KITSCH GIFT
EVER
Category: Mild Lunacy
Story Hacks: Seventh in a Series
A limited word count is a great way to inspire creativity. But don’t let that turn you off to it! It also makes for an excellent back-cover hook.
First, pick an arbitrary number and cling to it with the focus of a brain-damaged pit bull. Second, write! Having trouble? Apply our patented methods to shave back your flow:
- Avoid topics you know anything about.
- Skip the beginning, end, and, preferably, the middle.
- Utilize compoundwords and contraction’s!
- Or just entirely!
Above all, don’t be too strict with yourself. Nobody’s going to fucking count them.
Today’s Hack in a Nutshell: Tdyshcknantshll!
Space Paris has robots with moustaches
Look why are you not reading The Fabian Society? If what we had in Space Paris meant anything you’d read The Fabian Society every day and even on days when he (Quintus) (or possibly Henry) doesn’t update you’d be all up in his archives reading the older stuff you missed. I know I already told you to read it back in 2006, but obviously you weren’t listening, and anyway since then he’s been developing the kind of effortless grace in prose that makes me stomp around in jealous anger. I am so angry that you are not reading The Goddamn Fabian Society! What! Yes! Don’t impose your human consistency on me! We already had this fight in Space Paris!
Start with Petra, Endless Frank, Fishbowls and Ptolemy I, and if you’re not hooked by the third one you’re doing it wrong.
Because obviously I’ve never ripped them off
I did that gag THREE YEARS AGO, THE ONION.
There is another thing some do to moustache and it costs, I am told, a nickel
Can you believe Sam Elliott’s IMDB photo shows him without a moustache? I mean, it doesn’t even look like him!
Ian and I typed almost simultaneously today that his only real job in Tombstone (which I finally saw, and did anyone else realize that Ben Foster was doing a Val Kilmer imitation throughout 3:10 to Yuma?) was to grow a moustache, which is also what he did in The Big Lebowski and (apparently) Ghost Rider. Looks like he’ll be reprising that role in The Golden Compass. You can’t argue with success.
I guess it’s like they say: some are born to moustache, some achieve moustache, and some have moustache thrust upon them.
I’m willing to bet that anyone who meets Sam Elliott quickly becomes the latter.
Half an hour later, via text message: Brendan: “Best phone conversation ever!” Ian: “lol.”
When Ian and I talk on the phone it is for express and efficient reasons, so we don’t really bother with greeting protocols. When I called Ian earlier this evening to determine the provenance of one of Yale’s expletives, I forgot that he wouldn’t have my new cell number, and I was already on edge in a feverish Halo match. Thus:
Ian: Hello?
Brendan: DO YOU SAY FUCK BEANS!
Ian: … Who is this?
Story Hacks: Sixth in a Series
Pronouns? More like don’t-nouns!
Sure, you can use pronouns if you have to, like if you’re addressing someone in the second person and don’t know what real name to use. But here’s an AlternaTip–just imagine up a real name for your audience! For example, I’m going to call you Laura. Isn’t that better, Laura? (I bet that somewhere somebody’s reading this who actually is named Laura and they think it’s so awesome. Laura: it totally is!)
The real “Pronoun Problem” is that they’re so short. Pronouns reduce not only page count, but often word count as well! Plus, if you (Laura) have more than one person of a given gender in a story, pronouns might refer to any of them, reducing the laser-like accuracy of Laura’s sentences. And such ambiguity can lead to worse things, like speculation, or interpretation! These serious flaws may even prevent consumers from properly receiving your (Laura’s) Vision.
FACT: The previous paragraph was 56% shorter before I took out all the pronouns. FACT!
Writing without pronouns (or “liprography”) may not come easily at first, Laura, but it can be done–with enough AccomPracticeMent. Here’s an example to get Laura started!
“As you know, Kevir, today is your wedding day and it is a very important day for all of Pseudio,” said Kevir’s Mom seriously.
“Yes, serious Mom,” said Kevir to Kevir’s Mom. “It’s because I’m marrying the Princess Launa, the most famed Princess in the Land, who loves Kevir’s Mom just as if you, Kevir’s Mommy, were Launa’s own Issues Mommy!”
“I do!!!!!” Princess Launa began saying to Kevir’s Mommy. “You, Kevir, and I, Launa, are almost like your Mommy’s son and daughter!”
“Which is as it should be,” said Kevir’s Serious Mommy. “After all, no woman can truly love you, Kevir, unless she, Launa, is family!”
“Kevin’s Mom is right,” exclaimed Kevir.
“All of us love each other, but not necessarily in any sexual manner!!!!!” said Kevin’s Serious Fucking Mommy Issues.
Today’s Hack in a Nutshell: Laura, seriously, give me a call because I have this screenplay and there might be a part for you.
I’m running the first (theoretically) paid ads ever on xorph.com, now. I don’t have any particular moral objection to ads; it just never seemed worth the trouble before. Until Clockers got boingboinged.
As Holly pointed out, I wrote 991 extremely short stories and she wrote 41 stories that interlock in a crossword, and yet the fanfic we did for a bad movie is what starts eating into our fifteen minutes. Internet is really weird.