Review Of Grammarly, Its Strength And Weaknesses

Have you ever tried Grammarly? I'd always wanted to but since Grammarly Inc. hasn't released a free-to-try version (at least, not that I know of) I haven't had the opportunity.

That's why, a couple of weeks ago when someone from Grammarly contacted me and asked if I'd like a temporary account, I jumped at the chance!

Having played around with the service more than I should--it's so easy to procrastinate doing actual writing--I'd like to discuss what I think are Grammarly's strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

Paper types

Grammarly can be set to various levels of sensitivity (Grammarly calls them 'paper types') depending on the kind of writing you would like to evaluate: General, Business, Academic, Technical, Creative and Casual.

For instance, when I used the Academic type to analyze text the program flagged contractions such as "isn't" as being in error, but when I used the Casual type it didn't. I thought that was a nice feature.

Plagiarism

Also, I found Grammarly remarkably capable when it came to finding parts of text that were taken from documents already on the internet. If you are a teacher and you want an easy way of checking papers for plagiarism, I would recommend you look into using this program.

Ease of use

In general, I found Grammarly remarkably easy to use. I was able to use the program to evaluate various kinds of text as well as check the text for plagiarism and, at the end, print out a concise, easy-to-read report, and all without having to Google anything to find out how to do it.

Weaknesses

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the perceived strengths and weaknesses of a program are dependent on the point of view of the reviewer. In other words, here's what I thought, but your mileage may vary.

Art isn't algorithmic

Writing, at its core, is art. Art that most of us are hoping will entertain others and that we'll be able to sell--one day. But writing, really great writing, often violates grammatical constraints. The writer knowingly, intentionally disregards various grammatical conventions because he, or she, wishes to produce a certain effect.

Stephen King, On Writing

For instance, here's a paragraph from Stephen King's book, On Writing:

And what about those critiques, by the way? How valuable are they? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. I love the feeling of Peter's story, someone may say. It had something . . . a sense of I don't know . . . there's a loving kind of you know . . . I can't exactly describe it . . .

Grammarly went into conniptions when I fed it this! (And, in case anyone's wondering, I set the paper type to 'casual'.) The program found 34 issues with this one paragraph and gave it a score of 39 out of 100.

Obviously, Mr. King's paragraph is perfectly fine.

Let's not stop there, though. Here are the paragraphs that immediately follow the one above (the text contains adult language):

Other writing-seminar gemmies include I felt like the tone thing was just kind of you know; The character of Polly seemed pretty much stereotypical; I loved the imagery because I could see what he was talking about more or less perfectly.

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemnly thoughtful. In too many cases the teachers and writers in residence are nodding, smiling, and looking solemnly thoughtful right along with them. It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.

Non-specific critiques won't help when you sit down to your second draft, and may hurt. Certainly none of the comments above touch on the language of your piece, or its narrative sense; these comments are just wind, offering no factual input at all.

Again, I wouldn't change a thing about the above paragraphs, but here's what Grammarly says:

- 1 mistake made when comparing two or more things.
- 2 mistakes made concerning punctuation within a sentence.
- 1 mistake with spelling.

4 issues were found yielding a score of 64 out of 100.

Here is a screenshot of the report Grammarly generated:

Chuck Wendig, Terribleminds

But let's not stop there. Chuck Wendig recently wrote yet another amazingly awesome blog post on the art and craft of writing. Chuck writes:

The power of withholding is key to telling a good story.

When describing something, withholding description allows for the audience to do work, to fill in the gaps, to bring something to the table and be a collaborator (at least in spirit) to the work. Further, by withholding description, you do not overwhelm with needless illustrative information. (Do we need to know what every lamp and sidetable and fingernail and skin tag look like? No we do not.) Pull back. Leave room. Do not overwhelm.

When creating characters, withholding aspects of that character (but teasing the existence of those aspects) gives us a sense of wanting to know more, more, more. A character with unrevealed secrets or stories interests us: we’re the kids at Christmas morning tearing through a pile of presents hoping to get to the big reveal at the end (a new bike! a BB gun! a Barbie dream home! a Turkish scimitar with which to behead thine enemies!).

I think these paragraphs are written beautifully, I wouldn't change a thing. Let's see if Grammarly agrees with me.

Grammary says that the above paragraphs contain:

- 1 mistake made when using articles, and how articles relate to nouns.
- 1 confusing modifier.
- 1 mistake concerning punctuation within a sentence.
- 2 spelling errors.
- 2 mistakes regarding capitalization.

In all, 7 issues were found and the text received a score of 65 out of 100. Here's a screenshot of the .pdf report generated:

Summary

I've provided the examples, above, so that you can draw your own conclusions. Whether grammarly is for you depends, by and large, on what kind of thing you write.

If I was writing an academic paper, I think I would find Grammarly a helpful tool. On the other hand ...

Well, let me put it this way. Chuck Wendig's writing sometimes seems like verbal jazz, his metaphors, the way he uses profanity and bizarre analogies to create an image in the reader's mind (often not entirely a pleasant one!).

Chuck Wendig's writing is fresh, often surprising and always interesting. I think the same is true for Stephen King. Programs like Grammarly have trouble with this kind of writing--the kind of writing many of us aspire to--but that's not surprising. There is no formula for art.

As I mentioned at the start, Grammarly isn't free. A monthly subscription will cost you $29.95 a month, but that goes down as low as $11.66 a month if you pay for a year in advance ($139.95 for the year).

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If money wasn't a factor, I would seriously consider subscribing to Grammarly. True, when I'm zinging creatively Grammarly will give me some flack, but it also can catch the few times I do something silly. Yes, of course I'm going to send my work off to a line editor/copy editor before I publish, but still. It's nice to send off copy that is as good as one can make it.

Other articles you might like:

- Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week Selling His Backlist
- How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder
- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three

Other articles about Grammarly:

- Grammarly, revisited (The Economist)
- Review: Grammarly app (Emphasis)

Photo credit: "8/52 - mr & mrs 85" by PhotKing ♛ under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week Selling His Backlist

Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week On His Backlist Titles

In Backlist Then And Now Joe Konrath writes:

These past two years have been interesting, because I really haven't had a new IP of my own.

Of the last six novels I've written, five have been collaborations, and one was sci-fi under a pen name. No new stand-alones, either under JA Konrath or Jack Kilborn, and no new solo novels in my series.

And yet I'm making $15k a week.

How Joe Did It

Joe attributes his financial health to a combination of the following:

- Getting his rights returned
- Free promotions
- Paid advertising

Whatever Joe has been doing, it's paid off big! And not just in dollars.

In the ten years I was legacy published, I made about $450k. In the four years I've self-published, I've made over 1.1 million dollars.

The higher royalty rate, the control I have, and the very little self-promo I've had to do while self-publishing means I've never been happier as an author.

I'm very lucky. I get to write for a living. And I get to do it on my terms.

As nice as the money is, the peace of mind is even better.

I encourage you all to read Joe Konrath's original article, he talks at length about the early years of his career as a writer and the events surrounding his decision to put his work up for sale on Amazon.

I'm curious, how many of you were, at least partly, inspired by Joe, his words or his example? I was.

Other articles you might like:

- How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder
- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction

Photo credit: "Week #6 "Leap" [6of52]" by Camera Eye Photography under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder

Elisabeth S. Craig, one of my favorite bloggers and authors, recently mentioned Katie Ganshert's post, The Secret To Writing Fast And Furious.

Katie Ganshert Used A Voice Recorder To Write Over 8,000 Words A Day

Just how fast are we talking? Katie writes:

Over the past three days, I wrote 25,000 words. By far the most I’ve ever written in so short a span.

While Katie mentions that several factors contributed to her burst of speed what she credits most is using a voice recorder. She writes:

When it comes to producing a massive output of words, this is my secret weapon.

Why?

Because I find the blank page incredibly intimidating. It is so hard for me to sit at the computer and create something out of nothing.

Walking on the treadmill and talking into a voice recorder, however, is easy-peasy.

So that’s how I started each day.

I spoke the scenes.

The beautiful thing about this method is that it completely silences the dreaded internal editor.

There’s no back space. There’s no flashing cursor. There’s no blank page. There’s no critical little man sitting on your shoulder, reading each sentence while tutting and shaking his head.

On a side note, Katie Ganshert's novel looks fantastic. Supernatural teens and Ouija boards, what's not to love?

Useing A Voice Recorder To Increase Your Daily Word Count

Elizabeth Craig, author of several mystery series, tried using dictation to increase her daily word count by speaking into a recorder when she couldn't be near a keyboard. Although Elizabeth didn't write 8,000 words a day she did add 1,000 words to her normal daily word count.

So what's Elizabeth's verdict? She writes:

I don’t use this method every day. But I’ve found that if I use it several times a week, it’s really pumped up my word count. Interestingly enough, I tend to make minor corrections (stronger verbs, better diction) when I type in the dictation…so I guess, in a way, I’m editing as I go when I use this method.

I use a free app that I downloaded on my phone. My phone is always with me (moms are the world’s emergency contacts), so I’ve always got my voice recorder with me. (Voice Recording as a Writing Tool)

I'm definitely going to try this. A friend gave me a recorder for Christmas last year, it's time I put it to good use!

Have you ever used a voice recorder, or voice recognition software, to write? Was it difficult to get used to speaking the words instead of writing them?

Other articles you might like:

- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three
- Writers Beware of Authariam
- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months

Photo credit: "Misty and Daisy" by Stewart Black under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three

9. The Reward

As I mentioned in Part 2 of Writing And The Monomyth, the basic structure of the monomyth is that of a quest. The hero wants something and he wants it so much he gives up his ordinary life and goes in search of it. Everything, all the trials and tribulations the hero and his companions endure, have led to this point: the reward. Christopher Vogler writes:

With the crisis of the Ordeal passed, heroes now experience the consequences of surviving death. With the dragon that dwelt in the Inmost Cave slain or vanquished, they seize the sword of victory and lay claim to their Reward. (Stage Nine: Reward)

This is a time for celebration, even if it only lasts for a moment. It is an important milestone. 

A note on pacing

When I first read The Writer's Journey it puzzled me that the hero gets his reward about 65% of the way through the second act. I had always thought the hero would get his reward after the climax which generally comes 90 to 99% of the way through the story. For example, Blake Snyder and Michael Hauge's systems are like this.

I'll have more to say about this in another post.

10. The Road Back

Christopher Vogler condenses five of Joseph Campbell's stages (Refusal of the Return, The Magic Flight, Rescue from Within, Crossing the Threshold and Return) into one: The Road Back.

For those keeping track of the act structure, this takes us from Act Two into Act Three. The hero returns from the special world of the adventure grasping the elixir of life.  Vogler writes:

Often heroes are motivated to hit The Road Back when the forces they have defied in the Ordeal now rally and strike back at them. If the elixir was stolen from the central forces rather than given freely, there may be dangerous repercussions.

Setbacks/Complications and higher stakes

The hero often suffers setbacks on the road home. Perhaps his mentor dies, or perhaps he has failed the ordeal, he may temporarily turn from his quest and need to talk to someone to get him back on track, just like what happened at the beginning when he received a call to adventure.

The hero often encounters tests again, but things have escalated. When the hero first came into the special world he was playing for much lower stakes, he was practicing, getting accustomed to his new surroundings, making friends and probably a few enemies. Yes, it was potentially lethal practise, but practise nevertheless.

The hero and his band are no longer playing war games, they're going to war. People that were the hero's enemy become his allies--perhaps his grouchy, unwilling allies, but allies nevertheless. People he thought were his friends betray him.

11. Resurrection

This is where the climax occurs. The hero goes head-to-head against the antagonistic force, whatever that is, and either wins or fails. Christopher Vogler writes:

At the simplest level, the Resurrection may just be a hero facing death one last time in an ordeal, battle, or showdown. It's often the final, decisive confrontation with the villain or Shadow.

But the difference between this and previous meetings with death is that the danger is usually on the broadest scale of the entire story. The threat is not just to the hero, but to the whole world. In other words, the stakes are at their highest.

Now the villain doesn't just threaten the hero's life and the life of his companions, now he threatens the lives of the hero's family back home, the lives of his entire tribe.

Major setback/Dark night of the soul/All is lost

Often, before the Climax, there will be an all is lost moment where the hero's grand plan for bringing down the villain unravels, his powers are ripped from him and he is plopped in a dark slimy pit of despair. But the hero will find a way out and there will be a showdown between him and the villain/antagonist. Whether the hero wins or loses is up to you and the kind of story you want to write.

12. Return With The Elixir

Christopher Vogler writes:

The most popular story design seems to be the circular or closed form, in which the narrative returns to its starting point. In this structure you might bring the hero literally full circle back to the location or world where she started. Perhaps the Return is circular in a visual or metaphoric way, with a replay of an initial image, or the repetition of a line of dialogue or situation from Act One. This is one way of tying up loose ends and making a story feel complete. The image or phases may have acquired a new meaning now that the hero has completed the journey.The original statement of the theme may be re-evaluated at the Return. Many musical compositions return to an initial theme to rephrase it at the ending.

Aftermath/Denouement

Show how the hero's life has been changed as well as the lives of his allies. For instance, in Erin Brockovich, at the end of the movie she has her own office and receives a huge, life changing, bonus for her work.

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There is SO much more that can be said about the stages of the monomyth, and I do plan to return to this soon. I'm working on an outline that incorporates the various systems (Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, Christopher Vogler, etc.) into one. Or at least that's the goal!

Do you use the monomyth to help structure your writing?

Other articles you might like:

- Writers Beware of Authariam
- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months
- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence

Photo credit: "She Was Completely Transparent With Me" by Randy Son Of Robert under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writers Beware of Authariam

Writers Beware Of Autharium

It seems like this is the time of year for scams targeting writers. Passive Guy, aka David Vandagriff, recently wrote a blog post warning writers against Autharium, "a new British site that makes it easy for indie authors to publish and distribute their work".

Passive Guy writes:

By distributing your book through Authariam, you are giving Authariam exclusive world-wide ebook rights to your book for the full term of the author’s copyright, which PG is informed is the author’s life plus 70 years under British copyright law. British law governs this contract.

You can remove your book from Authariam, but Authariam still owns world-wide rights.

Yikes!

The Digital Reader: Authariam Grabs ALL Rights Including Audiobook, Movies, ANY Digital Content

The Digital Reader picked up on the story soon after Passive Guy blogged about it and warned that, the way their contract was written,

Not only does Autharium demand an exclusive, their definition of digital form is so broad that it arguably includes subsidiary rights like audiobook, movies, and really any digital content.

 Also,

Autharium can legally sell the audiobook rights out from under the author, and the same goes for the movie rights. Hell, that site could sell the movie rights to their entire catalog for 10 pounds and a job offer, and it would be completely legal.

Run away from this company!

Other articles you might like:

- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months
- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence
- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining

Photo credit: "Close up of a dragonfly on a Lotus Flower Bud on green background - IMG_7149" by Bahman Farzad under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months

Chuck Wendig's Plan To Edit A Novel In Four Months

I wrote about Chuck's post before, but only about the first couple of paragraphs because what he wrote there blew my mind: Editing is writing.

If you're looking at the screen blankly thinking, "Yeah. So?" then I applaud you. That held me back for a long time.

Caveat

Of course writing new words matters, but here's how I look at it. It's not new words per day that matters, it's new words per year. I can't sell three novels and miscellaneous short stories a year if I don't write 250,000 or so words in a year.

Write and edit.

Okay. Enough said. Moving on.

Writing vs Storytelling

These are the twin pillars of writing and, yes, the analogy of pillars breaks down because unlike the Grecian pillars I imagined when I wrote the above, writing and storytelling intermingle like rum on a Bundt cake.

As Chuck Wendig mentions, writing is "technical and objective" while storytelling is "far more subjective and instinct-driven".

For instance, I had a friend in my university days who--though he couldn't write an essay to save his life--could spin funny, absurd and altogether spellbinding tales. I worried about him, though, since the majority of his stories began with, "I was out at the bar the other night". It was his version of "Once upon a time".

My storytelling friend had an innate understanding, in intuitive grasp, of the elements of story. But, since we're writers, that's only half the picture.

Writing problems

Here's what I mean by writing problems: an unreflective disregard of grammar. For instance, comma confusion, talking about the barber's convention rather than the barbers' convention. And so on.

Of course many of the greats spurned grammatical conventions regularly, but they knew them. Either explicitly or, like storytelling for my friend, it was in their bones. Their prose satisfied the ultimate grammatical directive: Be clear.

Garbled language can't help anyone express a thought. For instance, using "bakers" when you mean "baker's"--a mistake I know I've made a time or three (thank all-things-good for copy editors!)--never makes prose clearer.

Storytelling problems

Storytelling, on the other hand, is more about the flow and structure of a story. For instance, when you read about Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet or Michael Hauge's Screenplay Structure, or--something I've been writing about lately--the stages of the monomyth, we're in the realm of storytelling.

Get The Story First Then Write It

Before you pick up your pen to write a novel it helps (the writing will be faster and less angst-fraught) to have a good grasp of the story.

Think of it this way. When I open my mouth to say something I like to know, beforehand, exactly what I want to say. When I don't, things can get messy, and I suspect that's not just true for me.

Draft Zero

But life's not always like that. I find that, just like I'm not always 100% sure exactly what I'm going to say, I don't always know what story I want to write when I sit down to write it. (For instance, someone once asked me whether I thought it was a good idea for writers to keep a pet. It was an interesting question but one I don't have a settled view on; still, it was interesting to discuss it. To, as we sometimes say, "hash it out".)

Perhaps I'll have an idea, an image or two, a premise. Perhaps I'll have a vague idea how it all ends. Then I'll put my butt in a chair and write.

The first draft will probably be only 2/3 or even 1/2 the length of the book, but that's okay. These are my initial ideas. They're still growing, changing. The story is evolving.

After that initial draft (or, as Kim Neville says, draft zero) I'll have a much better idea of what my story is. I'll know how it begins (although this will probably change over the next few drafts), I'll know how it ends (this also will likely change but not as radically) as well as all the story points in between.

Detailed outline

Now I can sit down again, rip the whole thing apart, and write (hopefully) a good, clean, draft. One that, when finished, I can send out to my beta readers.

My first draft (or zero draft) is all about grabbing the story out of thin air--birthing the ideas on paper (and WOW, is that messy).

Then I do a good, detailed, outline of what I have, rearranging things as needed. Sometimes I end up scrapping much of the first/zero draft, but that's okay. It's main purpose is to birth the story.

The next draft

The second draft is more about writing. Now I know, more-or-less, what the story is. Sure things can still change, but not as much. Now I know exactly where I'm headed and how I'm going to get there. I've got my roadmap.

Before I send my baby out to my beta readers I give her a bath, dress her up and try to teach her some manners. That means checking the spelling, the grammar and reading my manuscript aloud.

Chuck Wendig's post is chalked full of great advise, I heartily recommend it. One of the best things about it are all the links he shares to his previous posts on editing.

Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan

This is the thing I've been meaning to get to, that the build up was really for. Chuck's handy-dandy editing plan. (cue trumpets)

You have just finished the first draft of your novel; perhaps you followed Chuck Wendig's plan for how to write a novel in a year. Here's what you do:

1. Edit 5 days a week.
2. For each of those 5 days, edit 5 pages.

That's it. You can do more than that. Chances are you'll have to junk parts of it and re-write others but the goal is to edit 5 pages a day.

Chuck estimates that, if you hold to this plan, it will take 3 to 4 months to edit an 80,000 word manuscript.

All together, this writing-editing plan will get you a finished novel in about a year and a half. If you stick to it!

Not bad. Not bad at all.

What do you think of Chuck Wendig's plan for completing a novel in a year and a half? Would you try this?

Other links you might like:

- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence
- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining
- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Writing Resources

Photo credit: "Home Base" by flossyflotsam under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence

Chuck Wendig has issued another Flash Fiction Challenge, but he's mixing it up!

The Challenge

This time the challenge is to generate 10 or so random sentences from this random sentence generator and use one in a story of up to 1,000 words.

Be sure to let everyone know what your random sentence was!

When you're done, post it on your webspace and leave a link in a comment to Chuck's post: Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence. Your tale must be finished and the link posted by Friday, March 15th, noon EST.

Fun With Randomness

Get ready for crazy, nonsensical, sentences. It's great! Here are some of the ones I generated:

Can the year nose?
The hook objects to the war. (A pacifist Captain Hook?)
The teenager lurks next to the centered chestnut.
How can the touch flash? (Someone faster than Flash Gordon?)
The exciting weapon revolts behind the inventor.

When I saw the last sentence all sorts of light bulbs went off. First thought: An ancient scientist turns away from his latest creation, but as he does it becomes self-aware and attempts to escape.

Or something.

What sentence(s) did you generate?

Other links you might like:

- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining
- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"

Photo link: "_IGP5461 | 70" by Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix) under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining

I just came across this interview of Stephen King on the subject of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. It's very good. King seems relaxed and happy to chat.

In addition to discussing his upcoming book, Doctor Sleep (due out this September 24th), King discusses the possibility of a movie prequel to The Shining.

King's Goal For Doctor Sleep: To Scare The S-t Out Of You!

At one point the interviewer, Anthony Breznican over at EW.com, asks Stephen King how will he know if Doctor Sleep was successful. King replies:

Basically, the idea of the story was to try and scare the s–t out of people. [Laughs.] I said to myself, ‘Let me see if I can go and do that again.’ There’ve been a couple of books that haven’t really been that way. 11/22/63 was a lot of fun to write and a lot of people read it and seemed to like it, but it’s not what you’d call a balls to the wall scary story. The same was true of Under the Dome. I wanted to go back to that real creepy scary stuff. We’ll see if it works. I like the book, or I wouldn’t have ever wanted to publish it.

RVing: "... the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature"

About the villains, The True Knot, "a kind of nomadic group of people who masquerade as Winnebago-riding old timers but feed off people who have psychic energy" King says:

Driving back and forth from Maine to Florida, which I do twice a year, I’m always seeing all these recreational vehicles — the bounders in the Winnebagos. I always think to myself, ‘Who is in those things?’ You pass them a thousand times at rest stops. They’re always the ones wearing the shirts that say ‘God Does Not Deduct From a Lifespan Time Spent Fishing.’ They’re always lined up at the McDonald’s, slowing the whole line down. And I always thought to myself, ‘There’s something really sinister about those people because they’re so unobtrusive, yet so pervasive.’ I just wanted to use that. It would be the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature.

King also reminds readers that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the book not the movie:

But one of the things – and I’m not sure if this is going to be a problem for readers or not – is that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the novel. It’s not a sequel to the Kubrick film. At the end of the Kubrick film, the Overlook is still there. It just kind of freezes. But at the end of the book, it burns down.

Will There Be A Movie Prequel To The Shining?

AB: There has recently been talk of a movie prequel to The Shining. It’s based on material cut from your novel, about the early history of the Overlook. Warner Bros, which made Kubrick’s film, has been exploring whether there’s another movie in it. How do you feel about that?

SK: There’s a real question about whether or not they have the rights to ‘Before the Play,’ which was the prologue cut from the book — because the epilogue to the book was called ‘After the Play.’ So they were bookends, and there was really scary stuff in that prologue that wouldn’t make a bad movie. Am I eager to see that happen? No I am not. And there’s some real question about what rights Warner Bros. does still have. The Shining is such an old book now that the copyright comes back to me. Arguably, the film rights lapse — so we’ll see. We’re looking into that. I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project, because I’m sort of a nice guy. When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’ I have a tendency to let people develop things. I’m always curious to see what will happen. But you know what? I would be just as happy if it didn’t happen.

Stephen King World: Disney World Meets Hotel California

Stephen King ends by saying that if there were a Stephen King World akin to Disney World "people would only go on the rides … once."

It's a great interview, I highly recommend it to King fans, and anyone wanting a peek behind the curtain: Stephen King unearths origin of 'The Shining' sequel 'Doctor Sleep' -- EXCLUSIVE.

Other articles you might like:

- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been
- The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero

Photo credit: Doctor Sleep cover, StephenKing.com

Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar

I don't usually blog about grammar--I'll leave that to the professionals--but today I came across these guides that I thought were well written and easy to understand.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

The first guide to grammar is called Avoiding Common Grammar Mistakes and was written for students at George Mason University. Here is a sample:

Comma splices
A comma splice is where a comma is used to join two independent clauses which should be separated by a period. An independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence. Do not simply use a comma everywhere a reader would pause.

Subject/pronoun disagreement
There are two types of subject/pronoun disagreement, shifts in number and shifts in person.

Shifts in number
This phrase means the shifting between singular and plural in the same sentence. Be consistent.

Shifts in person
This error occurs when the person shifts within the sentence from first to second person, from second to third person, etc.

Its/it's
"Its" is the possessive form of "it." "It's" is the contraction of "it is." They are not interchangeable.

.  .  .  .

Dropped commas around clauses
Place commas around words, phrases, or clauses that interrupt a sentence. Do not use commas around restrictive clauses, which provide essential information about the subject of the sentence.

Interrupting clause
This clause or phrase interrupts a sentence, such as "however." Place a comma on either side of the interrupting clause.

Restrictive clause
This clause or phrase provides essential information about the subject of the sentence. Without this clause or phrase, the meaning of the sentence changes.

Non-restrictive clause
This clause or phrase modifies the subject of the sentence but does not change the meaning of the sentence if left out.

Here are a few examples of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.

Grammatical, Mechanical & Stylistic Problems And How To Fix Them

This handy-dandy guide to English grammar was compiled by Professor David Beach:

Who/whom
Use "who" when it can be replaced by a subject proper noun, and "whom" when it can be replaced by an object proper noun.

John kissed Mary. John = subject, Mary = object Whom did John kiss? Who kissed Mary?

Dmitri gave the book to Phyllis. To whom did Dmitri give the book? Who gave the book to Phyllis?

I've been testing out Grammarly and I'm curious whether any of you have used the program. If so, did you find it useful?

What was the most useful grammar tip you've ever received?

Other articles you might like:

- Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"
- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Stephen King Board On Jeopardy Tonight (March 5, 2013)

Photo credit: "jack johnson:while we wait (sleep through the static)" by visualpanic under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"

In John Scalzi's latest blog post, A Contract From Alibi, he writes that Alibi's contract terms are so heinous he wouldn't recommend them to his worst enemy.

John Scalzi: Do Not Sign With Alibi

At least, do not sign the their standard, boilerplate contract. Scalzi writes:

I want to be clear: I can say, without reservation, that this is the worst book contract I have ever personally encountered. Not only would I never sign it — which should be obvious at this point — I can’t imagine why anyone whose forebrain has not been staved in by an errant bowling ball would ever sign it. Indeed, if my worst enemy in the world was presented with it and had a pen poised to scratch his signature on it, I would smack the pen out of his hand and say to him, “I hate you, but I don’t hate you this much.”

Alibi is a digital imprint of the Random House Publishing Group.

In his article John Scalzi steps through some of the more egregious sections of the contract and, colorfully and with wit, tells authors why they should run, not walk, away from this company.

John Scalzi is best known for writing science fiction, for which "he won the John W. Campbell Award (2006) and has been nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel (2006, 2008, 2009). (Amazon Author's Page)"

If you're thinking about submitting work to any of the new digital imprints (Loveswept, Alibi, Hydra, Flirt) A Contract From Alibi is a must read. Heck, even if you're not thinking about submitting to them, it's good to know what to look out for in the industry.

Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith for blogging about this. Here is a link to Dean's post: Another Bad Publishing Contract.

Other articles you might like:

- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews

Photo credit: "Dream" by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.