The Tattered Scribe

Six Questions with Sara Paretsky

This photo was taken in the vault at Cartier's Jewelers in Bond Street, London, with the Diamond Dagger Sara Paretsky was awarded by the British Crime Writers Association for Lifetime Achievement as a writer.

Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world with her fictional detective, V I Warshawski, a woman who helps the helpless and takes responsibility for her own life, while patrolling the mean streets of Chicago . In addition to her fifteen best-selling novels, Paretsky has edited three short story collections and written the memoir Writing in an Age of Silence.  

Paretsky’s deep-rooted concern for social justice, the hallmark of her fiction has carried her voice beyond the world of crime fiction. As a frequent contributor to the New York Times and The Guardian, and a speaker at such places as the Library of Congress and Oxford University, she is an impassioned advocate for those on society’s margins.

The Tattered Scribe: I've seen Sara Paretsky's books litter my household as my mom was an avid fan. Imagine the excitement I had when I got the opportunity to interview her! I'm going to have to make sure mom gets a link to this one. ;) Enjoy!

1. What sort of difficulties would you say you come across the most in the writing and publishing world?

Two things happened to publishing at the same time in the eighties and nineties that have made life much harder for writers: the number of publishers shrank, and the big chains and the price clubs became the predominant means of selling books.

Know Who the Poet-Laureate Is?

This isn't a question you'd be asked often, and most people probably don't even know the position exists. The poet laureate is appointed to a government position and becomes the most prestigious poet in the nation. Several countries have poets laureate including the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the UK, where the tradition began as early as the seventeenth century.

Here are the current poets laureate for a few countries:

• United States: Kay Ryan
• UK: Andrew Motion
• Canada: John Steffler

Six Questions with Kristen King

Kristen is a member of the Board of Directors of American Independent Writers and the Editorial Board of the journal Science Editor. In her spare time, Kristen enjoys spending time with her husband and their three dogs and three cats. She also authors a blog on freelance writing and communications, a pet blog, and a women’s general interest blog.

The Tattered Scribe: I came across Kristen's blog Inkthinker while doing some research on freelance writing. She's got some wonderful advice over there for beginners trying to get into the freelance writing field as well as for veterans who want to keep up with the curve. I asked her to answer a few questions aimed at students and other beginners and she was happy to offer her wisdom.

1. For college students who are interested in freelance writing, what would you suggest they focus their studies on or what skills might they want to hone?

KK: I was an English major and I think it served me well, but I regret not taking any business classes because I believe it would have helped me with the basic structure and day-to-day operation of my business. I think it also benefited me greatly to work on my college paper and to take journalism internships, one with a magazine and one with a newspaper.

A Quick Question on the Rhetorical Question

A classmate of mine recently asked me what a rhetorical question really was.

I’ve often heard students or sometimes teachers proclaim that the definition of a rhetorical question is one that doesn’t need an answer. That’s somewhat of a mischaracterization of its intention; after all, the question is most often meant to be answered, just not directly. It might be better to say that a rhetorical question is one that doesn’t need to be responded to as the answer is quite obvious or implied.

For example, when a political candidate might say: Are we going to sit around and let these criminals roam free?

The obvious answer is NO! Most members in the audience will likely understand that they don’t need to verbally respond, though that might happen on the stump. Yet this question certainly has what you might consider an answer, one that the speaker wanted to affirm by asking it in such an apparent way.

Image credit

When English Fails Us: Gender-Neutral Pronouns

But how could our lovely language fail us? It's impossible!

*Ahem* Look at the following sentence:

A teacher who wants to become a writer should focus on _____ students first.

You've likely had this problem before: what word should be used in the blank? Some people will tell you "his" will work as a generic for all; others might suggest "s/he" or equally clunky variants. In all the years that professionals have had to come up with a consensus on this issue, what we've seen is only more confusion. World Wide Words has a nice list of the many possibilities that can be implemented when you're stuck in this rut.

Yet, like most professional writers and editors will tell you, there is no definitive answer, so whatever you use may be subject to scrutiny.  

Here's the basic ideas of the list and the ramifications:

• Use "he", "his" (the politically correct world will stab you)
• Use "he/she" or "s/he" or "(s)he", etc. (anyone who hates reading these pests will stab you)
• Use "they", "their" in the singular (hard-line grammarians will stab you)
• Use a made-up pronoun (everyone will think you're crazy, more on this later)
• Use "she", "her" (this one may be a smart move, but how is it any less sexist than "he"?)
• Make it so you don't need a pronoun (that would be SO annoying to have to rewrite)
• Repeat the subject so there is no pronoun (that would be SO annoying to have to read)
• Use the plural (hmm, this one works well, but again, it forces you to rewrite, and there are instances in which this won't always work)

All right, so some of these might work if you're willing to put in the time to rephrase everything you write just so you can use (or avoid using) a tiny little pronoun. Some have argued that we already have a great alternative in "they" and "their" and that history has not always looked unkindly on using them in this way. In fact, many of us use it in our daily speech:

I don't trust a politician who won't vote their convictions.

There have also been several attempts to create a new pronoun that would be gender-neutral (sometimes also referred to as "epicene"). Imagine using "tey" and "tem" or "shem" and "herm". No wonder these haven't caught on. I can't see anyone saying:

I feel sorry for any child who has to throw away herm old toys.

So have I convinced you that English has failed us in this instance? It's a wonderful language with an ever-expanding vocabulary and diversity. But beware: its trance-like appeal tends to hide the uglier parts. And when you find them, you wonder how something like this could go so long without solving. I suppose too many grammarians spoil the stew.

He Did What!? -- Advice for Dialogue Tags

 He said. She said.

It’s that simple.

Creative writers often have trouble deciding what to do when they are forced to write dialogue tags. Many novice writers tend to opt for flowery tags such as “shrieked” or “exclaimed”. Yet many professional writers will tell you to stick to the word “said”. I’ve come across many wannabe writers who counter by saying, “But ‘said’ is sooo boring!”

Well, perhaps it is boring, but boring is better than attracting unwanted attention. “Said” doesn’t distract the reader like most other tags do. Certainly some things are meant to be “shouted” or others “asked". These simple tags can be used sparingly without too much distraction. But if your favorite character were to “blather” or “bark” or even “blubber” within your dialogue, you may find your readers rolling their eyes.

Let’s see an example:

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Darth Vader said, his fist clenched.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Darth Vader pronounced, his fist clenched.

In this case, there is no need to use any other word, especially since we have the descriptive phrase “his fist clenched”. The word “pronounced”, which might seem appropriate as how Vader actually said his line, is not appropriate for the sentence. Not only does it disturb the sentence’s flow, it’s a word used infrequently enough to give the reader pause.

Six Questions with Greta Sproul

A native of Bangor, Maine, Greta attended the University of Maine at Orono, from which she graduated with a BA in English. After college, she worked as a freelance reporter and writer for a number of newspapers and magazines, wrote two Young Adult mystery novels with collaborator Jack Raymond. In 2004, she graduated from the New England School of Communications with an associate degree in radio broadcasting, after which she worked for a year as a radio copywriter and voice-over actor. She has been the editor of the Penobscot Times since April of 2006.

The Tattered Scribe: I've known Greta for a short while now as we both were editors at trivia website. Since she's also the editor of a small paper, I asked her if she would share some of her expertise in that area. She has lots of class and agreed to respond to a few questions.

1.    As an editor of a paper, how would you describe your day-to-day schedule?

GS: Well, as you can imagine, it’s quite hectic. There is always an overlap from the day before, and you’re always thinking about loose ends that need to be tied up. I’m usually up by five, I watch the news, take my son to school and hit my office…there is always a stack of calls waiting, and usually an appointment or two to keep. I usually write ALL the stories for the paper, which is a weekly, but sometimes I have a college kid working for me, and so I spend a lot of time chasing down information and quotes and details. I check in with the cops at least once a week and meet with the sports writer and publisher to update everyone’s trajectory for the week. Sometimes I have to go to a meeting at night, but I do everything in my power to avoid this because I have a life and my own writing to do.

All Hail the Dreamers

by Kristin Otts

English majors are, by definition, hopeless romantics. It takes a special kind of delusion to drive students to spend four years reading and writing in hopes that they will some day be award-winning authors or journalists. It takes an extra-special delusion to drive students to be award-winning teachers who school ungrateful kids on the rules of grammar. We are dreamers and we are masochists; we are incorrigible, irrepressible and eternally optimistic.

But why?

Why do we torture ourselves like this when the world continually tells us there is more money in computers, in business, in accounting? Why do we insist on uncertain lives making a career out of the written word? Why do we spend hours writing and reading things that the rest of humanity deems out-of-date or unimportant?

Honestly, I have no idea.

I've been torturing myself for years with the idea of being a writer and a teacher. According to the statistics, I don't have a chance. Neither career offers great job security; on the contrary, there is a good chance that I will die flat broke. I may never get a book published; I may never change a student's life; I may never interview a musician or an artist and write a fabulous story about them. And if I do accomplish any of these feats, those statistics say I will probably make less than crap.

Guess what? I don't care. And if you are an English major chasing after these dreams, you probably don't care either.

Perhaps there is something wrong with us. Maybe in the past we underwent genetic experiments that obliterated our sense of logic. Or maybe we were born without the normal human drive to make money and live a comfortable life. Or maybe we're not even human.

But whatever kind of alien or animalistic DNA gives us the drive to be English majors, I cannot - will not - believe that it will be detrimental to me. I cannot accept that wanting to change the world with words is a stupid aspiration. Because the joy of chasing my dreams is worth the torture.

Power to the masochists!

Kristin Otts is an English major at Colorado State University.

Hamlet for the Shakespeare-Impaired

One thing that tends to confound many students is coming up against Shakespeare. He’s often known to be the golden standard of drama, but the language gap is intimidating, to be sure. Katie Sullivan has a site that helps students close that gap by giving them a modern day, plain English translation of Hamlet. Here’s a short example:

From Hamlet, Act II:

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO

LORD POLONIUS
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO
I will, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behavior.
REYNALDO
My lord, I did intend it.
LORD POLONIUS
Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it:
Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
And in part him: ' do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO
Ay, very well, my lord.

From Sullivanet, same scene (click below):

Why I am an English Major

by Colleen Umnus

Choosing a major is sort of like picking which way to kill yourself: I mean, lethal injection might sound the least painful, but if you’re going to go, why not use a gun and go out with a bang?  Painful commentary aside, choosing a major is possibly one of the most difficult things you will do while in college.  At least, it was for me.  Our generation is cursed and blessed with more opportunities and privileges than we could ask for.  Sometimes it is this endless buffet of choices that prevents us from making one.

When I first began my educational career at UW-L I decided I was going to be a Spanish major, with a minor yet to be decided.  I have been taking Spanish classes since I was a freshman in high school and decided that I would finally make use of this skill.  There were endless daydreams of studying abroad, marrying some caliente Spanish man who could cook, salsa dance, and balance a checkbook.

Then I realized that one semester of studying abroad would basically cost me more than the rest of my college education at UW-L.  Being from a low middle class family and paying for most of my schooling myself via working, I decided to abandon that goal lest I meet this rich Spanish man here in La Crosse.

After careful consideration, I chose to be an English major.  Now everyone I tell asks if I am going to be a teacher.  Sigh.

Now I am one semester away from graduating, and still am not sure exactly what I would like to do with the rest of my life.  I have always loved reading and writing, so choosing to be an English major became the next best thing to my Spanish fantasy.  My only regret is that I did not make my choice early on to partake in an internship: every professional job I have applied for is asking why I did not do more internships.  My answer to that is the same as my answer to myself: if I would have known what I wanted to do, of course I could have planned it better!

Colleen Umnus is a student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.