mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Good or bad? :huh:
Mine hasn't arrived yet.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
I've just got mine. Probably won't start until tonight, maybe tomorrow. Those are encouraging words, Woody, and you've got me eager to delve in.
Not to disparage a book before I get properly started, but I flipped to a few random pages and examined a few lines of dialogue just to check on what is becoming a pet peeve of mine - dialogue attribution. I was a little let down to see that quite a few characters "muttered", "sung out", "replied" and "explained". I don't think I ever noticed stuff like that until I started learning about the craft of writing. Now, nearly any attribution other than "said" or "asked" stands out like a sore thumb.
Again, that's all part of the era, I suppose, isn't it - and though 'he said' and 'she said' are divine, 'he muttered' is more descriptive of the scene. I think those sorts of attributes are ok. It's only when a character 'hissed' a sentence with no 's's in it, or 'hollered loudly', or you get rakes of adverbs of manner that it really irks me. I'm lucky, though, I find that I can pretty much ignore, or even begin to enjoy some authors' supposedly bad traits, for instance Hemingway's 'and's.
Woody - thanks for explaining your thoughts. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into mine, when it gets here.
Ironically, many contemporary writers eschew using he said these days. Some very well - A.L. Kennedy, others poorly leading to confusion as in The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Problem now is that when the occasional 'said' is used, it is no longer invisible!
I've come part way through this topic. Could someone tell me what the book is? Only now I have just completed the second draft of Xaghra's Revenge, which concerns pirates and their ghosts...
Geoff
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
My copy arrived today. It is skinny, isn't it? Only 100 pages long.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
I'm already at page 11, and finding it quite a strange thought that I've read 10% of the book without even trying.
I downloaded it free. I was expecting a tightly written narrative but found it quite loose. :scratch:
Geoff
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
QuoteI was expecting a tightly written narrative but found it quite loose.
Not exactly sure what constitutes a tight or loose narrative, but I went through the first two chapters the same day the book arrived and wasn't particularly taken with the writing. It's subjective of course, and in all fairness, as Woody points out, it was written a long time ago. I think that's part of the reason it hasn't grabbed me yet - I'm having to get used to some unfamiliar language. Also I was a bit into my cups when I began reading, :cheesy: so that probably didn't help.
Fortunately the dialogue attributions, which I anticipated bugging the hell out of me, haven't bugged me at all. In fact I haven't even noticed them. One thing I did notice was the amount of commas used. Seems to me that there are more than necessary. I'm not real good with grammar, and comma usage, or improper comma usage, is something that I'm still trying to get a grip on.
I have a feeling that if F. Paul Wilson were to edit this one, he'd be deleting a lot of commas. Woody, this may tie in with the question you posted elsewhere on the board. Have a look and see what he has to say about comma usage in The Care and Feeding of a Style Sheet" by F. Paul Wilson:
http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/WritersColumnFPaulWilson (http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/WritersColumnFPaulWilson)
I finished the online version today. Many thanks to delboy for providing the link to that: I am *so* glad I didn't spend money on this. Yes, I know it was written a long time ago, so I'm taking that into account, but this is a book I will not be adding to my permanent collection.
Funny how different things bug different people. For me it was the excessive or overblown dialect used by some of the sailors. I guess Hodgson really wanted to emphasize the differences in speech patterns between the various characters. This is a perfect example of why it's a bad idea to try to perfectly imitate various characters' speech patterns throughout the entire manuscript. I think these days the suggestion is that you sprinkle the dialect in the first few sentences the character utters, and then just remind the reader that the character spoke with a Boston twang, Southern drawl, cockney accent, or whatever. Maybe the British readers won't notice it as much, but as an American, I could barely make out what old Williams was saying, especially when it came to "piy-diy". I worked most of it out by context and Jessop's translations, but Jeez.
I also thought a couple of the early chapter endings were handled more like commercial breaks: "And then, close upon this, there were further developments." You couldn't get away with something like that today, I'm guessing.
Interesting article on the style sheet, Elay - thanks for that.
Woody - I hadn't thought much about it before I posted, but I now realise the story doesn't actually begin until page 7 :grin: so I haven't read as much as I thought I had. The title pages and the sea shanty take up the opening pages of the book.
Have to agree with those of you who have picked up on the use of dialect. The modern approach is to give an example or two, early on, then drop it. But we've also got to make allowances for the author having been a product of his era and following the style of his time. One thing that struck me while reading Bram Stoker's Dracula was that we tend to shorthand our descriptions of places because we're all worldly wise these days, and we think we know what the inside of a submarine looks and smells like, or a B&B in Milton Keynes, or a NYC police department, etc., but at the time Dracula was written, most people reading it would not have travelled outside of the county, let alone the country, in which they lived. There was no TV. There were no movies. No radio. The only way people learned about other places, people, dialects, was to travel, to listen to somebody who had been there, or to read about it.
The thing that struck me, though, was that Stoker had created a snapshot of what those places and the people (the Magyar, for instance) were like at that point in time, pre modernity. That is something that'll be largely missing from our fiction in this era, because we assume everybody knows what we're talking about. So, in years to come, readers won't get the little details that tell them what it was like to be alive in the late 20th Century and early 21st. Sad, really.
I enjoyed reading that link to the style sheet too. I admit to losing my commas a year or two back but recently have been adding them back in again around independent clauses, etc. I find readability improves with rather than without them especially in novel-length stories.
Geoff
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
I read a bit more last night, and I see what you mean about old Williams and his 'piy-diy' - I reckon I was stuck on that for a good few minutes before giving up, moving on, and finding the answer 'pay-day' in the next couple of lines ::)
The word 'blimed' has obviously gone out of common usage, because I've never heard it said. I guess it's a twisting of 'blimey', which in turn originated as 'blind me', or 'God blind me'. It's a mild form of swearing. Just as irritating is his odd spelling of 'fule', 'cent' and other words that sound the same spelt in their proper form - it only serves to confuse.
*spoiler - if you haven't read past page 19*
It took me several reads to understand that the whole of the previous crew, officers and all, left without being paid, in San Fransisco. Pain in the butt.
Interesting to read what Wiki has to say about Willian Hope Hodgeson, though. I had assumed he died in a sea battle during WW1, but he was hit by an artillery shell during a land battle - he didn't want anything to do wit the sea by that point in his life.
BTW, Woody - yep, Hodgson's work is public domain now.
*spoiler page 34 ish)*
Can't help thinking old Williams might have survived with the help of a few elocution lessons. Styll, thank Gord ees ded, ey?
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Yeah, I was beginning to wonder about the way he tells you what's going to happen ahead of time. I take it that's his way of keeping you interested. There's a little hook at the end of every chapter, too. It's a bit of a clumsy device, IMO.
I'm about half way through, now - page 55, and it's starting to get interesting with this ghost ship appearing and disappearing. I'm surprised that he's talking about 'other dimensions', given when the book was written. I wasn't aware those sorts of concepts were around back then.
So, how many of us are reading this book, and how many have finished it, or whereabouts are you if you're still reading? :huh:
I'm only on chapter three. Haven't had the chance to pick it up in about a week. Hoping to get back to it after I get my crits done.
I'm done. Finished about a week ago.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Just finished 'The Ghost Pirates'.
What a great book. Full of atmosphere and really brought to life the everyday activities on a sailing ship.
I was also quite amazed at the references to alternate dimensions and magnetic anomolies. Also, you got the feeling that Jessop was spared because he was more 'receptive' to the spirits than the rest of the crew - which is also why Tammy almost survived.
Found myself wondering if Hodgson was influenced by the ship the 'Demeter' from 'Dracula' - a ghost ship, where one-by-one the crew disappears.
As for the huge number of commas, well that was the style then - as was the use of dialect, which I thought worked rother well, except for Stubbins who sounded like a Cockney trying to talk posh. 'Hisn't that so?'
On the negative side, the story was in need of a final edit. There were too many characters whose names started with 'J', and just after half way through the book, everyone 'sung out' when they spoke. Furthermore, unnecessary and irritating repetitions could have been avoided.
Oh, and I've no idea what the sea shanty was about at the beginning.
Otherwise, what a great book, and from a writing point of view I've leaned a lot - honist oi 'ave!
DW :cheesy:
I finished a few days ago, and I'd have to say over all I enjoyed it, though a question kept popping into my head as I read it - why did the ghosts wait before making their move? Why pick off one man at a time when just a few of them could have murdered the whole crew at any time, being that half of them would be in their bunks anyway.
After having read the book, I reckon Pirates of the Carribean borrowed pretty heavily on some of Hodgsen's concepts.
Another thing that struck me is Lovecraft was right. According to Wiki, he said of the book, something like, world class, but for the inclusion of common sentimentality. All those bits where he felt in quite a funk were not necessary, I think.
And again, as we recently discussed in the crit group, this is a story where for much of the time people just have stuff happen to them. They're not very proactive in the storyline.
To show how effectively scary the book was, in England the other day I was walking down a back alley at night to the local pub and 'There was too many shadders' as Williams put it.
Needless to say, I picked up the pace and got myself a beer pronto at the other end of the alley.
Oh, and some of the other vocab I found quite enlightening, such as the reference to older sailors as 'shellbacks'. I can't wait to use the word.
DW :cheesy:
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Quote from: Woody on August 20, 2009, 01:21:17 PM
And then there were the words "funk" and "funky" - my first introduction to these words was in the early Eighties with the popularisation of "Jazz-funk" - but now I know it was a word used 100 years ago, amazing. Still not quite sure what it means, though. :scratch:
There's an amazing invention that can help you out with that. It's called a "dictionary." Early versions came in book form, but the one I just consulted was in electronic format, and told me exactly what the word means, as well as its origin. There are TONS of words in the average dictionary. Check it out! :2funny:
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Well, I can help you with the origin of funk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk#Origin_of_funk) question. You're on your own for blimed. :bleh:
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Gawd, blimey! I can't believe you two are 'avin' a go at eachuver over the word 'funk'.
In the Flashman books, Flashman was often in a 'funk' - ie. 'scared shitless', as they say.
As for 'blimed', if you check earlier in the thread, Ed came to the same conclusion I did; that it was a colloquialism coming from the words 'Gawd, blimey', which was almost a blasphemous term, meaning 'God, blind me' and often shortened to just 'blimey' - see the beginning of the post.
DW :cheesy:
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
The primary colour thing is quite interesting, at least I used to think it was anyway - I used to develop and print from colour film as a hobby. If you were printing from a negative, you had to blend the colour of light you put through the filters in the enlarger and compensate for bluish hues by adding the colour opposite to it in the spectrum, which I think might have been yellow. I only mention this because I'm drunk, BTW :smiley:
Quoteonly mention this because I'm drunk, BTW
Ha! You type well drunk. I don't do so good.
Yeah - must admit I was quite impressed myself. I had sunk half a bottle of wine and two or three bottles of beer by then, but the predictive text on my iphone helped a bit, too. I'm really appreciating being back on a normal sized keyboard and looking at the site on a big screen right now, though.
So, Ed, did you get a lot of writing done while you were away?
This was my setup:
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b298/blunt_ed_d/summer2009040.jpg)
But no, I didn't get nearly as far into the novel as I had hoped. A pitiful 2,000 words, in fact. I wasn't left alone long enough to get into my 'zone', because kids kept coming back for drinks, or snacks, or to beg me into the pool. So basically, I spent a lot of time indoors, trying, with nothing much to show for it. ::)
I did manage to get a bit further along with a zombie story I'm writing, though. That one seemed to flow a lot better, because I'm on the tail end of the plot where it's all coming together and I don't have to think about it.
Ed
While I remember, a Zombonauts II is being mooted - which I'll write something for if it comes to fruition.
DW
That would be cool. I'll probably send it out to a few places that allow simsubs, though. It would be nice to get a bit more than 1c a word for all the effort I put into it, if it's possible, but money isn't everything. Trouble is, all those places paying more take ages to respond, too.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Must admit to being a bit disappointed with Ghost Pirates, TBH. I wonder if the guy who wrote the list rated it so highly because he read it when he was very young? Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it, but after the build-up by the author of the list, I was expecting it to blow my socks off, and it didn't.
Frankenstein and Dracula, IMO, deserved their top two positions, but I think Ghost Pirates falls a long way short of both those books on a lot of fronts.
Re the next book we choose - I don't have any precoinceived ideas about what I'd like to read. I had intended to work my way through the whole list, but I'm not stuck on doing it.
I've seen José Saramago and Jorge Luis Borges named as two of the greatest horror writers of the past hundred years, and yet they don't seem to get much press compared to Koontz and King, so my interest is piqued. I'd like to read something by them.
The author of this article speaks passionately about Saramango's writing:
http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/jose-saramago-death-without-interruptions/
And posts the opening of DEATH WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS - quote:
THE FOLLOWING DAY, NO ONE DIED. THIS FACT, BEING absolutely contrary to life's rules, provoked enormous and, in the circumstances, perfectly justifiable anxiety in people's minds, for we have only to consider that in the entire forty volumes of universal history there is no mention, not even one exemplary case, of such a phenomenon ever having occurred, for a whole day to go by, with its generous allowance of twenty-four hours, diurnal and nocturnal, matutinal and vespertine, without one death from an illness, a fatal fall, or a successful suicide, not one, not a single one. Not even from a car accident, so frequent on festive occasions, when blithe irresponsibility and an excess of alcohol jockey for position on the roads to decide who will reach death first. New year's eve had failed to leave behind it the usual calamitous trail of fatalities, as if old atropos with her great bared teeth had decided to put aside her shears for a day. There was, however, no shortage of blood. Bewildered, confused, distraught, struggling to control their feelings of nausea, the firemen extracted from the mangled remains wretched human bodies that, according to the mathematical logic of the collisions, should have been well and truly dead, but which, despite the seriousness of the injuries and lesions suffered, remained alive and were carried off to hospital, accompanied by the shrill sound of the ambulance sirens. None of these people would die along the way and all would disprove the most pessimistic of medical prognoses, There's nothing to be done for the poor man, it's not even worth operating, a complete waste of time, said the surgeon to the nurse as she was adjusting his mask. And the day before, there would probably have been no salvation for this particular patient, but one thing was clear, today, the victim refused to die. And what was happening here was happening throughout the country. Up until the very dot of midnight on the last day of the year there were people who died in full compliance with the rules, both those relating to the nub of the matter, i.e. the termination of life, and those relating to the many ways in which the aforementioned nub, with varying degrees of pomp and solemnity, chooses to mark the fatal moment...
So, there's a little of the author in his own words– translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Here's how the publisher describes the book:
ON THE FIRST DAY OF the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots. Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with her scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small 'd', became human and were to fall in love?
/quote
I think it's the build up which makes 'The Ghost Pirates' so good.
Anyhow, I've been reading M.R. James' short stories since then. They're good, but all rather formulaic - a familiar object suddenly becomes rather sinister to a travelling don, either in the British countryside or on continental Europe.
So I took time out from them to read the short story 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs - it's on the internet. That's a chiller.
DW :cheesy:
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
mustn't have my stuff here, ed keeps it.
Finally got around to reading this on holiday last week and - once I'd got past the dialect and jargon - really enjoyed it. I did like the way that the ghosts were indeed just "shadders" until right at the end. I'm trying to think of a similar story set on board a spaceship (I'm sure there's one), but the only one that comes to mind is Solaris, and the phantoms there were a lot more benign. Definitely an influence on Pirates of the Caribbean, though.
BTW what happened to Svenson? Did I miss something?
Can't remember what happened to Svenson, although not all of the crew were accounted for in the final battle. I assumed they all died, apart from the MC of course.
I read 'The ghost Pirates.' It's okay but I expected something better considering it's in the HRA top twenty. The accents are well done even if they do take a while to get used to, not too long though, I remember a lot of those expressions from when I was a kid and living in Northern Ireland. I like the idea that the Pirates may not be ghost but could be from a different dimension, it must have been quite a ground breaking idea in its day.
What I didn't like was all the references to the ship's rigging. I'm no sailor and couldn't be arsed to look up all the different terminology in the dictionary. I have seen enough old movies though -I think the guy who was in a lot of them was Errol Flynn- to be able to hazard a guess as to what was meant.
All I all not a bad book but I reckon 'Sea Wolf' is a better bet for anyone who wants to read a sea going yarn.