Am I allowed to think in my mind that I am a god? Are writers gods? We create worlds and characters and we destroy them, in the same way the ancient Greek civilization believed that everything they did was controlled by the gods. Sometimes my characters have a mind of their own and despite my plotting and planning they do something different to what I want them to do. I could easily rein them in but sometimes it is interesting to let them go their own way to see what develops. If I don’t like it I can either divert them back to where I want them to go, or I can delete an entire sequence of time and make my characters do what I want. Who can deny that this is the kind of power a god might have?
Review of a letters page in Nature about a debate on access to scientific literature online. February 26, 2008
Here is the article hopefully publishing_online.pdf Why not read it first?
The first letter discusses some research the writer did concerning the availability of research articles online and the number of citations the articles received. The writer discovered (no surprise here) that the number of times articles are cited is directly proportional (straight line gradient graph for the mathematically challenged) to the number of articles online. In other words the more articles available free online, the more times articles are cited, and therefore by inference, read. The writer of this letter uses this as a laudable argument to promote the idea that all scientific literature should be available free online for the good of society.
The second letter tries to argue that as authors don’t want paying (really?) for their articles, they should encourage publishers to give free access to their articles at a fair price, via a fee charging publisher website… This argument confused me and was unconvincing becaue here was no evidence and it consisted of counter-intuitive statements. If an author really wants to give free access to their articles they can set up a blog on WordPress. (do I get something for the seamless promotion?)
The third letter discussed ‘impact factors’ without explaining what was meant but it appears to mean citation frequency. The letter reads to me as if the writer was a bit too obsessed or maybe sared with the possibility that online publishing of research articles could affect citation frequency (too late, read the first letter). The writer gives the impression that citation frequency is an end in itself for research but then I am only a student so what do I know?
Letter four (I’d better be careful because the writer lectures at my place of study Portsmouth University) is an excellent and well considered argument about controlling access and subscription charges, based on maintaining the status quo. Sorry, not going to happen – oops there goes my distinction.
Finally the fifth letter is from a writer in Pakistan who justifiably agrees with the first letter that all scientific research should be freely available online.
In conclusion the balance of the letters seem to suggest that academics (I know 3 out of 5 is not a very large sample) are worried by the changes the Internet will bring to the publishing of research articles. I would suggest to those on this side of the argument to forget evolution and consider revolution (note link to one of the letter headings). The Internet via wikis and blogs and other engines offer unlimited and uncontrollable ways for research to be made available to the academic and public world. Forget the past and brainstorm (yes I am anti pc) the future because evidence suggests that the two things you can’t do with the Internet is control it or predict where it’s going. Who would have predicted its take-up twenty years ago? Who would have believed Wikipedia would work (I know it’s not perfect but it’s ’impact factor’ – an in joke if you’ve read this article – is huge). Down with Journals and long live the Internet….
My secret life at night… February 22, 2008
At night when the house is dark and cold what do you do? This is what I do.
I have written a novel about a girl and dragons and the sword Excalibur and Merlin as a boy. At the moment I am editing it so I can try to get it published – at last Harry Potter has left Hogwarts, long live Harry Potter.
The next phase of my edit is the beginning. A novel must have a good first page because it might be all the agent or editor reads before it goes in the bin, and when published, the first page might be all a prospective buyer in a bookshop reads before they put it back on the shelf.
I have done the obvious and ditched the first chapter – almost every unpublished book benefits from ditching the first chapter. Most unpublished authors think they need to explain lots of things about the characters and world they are creating. Don’t bore or patronise you reader, they won’t stay with you that long, you need a problem or conflict on the first page or even the first paragraph. If your story starts with someone waking up it won’t get published.
Pick up 10 newly published novels by first time writers (not bestselling authors who can get away with almost anything) and analyse the first page. What happens in the first 2 paragraphs. How many characters? How are they described (you might get a surprise)? What are they doing? How much is dialogue? What questions are asked but not resolved? And the most important question of all – why do you want to turn over the page?
So this is what I am looking at in my novel. Remember – ditch chapter 1 and I almost (but not totally in this litiguous society of ours) guarantee it will improve the beginning of your novel.
Keep writing
Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital: a comment by WriterChris February 20, 2008
First, apologies to Ken. I accessed this through his blog. Still it will be interesting to compare my attempt with his professional review.
Bob Putnamm doesn’t state his argument at the beginning and so I found it confusing to read at the start despite the title. However he does go on and present some good empirical evidence for his argument that American people are becoming disengaged from the civic process because of decreasing membership of organised associations.
He produces numbers to show the declining membership of political associations, religion, the unions, Parent Teachers’ Associations and voluntary organisations. So once the essay has started the reader can see where the essay is heading.
But then Bob Putnamm discusses the increase in the number of Americans going solo bowling, presumably trying to use it as a good social indicator. However he digresss and gets tied into a discussion about percentages using them in a confusing way to back up an argument - (10% of what? and 40% of what?).
He returns to his central argument and suggests that instead of engaging in the more organised civic associations Americans are joining what he labels tertiary organisations. Examples include the Americam Association of Retired Persons which he tells us is now the world’s second largest private organisation with 33 million members. The Catholic church is the largest. He tells us that these membeships mostly entail people paying their fees but rarely meeting and therefore little civic engagement takes place.
Finally Bob concludes that America needs to find a way of increasing civic engagement.
Yes, that’s it. Overall I found the essay weak. There was no real start to get a reader interested in continuing to read it. He presents some good evidence but doesn’t analyse or evaluate it. What does it mean that there is a lack of civic engagement in the USA? What effect is this having on society other than fewer pizzas are being bought at bowling alleys (read the essay)? What long term effect is this going to have on Amerian society? So why should America bother to improve civic engagement?
Bob offers no solutions or recommendations. He merely comments on a trend and he tries to use bowling as a social indicator which might work in a piece of writing with much more depth but in this piece it comes across as weak and shows little thought. I would have liked to see his evidence used in a more productive way with more analysis and evaluation and a bit more extrapolation of the consequences of the trend finished with some considered conclusions and recommendations.
It’s great being a critic!
Hello world! February 13, 2008
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
