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By WHAT do you (in parallels) structure? (woof-woof!)
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Posted by 22111
Aug 30, 2022 at 02:22 PM
See https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9834 for for multiple-trees, in parallel to some one, probably more or less “natural”, “organic” “taxonomic” one.
Then, let’s speak about “writing”, since obviously, many “authors” are continuing to do it “wrong”, i.e. not in an “optimized” way.
First, inferior software like “Ulysses whatever” is to be discarded; I demonstrated this here just some weeks ago… but then, HOW “to do it”?
Sometimes, even German, the allegedly superior language of’em’all - well, I’m a master of German, then only can really compare with English and French, and have some remote notions of Italian, Spanish and Dutch - isn’t “good enough”, and it’s term “Gerüst”, for one, means, scaffold(ing), truss, gantry, rack trestle, etc., and then frame(work), structure, skeleton, etc., the obvious schism lying in the contradiction of “adding to, in order to work on” vs. “inherent structure, the WHOLE to be built on”... and that notion of inherence, of organicism… may unfortunately lead your astray…
Since there may be more, and even better ways…
Most “authors” now follow some sort of “structure from the books”, and I’m ok with’em: they want to sell, after all…
But then, it’s some technical structure indeed, and at the end of the day, it’s the experience of the “hero(es)” - here again, wonderful German (only?) has got the right, the perfect term: their Erleben.
But what about the Erleben of - i.e. the one in the minds of - the “audience”?
See what I mean? “How-to-books”’ authors seems to equate the hero(es)’ Erleben with the audience’s one, and that, obviously, cannot stand, and it’s the psychological development in the head of the standard audience member which has to build the structure of your story, not some technical poles and beacons, which are nothing but means to get to the (more or less rollercoaster, and way more) elements of the former: of the Erleben of “the audience”... whilst this Erleben also includes the, very personal in case, reconcilement with the respective audience member’s previous Erleben, previous, individual experience-of-life-for-them.
I am not speaking of “curves” here, of “here the viewer will be aghast, there they will be frightened”, etc., but I am speaking about ROUNDING some others’ experience, in order to integrate it into, almost MAKING it your own.
Now, how to do that, technically? Well, there is the notion of “film treatment” (see wikipedia), not to be confounded with (more-or-less 1-page) “synopsis” (also on wikipedia), and there are many different ways to write down such a “treatment”...
But obviously, you should write much more about the - detailed - What-is-it-about than about the How-do-we-illustrate*-it, and that means that the sequences, the scenes should NOT become the structure of your “planning” anymore, but your What-are-we-going-to express…
And I say, “we”, on purpose here, since you’ll have to find like-minded persons, i.e. producers, i.e. persons with the money or (rather, in reality, that is:) in position(s) to get the money to “produce”, i.e. to realize that your “story” will be heard…
And it won’t be heard but if you trigger former experiences of the “standard” audience member, AND ENHANCES’EM.
* = my use of the term “illustration” might have irritated? And you’re right, since here, suddenly, the notion of “organic” will come into play again, since it’s not then about “illustrating” your “ideas” of such, but what you show, the “scenes”, will have to express what you’re going to convey, organically.
With all due respect, architects are more-or-less engineers, their constructions are built upon their walls, their pillars in case: no other construction principle has ever seen the light of the day…
With so-called “software architects”, it’s become a little bit more variable, but even here, most construction principles are preset…
And then Edson proclaims that “writing” is the most elaborate construction engineering task this world has on offer - my wording, and, frankly, that’s what I had discovered years ago, since you’ll have to really TOUCH the so-called “unconscious” of your so-called “audience”, while, on the other hand, “develop” their said “unconscious” - if you’re honest, i.e. a real writer.
(This being said, don’t take me wrong: I, for once, advocate the highest standards there are, for “writing”... whilst on the other hand, in comedy, it’s just all about your audience shitting in their pants by uncontrollable laughing, and the irony here being that both standards are equally demanding…)
Thus, technically, what should you do? Superpose the REAL structure upon everything-else? And even that’s not true - see? I’m perfectly honest here: -: Have your “standard” structure, i.e. 4-acts or whatever, but then FILL it, in the first instance, with your - see above! - “treatment” - spread all over the place…
and then, further on, work on that treatment, i.e. not on your “scenes”, “chapters”, whatever you call your technical units: work on your fanned-out treatment, ALL THE TIME, and then only work on “scenes” and the like, and be ready to discard those, and even whole “sequences” or whatever you’ll call’em, whenever they don’t comply anymore with that ruling, always-optimized “treatment”...
...spread all over your “outline”, since… see, you’re neither in the house-, nor in the high-rise building business, but you’re doing something “original”, i.e. something unique:
You’re ideally enhancing the Erleben of people - and, btw, Er-Leben means something in the lines of “living, but so fully living that you’ll become somebody enhanced” (and yes, the subconcious of the German language is unparalleled even “worldwide”, as far as my admittedly rather tiny experience guides me) -...
by doing something unparalleled, something truly “original”, just guided - not by foundations, walls and pillars, but - by your own “imagination”... and which always has to be flow along the lines of what people already reckon to “know”... but then, not remaining within those confines.
Technically, you’ll need some outlining tool which provides you with (at least some) “user-sided tree formats” (which obviously is not the case with “Ulysses App” and the like, tools written by coders for whomever), or which, ideally, even then allow you to (re)view one such format not spread-over, but in consolidated form (and with blank-lines, between the “entries”).
Anyway, while you’ll stick with your sequences-scenes (ditto for novels and whatever) schema, you’ll have quite rare chances to produce something you’ll be remembered for, but here and there by accident.
An’yes, I could have titled this thread, “Organizing the Intangibles” - organizing those intangibles though and in a way they’ll form something people will cherish, is technically possible, with some of today’s outlining tools, IF you work on your what-they-call-treatment, and in the right way: anything else will then be just “illustration”... NOT: within your “illustrations”, you’ll then further have to to speed up their heartbeat… but IF you reach their heart, or don’t, will be determined, by four fifths, by your “treatment” or whatever you call your REAL outline.
Posted by 22111
Sep 2, 2022 at 01:17 PM
Sorry, above, I was mislead by the French, “multiple” is without an end-s in English, of course, and I don’t know either why I put in that parenthesis. Also, and foremost, I wasn’t specific enough, sorry again.
Now, “it’s the language, stupid!”, Marilyn could have said, and whilst most synonyms ain’t interchangeable, most languages ain’t, either.
What I tried to express above, was that your real outline should be the “trame”, which is a French expression which here perfectly (sic!) “gets it” (“trifft es” in German, “es treffen”: try google for “es treffen”, with the double-quotes, and you’ll get some hint of what I’m speaking about here…: there, again, is no equivalent within the “major” lingos, again…).
On “langenscheidt.com” - which is one of the very best web dicos you can get -, “trame” is translated, into German, by “Schuss” (i.e. in weaving), “Raster” (ditto), “Hintergrund” (i.e. “background”), “Grundlage” (which you might translate by “the base of it all”), but then, what could you do with those German or French terms? Just translate it for you, by: “Ariadne’s thread”.
Some languages help (sic!) with feeling (sic!), and some others rather help with condensing, with objectifying, and that’s indeed German vs. English. Now, just-feeling obviously isn’t good, the Germans have proven that assertion some Century ago, but just the matter-of-fact of all things isn’t that helpful either, at the end of the day it seems.
Then, you’ll have, just for an example, 100, max. 120 pages of a screenplay (or of any other, “modern” “book”, “publication”, to ABSTRACT the sum of what you feel, AND of what you will have thoroughly analyzed (if everything went well up to then, that is), and that’s sort of SANITATION: perfect, since perfectly needed, and put into the right shape to work; just compare “Tightrope” (Eastwood’s 1984 effort) or “Frantic” (Polanski’s 1988 laisser-aller) with what the audience would have justifiably expected from both tries.
Thus, too much “feeling” obviously isn’t good at all, but most of Hollywood’s major productions then show a blatant lack of it, and so the key word in the above post, sorry again, should have been, “SUBTEXT”.
Now, yes, I’ve got able to “word” in English, by some practice - descriptions, dialogue… -, but then, for finding, and developing (sic!) the “subtext”, I revert to my mother language, and then, when I try to “transpose”, I invariably found that the “target language” just doesn’t offer the necessary verbal instruments: at the end of the day, it’s the CONCEPTS which ain’t there… and which are there within that language which had been a “target” language for philosophers all over the world, for Centuries, pre-33 that is, and indeed…
That being said: No, I’m not speaking of “writing” here, i.e. of what “they” nowadays call “creative writing” - oh my God! -, but of ALL, of EVERY writing, of all putting down of words, in and re any subject:
Since, what’s that (French) “trame” indeed? It’s the ESSENCE, the “why”, the COMPLETENESS of FACTS, the not-leaving-pertinent(sic!)-so-called-“details”-out, it’s about the EXPLANATION of “what’s going on”.
It’s about not FRAMING your reader / viewer / “user” anymore, but of honestly presenting them all of what’s your capable of TELLING, on your subject, and that’s then the invitation to your reader / viewer / (info) “user”, to START-FROM-THERE… instead of “framing” them, i.e. of trying to lead’em astray, be it by ellipsing (i.e. deliberately hiding pertinent facts, motives, elements of any kind), be it by outright lying (and the “Covid” (mostly government- and/or corporate-paid) “science” just gave us the most blatant example of this obscene, collective whoring, if ever such a proof had still been required… for some naïves…):
And THEN only, you condense what you’ve got to - honestly - say, into, in the case of a screenplay e.g., some 1-page-per-minute; in other words, you do not leave out the pertinent elements, but just those your “audience” will easily be able to infer by themselves, ONCE you will have presented the pertinent ones, be that in, or between your lines…
And there, we just speak of “elegance” of style, of savoir-faire of the “author” of what the “public” will then read… but it’ll have come to an end, with all-embracing manipulation of what then your “public” could infer from what you will have told them:
Since in those days, “journalists”, for example, were just like “the ideal teacher”: they informed you, AND incited you to then develop your own thoughts, upon REAL facts: to the very better of your own, and to the very better of humanity overall: it was the idea, then, of “humanism” - remember?!
For most of you: obviously not…: How else could you fathom today’s ubiquitous framing, instead of instructing, meliorating your, and “their”, “audience”, as their, and YOURS, new normality?
Yesterday, I read the “teaser” to this - paid - obscenity: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/technik-motor/digital/ulysses-software-soll-autoren-zum-schreiben-von-bestsellern-verhelfen-18275015.html : “Ulysses-Software : So entsteht ein Bestseller” - “Ulysses App - The Way Bestselling Books are Made”, by some “Michael Spehr”... and ALL of their, “political”, “news” handling is of the same, abysmal, quality:
Those people FRAME you, today, instead of giving you ALL the elements of then processing your own judgment.
The very best Chancellor Germany ever had (i.e. Schmidt), once said that journalists are fellows who know neither any “homebase” nor any other notion of value to which they could ever turn, for some spiritual guidance (“heimatlose Gesellen”, he said)...
Don’t ape such people: Build any outline you build, by the “subtext”: by what seems true to you: errors being acceptable, but framings, lies will never be.
Since even “facts” are just some deliberate “selections”... while the ESSENCE of those “facts” is what you’re summoned to convey, as any writer, with those double quotes, designating the “creative” ones, or then the “factual” ones, which nowadays and by their overwhelming majority try to be good servants to the miserable-in-power, in order to participate in their good-life.
Most of Third Reich’s whores are forgotten now, and even abandoned, abhorred by their respective families; most of today’s writers of all kinds will meet the same fate, and that’s why some “contributors” of this forum, who feel that, without being yet able to discern it, would like me to be silenced.
And for the “executive resume”: Don’t outline by the currently-obvious-to-you, all the less by some, be it yours, be it some third-party’s who you pays or who who eat their ass in hope of once being rewarded: Try to analyze better, and then try to convey the essence of your honest try.
And people will love you for it. And some will even take example.
It’s not about the feeling-of-your-audience, as I erroneously advanced above: it’s about “directing” their NATURAL feelings, by always-honest-but-not-naïve anymore (i.e. “beyond natural German”) submission - Strategia del ragno (Bertolucci 1970), anyone?
Or then, make us laugh our pants off, but don’t overcrowd the ranks of those pathetics who think we’re all idiots: you will not even survive in the memory of your offspring, except by’em being embarrassed about you.
At the end of the day, the secret lays in honesty-plus-something-new, and whenever your contribution lacks the former element, you’re just another one of “their” whores, and when the latter element is missing or fails, you’re irrelevant.
No wonder then that some “contributors” (?) around here literally hate me, then…
And yes, writing English dialogues, after having done the necessary musings in German, seems perfect - what’s the secondary language in the U.S.: Spanish? Well… they might call it the “normative power of the factual”, then? Yeah…
Don’t lose your time by outlining the obvious, the obvious only rarely being the real info. And that’s why, among many other things and projects, most screenplays fail.
Outline by the essence, dear.
Posted by 22111
Sep 2, 2022 at 01:31 PM
Oh, very sorry, I hadn’t even understood my own, smart (?) title wording: “(in parallels)” had wanted to express that on top (sic!) of your straight-technical “outline”, you should also, and first, to proceed by your “essence” outline, your technical “scenes, etc.” outline becoming secondary (!) to the former; “in parallels” thus has nothing to do with my recent thread re “multiple views” (brilliant askSam and then nothing…): any other outlining concept then has just to FOLLOW, to ALIGN itself to, your primary and ESSENCE outline.
Sorry for the confusion! ;-) (Even I am, sometimes, not specific enough, and then, days later, ask myself, “what?!” - well, that’s one of the imponderabilia of real thinking if I may say so, haha! And yes, put it ALL down “on paper” i.e. into keyboard nowadays: even the far-flung elements of your thinking: unless you’re young, and your memory is still your friend that is! ;-)
Sorry again!
Posted by 22111
Sep 3, 2022 at 11:49 AM
About LEO.org (and some other things)
For my translation needs, I use a second “instance” of my main web browser, Firefox, so that I’m able, with the help of some macros, to look up the “right” word almost immediately. (I think I have commented on that almost-scam (sic! speaking of their web dictionary access here, not about their “Plus” or whatever they call it access to their own material) “WordWeb” here, some time ago?)
My very first website*, in this respect and up to now, has been leo.org (”.org”: sic!: implied: “we are a public service!”- hahaha!), since at the end of the day, it was even just that little bit better than dict.cc - which in itself if tremendously good indeed; thus, dict.cc come “second-place” for me, i.e. firefox ^2, with leo.org being ^1 (and so on, with diminishing returns…).
Now, leo.“org” is rent-only, or then “with ads”, but you’ll get that “allow with ads” interference with EVERY SINGLE look-up now, if you use an ad-blocker at least, as I do… well: “of course!”...
Whilst dict.cc is one man in Vienna (Austria) - seriously: I don’t know HOW he does it, but WHAT he’s been doing for many years, is just wonderful! -, leo.org is three men and their corporation in Munich (Germany), and as implied above, their work up-to-now has been really, really good, too, but now they’ve become more than just a little bit greedy, it seems… (and as proven by direct comparison with dict.cc)...
When I finally decided myself to “adopt” an Android “smartphone” (it’s called “smart” because those really smart people behind the business model get, and store, almost all aspects of your private life), I decided to buy - but NOT rent! - “a” good dictionary, and a csv viewer; as detailed “above”, i.e. in some other thread, the latter purchase (well, 3€...) was a total failure… - and then I discovered that free “app” which serves me well, and in the meantime, I have even discovered its phrase search, albeit a regular “AND” search seems impossible with it indeed…
Thus, and needing German, French, English in all permutations, I did my necessary, “Android” “apps”, research, and then quickly discovered that leo.org was / is rent there - obviously, they had introduced their rent scheme in Android (and allegedly iWhatever) before their now-rent “desktop” scheme, too, and furthermore, rent by any permutation, one-by-one, which would have been not 3 but 5 rentals in my case… so, “go to hell!”.
Instead, I paid 10€, one-time-payment, for dict.cc, for my 5 permutations, and whenever I need some other language duo, e.g. including some Dutch, I can invoke it for the very same price, and the “superiority” of leo.org over dict.cc being just imperceptible, most of the time…
Btw, when you search such translations for google, you invariably get linguee.com which is really bad, and bab.la which only could be considered “acceptable” if they weren’t both dict.cc or leo.org, but which, facts being as they are, is without any interest, too, as some more “hits” among google’s “top ten”... but if you “search” by google, pons.com is often in the very first place, whilst dict.cc is sixth or such, and that’s outrageous indeed: does google give a hang, or is it paid then?
Oh, and for journalists that don’t inform, but frame you, there is a just wonderful German expression, “Mietmaul” (or “Mietmäuler” in their plural, and which’s to be translated by “rent mug”)...
I’m very happy with my “Android apps” choice, which cost me 13€, incl. the 3€ thrown away for that first, worthless csv viewer, and I’d be happy to also pay 10€ for my second, current one…
Well, you can use such “apps” even without “SIM” cards active… hahaha - so don’t pretend I “finally gave in”... ;-)
As said, and for desktop / web use, langenscheidt.com is really first class, too, whilst e.g. pons.com (which owns Langenscheidt now but has always been inferior to its prey and by far) is not worth mentioning…
* = I also own 20- or 25-years old licenses of Langenscheidt-desktop E-D, F-D and S-D, unfortunately not also their equally brilliant I-D version, but I have to live with that, and, cherio!, those 3 software packages always run on Win10! And there’s also some dictionaries and thesauri which I bought in the past, whilst for example “Le Grand Robert” is now rented out at somewhat literally demential prices! - go a legitimate license from some old package though, but French isn’t relevant anymore indeed…
Now for vocabulary questions
Sometimes, the translation might even be spot-on… but then, it’s the translation that will you the “necessary”, highly welcome ride to further insight, and so, when thinking (even more, haha…) about outlining, the term of “trame” popped up for me, whilst what I know might also “correct” terms, hadn’t “done it” for me and so far: the respective “representation in your mind” of those terms obviously is different, and that’s the key.
Remember what I said some weeks ago here, “ONE MORE ANGLE”... and it’s just the willingness, too, and to begin with, which is the core element here, and then your “brainstorming” will be a matter of multiple techniques, and obviously, musing in some other languages than just your very first one might help.
Since the “essence” is just the plenty of the real core elements, and if you don’t strive for that, nobody can help your thinking, but those-in-power obviously can you help financially as long as you blow their horn, and if you believe for example the legislators when they label even some very superficial groping “carnal KNOWLEDGE” - just is just one but indicative example of course -, your “author’s journey” will miserably end already in the front yard of what you might call your “rationale home” - well, and for plebs: your “horizon”...
And if you wanna know WHY people think, write, act so short-sighted: they’re just obscenely and even mentally, conceptually lazy - well, they erroneously assume that thinking is hard work, while only finding justifications for lies is -, or as Thomas Sowell worded it,
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
And, fun fact: this citation is 100 per cent woke!
Posted by 22111
Sep 3, 2022 at 01:01 PM
Immediate follow-up to my post some minutes ago:
Re WordWeb:
In fact, I commented on bits:
“After buying WordWeb Pro, I had to realize that I had lost my money (20$ (EDIT: 19$) plus VAT), since all the dictionary web sites I had been interested in, were rendered in a way that didn’t make their info readily available to me, and with an ad defender, it outright got impossible; I had to realize that obviously, the developer had selected the freely-available sites (free/trial, non-“Pro”) in a way that those problems didn’t appear before making my purchase decision.
(I obviously speak of the “standard”, English, two-language and one-language dictionary, and thesaurus sites you will want to use this alternative browser interface with, not of “exotic” sites with possible non-standard, additional problems.)
Thus, your task of quick-n-easy, concurrent access to several standard web dictionaries for the same search term will unfortunately not be met by WordWeb Pro, you will have to write some little macros instead, so my hint for you here, don’t try to interact with the searchbars of those sites but analyze their respective search URLs after having fired up their regular search, then write your macro(s) accordingly - and you should get 1-key navigation between your browser tabs, and a little macro getting you to some “homepage” of your own as your search “home base” (then “close other tabs”, in order to fire off the whole set again with your next search term, but without closing your browser in-between); as an intermediate solution, there are free browser add-ins (of very different quality though) which direct your input into the respective site searchbar, without fiddling with the mouse in case.
As for non-web dictionaries, etc., there always Oxford Shorter Dictionary, Chambers Thesaurus (30/10$ on MS), as well as the multiple UltraLingua dictionaries (12$ each, e.g. Eng-Spanish/French and vice versa and many more), all of them are a steal in their own way (the UltraLingua dictionaries are WAY beyond of what you’d expect for 12 bucks), and I can speak about them, as well as of WordWeb Pro since I all own them (for UL, the language combis only I’m in need of, of course), with buyer’s remorse just for the latter.
The “ideal” solution would be to get out just the core info from the web sites, but whilst you could do that individually, no developer may sell such a tool, for obvious legal reasons; presenting an inferior, alternative browser being not a real alternative… but kudos to the developer to have hidden that core info from me, by very neatly selecting the sites available in his tool before buying: smart guy indeed!
Oh, sorry, that wasn’t on purpose, no, no, no - it was just his good luck and my bad one. Oh yeah.”
= https://www.bitsdujour.com/software/wordweb-pro/in=search
Thus:
In their trial / free version, they just had included web pages that didn’t (allegedly: don’t) present the above-mentioned problems, whilst then, after buying that thing, I had to realize my purchase had been worthless; I subsequently also commented on some other - now literally defunct, quality-wise - “forum” (which has, in-between, more or less become a “Kindergarten, Kindergarten, Kindergarten!” - your pardon: “Zettelkasten, Zettelkasten, Zettelkasten!!!” ADVERT) about such - sometimes just dumb (e.g. I have trialed “File Locator” years ago, so I cannot trial it anymore, albeit it might have become somewhat better in-between) - “trial” strategies, but which more often than not are “very well designed”, in order to “get” you, see https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=43835 .
I suppose that with real hard work, javascript, etc., you could get some really immediate access to web translation (or other such) results, but it’s certainly not WordWeb, paid, which’ll do that for you.
This being said, among other “text tools” software, I own “Chambers Thesaurus” and “Shorter Oxford Dictionary”, and which are both fantastic value-for-money, both for their sheer and simply wonderful content (sic! Oxford being thrice the price of Chambers, but both are worth every penny you spend on’em), and in spite of the fact that (MS “app”‘s) “Chambers”’ code obviously has been been done by WordWeb’s developer, I recommend it, as well as “Oxford Shorter” - both “apps” (“Oxford Shorter being by “MobySystems”, not also by “WordWeb”) are obscene in their respective disdain of users’ user-comp interaction needs.
In fact, I ran AutoHotkey, again, on both, and in the usual way then, i.e. AHK first analyzing the “situation”, THEN only triggering the necessary button presses, so the user-interface interaction is now “acceptable” for me, but then and obviously, they must think their paying users - of which more than 90 p.c. withhold themselves the chance to run some really elaborate macro tool onto these nuisances, by way of, cf. supra, low horizon - are really nuts.
An’yes, the most elaborate trial cripplings I’ve ever seen in my life, that’s, for the time being, XMLSplit (99 bucks, which will soon be 300€ including VAT)...
Well then, the Mezzogiorno has got it’s Mafia, and we all now here in Western Europe have got the EU…