phantom-inker In reply to alexwarlorn [2007-12-02 21:19:50 +0000 UTC]

9. I've never yet seen an "alternative" style of quotation used to good effect. If the words are to stay inside a singe character's mind, use italics; if the words are communicated, use quotation marks. No exceptions, not even for telepathy. The reader will never be confused if you write the surrounding text correctly.

8. In the age of spell-checkers and online dictionaries, there is no excuse for incorekt spelig. Por spelig can roon a poynt fastr then enny uthr missteak yul evur maek, unles yur poynt is abut por spelig. If yu dunt no how to spel a wrd, luk it up. Peeryud.

7. You can control pace without wasting adverbs and adjectives: Pace is controlled by choice of sentence, not choice of words. If you spend a dozen sentences carefully detailing an immaculately-kept lawn in front of a house the protagonist is about to enter, that radically alters the pace compared to spending one sentence or even just calling it "an immaculately-kept lawn." Stephen King is absolutely right about this: Don't add in any adverb that isn't required for the sentence to have meaning.

6. I've seen that done, and it's usually tacky, gaudy, or simply incomprehensible. If you must name a character whose name is unpronounceable, have your characters mentally assign a name to him and use that: Start with "The tall green alien said" and "The short red alien said" and you can soon jump to "Green said" and "Red said." No unpronounceable symbols are necessary. The-now-known-as-Prince-artist-who-was-formerly-not-known-as-Prince had as a name an unpronounceable symbol, and every newspaper, magazine article, and web page continued to refer to him via a pronounceable phrase instead: "The artist formerly known as Prince." Human beings don't grok symbols, so don't use them if you can avoid doing so.

5. A good writer can, but you shouldn't forget Sturgeon's Law, spoken about the act of writing itself: 95% of everything is crap. If you aren't damn sure that your writing will cross that threshold of 95% crappiness, stick to subject matters you know will at least have a chance of reaching that top 5%: Otherwise, your readers are likely to just say "nice try" and move onto something else.

4. Actually, according to U.S. copyright law, fanfiction is illegal, with or without profit, but few copyright holders want to prosecute dirt-poor students, who, by and large, are the authors of it. But more than that, fanfiction and character-borrowing are usually crutches used by poor writers to cover for a lack of imagination: Try telling your own story and you'll often find you can create characters just as unique as those you've stolen.

3. I've never yet seen the use of multiple typefaces to be anything but a hideous distraction. When you paint a car, you paint it one color: Anything more than that looks terrible to everyone except the car's painter. Put your personality and creativity into the details of the words, the shape of the story, and you won't need font changes to spice up your writing.

Whether the medium is a newspaper column, a book, or a computer screen, the basic rules of good writing always apply: Keep it simple, make it interesting, and stick to standard English. Writing is like painting, and your words are your paint: You don't need to have 3-D effects and glue and glitter and gimmicks to produce the Mona Lisa, and you don't need weird fonts and quotation methods and stylings to produce Shakespeare.

Food for thought: Years from now, when that fanfiction you described has been long forgotten, English teachers will still be arguing over Romeo and Juliet, and that story uses the simplest of formatting, pronounceable names, and not a single unusual symbol. You don't need gimmicks to produce a masterpiece; you just need talent, skill, and lots and lots of practice.

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rwpikul In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-03 02:25:47 +0000 UTC]

9: Well, I have seen non-standard quotation that works: Both for use with telepathy, and in cases where it's simply the easiest, and best, way to keep multilingual conversations straight. Now, it shouldn't be used randomly, but there are cases where it does work.

6: Your method of avoiding unpronounceable is partly right, but it fails in cases where you have some characters who can, and do, pronounce the name. There is even a fairly standard way of dealing with this that avoids the confusion of some saying "Kkrreeahatltltl" and others saying "Bob": Using a nickname that derives from the unpronounceable one, in this case "K'reeh".

4: You're way out of date, the cases that block fanfic in the US both predate the overhaul of US copyright law that occurred when the US switched from UCC to Berne. For a fanfiction to violate copyright it would have to involve the use of characters or settings which themselves qualified for copyright. The test for a character or setting to be independently copyrighted is very strict, and to date no character has ever been found to pass the test.

Now, before you think of trotting out that [exp. del.] word "derivative", I must point something out: In copyright law, it does not mean the same thing as it common usage. Instead, it means "the same thing in a different form", a translation for example. The confusion the use of this word causes is why Canada dropped any use of it from the Copyright Act.

3: While I would agree that it most cases you should stick to one font for the body of the text, there are some cases where it is of use. By far the two most common are either to solve the same language confusion issue that I mentioned above, or to highlight special differences with certain characters, such as how Terry Pratchett does with the speech of golems.

Shakespeare is also a bad example on this point, because his plays are not meant to be read by the audience, but rather watched with the text only there to tell the actors what to do. Most of his plays also do not make good reads, but that isn't a problem because: They are plays, not books.

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phantom-inker In reply to rwpikul [2007-12-03 06:36:27 +0000 UTC]

9. I've seen non-standard quotation, and as I said before, I've never seen a single instance where it was warranted or even desirable. When in doubt, you're best off avoiding it.

6. Apostrophes in a name are often confused with a glottal stop when the author intends them to represent a contraction: And as such, they're best avoided. In your example, "Kreeh" might be an acceptable derivation, but seeing a name like "K'reeh" usually (99% of the time) just indicates an inexperienced writer penned it.

4. I'm very up-to-date on copyright law; I have to study it carefully as part of my job, and read an average of about one article on it per day. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 allows for Fair Use, but (A) Fair Use has been heavily eroded by the court system since then and (B) the laws defining Fair Use did not specifically cover fan fiction --- in fact, certain portions of said law could be readily construed as to directly prohibit fan fiction. Fair Use relates to commentary and quotation; whereas fan fiction can be easily proven to be a derivative work --- which under U.S. law covers far more than simply translations and minor variants as you claim: Under U.S. law, a derivative work is any work using a "substantial portion" of the original work --- and that "substantial portion" has been defined by the courts to be a relatively small percentage of the original, less than 10 seconds of music, less than 3 seconds of video, and around less than half a printed page of text. The DMCA (1996) limits Fair Use even further. Fanfiction, for the most part, operates in a grey area of the law that has not been tested by the courts, and that, while likely to be technically illegal, doesn't usually get sued over due to the limited value of the suits to the copyright holders.

3. Then compare Charles Dickens, or Mark Twain --- or Kipling, or Poe, or Stevenson or Carroll or Lewis or Hemingway or pretty much any other respected, published author prior to about 1960 --- and count the fonts per book: You'll find it's a short list. Heck, even among authors after 1960, when the typesetting became cheaper and easier with every passing decade, you'll have a hard time finding books that do this, simply because it's bad literary form. Switching fonts is as jarring to the reader as suddenly switching to all capital letters, and should never be done if avoidable, even if it would seem to the author to be useful. You can always reap greater benefit from improving your words than from improving your fonts.

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rwpikul In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-04 06:07:54 +0000 UTC]

9: You're trying to prove non-existence of possible matter: That you have not encountered the cases where non standard quoting is desired does not actually speak to the non-existance of such cases.

The best example of when non-standard quotation is useful is when you have characters switching back and forth between multiple languages.

6: Actually, that was a click, (which is a fully human pronounceable phoneme), but you're spending all of your time harping on the specific example rather than addressing the point.

4: You've missed the point: Characters and setting are not in and of themselves part of the work, as they are actually ideas, it is the portrayal of those elements that is part of the work. Protection of things like characters is properly done through trademark, not copyright.[1]

Oh, and check the example list used in the definition for "derivative" in US copyright law: Every example is based on directly modifying the original work, not on taking some of the same elements for use in a new work.

There is a reason why both Disney and Time-Warner have admitted that they would flat out lose a fanfic/fanart lawsuit.

3: Often the very point of a font switch, (or going all-caps), is to be jarring. To say "this thing is weird", or "something just suddenly changed."

You seem to also be under the misapprehension that I am saying that things like font switches and/or odd quotation should be commonly used. I'm not, I'm only pointing out that your never is much like many of the rules found in Strunk and White: If you follow them you will never be wrong, but there is much which violates those rules while still being right.


[1] Which ends up meaning that characters from Japanese sources have no protection at all. This is because, like most of the world, Japan does not grant character copyright and Japan also severely restricts what qualifies for trademark.

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phantom-inker In reply to rwpikul [2007-12-04 14:28:48 +0000 UTC]

9. No, but I'm extremely widely read, and if I can't find a valid example in such a large sample set, it's highly unlikely that a valid example exists. Not impossible, mind you, but until you can demonstrate evidence to the contrary, the Theory of Alternate Quotation remains solid.
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6. Which demonstrates once again that odd variant spellings should not be used due to reader confusion: While you perceive ' as a click, that's a rare interpretation usually reserved for transcribed African languages; it is more commonly used as a glottal stop throughout most of Asia and the native American languages, and more commonly used yet as a contraction. You just proved my point: Stick to pronounceable names lest you alienate your readers.
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4. I've never seen this "example list," so I'm not sure to what you're referring. The courts have interpreted the law very broadly, based on the following two sections of it:

"A 'derivative work' is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a 'derivative work'."

"§ 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work."

Notice the key word fictionalization in the definition of "derivative work" --- this word specifically covers works of adapted characters such as fan fiction --- this word is even part of the word "fan fiction."

The major copyright holders would lose a fanfic/fanart lawsuit not due to the limitations of the law, but because they'd have a hard time finding a sympathetic jury, and just because the law is presently on their side doesn't mean jury nullification wouldn't come into play. Even if jury nullification weren't relevant, they'd likely win in the courtroom but lose in the court of public opinion, which is far more important to them if they want to keep selling movies and music.

I just quoted the U.S. Copyright Law itself, dictionaries, and encyclopedias to support my position. Show your evidence before you argue this any further.
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3. Yes, if your objective is to produce a jarring effect, then it may be a valid use --- but it should be limited to just that effect. However, most instances of this are written over pages and pages and pages by inexperienced authors who just think "It's cool!" and that is why I added this rule: I've even seen horrible circumstances where there was a different font on each line of the text, not because it had any special meaning to the story or to the author, but just because the author thought it was fun to do it. You have to learn the rules and know the rules before you can ever hope to know when to break them. When the Web was introduced back in the early-mid '90s, we all became typesetters overnight, and you can still readily find pages out there with 97,000 fonts on them and pale purple text on a neon green background.
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Rules are made to be broken, each of the rules I listed included. But unless you're damn good and know precisely what you're doing, you should follow the rules. There are plenty of artists who broke all the rules and got away with it --- your Picassos, your Eschers --- but unless you have enough genius to guarantee your work will be a masterpiece no matter which rules you break, you should stick to the rules, because they're there to help you, not hinder you.

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rwpikul In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-05 05:32:20 +0000 UTC]

9: You want an example? Try just about any use of telepathy in science fiction. (All the main SF publishers largely use the same conventions for this sort of thing.)

6: That you continue to harp on the example rather than addressing the point implies that you have no response to the point.

4: To be a fictionalization in this context it would be the same story, not a new one. When you write an original story that uses fictionalized

BTW: Don't claim to have not seen a list, and then quote it in the very next paragraph.


Disney and Time-Warner made those admissions in the context of things where jury nullification would tend to favour them, because they could play the "disgust the jury" card, (i.e. pornographic fan works).

3: I fully admit that there has been a lot of overuse of "font play", note that I never defended that sort of thing.


It hardly takes the heights of genus to be able to usefully break those rules. My comparison to Strunk and White stands, good as advice or a baseline reference, but failing when taken as a set of prescriptive rules.

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phantom-inker In reply to rwpikul [2007-12-05 15:26:56 +0000 UTC]

9. Funny, I have five shelves of science fiction books beside me and haven't seen any examples other than italics and quotation marks among them. Would you care to suggest an author, because a cursory glance suggests that neither Asimov nor Clarke nor Heinlein nor Bradbury have followed anything you described.

Heck, I haven't even seen that in Piers Anthony, and he's used every gimmick he could get his hands on.
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6. Your supposed "general rule" is that if you can create a character who can pronounce the name, then it's perfectly acceptable. Fine, then, consider this exchange:

"How are you today, (@*%&$#?" asked @%*&, waving his %&@* in the air.
"Doing fine, @%*&," replied (@*%&$#. "The wife's well too."
@%*& nodded. "Good to hear. And little !!*@&?"
(@*%&$# geflurgled. "Doing as well as you'd expect any flzbrgt to do."

This reads like line noise, and it's largely because of those names. (And yes, I've seen bad fanfiction that includes garbage like this --- only far worse.) Every time the reader sees the name, it stops him, drags him out of the scene, and forces him to think, "What the crap?" Maybe that's your intended effect, but if you keep it up, a few pages later, you can reasonably expect to have your reader put the book down in frustration. It's not a question of whether you can legally do something --- as the author, you can do anything you damn well please --- it's a question of whether anybody will read it if you do it. Here's the same scene with the names changed only so slightly:

"How are you today, Green?" asked the red-skinned alien, waving his upper-left tentacle in the air.
"Doing fine, Red," replied Green. "The wife's well too."
Red nodded. "Good to hear. And the little one?"
Green made a gurgling noise in laughter. "Doing as well as you'd expect any youth to do."

There's no alien words there, just standard English, and it reads infinitely more smoothly than the first. Not only that, it provides slightly more detail than the first because it forced the author to describe the characters enough to identify them rather than just assigning them random names.
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4. I quoted the law itself, which contains a generalized definition, not the specific examples you requested.

You still haven't refuted the text of the law, though.
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You're welcome to break the rules all you want, as I said before --- you just shouldn't expect anyone to read your writing if you do. Those rules, Strunk and White included, exist to help you --- not hinder you --- in producing a work that is eminently readable. Deviation from the rules can be occasionally beneficial in proving a specific point, but every instance will jar your readers, and if you jar them enough, they'll get frustrated and stop reading.

Most drivers prefer their roads perfectly smooth; and while a short rumble strip may be beneficial in rare circumstances, a bumpy road is always avoided.

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rwpikul In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-06 04:31:42 +0000 UTC]

9: Funny, I haven't seen any current publisher _not_ use it. I see it's use with telepathy constantly.

6: No, that's not what I said. Frankly, you're committing an either-or fallacy here.

4: The law itself _includes_ examples of what qualifies as a derivative work, and you even quoted it. As for refutation, I only have to refute your misunderstanding of it.


To take your analogy, you aren't insisting on just a smooth road, but rather a fresh-paved highway with gentle curves.

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phantom-inker In reply to rwpikul [2007-12-06 19:16:37 +0000 UTC]

Look, I've argued these points with you enough. I've cited numerous examples, the law, and case law to support my positions. Your positions have, near as I can tell, all boiled down to, "No, you're wrong," without any supporting evidence or reasoning, just saying, "Well, I've seen it."

If you require any further explanation on grammatical use, I refer you to The Elements of Style, The Chicago Manual of Style, and even Stephen King's quasi-autobiography On Writing for further reference. I also recommend the Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, which covers a number of common grammatical gaffes, including your misuse of "its" in the preceding posting.

As regards copyright law, I didn't get to be the copyright expert in my company by accident. It's part of my job to know what is and is not copyrightable and to make sure that we have made all sufficient provisions to protect our works and to avoid violating others' copyrights: I deal with American copyright law every day. Unfortunately, copyright expertise is a necessary part of being in the software industry nowadays.

As I believe I have made my points abundantly clear by now, I consider this matter closed, and any further responses to this post on your part will be marked "hidden" and ignored.

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RyuTheWeredragon In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-03 00:23:58 +0000 UTC]

And yet, take King Arthur for example. He had MANY MANY writers. Many of his well known legends were written AFTER the original Author had died. Fanfiction has been around since before the written medium existed.

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phantom-inker In reply to RyuTheWeredragon [2007-12-03 06:59:13 +0000 UTC]

I'm not saying that all fanfiction is inherently evil: It can hold value in teaching aspiring writers to spread their literary wings by giving them a pre-fab framework of characters and settings in which to explore their own ideas and learn the writer's craft. But typical fanfiction, wherein young writers minimally expand on a framework of numerous prior popular stories, is rarely worth even publishing, much less being called Pulitzer-Prize-winning prose; Sturgeon's Law applies doubly here. For most good writers, it should be a phase, and nothing more. Use your imagination and design your own worlds and characters and find your own boundaries, because that's the only way to know what you'll truly ever be capable of.

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alexwarlorn In reply to phantom-inker [2007-12-02 23:53:30 +0000 UTC]

It appears we are simply going to have to agree, to disagree.

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phantom-inker In reply to alexwarlorn [2007-12-03 07:01:56 +0000 UTC]

Perhaps.

Would now be a bad time to point out the grammar error in your last sentence?

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alexwarlorn In reply to phantom-inker [2008-02-11 11:19:34 +0000 UTC]

Yes it would. And remember, in the world of writing, rules ultimately change on what is and what is not proper.

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phantom-inker In reply to CheetahTri [2007-04-20 14:20:36 +0000 UTC]

One would hope, yes. But I've seen so many documents written where the author could barely spell their own name, much less handle concepts like "past participle," that I felt this deviation was necessary. If even one person learns from this, it will have been worth the effort.

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phantom-inker In reply to Regreme [2007-03-28 14:46:02 +0000 UTC]

It's true that keeping characters properly in character can be difficult at times, especially for an inexperienced writer; but as bad as that error is, I still think these errors are worse: An uncharacteristic character spoils a moment, and the reader may be able to use suspension of disbelief to bypass it; while spelling errors and blatantly egregious stupidity can spoil the entire story, causing the reader to put it down and apply a blowtorch to it.

So I wrote up this poster in hopes that at least a [i]few[/i] of the most wretched mistakes wouldn't scroll across my screen again. I know they will, of course: Bad writers are notorious for ignoring aids such as this. But hope springs eternal, and if even [i]one[/i] writer learns something from this, it will have been worth the effort to have created it.

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Regreme In reply to phantom-inker [2007-03-28 15:15:23 +0000 UTC]

Too true. I know of one that seems to follow these guidelines quite well. He's my favorite author on [link] I've never seen a greater writer, even when considering actually published books, though that's my own opinion. His screen name is S'TarKan. He's one of the few that seems to follow these guidelines to a T.

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