tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post3228941236900031206..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Saturday Morning Musings - the challenge of writing good historyJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-74056003786685385152009-05-18T05:24:00.000+10:002009-05-18T05:24:00.000+10:00I find editing less fun than you do, I suspect, Ka...I find editing less fun than you do, I suspect, Kanani. There comes a point where I just want to move on. The rewrite job sounds interesting.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-8003879593484138902009-05-18T03:37:00.000+10:002009-05-18T03:37:00.000+10:00Jim, I read almost all my work aloud. It's the onl...Jim, I read almost all my work aloud. It's the only way. I have a 500 page manuscript I'm working my way back through, and I've read every paragraph aloud. I think I'm driving my children crazy.<br /><br />For me, editing is a wonderfully fun. Changing the words around, compressing sentences, searching for clarity --all time consuming but rewarding. <br /><br />I have a rewrite job coming up from an author in NYC. I suspect I'll spend most of July in her apartment in Manhattan just sorting. The rewrite won't come until September.<br /><br />But I have to say, 100,000 words would REALLY make me take a lot of deep breaths.Kananihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317494343177263398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-28968477616217476872009-05-17T12:24:00.000+10:002009-05-17T12:24:00.000+10:00Hi Lexcen. I think that an editor is a good idea. ...Hi Lexcen. I think that an editor is a good idea. As a family, we have been talking about this for Clare (youngest). She now has two completed books!Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-60756388893788252952009-05-17T10:57:00.000+10:002009-05-17T10:57:00.000+10:00Hi Jim, sounds to me like you could benefit with a...Hi Jim, sounds to me like you could benefit with an editor. That's not a criticism btw. Many great writers have benefited from the assistance of an editor. <br />I find your desire to write history that is both academic and popular (entertaining?) a difficult but not impossible task.<br />I think my favorite example would be Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore.Lexcenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17856993035719777231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-14893782723941874022009-05-16T18:34:00.000+10:002009-05-16T18:34:00.000+10:00I think that's right, Kanani. It is like poetry.
...I think that's right, Kanani. It is like poetry.<br /><br />I write a lot of official style stuff. Even then, I like it to read well. But to write for myself is wonderful. Then I can experiment, compress.<br /><br />I wrote something for an official newsletter and the person critiquing commented that it was written as though it were meant to be spoken. She was right. I often read my writing aloud to hear how it sounds.<br /><br />History is especially fun to write because of the story element. If I am writing a manual or training course I am obviously much more constrained. Then I have to think not just about the words, but about page structures themselves.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-41121116532700095192009-05-16T17:04:00.000+10:002009-05-16T17:04:00.000+10:00I do see the strategy involved, and find your appr...I do see the strategy involved, and find your approach interesting.<br /> 650 words isn't a lot. The writing will have to be highly descriptive, factual, dense and keep the reader involved so they don't glance over it. <br />Now, this is what I find fun. It's like poetry.Kananihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317494343177263398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-1526647105569624242009-05-16T13:34:00.000+10:002009-05-16T13:34:00.000+10:00Hi Kanani. Glad you liked it. On what's in and wha...Hi Kanani. Glad you liked it. On what's in and what's out, I find that length is one discipline. <br /><br />Say you are going to limit yourself to 100,000 words but its a sprawling type of topic. Then when you do a rough break-up by section, you find that you have only so many words for a particular topic. You have to write down to the length you have. <br /><br />Take, as an example, the cedar cutters on the New England coast. The rough word limit I have set myself for colonial New England is 40,000 words. Again, quite a lot, something over 100 pages. However, those pages have to cover more than 100 years.<br /><br />I could easily write 10 pages or more on the cedar cutters. It's a fascinating story full of risk and law breaking on the edge and beyond of the moving frontier. A bit like the trappers in a US context. <br /><br />My feeling at the moment is that I am going to have to squeeze them down to perhaps 650 words.<br /><br />I am glad that you liked the lines, LE. I get an enormous sense of pleasure when I feel that I have got a key sentence or sentences right.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-19310876164087166772009-05-16T12:16:00.000+10:002009-05-16T12:16:00.000+10:00To the Aborigines, the present was an extension of...<I>To the Aborigines, the present was an extension of a living past. To the Europeans, the first stage to a still to be defined future.</I>Brilliant. That says it so well. I look forward to further excerpts.Legal Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01096038577529334966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-5890301349792977922009-05-16T10:19:00.000+10:002009-05-16T10:19:00.000+10:00Very thoughtful piece, Jim. I'm going to have to r...Very thoughtful piece, Jim. I'm going to have to reread this several times to take it all in.<br /><br />Different types of writing take much different approaches. Blogging, for instance, is (for me at least) all opinion pieces --or worse, the stuff just on the top of my brain. Fiction is more difficult because the story isn't even apparent to the writer when he or she starts. It reveals itself, and it's led through the characters. Non fiction, especially what you're writing, seems to me to be almost impossible in scope. What to put in, what to leave out --it's all how you want to sculpt the presentation, and what will lead the reader to make discoveries.<br /><br />A really, really great piece. I very much enjoyed it and I think I'll send it over to an editor who visits my blog who calls himself The Word Mechanic.Kananihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317494343177263398noreply@blogger.com