Lots of books have strange and amusing titles. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Why You Don't Get Published.
Below I placed the descriptions of some books. Your job was to make up crazy titles to go with the plots. Or at least it was when the descriptions were there. I now have enough fake titles, so I've removed the descriptions. Shortly the titles will be used in a quiz.
Normally I do a Face-Lift every weekday, but none of the titles in the queue has the needed five GTPs. (Presumably this announcement will bring in a dozen for each.)
22 comments:
I saw a reference to Miss Snark somewhere today. I am having 'crapometer' withdrawal. Would you ever consider hosting one? Pleeeaassseee!
Isn't this blog one continuous crapometer?
Hmmm....sometimes. Maybe. It comes close.
But you don't really comment on the openings. I want to know, for example, would you, an editor, continue reading? How many words into a manuscript can you tell if you'll 'like' it?
Or the queries--which ones would you request partials, fulls, or nothing?
I think we need a ground swell to get things moving! Come on, fellow minions, what do you think?!!
Did anyone else notice that BBC America is openly telling its viewers to use closed captioning if they can't understand the English language?
Kinda makes one feel bilingual, doesn't it?
Like, dude what are they speaking on those BBC shows? Alien lanugages?
I think the Crapometers damned near killed Miss Snark.
Therefore, I think our beloved Evil should decide for his handsome self whether or not to run one.
Or the queries--which ones would you request partials, fulls, or nothing?--Church lady
I can see both ways of thinking, but it would be useful to the author and interesting to the minions. Perhaps the awful truth could be sent to the author privately via e-mail...or posted after a minionometer poll.
Hi EE and church lady,
Strangely, sort of, I was just about to ask EE the same kind of thing. I wasn't involved in the crapometer thing. But I have been thinking quite a bit (no big surprise here) about the constitution of a good opening.
I don't think, or at least I certainly hope, that it's not a pat formula. You know, formulaic.
But I would like to know what you think, EE, about the vital ingredients of a good opening, and why. And, has this changed with time, with the advent of advanced instant media gratification, for instance? (Unless your're only 22 years old, you know what I mean.)
Where do we put the titles? If we put them here, everyone will know!
Not if I cleverly don't publish them. Sort of like the Guess the Plots.
You know, I realized that was the answer about 46 seconds after hitting 'Send'. I should really not try to do anything post-seizure.
Like, dude what are they speaking on those BBC shows? Alien lanugages?
Recently, watching All the King's Men with a German friend who speaks excellent English, we had to turn on the subtitles so he could understand the American southern accents.
It helped us native speakers quite a bit, too. English comes in all different flavours.
It seems to me the Miss Snark archives has enough crapometer stuff to get any possible point across . . . if you can learn from other people's stuff. If it's your own stuff you're interested in, you can be close to the top of the queue if you just submit. In a crapometer you could be 700th in line. (Of course, if declaring a crapometer would get me 100 submissions, I could quit begging for queries every two weeks.)
I'm thrilled to find that people care what I think about their queries, but my job is to use comedy and parody and mockery to show you what's wrong with your query. Then the minions, realizing that the humor has been lost on you, tell you what's wrong with your query. You can trust them, all of them except . . . well, you know who you can trust.
You're talking about me, aren't you? I'm the one not to be trusted. Gah! It's not like I didn't try to be helpful but, you know, it's almost fall.
Muss Snark's crapometer was nice in that you got to read lots of hooks or queries or synopsis type documents that ranged from awful to magnificent, but it wasn't as thorough as EE just posting a query with his comments. I like this format better.
I find the comments on New Beginnings very useful. Each NB gets at least a few hours and there is some give and take.
Crapometers offer minutes because there are too many to devote any siginificant time.
Everytime you say minions, I think of those giant thumbs in Spy Kids.
Well, it was worth a try......
Truly though, I never wanted you to go through what Miss Snark did. When I wrote the request, I was thinking you'd put parameters around it (like accepting the first 50 or 100).
**sniffles and clicks on Miss Snark's archives**
I was thinking more about the openings than the queries.
Yeah. Beginnings. Your comments, too, would be great. Or a rating system: Pass/Read On. Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down. Red Pencil/Blue Pencil. Good/Meh/Try Again. You could even simply put a little icon next to the submission as your stamp of approval/disapproval. Whaddya think?
I wish I could come up with some witty, funny titles, but my damned sinuses are killing me this morning - which means my brain is a bit mushy right now.
Can't wait to read them.
~jerseygirl
You could even simply put a little icon next to the submission as your stamp of approval/disapproval.
phoenix, please don't give him ideas that suggest more clipart.
"...but...but...Evil Editor SAID it was good."
"Well, send it to him, then."
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's a bloody, dark fantasy. The Salvation Army newsletter rarely publishes dark fantasy. Please stop calling me at home. How'd you get my number?"
"Same place I got EE's number."
You could even simply put a little icon next to the submission as your stamp of approval/disapproval.
But it wouldn't stop there, would it? I think we all know if we got the "thumbs down" it would then be: "Why? Why didn't you like it? What was wrong with it? How could it have been better? You really didn't like that bit? Perhaps you didn't understand it; here's what I meant... How about this new version?"
Here's a little "secret" though. If you want Evil Editor to look over your writing; if you want to know if he would choose it or not; if it's close, and you want him to edit it and show you how it could be better: Submit a continuation!!
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