New Edition Of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" & "Tom Sawyer" Removes Mark Twain's "Offensive" Words
Should we be editing era period books?

What might the long term results be? Our history as a society rests with our authors and storytellers. It would seem to me, if we edit out the history we are not comfortable with, we may be doomed to repeat it. Do we want to go the way of sanitizing our social history?

JMO

Maddad

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- A new edition of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" plans to replace the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers.

As a 10th-grade English teacher at St. Petersburg High, Tracey Keim grades dozens and dozens of essays. Lately she has spotted a trend among her students — many don't recognize her cursive editing marks when she hands back their papers.

Cars that have to warm up after a good hard rain are not what my impulsive personality signed up for.

But they fit right in with an easily distracted brain, and with the list of things I have to do before I'm bogged down by the new school year, there's always something else I should be doing.

I have about 40,000 words to edit, but not on The Novel for now—I've decided to finally put together that collection of Newsvine articles I published in my early days, for that year and a half or so as we trudged through the last bitter remnants of the Bush administration and the Buffalo Sabres were playing a season for the ages.

They started out undefeated for several weeks and then fell victim to their own history. It wasnt always fun to draw so many connections between my favorite sports teams and this great nation we live in, but it was usually pretty easy.

Several of you have pointed out recently that I shouldnt be so worried about cleaning up my prose. As a true believer in Ti Jean's dream of spontaneous bop prosedy, I can really get on board with that. As an aspiring novelist, though, who's trying to impress over-worked literary agents, that idea makes me kinda nervous.

But I'm doing my best to only correct what needs to be corrected, like spelling errors and whatever technical goofs found their way between the inebriated mind and the clumsy fingers, because, in this case, the urgency and excitement of the moment is whats most important.

This collection is going to be called "It's Not Just a Ball Game Anymore," and it's going to be my test case for publishing an ebook of some kind in anticipation of doing the same with a few chapters of The Novel. It captures a moment in American history when we seemed to want to make a go at fixing things, but got caught up in the moment. Anyone who's ever had to take a clutch slapshot or throw the last Hail Mary knows what I'm talking about.

So the never-ending video loop of this particular shot may end up looking almost as wobbly as it really was, but maybe it hit a few marks along the way. We'll find out soon. Either way, it's more fun than I thought re-living those days, and maybe it will be for a few of you, too.

As long as the idling car hasnt run me out of gas, I'll be off getting some real @!$%# done to ease my mind as it prepares to dip into another round of tedious dream-chasing. Wish me luck on both counts.

________________________________

Articles and excerpt from the big project, "The Light That We Can See" can be found here.

1. This is how it starts

2. This time I really mean it

3. Addie in Wonderland

4. Un-disconnected Verse

Earlier this week the Toronto Star announced, among other changes, that it was planning to outsource some one hundred in-house, union editing jobs. In the press release issued by the union in the wake of the announcement, union chief Maureen Dawson explained that "Journalism is a collaborative effort, the product of a team of reporters, photographers and editors working in concert to produce the kind of activist agenda that has served Star readers and our community so well for so long...To remove a critical element of that work is to shortchange everyone who depends on it."

Now, one (apparent) editor at the Star has decided to show us all the benefits of collaboration. An extensively marked-up copy of Publisher John Cruickshank's internal memo announcing the changes was sent to Torontoist by a self-described "intermediary who was asked to send this for a friend who works at the Star" this morning; it's, allegedly, "the work of a Star editor."

In my experience, a good percentage of the acrimony on Newsvine results from situations where a poster's intentions are either misunderstood, or mischaracterized. We shouldn't be surprised that this occurs, given the sometimes haphazard grammar, spelling and punctuation that has become so much a hallmark of internet communication, even on a site such as this, which we think we hold to a higher standard.

Some idea of the the vast gulf in comprehension created by indifferent punctuation is conveyed in the following apocryphal example, a version of which I recently encountered in my local newspaper:

The Intent (with correct punctuation)

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.

You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy -- will you let me be yours?

- Gloria

The Result (with incorrect punctuation)

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior.

You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours, Gloria

For a deeper understanding of punctuation and its importance -- and a deeply entertaining read, to boot -- I recommend Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by author Lynne Truss.

There are numerous other instances of communication malapropisms caused by sub-par English skills, contained even in MSM newspaper headlines.

Do you have any favourites?

Wikipedia, one of the 10 most popular sites on the Web, was founded about eight years ago as a long-shot experiment to create a free encyclopedia from the contributions of volunteers, all with the power to edit, and presumably improve, the content.

Was Vicky really that mean? Was Heba really that controlling? Was Ed really that submissive to his wife? Did Amy P. only talk about her son Rhett with autism and not her other boys? Was something going on between Amy C. and her trainer Bob Harper??

These questions, as well as many others, arise because of how The Biggest Loser Season 6 was edited. The cameras were rolling 24/7, yet by the time it reached our TVs, only 90 minutes were actually seen each week (yes, there are almost 30 minutes worth of commercials during these 2 hour episodes). How much can really be portrayed correctly with that much footage sitting on the floor in the editing room? Can the editors manipulate how contestants are viewed?

For example, Vicky was seen as a vindictive, mean, negative, game-player that would stop at nothing in order to win. Did the editors only find the mean and negative footage worthy of showing? Was there more footage of her actually being a decent human being? Or does a person need to provide the footage to begin with? If she was not a vindictive person to begin with, they would not have had any footage to use in the first place.

I'm sure this is relevant to all reality shows; however, I am only a fan of The Biggest Loser - as this reality show inspires people to better themselves. But with the drama added to Season 6, I questioned whether the editors lost sight of what was important. Did they manipulate the show to become more dramatic? Or were the contestants of Season 6 just a dramatic bunch to begin with - providing a gold mine for the editors?

Yep. This accounts for much of my absence lately, if anyone noticed. I've been writing or dealing with life happening instead of Newsvining.

It feels really strange. I've never actually finished anything before, and then I wrote a complete novel from start to finish, starting on November 7 and ending just this afternoon, around 6:00. The NaNoWriMo robots counted my word total to be 55,661, as evidenced by the image.

I'm not really sure what to make of the novel, actually. I'm still unsure on a title, but it needs to involve Magarathea. Yes, I mean the planet from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Here's the synopsis. The novel centers around a college kid named Daniel. He's a music major, but once I got into the plot that little fact kind of withered into nonexistence. He's a rather excellent musician, and he and his friend Chris start up a band using a ton of music they've written together. A guy in one of Chris's classes joins them, and his roommate happens to be an excellent drummer, and they take off. When Daniel decides he's found a bass player, though, shenanigans ensue. The bass player is a girl. Daniel's got a girlfriend. Most of the conflict here revolved around Daniel fighting with his conscience, though, and eventually abandoning it in favor of his ambition. The band names itself Magarathea, and they try to be as awesome as they can in time for a nearby fictional music festival called SoundSplosion. (Lame, I know, but it's the 4th of July weekend, even though I never said so in the manuscript.)

I'm not walking away from this feeling like it's a huge mound of crap. That might have to do with the fact that I haven't read a word I've written yet, except to see what I was coming from or to check a date or something. It's not broken into chapters, even. It's just a million scenes.

So here's the point. I didn't write this article to brag about my accomplishment, even though I am ridiculously proud of it. The word count isn't the high point. It's the completion. Over the next couple weeks, I'll be working through the thing to fix inconsistencies, write a couple scenes I skipped, and make notes to myself on what to do in the future. Maybe I'll even chapter things up. When that process is done, I'll need more eyes to read my original draft. My question in this article is would anyone here be willing to volunteer?

If I've never seen you before, please don't. I'm looking to give this to those I know (as much as you can know someone from Newsvine) for constructive criticism. And if I get a ton of volunteers (you can laugh here) (I did) I might only pick a few. Please only volunteer if we're familiar with each other, if you're serious about taking the time to read through a very rough copy of something that may change a million more times, and if you're willing to tell me, maybe even in back-to-back sentences, that I did something very @!$%#ty or very awesome. If anyone responds to this call I'll give you more details at that point. If you can be blunt and tactful at once with editing, and I know you here, you're perfect for the job if you're willing and able.

Thanks a bunch to anyone who offers in advance, congratulations to any other winners out there on the Vine, and good luck with the Consumermas season to everyone!

I am writing to announce a new group. While we do have several other writing groups already here my aim with this one is to fill a very specific niche: writers wanting to improve themselves.

The group will include an open article where people can ask for immediate help with writing problems (sort of like the open help thread for newsvine). This will also serve as a place where you can find Racheal's articles of grammar advice, as well as my pieces of writing advice

I will also post my writing assignments and challenges there since they too are intended to help you improve as a writer.

This will also serve as a place where I can meet a long requested feature, namely providing writing and editing advice - and critiques - of those authors wishing that.

A user can simply put the words "please edit" in a headline of a story published exclusively to that group and that way we'll know that person is open to constructive criticism.

This is sort of a twist on the great idea by Adam and his "edit me" group

This will NOT be a place for seeds. This is just for articles written by newsviners about how to improve yourself as a writer or suggestions on how to help others as writers.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the benefits of editing. Moreover, it seems that the standard online is to edit errors in or update articles, even from sources like AP. Often times I find an article even has a new title.

A new book argues that the web could use some self-control.

The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself. By Susan Bell (W. W. Norton, 230 pages).

There are today more than 100 million blogs; 175,000 are begun each day, and 1.6 million posts are added daily. There are thousands of magazines of all varieties. Almost 300,000 books were published in 2006; self-publishing has harnessed cheap printing technology to take off in recent years. People are increasingly producing their own journalism, literature, and entertainment for themselves, their friends, and random virtual passersby. More and more people are writing today for the public than ever before. And therefore, more and more people need editors than ever before.

Lance Olsen:
My rule of thumb during editing is simple, if cold-hearted: When in doubt, cut it out.

What I adore is producing a large, sprawling, clayey mess of a first draft, then sculpting it down to something bright and sharp-cornered.

"A bit of advice is worth repeating: don't listen for praise, but for constructive criticism, the kind that you can take home and use to better your manuscript ... [because] we all want our writing affirmed, and affirmed as quickly as possible after we've struggled weeks, months, or years with a manuscript."

Lifehacker has found Cliche Finder, which looks like a very useful tool. Hopefully, it's only a matter of time until somebody integrates this into the Firefox spellcheck feature, via extension or otherwise.

Cliches are one of the most overlooked mistakes in the career of nearly all writers. Even the most experienced writers can find themselves using cliches without realizing it. The best thing that can happen once a writer discovers this is that he or she suddenly becomes a better writer. By being forced to write phrases new, by having to look at an event or a feeling and describe it, truly, in your own words, you really begin to find your own style.

The other benefit is that avoiding cliches allows a writer to really explore the meaning about what he or she is trying to say. And in doing so, we get closer to the ultimate goal of writing, which is to express a truth. Grabbing someone else's truth, or some tried and true truth that has been expressed so many times that it is simply read over as if it werent even there, is meaningless compared to a truth expressed with real originality.

I havent tried this tool in my own work yet, having just found it, but I'm bookmarking the site and plan to start using it right away.

I hope you find it useful as well.

The Cliché Finder leaves no stone unturned in the hunt for overused phrases in your writing.

Submit a few paragraphs to the Finder which searches for clichés listed in the Associated Press Guide to News Writing.

Here is a direct link to the Cliche Finder.