The Stage

Good Writing Series- Introduction

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:55:23 -0400

NATE-

Here is something I’ve been pondering: what makes writing, well, good? We all have those authors that we thoroughly enjoy, and then there are the ones that we don’t enjoy as much, but others do. This thought prompted me to really question what makes writing good. I’ve heard that good writing is like good art, you can’t explain it but you know it when you see it, but I refuse to believe that. I mean, yes, sometimes I wonder how some bestselling authors got to their position, but I can understand why good writing is good. But, it isn’t something that is set in stone either: understanding good writing is a discussion, not a fact. However, I do understand a couple of things necessary in order to have good writing.

There are a lot of characteristics that go into writing, making each individual writer different than the rest, and at the same time similar to others. One major category is style: style defines how the content is written. The main concern with style is whether or not you can sense it. A good writer has a good sense of style. Another major category is content: what does the writer have to say? Intriguing content is the backbone to good writing. The trick to good writing is combining these categories in such a way that completely captivates your readers. Good writing doesn’t mean the inclusion of overly embellished metaphors, incredibly tedious detailed images, or over abundantly dramatic material.

Good writing is simply doing it what it takes to give your readers something to occupy themselves with. It’s about creating a story for the readers to become a part of. While there can be good writing, there must also be good reading. What I mean by this is that readers need to be able to let themselves enter the story without any reservations. It takes two to tango and, likewise, two to convey and understand good writing.

This is the first blog in a series over good writing. It’s not something that is set stone, but we know it when we see it. What is it, though? This blog series will touch on exactly that.

The Novella Revival

Tue, 01 May 2012 11:32:28 -0400

BOB - It’s a real shame that novella don’t get much play with traditional publishers these days. Some of the best things I’ve ever read were in this short format. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea introduced me to one of America’s best authors. However, the incredibly difficult story format has seen little emphasis in recent years. Even literary heavyweights like Stephen King have to package several novellas together, as in his Different Seasons, or in a short story collection. If these feature some of King’s most tightly written prose, why are they not further emphasized?

The issue is in financial risk for traditional publishers. The cost for editing, binding, promoting, and distributing print editions of books is astronomical. When you factor in that novellas are frequently an experiment for the author that falls outside their usual storytelling methods, the risk increases for publishers. If they stake money on a small book (such as Stephen King’s recent Blockade Billy, which did okay) and it does not perform well, they are on the hook for a large sum.

Thankfully, though, the development of digital publishing makes novellas less of a risk for publishers. Stephen King himself saw great successes with his Amazon Kindle exclusive Ur. Other authors have shared their novella attempts to more successes with the growing E-reader market.

The risks are greatly lessened for all parties involved with digital publishers; readers, authors, and publishers alike have more to gain and less to lose. This diversity of form in writing can only bring better things for everyone, and heralds great things to come for literature in general.

Page to Screen // Long Book Adaptations

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:22:31 -0400

BOB - Countless people have experienced the thrill of seeing a favorite book adapted by Hollywood to a full-length film. From the critical successes of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy or the recent Hunger Games blockbuster to the sleeper choices such as Fight Club, Hollywood has found the mother lode of all source material for its films: bookshelves everywhere.

However, there is something to be said for the length of this page to screen adaptations. Aspects of books will never work on screen continuous narration can only become so much internal monologue, as seen in Fight Club or Blade Runner; lengthy descriptions can only serve as a guidepost for sets, as seen in the Lord of the Rings. The most difficult part of adapting a story from one medium to the next, however, is length.

It invariably takes far longer to read a book than to watch its film adaptation counterpart (just ask all those crazy kids who watched the version of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter featuring Demi Moore). The descriptions are richer, the narration (typically) reveals more, and there are more scenes. However, we’ve seen film adaptations of books swell in length until it sometimes feels as though they outweigh their framework.

Fight Club runs just under 2 hours and twenty minutes. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers each feature run time a few minutes shy of 3 hours. (The extended cuts each extend to well over 3 hours long!) The epic conclusion, The Return of the King? In theaters, it ran 3 hours and twenty minutes long, while its extended cut is over 4 hours!

Even more recent choices, such as The Hunger Games runs about as long as Fight Club, while The Deathly Hallows part 1 & part 2 run about the same. It’s uncertain how long the first half of The Hobbit will last, but if history (and Peter Jackson’s directorial style in general) tell us anything, it will clock in at well over two hours long.

The question is, how long is too long for a film adaptation? At what point does the pacing outweigh the necessity of including as much as possible from the source material? Don’t get me wrong, I love The Great Gatsby, but if the movie plods along slowly and lacks some of the frenetic energy of the novel, I will be sorely disappointed.

What I’m trying to say is that these film adaptations are far from anemic. Indeed, at times they seem to be gluttonously overfilled with scenes and details that serve more as fan service than truly moving the story forward. The issue is that directors miss the point of their medium when adapting books to screen: Film is a visual medium, one in which it is better to show then tell. Overfilling the lean films with gratuitous amounts of detail from the book is a well-meaning, but ultimately misguided effort. These are adaptations, not the visual experience one imagines while reading a book. Portions should be adapted in order to play to the strengths of the medium, not directly translated.

Reading Like a Writer

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:36:08 -0400

BOB - For the past three years of my college career, I’ve taken a creative writing workshop every spring. Each course has come draped in the usual trappings of the workshop design – writing exercises, assigned stories to read, classroom discussions, and group critiques. My professor has always stressed the importance of “reading like a writer” but I never fully grasped the concept until this semester.

I think the root of this technique goes back to our infancy, when learning how to speak, walk, and feed ourselves. How did we learn this? Through imitation. We watched how those more experienced than ourselves went about their daily routines, paying close attention to the way in which they executed simple tasks. Through a combination of imitation and trial and error we eventually toddled our ways toward an apparently drunken way of moving through our homes. The same methodology is applied to creative writing.

Think back to your first written works. It doesn’t matter if they’re poems, stories, articles, essays, or some as-of-yet undiscovered form of writing. Chances are they were clunky, choppy, and roughly hewn. I know mine were (and some still are!). Don’t look upon these creative pieces with disdain, though. You were unfamiliar with the form and had not yet familiarized yourself with how to skillfully craft sentences and stanzas out of carefully selected words. These early pieces can be a benchmark for how far you’ve come.

But those awkward first writings were just the beginning. As you grew and explored your favorite genres, certain writers grabbed hold of you. For me, Ernest Hemingway, Chuck Palahniuk, and Stephen King’s styles of writing and subject matter have always fascinated me. As such, I’ve worked to combine their writing styles with my own tendencies through trial and error into a sort of literary mash up. I’m still working on developing my voice and tightening the style, but I know I’ve come a long way.

The key to reading like a writer is to do it constantly. Eventually it will become second nature and you’ll look for techniques and style from which you can borrow to accentuate your own writing without having to make a conscious effort. Find authors whose writing you admire and read them. Branch out and read authors others recommend. It’s all part of the process to strengthen your own writing.

Page to Screen // The Raven

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:51:00 -0400

BOB - When Hollywood isn’t busy remaking Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte films for the 17^th time or churning out another Nicholas Sparks adaptation, they’re busy harvesting plots and characters from your bookshelves. Films are frequently “inspired by” or “based upon” novels and short stories, contemporary and classic alike.

Several recent films have drawn upon well-loved and familiar characters from classic literature. Maybe you saw a little film called Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., or its sequel A Game of Shadows. The two summer blockbusters were very successful in drawing basic elements from literature and placing them in the separate context of the films.

While they have little to do with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories outside of character names and basic plot elements, they’ve helped introduce a poorly-read audience to a classic collection of stories and characters. While some of the creative liberties taken on screen may be questionable, Doyle himself said of Holmes “You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him,” when working with William Gillette on a stage adaptation.

An interesting development in the adaptation of detective fiction from page to screen is on the way for this summer. The Raven, starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, looks to move into some interesting and vaguely meta-fiction plot devices.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film, the trailer is available here. The general crux of the period piece, however, is that a murderer is leading the constabulary in a game of cat and mouse. When it becomes clear that the murders are based upon the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the writer himself is brought on to help pursue the killer. It’s an interesting commentary about an author’s relationship to his or her works. It looks as if the police force in the film holds Cusack’s Poe partially responsible for the murders, which begs the question “Can authors be held responsible for fallout from their works?” Should Salinger have been held responsible for Mark David Chapman’s actions? Hopefully the upcoming film will delve deeper into this commentary and not turn it into a straight thriller.

The Entirely Facetious and Many Years Too Late Book Review // For Whom the Bell Tolls

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:31:47 -0400

BOB - March 29, 2012 – When I found a fresh copy of Ernest Hemingway’s latest work, I was beyond excited. The publisher had obviously worked hard to make the book appear vintage, as its cover was dog-eared, spine broken, and pages yellowed and aged. I guess this is their way to justify charging close to $20 for a paperback book. While I can appreciate the efforts to make it “vintage” (but why then, was it humbly ensconced in the shelf of a used book store?) I think simply binding the book and allowing the words within to speak for themselves may allow for time to be better spent elsewhere, such as realigning their aging business model. But, I digress.

If you expect much character background from the outset of For Whom the Bell Tolls, you will be sorely disappointed. The author (who is allegedly quite the drunken rabble-rouser) begins in a style that is apparently known as “in media res,” leaving readers to piece together information from subtle hints in his prose and dialogue. The protagonist begins as a faceless soldier who slowly comes into focus as the story moves forward. This “Robert Jordan,” with whom readers travel throughout the entire novel, is an American expatriate fighting against the ruling government of Spain. To make matters worse, he is ordered by a Russian general to demolish a bridge alongside a merry band of drunken rebels.

Let’s stop for a moment and reflect on this. We’re expected to empathize with an American who has interloped into international politics attempting to overthrow the ruling government of a sovereign nation? I’d buy that if this took place during the Vietnam War, but Jordan takes his orders from a Communist general. I’m not sure how I should feel about a “hero” who associates with Communists.

But back to the bridge. The entire book hinges upon a plot to destroy a bridge in the middle of Spain. Jordan meets up with a group of guerrilla fighting rebels who associate themselves with gypsies and society’s other cast offs, including the beautiful and vulnerable Maria. Jordan is attracted to her, though she is timid and shell-shocked from her rape at the hands of the ruling government’s soldiers, and eventually takes advantage of her wounded mental state to make her fall in love with him. His lighthearted treatment of this exploitation only shows how inhuman he is. However, there is justice in this novel. An allied rebel group is wiped out by the ruling Fascist government and Jordan is forced to implement his plan with improvised explosive caps after the guerrilla fighters’ leader bravely steals them and flees. As they retreat up the mountains after destroying the mountain, Jordan is wounded beyond help and stays behind to face his certain and just death, struggling to buy some time for those he took advantage of. While this may be repentant, it does not excuse his other actions throughout the novel.

By far my biggest issue is that no bell ever rings in this book! What sort of misleading title is that? I know that you are to “ask not for whom the bell tolls” but I really wanted to know. So in addition to a communist exploitative rebel fighter who essentially commits suicide, we also have a misleading title to accompany the plain prose that doesn’t really tell us much. This is obviously a cautionary tale that Hemingway saw fit to provide for us. The moral of the story, you ask? Don’t take orders from Communists, or else you will die.

Look Inside liloQui // Presenting Brett Davis

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:38:00 -0500

Today on Look Inside liloQui we introduce Brett Davis, our application back end and network security guru. Brett’s seen the Cloud, and wants to make it more secure.

Brett Davis was born in Noblesville and graduated from Purdue University, where he met our lead developer Christopher Miller. They’re in a band you should check out. Brett lives in downtown Chicago where he works for West Monroe Partners. Alongside band-mate and fellow liloQui developer Chris, he has helped develop the security tool Filelocker.

When he’s not working, Brett enjoys a nice gin and tonic and bands such Third Eye Blind, Foo Fighters, and Fleetwood Mac. He hopes to get a master’s in digital forensics or network security and work for a government agency.

Q: Tell us a little about what you do.

For my portion of liloQui, I’ll be working on the backend site design, which means that I’ll be laying out how all of the data about different published works is stored, making sure that the site performs well and scales up as we get more users, and also to make sure that proper security is implemented to keep user data safe so that people feel confident when they’d like to purchase a work through us.

Q: Why are you excited to be a part of liloQui?

I’m extremely excited to be part of the liloQui team because all of the people in the team are so profoundly talented and passionate about this project. I’ve worked with Chris on numerous projects before, and having gotten to know Ryan and Josh over the past couple of months I feel confident that we’ll be able to put together a truly exceptional product.

Q: What are you reading right now?

I’m currently reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott card (for the 3rd time).

200 Word Book Review // The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:44:00 -0500

BOB - What do missing cats, unfaithful wives, psychic prostitutes, and morbidly curious teenagers have in common? They are all central to the wandering, dream-like plot of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This lengthy translation from the original Japanese tells the story of Toru Okada, a 30-year old everyman unemployed by choice. Lacking direction in his life, his wife eventually leaves him, setting him on a tumbling, illogical path of self-discovery and exploration.

This is not an easy read, but the wandering prose is always rewarding, with deep insights into the human condition and what propels us drunkenly forward on a world that seems to careen out of control. Murakami’s characters are memorable and his attention to detail is astounding. Jay Rubin’s translation does well to retain these aspects of the novel, which at times is overpowering and confounding. While not always well-paced, the story is captivating and, at times, horrifying. The personal harms caused to each of the characters can be felt through the story-telling, which lends a very real weight to a book that is at times reminiscent of a murky dream. This renowned book, which nearly escapes description, is well worth the initial effort it takes to read.

Buy The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle now

200 Word Book Review // The Business of Fancydancing by Sherman Alexie

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:53:29 -0500

SCOTT - Ash. Electricity. Alcohol. Absence. There is no one great common theme to Sherman Alexie’s “The Business of Fancydancing.” And in fact the title of the book is the best way to describe it. There is still something about the word “fancydancing” that holds an immense fascination for me. You might be imaging some sort of ballroom dance like the waltz, but in fact “fancydancing” is a Native American form of dance. It’s Quick. Colorful. And for a lack of better words: Electric.

The biggest things I noticed while reading the book (here’s a question: what do you call a book of poetry and short fiction? A collection?) was the use of ash and electricity. For me, in retrospect the ash has taken on a form of rebirth, while the electricity must simply (or complexly) be fancydancing (which I’m still trying to discover the meaning of).

“I didn’t lose anything, but I buried my heart in the ash before it all cooled.”

“It’s simple. Electricity is just lightning pretending to be permanent.”

How do you sum up emotion in words? Rage. Pain. Loss. Absence. Renewal. I finished this book over two weeks ago, and while it may not have been as good as “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” I am still pondering the meaning of “fancydancing.”

Buy The Business of Fancydancing now.

Hunger Games and Ransom Notes

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:02:31 -0500

SCOTT - The big trend in young adult literature that swept the nation this year? “The Hunger Games.” A three part series that follows the lives of Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and Gale Hawthorne, “The Hunger Games” quickly rose to the height of popularity. The series takes place in an future time period (exact time is unknown) after North America is destroyed by war. The new nation that rises to power, Panem, consists of twelve districts that are separated by miles and miles and are only accessible by train, which the Capitol controls. The Capitol uses the hunger games to keep its power and control over the districts. The games consist of 24 contestants (2 from each district) competing to stay alive in an arena designed by the capital.

My point today is not necessarily about the books. But, more more about how Lionsgate has decided not to make it a movie trilogy, (which would reflect the books) but a four part series.

“Lionsgate executives told Wall Street analysts this morning to expect big things from The Hunger Games, a series of four action films that the studio will release from the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins.” (from: http://screenrant.com/hunger-games-trilogy-4-movies-benk-118021/)

Now, I’m a huge fan of great books that get turned into great movies. But, it is hard for me to see books be turned into movies. It’s hard for someone so in love with literature to see plot lines, characters and fantastic scenes not make the cut. So, when I first heard that the trilogy was going to be made into a four-part movie series I was thrilled (much like I was when I found out The Hobbit is going to be a two-parter). However, my initial excitement has slowly worn off and I have begun to question what is going on.

Much of the buzz online now is questioning where the books will be split. Obviously the trend is to split the last book into two parts, but is that the most sensible place? Why not ration the entire story out into four more equal parts? If Lionsgate knows, going into this project, that they are going to produce four movies, why not split the story so that it makes sense as four-parts? The problem with this is that splicing will most likely occur ( no matter how the story line is broken up). I fear that the books will be cut up and pieced together to fit into a four-part series, like a t.v. criminal cuts up a magazine to write a letter to the police.

My other main concern about this new development is that it is nothing more than a money game (not a hunger game). Lionsgate already seems to be obsessed with the film and its money making abilities:

“The highest selling film we’ve ever had at the Cannes Film Festival.” (from: http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/hunger-games-will-provide-a-feast-for-lionsgate-execs-say/)

Which begs the question: is this all a ploy to make more money?I’m afraid that at the moment I am leaning towards a strong yes. We have seen in recent years a trend by movie production companies to make more money by splitting books into two parters (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Twilight: Breaking Dawn). Do these books necessarily need to be broken into multiple parts? I don’t believe so. We can expect, whenever we go see a film adaptation of a book, that parts (sometimes our favorite parts) will be missing. And if this is still the case with books that are split into more than one, then what is point of splitting it? My cynical side says that it must be a way to make money.

What do you think of this? Should the Hunger Games trilogy be made into a four-part movie series? Where should the movies be split up at? And do you think something will be missing?

We're growing!

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:41:05 -0500

We’ve been thinking really hard and testing our ideas for publishing for a while now. As we’ve prepared to move from the planning and testing stages into actual development, it became increasingly apparent that we would need some extra help to get liloQui off the ground.

In that spirit, we are proud to announce that we have recently added a new partner to the company to help us with back-end development. A formal introduction is in the works, so keep your eye out! We’re really excited for the progress we’re sure to see in coming months.

The Obligatory "Best of 2011" Post

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:27:28 -0500

It’s almost 2012. You knew that already. On the short list of things you might not know, however, lies the contents of this, our list of our 10 most popular articles and interviews from 2011. We got to know photographers and writers, we witnessed the fall of a bookselling giant, and learned a little bit about programming. We wrote a lot of long-winded articles, and started a number of great discussions. Thanks for reading!

In order from most to least popular, here are your favorite posts from this year:

======

1. Books We Love // Poetry! Poetry! Poetry by Peter Davis

I simply couldn’t put down Peter Davis’ Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!, a collection of metapoetry that does away with any such pretense. Davis doesn’t hide behind his words and he makes no attempt whatsoever to provide the reader with some kind of theoretical, rosy middle ground upon which his ideas might be engaged. It’s not what the typical reader is expecting going into a poetry reading experience.

======

2. Author Spotlight // Dean Lappi

We met author Dean Lappi not at a coffee shop or a pub per our usual procedure, but on the busy wall of a Facebook group. He’s a lover of fantasy, an evangelist of networking and an experimentalist through and through. We rigged up our recorder and turned on our speakerphone for a conversation with Lappi, in which we discussed math as magic, publishing as collaboration and good networking as the lifeblood of the modern author.

======

3. Author Spotlight // Lisa Vaughn

People who invest themselves in telling stories are constantly jumping from character to character, from scene to scene, mapping all sorts of different emotions and atmospheres. Perhaps it starts before the pen even touches paper. I can’t say for sure how often I have written furiously out of anger, or rosily out of love. So it’s not surprising that when I sat down to speak with artist and author Lisa Vaughn, I found myself reflecting on the power of love to empower, of fear to imprison, and of grief to motivate.

======

4. Hashem Rifai: Finding the Endless Nothing

Hashem Rifai in many ways embodies the tension that defines modern America. In his one person there lies a struggle between the old and the new, between his conservative upbringing and liberal education. His mind pulls him toward medical school but his heart and his eye insist on a simultaneous career in photography. In his work, Rifai searches to reconcile these extremes, inviting others to experience what he calls the “endless nothing,” that intangible quality of good art that is so indicative of this kind of duality that defines the human condition. The result of this quest is brilliant photography with a perspective that speaks to the vast greatness of ancient culture and tradition while making room for intimate humanity in the midst of skyscrapers and subways.

======

5. The Oxford Comma: Who Cares?

Lately there has been a lot of buzz surrounding Oxford’s recent decision to change their rules regarding the comma that bears their name. Cutesy introductory paragraphs abound on literary and editing blogs around the world aiming to succinctly both define the Oxford Comma and express their stance on the recent turn of events.

======

6. Google’s eReader: A Step Backwards?

If Google is doing anything right (which I think they are), they are dead-on with their leanings toward the accessibility of good web applications and Cloud-based solutions. A long-term investment in the Cloud requires companies like Google to continue pushing toward media that is not centralized and toward hardware that is not specialized. Do yourself a favor and don’t buy this device. Go read the same stuff for free in any browser or on any Android platform and revel in the fact that you’ve avoided supporting a model that needs to change.

======

7. The End of Borders: A Positive Development?

The end is here for Borders, and it’s been a long time coming. In the past year, all but 400 brick and mortar locations have been shut down, andit’s just been announced that the rest are set to go by September. Analysts (and customers with common sense) identify a number of factors that have resulted in the company’s failure; customers browsing and not buying (I’ve heard it said that Borders is the Lunchtime Library), a heavy (and outdated) focus on music and movie sales, and an all around poor digital strategy are all potentially to blame.

======

8. JavaScript Tips and Tricks: Part 2

Moving on with our JavaScript Tips and Tricks series, I present another set of good practices that I’ve picked up in my experience as a developer. Wield this power wisely, and be sure to share your go-to JS tricks in the comments section below.

======

9. Pioneer Profiles // Living Your Story with Rue Volley

Some people are creative on levels that demand a complete surrender. The stories that loop in their minds are so consuming that they demand to be shared with the world. Every memory, every relationship, every clever little thought becomes fodder for the sort of epic tale that can only find its basis in one person’s truest vision of reality, even when that tale tells of the strange and fantastic. Author Rue Volley hasn’t been writing long, but when the mood struck her in early 2010 to look at her own life through a new lens, she’s found herself at the mercy of words.

======

10. JavaScript Tips and Tricks: Part 1

As a developer working for a big consulting firm (and as the owner of a web startup), I’m constantly learning new tricks to make my job go more smoothly. When it comes to JavaScript, some of these tricks have proven particularly useful time and time again, so I’m offering them up to you with the hope that they can serve you as they have served me. These tips are by no means a strict guideline, but using the techniques outlined here will help us all write better JavaScript code. That’s a good thing.

—————————————————————————————————

Remember to follow liloQui on Twitter and Facebook and definitely head over to our homepage if you haven’t yet. Not doing so could result in sickening regret and persistent night terrors.

—————————————————————————————————

Can Digital Publishing Dissolve the Industry Clique?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:12:00 -0500

RYAN - About a month ago, I posted an editorial asking if digital publishing might lead to a breakdown of basic professional services associated with publishing. I wrote about editors and designers and marketers, and how the entrepreneurial author is, for better or for worse, making publishing a much less hospitable industry for these professionals. I opined that some of the promotional material I had been seeing of late for certain independent works was quite unprofessional, and I wondered if it made sense for authors to necessarily become skilled in Photoshop and AdWords in order to compete in today’s market.

I brought that article to a group on LinkedIn (Publishing Today, managed by Donna Erickson) and started a discussion that would go on to last for over a month. It would seem that as soon as someone like myself starts pontificating on the publishing industry using subjective terms like “quality,” people are compelled to speak up. Throughout this discussion with a number of talented writers, publishers, agents and editors, I was introduced to the whole gamut of thoughts and perspectives on this question of “quality” in publishing. I should again stress that we aren’t talking about how “good” a book is. When we say “quality,” we are talking about professional quality, about the design and editing and marketing of books, those elements that go beyond the words on the page. Publishing, if nothing else, is simply the act of applying design, editing, and marketing to the written word, after all.

Several people echoed my concerns, several brought their own to the table. But the most intriguing point made came from a somewhat contrary position to mine (although we share quite a bit of the same thoughts on this issue). Group member Darryl Markowitz suggested that maybe it isn’t even a question of quality, but of the rather biased nature of agents and publishers within the traditional model, that leads to a closed market:

“There’s tremendous talent among agents and publishers, but their background is rather homogeneous, which produces a certain filter. They admit to being a clique. So its not surprising when people with good writing get rejected by them all. Or even people whose writing may not be stellar, but its popularity is striking none the less.”

In other words, certain authors writing certain kinds of books may never find luck with an agent, simply because agents, as a group, tend to favor the same kinds of literature. Even within genre publishing, you’ll find that agents will flock toward whatever appeals to them, or whatever is the flavor of the week. So if you’re writing a niche genre to a niche audience (even if that audience is huge), most agents won’t give you the time of day. Same problem with the major publishers.

This might be why much of the under designed, under edited, mis-marketed work I’ve seen of late has been relegated to a few specific types of genre fiction. These authors branch out on their own and do their best to publish their own work, because they haven’t found any success with the powers that be. With that in mind, I think it’s time to maybe start welcoming the self-published work, even if it doesn’t quite stand up to the more professional (read: expensive) stuff. We should accept it for what it is until current digital publishing trends cause enough of an upset to prove that niche writers can and will find their niche audiences. That’s what the internet is all about. All this traditional mantra about finding the most marketable or the most widely appealing literature can’t possibly last in the face of positive digital developments. It’s time to focus on building a supportive industry that helps writers find their audience and deliver the best product they can, regardless of the story they want to tell and regardless of whether or not that story appeals to us as publishers.

Group member Nina Alvarez, an editor, summed it all up pretty well:

“I just encourage people, as we all seem to agree on here, to spend the money on editors and layout designers, on writing mentors, and maybe even a ghostwriter. If you really have a message or story you need to get out, then it should be worth doing it well.”

What are your thoughts on the issue of the closed publishing world? I’m really interested to hear what others have to say about agents and publishers being “cliquish.” Have you encountered this? Share your stories in the comments below!

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

The Oxford Comma: Who Cares?

The Democracies and Dictatorships of Literature

Sex, Lies, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The 200 Word Book Review // The Last Repatriate by Matthew Salesses

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:42:00 -0500

RYAN - They say you can’t go home again. That’s typically true, especially when it was war that called you away in the first place. For anyone who has ever left their childhood comforts to experience the world at large, The Last Repatriate will offer a glimpse into an experience both familiar and, thankfully, completely alien as it traces Teddy’s release from a Korean POW camp and troubled return to his hometown in Virginia.

It wasn’t the torture Teddy endured that struck me (although it’s visceral and engaging). It wasn’t his struggle process the things he had done to stay alive (although such a struggle is what makes great stories great). It was that simple confirmation that home is never what we remember. It was how the story echoed my own periodical returns to the town in which I grew up, a strange and different place that pays but a cursory attention to the fact that I’ve left, I’ve gone, and I’m not the same anymore. It was the way the narrator used an inclusive “we” to make me a part of the story as he describes the scene (“We can tell his thoughts are on home…”).

In making his account of a damaged Korean War POW relatable to a sheltered boy from Indiana, Salesses succeeded where almost any other writer might not. His is a heartfelt tale that taps into our collective desire for a home we love (but might never see), and it only takes an hour or two to enjoy. Don’t miss this one.

Buy The Last Repatriate at Nouvella now.

—————————————————————————————————

Are you a writer, or a publisher, or a lover of fantastic literature? Send us your suggestions for the next title for us to review as part of our 200 Word Book Review series. Email media@liloqui.com, or send us a message on Twitter (@liloQuiDP).

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

The 200 Word Book Review // Our Island of Epidemics by Matthew Salesses

Books We Love // Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis

The Entirely Facetious and Many Years Too Late Book Review // Rip Van Winkle

Just received our signed copy of The Last Repatriate by Matthew...

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:19:47 -0500

Just received our signed copy of The Last Repatriate by Matthew Salesses, plus a nifty postcard! Look for The 200 Word Book Review later this week, and check out our review of Salesses’ Our Island of Epidemics today.

The 2011 eReader Holiday Shopping Guide

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:24:00 -0500

With Black Friday already in the rear view, those of us unwilling to brave the mass hysteria are ready to begin crossing items off our gift lists. This year more than ever, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are making it hard for avid readers not to jump on the eBook bandwagon. The newly released Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are beginning to bridge the gap between earlier eReader models and fully-functioning media powerhouses, and there are suddenly more options out there than most people can shake a book at.

We’ve brought them all together, the old and the new, in one place and lined them up to give you a clear view of what each device has to offer. If you want a technical comparison, look elsewhere. We’re getting down to brass tax and exploring these devices as they compare to one another functionally, to give you a good idea of which eReader is right for the book fan on your list. One look through this guide, and you’ll be a regular literati Santa.

—————————————————————————————————

THE KINDLE FAMILY

—————————————————————————————————

1. Kindle - $79

This is your basic, bottom-line eReader. It’s the only one on this list without a multi-touch screen (or a keyboard), and is pretty much just for reading books. The E Ink screen is celebrated by many as being much easier on the eyes than standard digital screens. Additionally, all Kindles come with a bunch of free Cloud storage for Amazon data, which means you don’t have to worry about running out of room, even with thousands of books in your library.

2. Kindle Touch - $99 WiFi, $149 3G

A touch heavier than its standard companion, the Kindle Touch delivers the same basic experience as the Kindle, but with an easy-to-use touch screen. The 3G may be almost twice as expensive as the standard Kindle, but the 3G service is completely free. That means you can browse for new books from pretty much anywhere.

3. Kindle Keyboard - $139

The keyboard makes it easier to use the experimental browser that comes on the other E Ink models, and the WiFi only and 3G models are currently both priced at $139. If you’re interested in the Kindle Touch 3G model, but are looking to save a few bucks, consider the Kindle Keyboard, whose battery life and storage capacity is equal to that of the Touch.

4. Kindle Fire - $199

The big player this year for Amazon is the Kindle Fire. It can do pretty much anything. Comic books and magazines come to life in full-color. Angry Birds and other apps offer a good distraction. Netflix, Hulu Plus, and all the content available from Amazon Prime is at your disposal. The issue? Almost nobody uses this device to read. The battery life is down from weeks or even months on other models to only eight hours. If you are looking for a fantastic entry-level tablet, this is the best device available on the market. If you’re looking for a great eReader, you might want to look elsewhere.

—————————————————————————————————

THE NOOK FAMILY

—————————————————————————————————

1. NOOK Simple Touch - $99

The NOOK family has moved solidly into the multi-touch arena with the NOOK Simple Touch, Barnes & Noble’s most basic eReader. It boasts an impressive E Ink screen that makes reading a breeze on the eyes, and its 2-month battery life is awesome. It lacks the Kindle family’s free cloud storage, but makes up for that with an expandable microSD memory card slot, allowing the user to add up to 32GB of storage.

2. NOOK Color - $199

Like the rest of the NOOK family, the NOOK Color has one major thing going for it that Amazon lacks - a brick and mortar home base. The Color is just a little less impressive than the NOOK Tablet, and might lack some of the connectivity and versatility of the Fire, but it allows for free WiFi - and also free reading - in any Barnes & Noble store.

3. NOOK Tablet - $249

Much like the Kindle Fire, the NOOK Tablet runs a whole slew of apps from the Android marketplace. It’s fast, it’s pretty, and it’s going to offer shoppers looking for a solid tablet experience something to think about. The 11.5-hour battery life is an advantage over the Fire, but the lack of free cloud storage and other perks that come with Amazon Prime make the NOOK tough to rationalize. If you’re sold on Barnes & Noble over Amazon, don’t care about the E Ink screens, and don’t mind spending a little more, then this is the tablet for you

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

Google’s eReader: A Step Backwards?

Amazon Subscriptions: Cheapening Literature?

Letting Go or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud

The Democracies and Dictatorships of Literature

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:22:00 -0500

RYAN - Karl Marx used to say that governments have a sort of evolutionary ladder. He’d rank democracy somewhere above tribal oligarchies and right below communism in the progressive growth chart of political systems. It goes without saying that most people would disagree with this oversimplified schema. I’d like to think that things tend to move in circles.

This is certainly true of the literary world. It’s like the entire history of the written word has moved in one big cycle. You have your freer moments of written expression (the 1920’s come to mind, at least in the novels), and you have your more prominent periods of top-down control and censorship. Don’t believe me? You try writing about the earth orbiting the sun during a time when the Pope disagrees.

It seems obvious that the digital age defaults to one of those times of “free literature.” Never before could virtual unknowns publish their own work and potentially gather a readership of any kind. The closest historical parallel in my mind would be the numerous independent newspapers and journals that popped up in what would become the United States of America during the Revolutionary War era. Even then, though, the printing press technology alone wasn’t enough to completely democratize publishing. You still needed to have some capital to buy a studio and a press and all the supplies that went into printing. You still needed to hire a delivery boy and feed his horse.

That’s not the case anymore. As I’ve already said, pretty much anyone can publish their work today. Renaissance men and women among us who have a knack for writing and editing and marketing and design can pretty much run the whole operation on their own, and many authors do. This is exactly what drew us at liloQui Digital Publishing together in the first place; we wanted to see what a small press would look like in the digital age. We wanted to see how much further we could democratize the publishing world by helping authors design their works, get them running smoothly online, and virally connecting them to their readers. The name of the game for us was creating audiences for authors that, for whatever reason, couldn’t create audiences for themselves.

Because that’s what publishing is all about, right? It’s been so easy for us to knock the big New York firms because they’ve turned themselves into massive, sky-scraping targets for ridicule. It might not be their fault that the market is shrinking for expensive printed materials, but that doesn’t really excuse the lack of creative and financial ownership most authors actually retain once they’ve achieved their dream of getting published. The big publishers are the King Louis to Amazon’s Robespierre. They’re yesterday’s news. They are on the way out. Their model is broken. Publishing should be about getting every author out there connected with their readers - no matter how few readers they might have - and letting people more freely express themselves. That’s the promise the web makes to us every time we log into Facebook or Twitter. That’s what the commenting section below every article on the New York Times’ website has taught us to believe.

But as we move forward building our publishing platform, these questions keep rolling in my mind. How can we make the publishing world more open while retaining the quality the big guys can bring? How do we make room for the amateur writer to get published while ensuring that the Jonathan Franzens and Neil Gaimans don’t get lost in all the noise? I keep coming back to this point every time I finish delivering a speech about why the publishing ladder to success is missing a few rungs. How can I be an advocate for publishing anyone and everyone who wants an audience while giving the art of the written word its due?

I have no idea.

This is my challenge, and this is yours as a reader, or a writer, or a speaker of language in general. Too often, I challenge the “technological advances” being made by digital publishing firms that focus on shticks like adding soundtracks to books without myself offering a better solution for the application of digital technologies to the written word. I’m writing this to begin the conversation, to ask for your thoughts and opinions. How can we as members of the writing and publishing and reading communities open our world up without losing what matters most? How do we let more people into the inner circle while ensuring that we have truly challenging and provocative books to read when we go home at night?

Such questions are exactly the sort of thing that can turn a working democracy into an oppressive dictatorship. We can’t afford to see that happen with books on the web, so we have to seriously ask ourselves: Why are we writing and publishing and reading in the first place?

Share your thoughts below. We need as many voices in this conversation as we can get.

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

Innovation: You’re Doing It Wrong

Amazon Subscriptions: Cheapening Literature?

Google’s eReader: A Step Backwards?

JavaScript Tips and Tricks, Part 2

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:26:07 -0500

CHRIS – Moving on with our JavaScript Tips and Tricks series, I present another set of good practices that I’ve picked up in my experience as a developer. Wield this power wisely, and be sure to share your go-to JS tricks in the comments section below.

Oh, and check out Part 1 for more awesome knowledge.

—————————————————————————————————

Prototypes

While these share a name with a popular JavaScript Library called PrototypeJS, I am referring to one of the OOP constructs inherent to the language of JavaScript itself. If you find yourself writing utility functions for things like string formatting, string trimming, or numerical operations, you can add a method to the prototype for the data type. Prototypes allow you to easily define methods to all instances of a particular object. The beauty is that the method is applied to the prototype, so it is only stored in the memory once, but every instance of the object has access to it.

Here are some example prototypes I have used in the past.

Older versions of IE do not have a string.trim() function for removing whitespace, so I rolled my own:

When I parse currency values, I want to remove currency symbols and commas:

When I parse negative numbers formatted like this (xxx.xx), I need to convert them to -xxx.xx before parsing.

Here is an example usage of a custom prototype in action:

—————————————————————————————————

Eval() is Evil

JavaScript’s eval() function takes a string of JavaScript code, opens a compiler, compiles it, and runs it. While there are a few cases where it is useful, there is almost always a way to do something that does not involve eval(). There is a performance hit since the compiler is opened for every instance of eval() that is used. Additionally, there are security concerns. Running eval() on user input could leave you open to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

JavaScript Tips and Tricks, Part 1

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:02:00 -0400

CHRIS – As a developer working for a big consulting firm (and as the owner of a web startup), I’m constantly learning new tricks to make my job go more smoothly. When it comes to JavaScript, some of these tricks have proven particularly useful time and time again, so I’m offering them up to you with the hope that they can serve you as they have served me. These tips are by no means a strict guideline, but using the techniques outlined here will help us all write better JavaScript code. That’s a good thing.

—————————————————————————————————

Using terse syntax

Instead of using the OOP standard way to instantiate an object (the “Class object = new Class()” syntax):

you can just do this:

—————————————————————————————————

Strict vs. type-converting equality

In JavaScript the triple equals sign means “equality without type coercion” meaning that the values must be equal in type in addition to value. For example:

The only time you should use == over === is when checking against null (see next section). For further reading on equality, check out Mozilla Developers.

—————————————————————————————————

Undefined and null

When checking if a variable is null or undefined, developers will often check both like this:

However, since undefined == null, we can simply write this:

—————————————————————————————————

Specifying default values

When specifying default values for variables, you can use the C# way of thinking (checking if it is null or empty) like this:

or be much more concise like this:

In the latter example, the default value of “bar” is used when the left side is “falsey” (empty string, null, undefined, 0, false).

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

Look Inside liloQui // Presenting Christopher Miller

Developing Enterprise Applications for the New Web, Part 1

Developing Enterprise Applications for the New Web, Part 2

Sex, Lies, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:44:04 -0400

RYAN - Director David Fincher made headlines around the interwebs last week thanks to his comments on the casting process for the lead in his upcoming adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Rumors abounded that Scarlett Johansson had almost been cast as the titular Lisbeth Salander. Johansson was beaten out by Rooney Mara (who you might remember as the girl who dumps Zuck at the beginning of The Social Network) because, as Fincher puts it, Scarlett was too sexy. The full quote (via New York Post):

Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I’m telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can’t wait for her to take her clothes off… I keep trying to explain this. Salander should be like E.T. If you put E.T. dolls out before anyone had seen the movie, they would say, “What is this little squishy thing?” Well, you know what? When he hides under the table and he grabs the Reese’s Pieces, you love him! It has to be like that.

In other words, this girl…

…is “too sexy” to play this one:

I’d hardly call a half-naked woman helplessly in the clutches of James Bond “squishy.” In fact, a sexually vulnerable, childlike protagonist is the least alien thing imaginable on a promotional poster for a Hollywood movie, and the characterization of Lisbeth Salander as such is grossly off point. At first glance, Fincher’s desire to find a suitable lead to fill Salander’s shoes was admirable. He makes it sound as though he doesn’t want to sacrifice the integrity of his heroine by turning her into a sexual object.

Because Salander isn’t the kind of character that should appeal in such a way. She’s not the kind of girl that can’t wait to get her clothes off. She’s cold, and distant, and the result of an emotionally and physically turbulent past. So when ScarJo was disqualified for that quality that makes you want her to “take her clothes off,” it made sense.

Until the promotional posters for the film depicted a Lisbeth Salander who, indeed, has taken her clothes off.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a firm believer that literature and film can tell the same story in completely different ways, and that’s okay. I don’t get mad when the film adaptation of a book I’ve read isn’t a carbon copy of the written story. I appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of each medium, and the need for filmmakers to isolate and exploit evocative imagery from within the stories they are trying to tell.

But with a film called The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, how is it that the front of Salander’s nude body has become that evocative image? It should be noted that the promotional team for this American version is competing with an already successful (and still very recent) Swedish version. It’s understandable that they might want to push the envelope a bit. But where the Swedish version was adored by fans of the book for its fidelity in bringing the characters of the book to life on screen, the American production has chosen to ignore the characters in pursuit of their marketing vision.

This isn’t about the casting choice for Lisbeth Salander. This isn’t even about morality, or chauvinism, or prudishness, although those are all necessary and worthy discussions. This is simply about character. Anyone who has read the book can tell you with confidence that ScarJo was never right for the role. David Fincher made the right decision. Salander is described as anorexic and cold. She’s vulnerable and damaged, but she knows how to stand up and kick ass. Simply put, she’s a girl with a dragon tattoo.

So let’s not try to make her into Scarlett Johansson.

—————————————————————————————————

Liked this post? Check out a few of our best interviews, articles and editorials:

Top 10 Books That Should Be Movies

Five More Books That Should Be Movies

Digital Books and the Modern Movie Theatre