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Wordstead
Writer's Newsletter
CURRENT ISSUE
WRITERS & YOU:
Feature article: "How to Get the Best Out of Your Ghostwriter"
Main book review: Stephen King's latest novel, Under the Dome
► "The Old Cold War Magic We All Miss by That Much"—A recently discovered CIA manual of old secret tricks
► Other Book Reviews & Must-reads
► Publishing News : "An e-Book Melee Worthy of a Soap"
and more...
► Did You Know...?
► Famous Ghostwriters
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Read about political thinker Tim Fitzgerald's ground-breaking memoir of his days as a youth activist in the 1960s.
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► TIPS ON WRITING-
1. Effective paragraphs
The first paragraph sentence tells your readers how to read the rest of the paragraph. It frames the mental picture by which they expect to enter the string of meanings that follow. To be effective, its key words have to convey the main theme of the paragraph. Key words should also lie at the end of the sentence; that's where your most important information ought to be placed, especially in pivotal sentences.
2. Information flow
Two great thumb rules to follow: (1) Put the newest or most important information toward the end of your sentence, which information you intend to expand on in the next sentence. (2) Put at the beginning those ideas you’ve already mentioned or implied in the previous sentence.
Usage & Abusage
Use "responsible" to refer to human beings. American English permits its use when the sentence means "this is the cause of that." But it's nonsensical when instead the sentence attributes responsibility or agency to non-human beings—as in, "That year was responsible for the high crime rate." It's a question of logic as much as good English.
Don't abuse "amount" when you mean "number." Amount applies to mass or bulk. "A great amount of cars" sounds absurd. Sure, we hear it all the time, but it's not even idiomatic. Just bad American and British English alike.
Don't abuse "off" by combining it with "of," as in "off of his rocker." It's bad enough in informal speech but positively pedestrian in any kind of writing, except in the creation of dialogue. Although considered colloquial in American English, it is actually a Cockneyism. "Inside of" and "outside of," on the other hand, are informal if more tolerable colloquialisms.
Don't abuse this plural, as in "none of us want." The action verb must be singular: "None of us wants."
Don't abuse that plural in sentences such as "one of the actors who has made film what it is today." The action verb must accord with the last noun. The correct usage is: "One of the actors that have made film what it is today."
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Testimonials
Anthony has been key to developing my writing career. He has been, and continues to be, a mentor, a trusted intellectual mind that holds thoughts and words with care and insight. Yet he sees, not merely the written text, but the soul and spirit that is behind every passage that emerges from an author's deepest parts...
- Nenosi Mae
The Colour of Barashash (novel)
barashasha@yahoo.co.uk
My mother said she would like to meet you one day…I have to agree that you did an incredible job getting in sync with my memories and emotions. I am so glad that I decided to work with you! I hope we will continue to work together on future projects.
- Margot Hyland, American from
South Africa and mother
of young US marine serving in Afghanistan
Across the Color Line (memoir)
mihland@yahoo.com
I have just completed the process of publishing my first manuscript, and I must say that you have helped me find the most eloquent and highest expression for my thoughts. I want to acknowledge your tremendous contribution to my personal success and that of my book project. I look forward to using you as my resource to support all of my writing needs. You are a true master at what you do.
- Harold Davis, MscD, PhD
Inspirational speaker and success coach
Moving the Stars With Your Words: How to be the creative factor and achieve
what you really want out of Life
drhdavis@movingthestars.com
www.movingthestars.com
Dr. Shaker, I have read the manuscript and I am so darn impressed with what you have done I can't find words to express it. You are definitely a master at what you do. I hope you will allow me to include you in my acknowledgments, because I want those who read the book to know about you...You certainly deserve that if you would allow me.
- Robert Sullivan,
Georgia businessman
The Formula: Building Competitive
Advantage for the Motor Carrier
robert.l.sullivan@att.net
Read more...
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________ Wordstead Writers' News ________
The latest in writing & publishing, expert writing tips
and reliable book reviews
January 2010
Have a Blessed Holiday
And a Healthy, Happy New Year!
| |
Anthony F. Shaker, PhD
writer/editor
AFS Wordstead
afshaker@aol.com
(819) 597-4072 (EST)
www.wordstead.com
ABOUT GHOSTWRITERS
How to Get the Best Out of Your Ghostwriter
By Anthony F. Shaker
Updated January 8, 2009
Send comments below
When people think of a ghostwriter they often imagine a freelancer whose only goal is to turn his client's personal experience, idea for a novel or business secret into a bestseller. But a surprising number of individuals who approach me for writing assistance are actually stoical about the bestselling aspect. To them, whether or not my labors lead to the enviable outcome of a full-blown published work, is almost immaterial. They are content just telling their story.
This may sound a bit odd, at first. After all, why on earth bother to tell your story if no one gets to read it? In my opinion that's exactly the mindset you need to adopt to succeed in any kind of endeavor, let alone a competitive area like writing. It's a bit like keeping the horse before the carriage, rather than the other way around. Moreover, if the professional you hire has any ethics, he or she will make sure you understand this, because making unrealistic promises, especially to a client who happens to be psychologically vulnerable, is downright unethical.
Visions of Grandeur?
If your life hinges on achieving celebrity status or finding a pot of gold, you may be setting himself up for failure. Forget what the self-improvement coaches keep telling us: Don't let your vision of grandeur lead you by the nose. The principal cause for failure among first-time authors is their shallow understanding of what makes a great book. All they dream about is to be bestselling authors.
Some clients of mine are so blinded by self-flattery that they feel entitled to the same humongous windfall that befell swindlers like Bernard L. Madoff, or failed but rich corporate executives like Maurice R. Greenberg. Incidentally, Greenberg now has a shot at cashing in on his failed experience at AIG, after all the tens of millions of dollars in bonuses he has received! A recent legal settlement with AIG accorded him access to the archival materials he covets for writing his memoirs.
Why should the "fat cats" walk away with the pot of gold every time, right?
There's a word for this: ENVY (a mortal sin, even if you're not especially religious). And cynicism can lead to a serious case of it. They are both contagious, self-serving, and will get you nowhere. While I don't recommend a lackadaisical attitude toward your ghostwriter, envy and cynicism will devour any chance you have of publishing success. They drown, not save, those who can't seem to keep their moral antennas securely on.
Writing about your husband the pathological liar may hold certain interest from a psychological standpoint; it may even help others in similar situations. But you should try first to confront your own personal demons. Perhaps you've suffered for too many years living with a man like that. What you need now, before taking another step, is to learn how you can anticipate the future before it strikes you with a vengeance. Do this before exploiting your hardships for a few silver pieces and setting yourself up for an even worse soul-battering experience.
The ghostwriter who knows this is as valuable to you as your psychotherapist, because he or she will make you demand more of yourself than the sham of fame.
Ghostwriters Do More Than Just Write for You
The ghostwriter you hire will show you how to step back from the story you want to tell, as gritty or captivating as it may be. That's the first step. Second, he or she will be frank about the prospects of your book idea, and therefore, its relationship to that money scheme you may have been spinning in your dreams.
After this, concentrate on making your book worth reading. For this to happen, it has to be told from the heart; it must be genuine. A good professional should be able to help you achieve this. If you're writing a book to build your business brand—fine. Making money in your line of work is perfectly legitimate. But you have to let your knowledge, expertise and passion speak for themselves. That's how you build a brand. Remember, Hemmingway and Shakespeare didn't set out to make a fortune, or even to be creative. They just "let it all hang out."
The vision of glitter that you absolutely believe your story deserves will only enslave you to your basest impulses. Without properly coming to terms with your motives for telling the story, whether it's a fiction or nonfiction, you will be lost…and, oh, so at the mercy of any unscrupulous ghostwriter that comes your way.
© 2009-10 Anthony F. Shaker and AFS Wordstead
| FEATURE BOOK REVIEW
Stephen King's Old Canvas-Inside-a-Canvas Trick
Stephen King. Under the Dome. Scribner. 1,074pp.
Some novels we don’t want to end; others would have been too long even as very, very short stories. It’s not all about plot, either. I've read novels blighted with bland plots that were nevertheless saved by the characters and the dialogue. Somehow they managed to sustain my interest right to the bitter end.
Under the Dome treats us to a tale based on a familiar King formula. It is at once as localized and "roomy" as The Shining, which takes place inside the moribund Overlook Hotel turned into a certain affluent writer’s retreat. In some respects, this new novel resembles Stephen King's most sprawling novel of all, The Stand, whose large cast of characters ranges the towns and cities and states of post-apocalyptic America. But whether his story is an epic or a claustrophobic shiver, King has the ability to weave parts into a single yarn. His talent for character and dialogue is unquestionable. No wonder some literary critics have urged that he be treated like a writer of literature.
The trouble with Under the Dome is, first, its size—1,074 pages!
The characters—all town residents—are trapped inside a transparent dome, where Big Jim Rennie is let loose. That’s the guy who thinks that the President, who'd just sent the town residents a letter of support, is “the bastard” with the “terrorist” middle name.
Angry Big Jim handpicks a motley crew of self-discovered cutthroats and proceeds to take over the Chester Mill Police Department. The Pastor Coggins, manifestly ineffectual now, prays in his usual televangelist’s tremolo before being dispatched to the next world; lady Rev. Piper Libby of the First Congregational Church lasts a bit longer before she suffers the same fate. People in this story die gory deaths, part of the price of redemption à la Stephen King. The images are crafted with the usual fare: violence so horrific it throbs with tinges of humor: “trailing intestines like party streamers,” shot-out brains of a woman that look “like a clot of oatmeal,” etc.
It’s all vintage Stephen King. Only, his message—if one could speak of a "message" in this horror—is not as politically dim as in previous novels. On the one side, there’s the white-trash goon squad out seemingly to avenge every ex-Confederate Bushwacker who has ever walked the earth; on the other, the saintly victims (journalist, Iraq veteran, librarian, skateboarders and a Massachusetts English professor who once edited an issue of Ploughshares). The latter group must fight the former to save their tortured town.
Political is a big word for Stephen King. And thugs and rapists do not a great nation destroy, assuming that this is the main inspiration behind this novel—not single-handedly, at any rate. Perhaps the leaders we elect for the grand ideas they claim to espouse do that on their own. As harsh as it may sound, sometimes we just deserve what we get.
It's still possible to enjoy this latest remake of the Old English tale, Beowulf, if you try not to read into it anything much higher than the marauding monsters and maudlin victimhood that inhabit it.
© 2009-10 Anthony F. Shaker and AFS Wordstead
MUST-READS & ON DOWN
| The Old Cold War Magic We All Miss by That Much
Remember the Cold War? All those spy films and burlesque TV comedies like “Get Smart”? Turns out that the “secret tricks” which Control and Chaos spies used on each other were not that far-fetched. And now they’ve actually made it into the annals of history!
An old Cold War manual, which the CIA had at one time planned to destroy in the 1970s, has been republished as The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception. The original author, commissioned to write it for $3,000, turns out to be a magician named John Mulholland. The fruit of his labor had been unclassified for many years, but it was only recently that espionage historian Keith Melton and former CIA Director Bob Wallace discovered it.
We’ve known for some time that the USSR had been in the forefront of “paranormal” research. Trying to play catch-up, the US produced this gem of a manual. The Official CIA Manual instructed spies on all kinds of secret tricks, including how to deliver pills, potions and powders, partly for “brainwashing” purposes. The manual formed part of a CIA program codenamed Project MK-Ultra, which aimed at countering the Soviet mind-control techniques…and beyond.
The Soviets lost the Cold War, according to conventional wisdom. Or, did they? Maybe they just succeeded in mind-bending Control, and we don't yet know it!
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► Recent books
1) READING JESUS: A Writer's Encounter With the Gospels, by Mary Gordon. Pantheon Books. 205 pp.
Mary Gordon—who has authored several fictions and nonfictions—starts her stimulating book with a mundane setting. Stuck in traffic inside a New York cab, she listens to the harangues of a radio preacher. She recoils at how spiritually perverse his unctuousness is (actually, she says "sexually perverse"). That's when she realizes that Christians have a penchant for reading the Bible selectively. She herself has never read the Gospels in their order. Selective reading is a convenient way not only to avoid perplexing passages, but also to condition the faithful to a literal understanding of the Bible. Gordon worries that this may have turned the four Gospels into an idol. Holy scriptures in every tradition—especially the Gospels and the Quran—use "paradox" to convey subtle meaning (the Bible says, "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." Maybe the paradox reflects the contradictions of life itself. Gordon argues that discarding this rich aspect of our scriptural heritage at once impoverishes the faithful and confirms the skeptics.
2) PIRATE LATITUDES, by Michael Crichton (2009).
Set in the Caribbean of the 17th-century, this historical romance resembles the author's The Great Train Robbery (1975) and Eaters of the Dead (1976). When Michael Crichton died of throat cancer last year, an assistant found the completed manuscript on a computer. The story unfolds in the Crown colony of Port Royal, Jamaica. The protagonist—an American from Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Harvard man and self-described Puritan "only by birth"—is named Hunter. When a ship laden with precious cargo sails into the fortified Spanish port of Matanceros, he is asked to capture it. As a buccaneer saga, the novel is perhaps best left to each reader to judge. Personally, I find most of Crichton's novels somehow incomplete or plain unsatisfying. But that may reflect my own idiosyncrasies.
3) PAUL McCARTNEY: A Life, by Peter Ames Carlin. Illustrated. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. 374 pp.
Carlin is a former writer for People magazine and a culture reporter for the Oregonian. His biography goes from McCartney's family origins to his tempest of a divorce with wife Heather Mills. He depicts him as more artistically complex than the prevailing public image has allowed him. The book reveals a couple of interesting facts, but it's mostly based on secondary sources, with a smattering of speculation on this Beatle icon's motives at various points in his life.
4) HOW TO BE A MOVIE STAR: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, by William J. Mann. Illustrated. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 484pp.
Richard Burton described her as the most voracious lover he had ever known. Nor does Mann skimp on details, either. Elizabeth Taylor has had a long passionate life, and he takes pleasure describing both her character and her experiences. Stardom came to her as a result of "useful marriages," but also of her mother’s careful earlier grooming into Southern California’s entertainment industry. It may be said of Liz that she literally married into her roles. But she is perhaps the greatest actress of all time. |
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5) FOOTNOTES IN GAZA. Written and illustrated by Joe Sacco. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. 418pp.
This is a gripping account of two mass killings of Palestinians in Gaza in 1956. Israel, together with Great Britain and France, had just invaded Egypt, which still governed the Gaza Strip. Most of the population there was composed of refugees from their ancestral homeland in what is now called Israel, and have remained refugees since the "Jewish State" was founded in 1948. During the Suez War, occupying Israeli soldiers lined up and murdered hundreds of civilians in the Gazan towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, according to official United Nations figures. Sacco argues that these horrors helped shape the attitudes of Palestinians toward Israel. He quotes Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan's musings, in a famous speech he gave at the funeral of an army commander, about why the Palestinians felt such “terrible hatred of us.” His answer? Because “[F]or eight years now they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.” Sacco quotes Dayan's chilling words that followed, which exhort fellow Israelis to be “ready and armed, tough and harsh.”
| THEME TITLES
Notable books on climate & environment, 2009:
STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COMING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE AND OUR LAST CHANE TO SAVE HUMANITY, by James Hansen. Considered the world's most authoritative climatologist, James Hansen has for three decades been appearing before the US Congress and other public forums to explain complex issues in global warming.
DOWN TO THE WIRE: CONFRONTING CLIMATE COLLAPSE, by David Orr. One of the greatest scholars on climate and clean energy, Orr sets out a challenging and hopeful agenda for real change in how we reshape our nation, our energy policies, and ultimately our personal lives for the long-haul battle against climate destabilization.
CLEAN ENERGY COMMON SENSE: AN AMERICAN CALL TO ACTION ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, by Frances Beinecke. NRDC President Frances Beinecke has just released a call to action, in the tradition of Tom Paine's Common Sense.
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PUBLISHING NEWS
An e-Book Melee Worthy of a Soap
A price war has developed among e-book distributors over electronic readers, the portable devices that can store a whole library of books and periodicals. Amazon (AMZN) has decided to cut its price for Kindle (which it had introduced in 2007) down to $260, about the same level as that of all the upstarts and the major competitors—especially Barnes & Nobles, which offers its own, Sony-based "Nook."
This new book market niche, still only a fraction of the more traditional print form, faces many challenges. One is figuring out which reader will prevail over the rest. There is a clear need to have one dominant device. At the moment, the existing ones are incompatible with each other, a situation that could cost everyone heavily in future e-book sales.
"They view e-books and e-book readers as inevitable, but they don't really know how it's going to shake out," says the senior editor of Publishers Weekly, Jim Milliot.
Which suggests the second challenge: not everyone wants to see Amazon as the biggest kid on the block.
The logical alternative is for everyone—book distributors and publishers alike—to bang heads together and figure out a set of common standards they could all live with. Short of that, current predictions of soaring sales may come to naught.
Some analysts already foresee an explosion in demand. According to the Association of American Publishers, Americans spent $15.9 million on e-books in September 2009, up 171% from September last year. Still, not all market watchers are sanguine. On the midterm prospects of the nascent e-book market, the jury seems to be out.
A price war is certain to do one of two things. It may widen differences among the major distribution networks, and leave existing technological gaps in place. Or, it could draw the major players closer to a solution. |
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►News Briefs
Ê Shining on. At a Toronto event, Stephen King revealed plans to write a sequel to The Shining (1977). The story would center on Jack Torrance's clairvoyant son, Danny, now at 40 years old. Danny has to deal both with the emotional scars he carries from the time his father had tried to kill him and his mother, and with the "shining" that had saved them. The shining, of course, has something to do with his power of clairvoyance.
Ê Romantic overture. Harlequin Enterprises sent a shocker last November when it announced the creation of its self-publishing division, Harlequin Horizons. Highbrow literary regard self-publishing as a grade lower than the traditional path for authors. Over the years, though, this narrow window of opportunity for those who can afford it has developed into a veritable industry. Today, self-publishing firms offer marketing and distribution services that shield their clients from the terrible punishment that inexperience used to inflict in the past. The move came as a surprise, since Harlequin romances have not seen the steep declines experienced by other publishers. The Romance Writers of America, the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America have all denounced the move. Part of the criticism centers on a potential conflict of interest. Harlequin intends to market both Harlequin Horizons and the eHarlequin Manuscript Critique service to potential authors, which some maintain may cause writers to imagine they could enhance their chances of getting published if they paid for these services.
Ê E-book counter-punch. Five publishers have moved to develop a new technology format and online storefront, after Amazon slashed both its e-book Kindle price tags. They hope their initiative will help them compete with the Kindle phenomenon and perhaps gain them more control over the digital book, newspaper and magazine markets. Newspaper and magazine publishers are trying to counter Amazon's offer of 30% of each content sale on Kindle. Book publishers complain they're getting hurt by the $9.99 price for new bestselling releases, which threatens to eat away at the profitable market for hardcover books.
Ê Our enduring love of paper? Around 30,000 subscribers receive the Wall Street Journal through Kindle devices. Industry insiders project the combined number of e-subscribers for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal could reach 180,000 by the end of 2010. However, book publishers generally are not convinced the market will expand at this rate for their products. That's understandable, seeing how different reading a newspaper for the day's news is from reading a book. Let's face it, some people prefer the feel of paper to clicking buttons all day, or doing at home even after work.
Ê E-books on a massive scale. Lulu, a leader in open publishing, has announced a vastly expanded selection of eBooks, adding 200,000 titles from authors like Dan Brown, Malcolm Gladwell and Emeril Lagasse to their already thick catalog.
Ê Choppy waters ahead for Kindle? In an Newsweek interview, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos defined where Amazon is today with a pithy statement: “We start with the customer and we work backward.” The trouble, Nick Bilton reported ("Is Amazon Working Backward? The New York Times [December 24, 2009]) is that customer satisfaction with Amazon's e-book device, Kindle, appears to be stganant or in deline. |
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DID YOU KNOW?
Ê Did you know that collaborators (ghostwriters and editors) who aren't named on the book cover are sometimes mentioned on the title page or in the acknowledgments? Notice how many author's name are followed by "as told to," "with" or "and". In fact, the size of the font may signify the co-author's level of financial interest in the book. You have to be pretty much a celebrity to hire a ghostwriter willing to work on a piece of a predictable royalty, but it happens.
Ê Did you know that, for the first time in 47 years of polling, more Americans said they've had a religious experience (i.e., a moment of mystical insight or awakening) than those who haven't? That's what a report released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says. Americans seem to espouse a mish-mash of traditional beliefs, SciFi and mythology—though perhaps to a lesser degree than the French, Germans and other "modern" peoples. Green pastures for writers of every hue, but who knows what this tells about the spiritual depth of modern life.
Ê Did you know that over 82% of Americans plan to write a book someday? Literary agent Arielle Ford has reported the findings of a recent study in a Huffington Post article.
Ê Did you know that the vast majority of surveyed business owners see the benefits of blogging? Communicate Better, Inc., a content firm specializing in custom writing services, has found that 82% of the website owners polled (92 businesses) understand the value of company blogs. Business blogging can be important for SEO; it can firm up or establish customer loyalty and create branding. The trouble is not business owners' lack of appreciation of the power of blogging. They just lack the time, skills and/or resources to create and manage blog content.
Ê Did you know that “I”, “we”, “two” and “three” are among the oldest words in the English language? We’re talking thousands of years! Researchers at Reading University, UK, have identified 200 other ancient words, using supercomputer analysis to select vocalizations. These word-roots are spread out among the broad Indo-European family of languages, and are considered independent of either culture or technology. It’s all based on probabilities, of course. The study used a model that calculates the likelihood that certain words have retained their ancestral roots and the speed of evolution of other words. Without surviving records, however, there is no way to prove any of this. [Source: "‘Oldest English words’ identified,” BBC News (published: 2009/02/26 09:23:42 GMT)]
► FAMOUS GHOST WRITERS
Carolyn Keene is the common penname used by a host of ghost writers who wrote for the Nancy Drew series using the same basic formula.
Peter de Jonge “co-authored” with James Patterson. But that’s just another way of saying that he ghosted for Patterson, who has admitted at being more adept at imagining plots than writing full-fledged novels. I believe him, too. Having read a few of their novels, I don’t think his ghostwriter was any better at fleshing out the plots, just the splatter.
Theodore Sorenson, President Kennedy’s speechwriter, has just published his autobiography, Counselor. His connection to John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, has been denied for years. In his book, though, Sorenson reveals that he’d written large sections of Kennedy’s book.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s campaign is alleged to have ghostwritten a negative web site about his Republican opponent in the run for Senate. If the allegation, made this month, is true, then TruthAboutRubio.com would constitute a violation of the campaign finance law. Crist himself has fallen victim to smear, having been compared to Adolf Hitler in a video, which Crist alleges Rubio was behind.
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Anthony F. Shaker, PhD
writer/editor
(819) 597-4072 (Eastern Standard Time)
Afshaker@aol.com
www.wordstead.com
© Copyright 2009, AFS Wordstead
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