Bad Cover Art: Ender’s Game, Battle School

I actually cried upon seeing this.  Apparently, Orson Scott Card has licensed the rights to Marvel Comics to make a comic book adaptation of Ender’s Game, which is one of the greatest books ever.  The above is the cover art.  Please God, don’t let it be so.

Write That Caption!

Bad Cover Art: Witchblade, First Born

Her forearm turns into a baby.  That’s why she’s a witch, and why you can never hope to aspire to such a level.

Latin Quote of the Week: July 2, 2009

Qui dedit benificium taceat; narret qui accepit – Let him who has done a good deed be silent; let him who has received it tell it.

- Seneca

Which Is Easier: Reading or Writing?

Sometimes, Writing is Easier

The Baltimore Sun has an interesting guest blog post that I think is a worthwhile read.  It offers a creative, and innovative take of the relationship between the reader and the writer.  If you have time, click here to read it.

Basically, Lackey – the writer of the piece – compares the relationship of reader and writer to that of dancing.  When you’re dancing, you have a lead and a follow.  Both people are integral, and the dancing won’t work if one person messes up.  Similarly, if the reader and writer don’t sync, then the text is useless.

It’s an interesting comparison, and I like it.  Yet as for the premise of the question – is reading or writing easier? – I actually don’t know.  Reading well can be a hard skill to develop, just as writing well is a hard skill.  Since we often place the emphasis on the latter, it may very well be that reading is indeed harder.

Personally, I think writing is easier.  Writing YWS (as in the code and design behind it) is much easier than reading books like Ulysses.  In one, I know exactly what I’m doing, where I’m going, and how to get there.  But with the other, I have to stop to consider the text and let the words play around in my mind.  Plus, as Lackey notes, when you’re tired, it’s always easier to write.  I’m often writing (or coding as the case may be) at 3 am in the morning, but it would be a struggle to read at that time of night.

So it’s an interesting question.  Your thoughts?

Bad Cover Art: The Gathering Storm

I know there are a lot of Robert Jordan fans out there, but this cover is abhorrent.  Of course, the guy could just be constipated.

Quote of the Week: July 1, 2009

“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

- C.S. Lewis

Writing Gooder: Clarity Through Format

Many a good writer has been ruined by reading James Joyce.  All of a sudden, the lack of punctuation and rambling sentence structure seems to become not only artistic, but desirable.

James Joyce is one of my favorite authors, but one of the many things I recognize is that I am not James Joyce.  Stuff he could get away with is stuff I could never get away with, and for good reason.  Once you begin to mess with the rules of grammar, the reader becomes disoriented and confused.  This is bad.  However, most grammar benders are not intentional, and that’s the focus of this article.

Obtaining clarity through format is often overlooked.  For some reason, we tend to forget that paragraphs, punctuation, and other devices are meant to make the text more comprehensible to readers.  Arguably, this movement to aid comprehension began with Julius Caesar.  In his time, there was no punctuation, including spaces.  Insteadtextranlikethiswiththereaderhavingtoguesswhereonewordendedandthenextbegan.  Caesar recognized the problems this entailed, and solved it by placing a dot under the first letter of each word.

Today, we are fortunate to have an incredibly well-developed system of grammar.  This system has been developed not only to aid the reader, but also to aid the writer in conveying their thoughts.  So what is the biggest mistake?

The Run-On Paragraph. In school, many of us learn the five paragraph essay method: one introduction paragraph, three body, and one concluding.  For most, this is their first introduction to real writing, and some never come to understand that the five paragraph method is simply a way to teach you how to develop ideas.

Breaking up paragraphs not only allows you to easily separate ideas, but it also presents a less imposing text to the reader.  Simply put, one page of text with no paragraphs will be less appealing to read than a book where the writer uses paragraphs.  So do yourself a favor and avoid the run-on paragraph.

Bad Cover Art: Demon Wind

I think he’s trying to say “This Much.”

hat-tip to wisemann210

Web Sites: JulNoWriMo

Probably a bit late to be telling you, but JulNoWriMo starts in July. As in, tomorrow.

It’s exactly the same as NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month), only it’s in July instead of November. As usual, the aim is to write a 50,000+ word novel in only a single month. You can find the official site here.

I intend to join in – I really need to get the first draft of the Greatest Book Ever Written finished, and this is the perfect opportunity.

Anyone joining me?

[A hat tip to canislupis for posting about it on the forum.]

[Oh, and no, I didn't make that awsome Dragon Ball picture. Nabbed it from ICanHasCheezburger.com, which is another great site you should check out.]