> you can hardly describe the American way of government as a democracy.
Well, perhaps "republic" is a better description. Still, I'm sure you're not trying to argue that the form of government that Iraq had is better than what the US has. If anything, you're probably thinking that the current US government is a threat to freedom. So, is it better for Iraq to be have something much worse than the current US government?
> There are many ways to look at what is good for a country.
True. There is no perfect form of government, or, if there is, nobody has found it yet. All you can do is compare them using your own set of values. Which of course nobody does, because the moment you have someone you disagree with, you see all their actions in the worst possible light, no matter whether they could fit your set of values or not. I can understand a lot of the arguments against Bush, but "forcing a republic down a dictatorship's throat" doesn't seem like an argument that someone who's for a freer America should be using.
> We 'liberated' 2 countries? By forcing OUR way of governing down their throats? That's considered liberating these days?
To my ears, this statement is similar to:
Look at her now, alone and miserable. Can't support her children. Poor girl. We shouldn't have interfered. We shouldn't have taken him from her. All he did was hit her and threaten to kill her and the kids.
I think that it's fine to argue deaths on both sides, damages, the necessity of the war, but when an argument like this comes up, I have to ask: do you really think that democracy is no better than dictatorship? Because that's what it sounds like. I agree with the idea that different ways of behaviour and government can be equally valid. I can even agree that a benevolent dictator can be good for a country (hey, it worked for Singapore). This doesn't mean that *all* different ways of behaviour or government are equally good.
> per Goedel's work, there's no machine that can tell whether a mathematical theorem is provable or disprovable, either
That's not exactly correct. In any formal system there's a theorem that can be defined but can't be proved or disproved. That doesn't mean that it can't be done for most theorems.
As for the article, I find the discussion of it as "rules of writing" kind of funny. Elmore Leonard specifically starts with "These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible..." These rules have a very specific purpose -- to make the writer invisible in the story. It'd be interesting to argue whether they serve this purpose well and which writers have broken them and yet remained invisible (I'm not knowledgeable enough to argue this), but arguing about breaking them without regard to invisibility is taking them out of context. (Of course, my own reaction was similar when I read them, but I realised it was because some of the writers I like are deliberately not invisible.)
The way I see it, the guy does have an agenda, but used the specific term jokingly. It was a bad joke, but it wasn't a public one, and if there wasn't someone there who thought "let's stick it to the man and make it public" it would have passed harmlessly.
> don't submit if you don't expect to be rejected
If you rephrase it to "don't submit if you don't accept the possibility of being rejected" then I'll agree wholeheartedly. It's just that I see writers setting a rejection goal, and my thought is: if you submit with the plan to get rejected, then why are you submitting in the first place? Okay, I do have one story out that I think will get rejected. That's because I'm submitting it to pro markets instead of the market I think it fits best, since I prefer a pro acceptance and don't want to make the editors minds for them. But normally I prefer to submit thinking that the story will get accepted, and yet realising at the same time that it may be flawed (in a way I can't currently perceive) or not to the liking of the editor.
Yoon Ha, I used cut and paste with your name -- no problem. :)
The gender issue is a real problem. Gordon Van Gelder recently mistakenly referred to my fellow Israeli Vered Tochterman as "he" in the introduction to her story. At that point protesting the inaccuracy is no longer very effective (I wonder if he printed a correction in a following issue). So make sure nobody makes that mistake when they accept your story.
Jonathan, that's plain cruel. Now I'll be thinking of all these rejection levels all the time. I haven't won a Nobel prize yet, and that's completely unfair.
Yoon Ha Lee, thanks very much for the Virginia Woolf link. I write in English but it's not my native language. It's great to see some discussion of this.
I think that what Virginia Woolf says is more about culture than about language. The glitter that she describes is not of the foreign language but of the culture. In a similar way, even if I could write a story whose English sounded correct to the reader not only at surface level, I could not write a truly convincing story set in the US, for example.
> I spent about 3 days reading over this page of comments (without refreshing!)
I spent the last 3 days reading over this page of comments. I haven't slept, I haven't bathed, I only ate what was at hand (I can tell you, the ball is definitely the most tasty part of the mouse).
(Sorry, the "without refreshing" got to me. :)
I haven't checked this thread in a couple of days, and now it's too big for me to read fully. Still, a couple of comments:
Tim Cooper said re "Sorry but this story didn't hold my interest": In others (F&SF) it's a more-or-less form "No" that means little if anything else.
As I've learned recently on the F&SF forum, the phrasing does indeed mean something, when coming from JJA. "Didn't grab me" means "didn't get past the first five pages" (he always tries to read at least five pages), "didn't hold my interest" means "read more than 5 but didn't reach the end" and "didn't quite work for me" means "I finished it, but didn't think it was good enough to pass to Gordon." (With thanks to J Schoffstall who posted this interpretation, to which JJA agreed.)
Adam Goss, the best way to discover what *will* hold the interest of an editor is to read his magazine (if we take short fiction as an example). Other helpful things to do are reading the guidelines (where Gordon Van Gelder, for example, mentions that he'd appreciate seeing more humour and science fiction) and following online venues where editors post, like this one -- although the latter is dangerous, since the internet seems to follow different physics laws, where time moves quite differently, and you can get to where all your time is sucked online.
> There is only one answer that will not elicit irrational whining: "Thanks, check enclosed!"
Mac, you're grossly underestimating writers. We can be irrational and whine even about acceptance. When I opened the letter from F&SF and saw the cheque and contract inside, my first thought was "what, no letter telling me how Gordon loved the story and it's the greatest thing ever? I'm so disappointed!" :)
Well, okay, I was jumping and dancing and making strange happy noises and calling all my friends (and trying not to make strange noises while talking to them so they wouldn't think I'm crazier than normal), but still. You know, I think I'll start a site for authors to post their complaints about acceptances. :)
Changing posts to consonants only is pure evil! For thread readers, that is. The awful thing is that having read the responses, I'm tempted to try to decipher what these guys said, which is possible even without vowels but is a lot of work. Replacing the text with "something not worth saying had been written here" in red, or whatnot, would be much more conductive to my mental health.
Just to clarify -- it's one of the things that can be ticked. I didn't have that ticked. :)
BTW, looking back at the Amazing rejection, I laughed at:
"[] Outre is not the same as obscene; wish fulfillment is not storytelling. Please choose a market with a more lax attitude toward the possibility of offending its readers, and/or consider seeking the counsel of a trained professional."
I wonder what prompted putting that in the form rejection -- especially the last part.
Regarding rejecting the manuscript, not the person, I've read that sometimes editors can actually reject a person -- if they feel that the writer won't be easy to work with (for example from the impression they got from the cover letter), they're more likely to reject a borderline story than ask for revisions. Is this true?
BTW, I remembered an encouraging rejection I got a long time ago from Amazing. It was one of my first stories, and it was badly written, and got "stereotypical characters, setting, and/or situation" ticked on the rejection form (possibly the best rejection form I've seen). I expressed concern in the cover letter than my English wasn't good enough because it wasn't my native language, and the editorial assistant (Lisa Neuberger) added in handwriting "PS -- your grasp of English is excellent!"
This really encouraged me to continue writing in English. I just wanted to say that while rejections are just rejections, it does matter to the writer what and how they say it. The Amazing tick list rejection was very helpful to me as a beginning writer, since it not only told me what was wrong with my story, but also highlighted other problems I might check my manuscripts for (which was very useful in the pre-internet-tip-page days), and that personal comment was encouraging.
(BTW, since most people sign their real names here, my name is Eyal Teler, but I sign "ET" on most forums. No lack of respect meant. I hope that one day people who see ET will think of me immediately. :)
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 15 |
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