How Bret Hart Wrestled Back Into the Story #2023_03_27 #vulture #abraham_josephine_riesman #book_excerpt #chapters #wwe #vince_mcmahon #bret_hart #pro_wrestling #vulture_sports

>> http://www.vulture.com/article/bret-hart-vince-mcmahon-wwf-relationship-owen-hart-death.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part

Tech (Global News): After Indigo cyberattack, the staff union is calling for more answers and help https://globalnews.ca/news/9545059/indigo-cyberattack-staff-union-demands/ #globalnews #TechNews #Technology #indigoransomwareattack #Indigocyberattacknews #chaptersdatabreach #Indigocyberattack #databreachindigo #Indigodatabreach #indigobookstore #Indigo-Chapters #DataBreach #Indigohack #Chapters #Canada #Indigo #Tech

From @Dunleavy: "Thanks to…#OpenAccess, [#book #chapters now] rival journal articles in their visibility to academic communities [&] their usefulness as teaching resources."
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/03/07/is-writing-a-book-chapter-still-a-waste-of-time/

This is true. Don't be afraid to publish an article-length work as a book chapter rather than an article. But if the book won't be OA, don't forget to insist on retaining the right to make your chapter OA through a #repository, with an #OpenLicense and no #embargo.

#rGeen #RightsRetention