This site provides writing advice and superhero comedy. If you're writing a superhero story, you will probably find our superhero-themed articles especially instructive.

Would you like to subscribe to our RSS feed?

I’ve added Manhattan Mangler; it is now the first chapter. Best Investigator and Only Human are now chapters 2 and 3. Within a week, I anticipate having Best Investigator split up into roughly four chapters. Within another week, I’ll also split up Only Human.

I also have to revise Best Investigator because some of the exposition at the beginning of it is redundant with the new Manhattan Mangler chapter. I look forward to that.

I’ve also revamped some of my more popular writing guides, particularly my sections on writing better titles, writing from a male perspective and improving chapter structure.

Chapter One: Life, Death and the Manhattan Mangler

The tree was critical.  The blueprints for the Governor’s mansion clearly showed that the tree’s branches came tantalizingly close to a second-floor window.  It was less obvious that the window led to the room of a servant scheduled to work during tonight’s fundraiser.  Most importantly, the Governor’s security detail only sent a guard past the tree every forty-five seconds, plus or minus fifteen.  The superhero had spent an hour counting.  Lash had estimated that the leap through the open window would be four feet.  He could do that.  Maybe.  Being an unpowered hero was always interesting. 

Lash lay behind the courtyard fountain as the hapless guard wandered past the tree again, his heels clicking against the cobble-stone path.  The beam of the guard’s flashlight soon faded around the near corner.  Forty-five seconds. 

Lash peeked over the fountain.  He was alone.  The splashing jets of water would help muffle any sound. 

His whip grabbed easily around a branch.  Ten seconds.  His arms buckled as he climbed the six feet to the first branch.  His hands slipped.  He glanced left and right.  Still alone.  Twenty seconds.  He tried again, but his soft-soled shoes didn’t provide much traction against the tree’s bark.  Thirty seconds.  He panted.  He glanced back at the hiding place behind the fountain.  Another attempt proved unsuccessful.  His peripheral vision caught a vague blur of light shining past the corner.  The guard would round the corner soon.  Was the guard early, he wondered.  No.  I’m late. 

He grabbed the whip, hauling himself up the tree with a final, messy heave.  His arms felt like they were going to fall off, but he had reached the branch. 

The guard rounded the far corner.  His flashlight now grazed the tree.  The corner was fourteen feet from the tree. 

The guard stopped five feet short of the tree.  His flashlight’s beam pointed at the fountain, then the path, then the window.  The guard hadn’t stopped once in the past hour.  Lash inched farther into the tree’s leaves.  The light trickled through the branches.  It hit Lash’s feet but kept moving. 

His heart started beating again.  The tree went black again.  Lash heard fading clicks, the boots crisply clipping against the path and around the near corner.  The guard had begun another circuit around the mansion. 

The window was fully open.  Dr.  Savant, one of his higher-ups at the Social Justice League, had come through on his end of the operation.  Lash holstered his whip.  Promises were fine, but he had more confidence in the whip than Savant’s level of commitment.  Savant was a national celebrity that any politician would kill to share a photo shoot with.  Savant was on the guest list tonight.  Savant had superpowers.  It didn’t make sense to Lash that Savant would rely on him to do whatever the mission was tonight. 

He stared at the window.  The four feet wasn’t getting any shorter.  He gulped.  Two stories is a long way to fall. 

His legs pressed against the tree and he leapt.  For a moment, the wind rushed past him.  He caught a foot on the windowsill coming in.  He slammed into the carpet arms-first.  His eyes flashed white or maybe orange-purplish for a moment.  There might have been a yell of pain. 

Lash sat up.  Nothing had fallen off.  He gingerly pressed against his arms, then his feet and ankles.  The arms throbbed dully.  He didn’t roll up his sleeves, but his arms were certainly bruised.  They’d work.  His right foot was tender and it didn’t quite give off stabbing pains, but it did hurt like hell.  It would also work, more or less.  His knees hadn’t taken much damage in the fall, but they had been noticeably unenthusiastic about Lash’s choice of night job for years.  Whether they would work was always a mystery. 

He wasn’t worried, as long as the mission didn’t involve any sort of legwork more physically demanding than a slight hobble.  But he reasoned that Savant wouldn’t have wasted a forty-year-old master investigator on a run-around unless he had a damn sick sense of humor. 

A doctor’s bag lay on the bed.  Dr.  Savant wasn’t subtle. 

The bag contained a note.  And a fire extinguisher resting on top a fireman’s helmet.

Junior Associate Lash:

Further investigation has proven quite fruitful.  I might have neglected to mention before that the governor is not under the control of Mastermind, so a fist or two will not suffice.  A hostile third party is responsible, possibly a quite exotic party.  The biochemistry is beyond you, but using a fire extinguisher or inducing a near-death experience should expel the corrupting agent.  The extinguisher is quite obviously the politically and morally superior option. 

Speaking of exotic parties, the fundraising gala is a masquerade ball.  You’re still not on the guest list, but the policepeople are only checking ID at the front entrance.  They will assume that anyone wearing a mask in the ballroom—say, a fireperson’s helmet—is a legitimate party guest. 

Discreetness.  The media is quite a concern, particularly the New York Post.  Even a fire extinguishing could be easily misconstrued.  Conceal that this was a League job.  This matter is highly sensitive and publicizing our involvement exceeds your pay-grade.  Mine, too.  (That last remark was a joke, quite obviously.  Did you know that the other Directors somehow believe that I’m incapable of humor? Presumably like I am incapable of lacing their coffee with laxatives). 

Contingency plans.  I’m in the ballroom.  I will be available if, and only if, you bungle the job horrifically.  Unfortunately, the Executive Director is also here on his own business.  Please do not involve him. 

Good luck.  (Our equal opportunities guidelines suggest that I follow “good luck” by explaining that I did not mean to suggest that anyone differently abled in terms of superpowers necessarily needs more luck). 

Dr.  Savant, Director of Media & Government Relations

The message ended with Savant’s symbol, a snake-entwined staff, but that wasn’t necessary.  The scrawled handwriting was so bad it could only have come from a doctor.  And even the junior associates and side-kicks knew that Savant was addicted to “quite.”  Lash hadn’t heard that Savant was an irrepressible ass, but Savant was a director.  It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to make the connection. 

He walked outside the bedroom to the ballroom.  Left at the portrait of Mario Cuomo, then right at Spitzer.  Even without memorizing the diagram of the building, it would have been easy to find the sound of the violinists playing Pachelbel’s Canon. 

A state trooper smiled at him as he strode in the ballroom.  A waiter offered him a glass of chardonnay.  Lash had heard rave reviews about the Castile 1938, but drinking with a mask on was tricky.  He politely declined and brushed past. 

Donors, some he recognized a few from his day-job as a stockbroker, had formed loose circles around Dr.  Savant and Gigas, the League’s executive director. 

The governor was also ringed by donors, backed against the wall.  He didn’t look comfortable; he kept glancing over to a masked guard as though the governor might have to run away at any moment.  The guard had an Office of Special Investigations badge, a genie lamp hanging over a globe flanked by two swords.  Lash didn’t recognize the agent.  They all wore the same tan trenchcoat and black SWAT mask.  Lash wondered why the governor would be afraid of Homeland Security’s superthugs.  Unless… Black knows.  Lash smiled.  That simplified the legal issues considerably. 

The crowd shifted a little, blocking Lash’s view of the agent.  Lash tried maneuvering his way to the governor. 

Someone tapped his shoulder hard. 

“Excuse me,” said a rough voice from behind.  “Don’t violate the governor’s personal space.” 

“What? I’m ten feet aw—” Lash turned around.  It was the OSI agent, a few inches from Lash’s face.  “Ah.  I was going to say that your costume looked very convincing,” Lash fumbled. 

“Thank you.  My Agent Black is very convincing…” Lash winced.  Agent Black was the head of the OSI’s New York branch office.  It wasn’t his persistent dedication to the rights of the accused that made him known as the Manhattan Mangler.  “…certainly more convincing than a certain Leaguer’s donor-as-fireman routine,” said Agent Black. 

“How the hell… did you just x-ray me, bitch? There are rules…”

“No x-raying.  I accused everyone that approached the governor of being a Leaguer.  Now that we’ve established that you are, and a dumbass to boot…” He clamped his hand on Lash’s shoulder.  “…tell me what the fuck is up with the governor.  Mastermind? He’s in prison.  That would be one freak of a magic trick.”

The crowd suddenly split apart.  The governor emerged and strode towards Lash. 

“Jim! I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.  Would you come with me to my reception room,” said the governor.  Lash glanced at the governor, who clearly had him mistaken for someone else.  His given name was Courtney, not Jim. 

“Not a problem.”  He shook his shoulder, expecting that the agent’s grip would loosen.  Not so.  The agent marched Lash to the reception area, hissing in his ear. 

“Committing any crime in a mask violates the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.  Try anything and it’s 10-20 years in federal prison.”  The agent shoved Lash and he stumbled away. 

The governor ushered Lash inside but closed the door behind him. 

The room was heavily oaken.  The governor sat down in a leather chair resting in front of an American flag.  Lash smiled.  The windows were blinded, so he was safe. 

“Agent Black’s trying to kill me.  I have no idea who you are, ‘Jim,’ but he seems to hate you too.  You’ve got to stop him,” said the governor. 

“I plan to.  If you don’t mind me asking, though, it seems unusual that a politician would be nervous around donors.” 

“He’s trying to kill me.  Of course I’m nervous.” 

“Is he trying to kill you because you’re controlling the governor’s mind?”

Lash brandished the fire extinguisher. 

“What are you talking about? And what the hell are you doing with that?”

“Saving the day.” 

He sprayed cold nasty foam at the governor.  He tried to avoid the Governor’s face.  There was an innocent person there.  Somewhere. 

Red smoke started pouring off the governor’s body.  Lash and the governor started hacking wildly.  After a few moments, the smoke had cleared.  The governor’s suit was covered with white foam flecked with red ashes. 

“I don’t remember anything,” said the Governor.  “Mind control again?” he asked. 

Lash nodded. 

“Mastermind?”

“Yes,” said Lash.  He loved lying to politicians. 

“Jesus fucking Christ.  Get off your ass and kill him next time.” 

“Killing people doesn’t help.” 

“That’s convenient.  Goddamn convenient.  It’s not your brain he’s after.  I don’t blame him.”  The governor tried to flick the foam off his coat.  “My fundraising jacket.  Damn ruined.  Is this a fundraiser?”

Lash nodded. 

“He’s getting better,” said the governor.  “Next time you catch him, fix the problem.  Goodbye, whoever you are.” 

The governor walked outside.  Lash followed. 

Agent Black stopped the two, gaping at the foam and layer of red ashes.  “What the…”

“Mastermind,” they said. 

The governor walked away.  As soon as he was out of earshot, Agent Black turned on Lash. 

“I really hope he presses charges.”

Lash shrugged.  “I’ll see you then.  Hey, say cheese.”  He waved at a press photographer that was taking pictures of them. 

Agent Black turned.  He was probably glaring under his mask. 

Lash kept walking.  Gigas, the League’s leader, was marching towards him.  His arms were crossed.  He looked a lot more imposing than, say, his cover shots on Time or Rolling Stone.  And he was scowling, Lash could see.  Gigas didn’t wear a mask; he didn’t have an alternate identity.  Pretending to be mortal was beneath him. 

“What are you doing here? This is an exclusive gathering,” said Gigas. 

“The governor is under Mastermind’s control.  Have you seen him? I’m planning to dish out a quick one-two punch.  Save the day, you know,” said Lash.  It was almost too easy. 

“Thanks for the lead.  I’ll take it from here.”  Gigas smiled malevolently. 

******************************************************************************

Reporters for the Times and Post caught it on film.  A few cable networks caught it on tape.  Gigas sucker-punched the Governor, sending chardonnay spraying everywhere. 

Admittedly, the Times eventually ran it under the headline “GIGAS STOPS MASTERMIND AGAIN,” but the Post’s version was actually kind of accurate.  It started its front-page article by quoting what Gigas roared immediately after he learned that he had been duped. 

“You’re through, Lash!”

[end chapter]

You can access Chapter 2, “The Empire State Strikes Back,” here.

Did you enjoy this chapter? Please subscribe to my feed at http://www.superheronation.com/blog/feed . 

Wouldn’t you be so kind as to vote for my site in the Fiction Addiction best writers site contest?

Rough draft of the new first chapter. Over the next few days, I’ll iron out the wrinkles and then I’ll post it to the sidebar on the left.

Continue Reading »

I found this commentary on Van Evera’s Causes of War useful.  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~goodrich/IRnotes/Week07/Van_Evra_CHAPTER6_summary.pdf

These are my notes for International Security.  No doubt fascinating and mind-blowingly fun for students and scholars of international security; not for the faint of heart. 

Continue Reading »

Outline

• Summary of past novel-writing problems
• Solutions to improve reader longevity
• Improving chapter length
• Marketing!  Marketing!  Marketing!

This is mostly aimed at anyone trying to write a novel, particularly an online novel, but Superhero Nation fans might be interested to see what my writing process is like.

Problems

• My first chapter attracted readers but didn’t keep them. 
• Of the first 100 readers that started reading, 30 lasted over half a minute and 15 spent enough time that I could reasonably assume they finished the chapter. 
• None started reading the second chapter. 

Diagnoses

• My short-term retention was a problem.  70% of the readers decided right off the bat that the novel didn’t work for them.
  • The novel’s opening was not working
• Medium-term retention was pleasantly high.  Half of the readers that read past the first few paragraphs made it through 9000 words.
  • The middle was considerably better-written than the beginning
• Long-term retention was zero.  15 readers read 9000 words, but none started the second chapter.
  • The first chapter was incredibly long, 30 double-spaced pages.  Readers that finished that lacked the time/energy to proceed.     

Fixing the Introduction

It’s hard to describe how bad my first five pages were.  But I’ll give you the first 75 words, along with parenthetical comments from a dangerously perceptive reviewer. 

Courtney had problems. 

One.  His name was Courtney.   He hated it but knowing  that he vastly outsmarted the gigglers comforted him.  (This opening does not grab me. Who are these gigglers?)

Two.  He was an ex-superhero, the once and present Lash, the best nonpowered hero New York had never heard of.   He had showed Gigas, the head of the Social Justice League, up when a supervillain struck.  Gigas had him fired and, more humiliatingly, violated the first rule of superheroics by x-raying Lash’s face. (Very un-superhero like) But they couldn’t take his name.  (do you even need this?)

It would take me hours to fully explain why the first 5 pages were so bad, but let me summarize. 

• Melodramatic
• Anticipation problems.  A good opening makes readers think “Sweet Jesus, I want to see where this is going.”  This opening probably makes people wonder whether the story would interest them.  (Who’s Courtney?  Why should we care about people laughing at his name?)
• Passive narration (‘telling’ a story rather than ‘showing’ it).  High on backstory, short on action.
• There’s no scene.  
• Hard to understand (maybe not these first few paragraphs, but certainly the rest of the five pages). 

It took me three months to turn my deservedly savage reviews into a rewrite.  You can see the rewritten chapter here, but I’ll analyze the first two paragraphs. 

[start] The tree was critical.  The blueprints for the Governor’s mansion clearly showed that the tree’s branches came intriguingly close to a second-floor window.  It was less obvious that the window led to the room of a servant scheduled to work during tonight’s fundraiser.  Most importantly, the Governor’s security detail only sent a guard past the tree every forty-five seconds, plus or minus fifteen.  The superhero had spent an hour counting.  Lash had estimated that the leap through the open window would be four feet.  He could do that.  Maybe.  Being an unpowered hero was always interesting. 

Lash lay behind the courtyard fountain as the hapless guard wandered past the tree again, his heels clicking against the cobble-stone path.  The beam of the guard’s flashlight soon faded around the near corner.  Forty-five seconds. [end]

The most obvious change is that this is a scene: a character attempts to break into the Governor’s mansion.  After the first three sentences, he seems like he’s a criminal, probably an assassin.  Then I off-handedly refer to him as “the superhero,” even before we know his name or what he looks like.  A traditional individual-focused story would probably start with the character and then describe the mission, but I start with the mission and hardly describe the character at all, besides how physically inept and meticulous he is. 

Up to the word “superhero,” this could very well be a police procedural or a Mission Impossible-style spyfest.  Then the story gets ridiculous, particularly in “…four feet.  He could do that.  Maybe.”  My first opening was melodramatic, but I think this comes off as comically melodramatic and patently ridiculous.  (Four feet?  The ‘superhero’ can’t jump four feet?) 

I think that my readers have been cued to expect a somewhat strange story about superheroes.  (In case that weren’t obvious enough, Lash’s main weapon in the first chapter is a fire extinguisher).  I think that reader anticipation has shifted much more to “I’d like to see where this is going” from “this sounds boring.”

Is my new opening effective?
I’m inclined to say yes.  Remember, before I had…

• 100 readers started chapter 1

• 30 made it past thirty seconds

• 15 made it to the end of chapter 1

• 0 started chapter 2

I rewrote my opening two weeks ago.  Since then, I’ve had…

• 37 readers started chapter 1

• ?? readers finished chapter 1

• 10 readers started chapter 2 (so I’d assume that at least 10 readers survived to the end of chapter 1).

• 9 readers started chapter 3

• 64 readers started chapter 4 (I bet you’re asking what the hell!?! I’ll explain this in just a second). 

These numbers are drastically better.  My first-to-second chapter conversion rate is more than 25% and the people that start the second chapter appear to be dedicated readers.  My survey sample is pretty small (only over the last two weeks), but it seems that the first three chapters are generally successful enough that this story might be publishable.  But publishing is a distant concern and right now I’d like to worry about 1) posting the best chapters I can write to the website and 2) getting as many readers as possible to those chapters.

Advertising

Remember that 64 readers started chapter 4?  That probably seemed pretty weird, given that only 9 readers started chapter 3.  My brother linked to my site in a discussion on sympathetic villains at The Volokh Conspiracy.  Since then, ~55 Volokh Conspirators have started chapter 4.  So even a comment can generate a significant amount of traffic.  I suspect that a link from, say, one of the writers at Volokh would generate enough traffic to be commercially significant.  But TVC is mainly a legal blog; I can’t imagine why it would be disproportionately loaded with comic book fans. 

I suspect that my demographics will be better represented at Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs link.  Speaking of LGF, it actually inspired the conservative-lizard and liberal-frog demographics of Superhero Nation. 

Chapter-Length

The original version of my first chapter—the terrible version—was 9000 words long (30 pages).  9000 words is a hell of a commitment, probably several hours.  Who wants to spend several hours at a single site? 

I’ve since split up the first 9000 words into 3 chapters, but chapter 3 is still ridiculously long.  I have to cut it down more.  (Everybody Dies is also too long).

One thing I’ve learned is that chapter length really matters. Shorter chapters—no more than 2000 words—work much better. Each chapter’s end is an opportunity to leave your reader on a cliffhanger and make him feel that he’s accomplished something.  Each chapter’s start is a chance to rehook your reader or at least give him a chance to recuperate and return. Additionally, each chapter allows you to subtly shift the focus of the reader’s attention and focus by using a new chapter title.

I’ve mentioned before that chapter titles are really important to selling a novel. They’re also important for the reading experience. You can use the title to create a sense of anticipation, foreboding or establish the mood. Right now, the chapter titles I’m going with are:

1. Life, Death and the Manhattan Mangler [~1000 words]
2. The Empire State Strikes Back [~1500]
3. The Best Investigator in the World [~7000 words]
4. Everybody Dies [~8000 words]
   • Unless I also want my readers to die, I should probably break this up into many chapters.  Possible chapter titles include “The Human Condition,” “Only Human,” “Grim Prognosis,” “Reach for the Skyline,” and “Two Girls for Every Guy.”
5. The Human Resources Promise [~1500 words]
6. Stockbroker to the Slaughter [~2000 words]

It’s almost halftime and the score is 17-14, MSU. Notre Dame is performing much better on both sides of the ball. We’re currently at a third-and-17, not exactly promising, but the situation is much rarer today than in our past outings.  Our two offensive touchdowns are the first for us this season.

UPDATE: MSU just made two monster third down conversions, including a third-and-17. That drive ended in an MSU touchdown. 24-14 MSU.

4th and 1, Notre Dame goes for it but the runner is quickly tripled for a loss of yards.   Darn.  I would have gone for it, too.

An MIT student is “lucky to be alive” after wearing a shirt with wiring and circuits that looked like a suicide vest in Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Logan is pretty serious about security. It was the origin of two of the flights hijacked on 9-11 and is in Boston, which suffered the Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare fairly recently. At least she didn’t show off her art at Ben Gurion…

Incidentally, I’ve been to Logan before for academic conferences and Model UN*. The guards definitely had submachine guns, seemingly an unusual weapon for airport security. They have all the accuracy of a mortar, which is particularly problematic in a civilian-heavy environment like an airport.

I was under the impression that the main advantages of a SMG over a rifle were…

1. Easier to conceal under clothing

2. Portable/lightweight

3. Easier to draw quickly?

4. Easier to handle at really close range

5. Can be dual-wielded? (I’m really reaching here).

6. Price? (Ditto).

Ease of concealment doesn’t exactly help the uniformed security I saw. I also assume that wielding two SMGs is also off the table because the increased rate of fire and decreased accuracy would unduly endanger civilians.

The weight difference doesn’t matter that much, either. The M-16 is pretty light at 9 pounds, roughly twice as heavy as an unloaded MP5.

My impression is that– if both weapons were holstered or strapped– drawing an SMG would be slightly faster than a rifle. I’m not sure on this, but I vaguely remember the security guards having their guns drawn. If that were the case, then draw-speed wouldn’t matter.

Even if they did have their weapons holstered, draw-speed probably matters much less than accuracy. If the guards have their weapons holstered, the airport’s strategic environment virtually guarantees that the terrorist(s) will shoot first. The guard has to look out for many more potential threats than the terrorist does. It doesn’t seem like an SMG guard would fare much better than a rifle guard in terms of initiative.

However, the rifle seems conspicuously more useful in a hostage crisis or any situation involving long-range shots. If a policeman had to shoot at a terrorist with a human shield, a rifle is more accurate and somewhat more likely to be lethal. And I think that long-range accuracy is critical in an airport that is probably open and sprawling.

I mentioned price before, kind of jokingly. The M-16’s unit replacement cost is listed at $600. Compared to the cost of training and employing the policeman, the difference between $600 and a cheaper weapon couldn’t matter.

Am I missing something? This is going to drive me crazy. Must… control urge… to call Logan security… and inquire about armament selection policy.

*I mentioned a Model United Nations conference before. One of the topics I discussed was the international trafficking of small arms (anything small enough to be carried by hand). Go figure.

The past three weeks have been… unsatisfying for Irish fans everywhere. Vegas has given us a very kind spread of -10 1/2 points. If you can legally gamble, I *highly* betting on MSU.

I would be really pleased if we kept it within 10.  Anything within 14 would probably show that the team has improved to a tolerable level. “Tolerable.” That probably sounds really vicious and cutthroat. Maybe. If a student failed academically, we’d let him go. Why shouldn’t we expect athletes to perform?  After all, many of our football players get full scholarships.

I think that winning seasons are a reasonable minimal standard for the team. I don’t expect annual bowl appearances, let alone wins. Factors beyond the team’s control virtually guarantee bowl losses. Bowls make selections influenced by fan appeal and other economic considerations, so Notre Dame will always be placed against much stronger teams. The only way to overcome this is either to 1) play far beyond our level of raw talent in the clutch or 2) become a viable contender for the National Championship. If we are already at the top, then affirmative action can’t screw us.

It’s hard to tell whether 1) or 2) is less likely.  It’s especially frustrating because Notre Dame’s players have, I think, a lot of talent. The defense shows potential.  The offense, well… the offense has the potential to get us to a winning season.  Just not this season.  Claussen might be really good. It’s hard to tell, though, because the offensive line is failing so badly. Even Dan Marino were our quarterback, he could not win unless he either ran the ball himself every play or caught his own passes.

The Football-Comic Book Connection

I have previously suggested that a winning season would require, among other happy events, an accident at the genetics lab or Radiation Center that makes a player develop superpowers. One reason this is more likely to happen to ND than other schools: our players have classes. Another factor in our favor: accidents usually affect loveable losers (cough, Peter Parker).  Name three players on the team that don’t fit that description.

The problem: Notre Dame isn’t within 20 miles of New York City, which reduces the odds of comic book activity to zero. Damn.

Not sure what you’re supposed to know about a character, place or organization? You might find these useful. Continue Reading »

Ooh, God. I feel REALLY sorry for anyone that drafted ND’s defense in fantasy college football. But I think that the most valuable player for Michigan has been the Notre Dame offensive line. It doesn’t just get beat. It disintegrates like sheets of toilet paper shot with a fire hydrant. Every play.

Score is currently 10-0 17-0 Michigan and I think Notre Dame has 2 3 turnovers. And then… one snap back to ND’s quarterback, Jim Claussen, went well over his head. What the hell!

10 minutes in, Notre Dame has -40 yards total. My ability to keep watching says a lot more about my masochism than anything else.

The offensive line just let four defenders hit Claussen. Next play was an interception. I’ll try to scrounge up a digital camera, but until then, I’ll describe this and you’ll just have to take my word that this is typical. Three Notre Dame OLers are on screen; two have been knocked to the ground. Defenders have 270 degrees of coverage on Claussen. COMPLETELY surrounding him would be just 360.

Man. This is especially painful because I know that Notre Dame’s players are better than this. A lot better. And Michigan isn’t exactly a national championship contender. *snickers.*

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a third-and-34 before.

UPDATE: The game improved when I was out getting dinner. By the end of the game, we had positive total yardage.

The Baltimore Sun helpfully reminds me that this is only the second time in school history that Notre Dame has opened 0-3. It is completely plausible (perhaps even likely) that we will go 0-8. I wonder how many times that has happened in school history.

• Michigan State. Looked plausible before we lost 3 games by an average of 30+ points and ten points total.
• at Purdue. Ditto.
• at UCLA. I get the impression that this is our best chance to avoid 0-8.
• Boston College. They just beat Georgia Tech 24-10. Barring some fortunate calamities, this is not a likely pickup for ND. What sort of Irish luck might we need to win?
  • Meteor hit puts Boston’s starters on “questionable list” for Week 7.
  • Ebola outbreak in BC locker room.
  • Brady comes back to play for Charlie Weis. (Tom, not Quinn– Quinn wouldn’t be enough).
  • Boston team gets lost on the way to South Bend and forfeits in frustration.
  • Some sort of freak lab accident or radiation leak gives a Notre Dame player previously-unknown superhuman powers that render him qualified to play college football. (The way this season is going, the odds of him maintaining a secret identity are quickly approaching zero).
• at USC. A somewhat dicier game than BC. We would need a bit more luck.
  • Tom Brady comes back to play for Charlie Weis. And brings the Patriots offensive line with him.
  • Meteor disables USC starters and then Ebola takes out the second string. Vegas will give the USC third string 5:1 odds (~85% expected win) against Notre Dame. Until the Irish receive an unlikely assist from the Irish Republican Army.
  • USC gets lost on the way to South Bend. Oh wait, the game is at California? Damn.
  • Uhh, yeah. The only positive of this game is that we won’t waste a home game on it.

Note to scheduler: try to get Duke, Stanford and the service academies at the start of next season.

I’m going to say that the season doesn’t hinge on us winning any of the first eight games. Beating Navy and Air Force is critical. The only way Notre Dame could conceivably justify this season (and perhaps, much of the last decade) is because Notre Dame’s academic standards for its players cripple recruitment.  But the service academies have an even harder time selling their package to NFL-destined recruits.  Except Pat Tillman, of course.

This article addresses how to write concisely by revising or eliminating individual sentences.

Revising Individual Sentences

Let’s examine the needlessly long sentence “Writing concisely matters not only because it shortens the work but because it makes the work more readable.” This sentence has many problems.

“…it makes the work more readable.” This phrase is too wordy. Consider the alternative “it improves readability.” Tweaking word forms can often make a sentence more efficient.

“Writing concisely matters not only because it shortens the work…” Generally, explicitly saying that something matters is an unnecessary waste of space.  If you lay out the reasons it matters, readers will reach their own conclusion.

The original sentence was 15 words long. Consider this revision: “conciseness improves readability.” That distills what matters into an 80% cheaper product.

How to Eliminate Sentences Well

Question: I’ve looked at my sentences and can’t tighten any further. What now?

Let’s pretend that your individual sentences are perfectly concise. You need to find sentences that can be removed entirely or merged into other sentences.

But all my sentences are doing something important.

They’re probably not. However, when you look at individual sentences, it usually seems like each is productive. Consider the sentence “it’s raining.” It’s a short sentence and could be useful. But consider the sentence’s context. What if the paragraph were:

“Thunder crashed. John drew his umbrella. It’s raining.”

“It’s raining” is obviously unnecessary here, but that might not have been clear just looking at the sentence itself. To identify which sentences should be removed, we usually have to look at longer passages.

As a rule of thumb, I recommend examining sequences of ten sentences—that’s usually two or three paragraphs. Of the ten sentences, generally at least one can be eliminated.

Let me demonstrate this theory with the work of an authorial friend. This passage is an interesting description of a cop that’s investigating rumors of corporate shenanigans, but it isn’t as concise as it could be.

Harland ordered dinner, and settled into reading through the information gathered by the avatar. He called up Epp’s skills profile first, looking for justification for TeleComm’s offer of a senior contract. Epp had an outstanding background in both biomedical and software fields, a profile that Harland usually associated with companies and feeder universities in the instant transport field, rather than TeleComm’s data and communications segment. He remembered the scheduled takeover battle at Distance Instant Transport. Was TeleComm planning to take advantage of DIT’s management being distracted to make a push into instant transport? That would start a significantly wider corporate battle and active monitoring by WorldPol. He made a note to notify the Economic Management Group if things started looking more serious, and went down to the canteen to eat.

This is my rewrite.

Harland started sifting through the information his avatar had gathered on TeleComm’s new hire. Epp had outstanding biomedical and software skills, a profile more typical for the instant transport sector than TeleComm’s data and communications work. Epp’s hiring and the contested takeover at DIT suggested that TeleComm might be planning to push into instant transport when its competitor was in turmoil. He notified the Economic Management Council that a significantly broader corporate battle might be brewing.

The word count has dropped about about 150 to 100, but I don’t feel that the substance has changed considerably.

Avoiding Mistakes When Tightening

Although conciseness helps, it is possible to improperly tighten. Cutting out information may make it hard to follow the story or may make the plotline a lot more jagged. Cutting may also remove flavor. Compare “she unloaded a clip into his face” to “she shot him repeatedly.”

I just finished phone-interviewing an NFL spokesman. That was an interesting experience, but definitely not my finest work ever. I rambled a lot and didn’t have enough lines of questioning.

The best moment was when the interview was interrupted by the roar of an audience in the background. I think he was watching a key play on a television– sounded exciting. Anyway, I then mentioned that I had been up until 2 AM watching the Arizona-San Francisco game. He offered condolences on my Fitzgerald pick.

I learned a few things that might be interesting. I had suspected that the NFL rolled out the ad campaign in question because of the highly publicized Michael Vicks case. Lisa Baird said as much in the New York Times…

“Within the league, people were worried that ‘the misdeeds of a few’ were starting to ‘represent the image of all 2,000,’ she said.

Mr. McCarthy, the spokesperson I interviewed, said that the ads were not linked to the Vicks case and that they had been created (conceived?) in January. I’m not sure whether the discrepancy is relevant to the Brady Quinn/Notre Dame article. Seems like padding.

This is pretty indicative of how the interview went. He mentioned Willie McGinest and Brady Quinn and Vince Young and Braylon Edwards and the rest of the lineup. I asked if there was any particular reason there were two Browns players selected out of six. (I had expected that the players were chosen with geographic diversity in mind). Whoops. It turns out that there were three Browns players: I missed Edwards (but knew McGinest and, of course, Brady Quinn).

I’m trying a crash course approach to football, starting with a fantasy league and watching five games a week, but this area really isn’t my forte. Unfortunately, no one is as interested in politics… my site’s traffic has doubled since I started adding football posts.   According to Google Analytics, the most popular search query leading to this site is “Appalachian football”, followed by “Michigan [got] dominated”.  Dammit!  Writers of the world, unite!

Week 1 of Yahoo Football was looking great: Peyton Manning had me up HUGE against a team with a few Saints players. Until T. Romo, his quarterback, had a 5 touchdown, 350 yard career-high game. Ouch. That turned a ~25 point lead into a ~20 point loss.

Fast-forward to tonight. I’m down ten fantasy points. I have Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona WR) and Rackers (Arizona kicker). In my league, WRs receive a point for every 10 yards and 6 for a touchdown. Field goals win 3, extra point kicks earn 1.

Fitz had a terrible game. Well, in real life it was an OK game, but terrible for my fantasy team. Twice a Leinhart pass looked like it would reach Fitzgerald… until a San Fran defender foulled him. That worked out OK for Arizona, but not for Fitz’s stats.

At the very end of the game, Arizona was down 3. Leinhart lobs to Fitz, 45 yards at Arizona’s 20 yard line. 8 seconds remain. And the pass is good… for San Francisco! Interception to end the game. Even worse: the refs got my hopes up by reviewing the play before deciding to call off the bloodletting.

If the pass had been completed, Arizona would have called its last time out and then made an easy field goal for overtime. That would have given Rackers roughly a 50% chance of winning the coin-flip in OT and then putting out a game-winning field goal. Hypothetically, if the pass had been completed, I would have been looking at around a 6 fantasy point game for Fitz and a 7 (maybe 10) point game for Rackers, either scenario enough to put me over. Instead I got hosed by Mr. “Career Game” Romo. Grr.

In other football news, I was assigned a story on the NFL advertising campaign that is trying to show football players positively, rather than a group of Vicks or Lance Briggs. I got the story because one of the players featured is… Brady Quinn! (Go Irish!)

I called the NFL office today to schedule an interview with a media relations spokesman. I figured that this would be pretty routine; the NFL has already been pretty open about this ad campaign with the New York Times. It also helped that the NFL is very accessible and well-run.

An NFL staffer suggested that I speak with Brady Quinn. I think that would be an interesting follow-up, but I doubt it would be possible to complete that interview before the Thursday deadline.

In other news, I need to secure a reliable land-line. My cell-phone is terrible and I would probably flip out if my phone failed in the middle of an interview with anyone.

An odd query showed up on Analytics today. Apparently my site came up for “superheroes swearing.” #$^#ing right! And “Captain Underpants”… what the hell? I do use “captain” a lot, but I’m struggling to think of any word that might have tripped off “underpants.”

Appalachian State just clobbered #5 Michigan 34-32 at the Big House. Michigan had never before played an I-AA opponent before. Now we know why– they were running scared.

Hopefully this blood-letting will draw discussion away from a certain university’s likely loss to Georgia Tech…

Speaking of Notre Dame football:

“There are a couple things that everybody in the country is going to know,” Jones, the sophomore Notre Dame quarterback, said earlier this week. “They’re going to know who the president of the United States is. And they’re going to know who the quarterback of Notre Dame is.”

Right now our 80,000 fans are stone-silent. Normally I can hear the stadium a block away. The country may hear as much of Jones as President Bush, but Jones could only pray for the President’s 35% approval rating. Hell, even Congress’ 25% sounds like a stretch at this point.*

A comparison between Mr. Jones and President Bush makes a good case for the Electoral College. (Mercifully, the Electoral College is not scheduled against Notre Dame this year.)

I don’t expect that Mr. Jones will last long at QB. Hopefully defensive safety Tom Zbikowski is still available. **

UPDATE: Refugees from the stadium inform me that Notre Dame is down 16-0. OK, guys, enough alms for the poor. Less charity, more carnage!

BEARS QUOTE OF THE DAY. In response to Mariotti-esque stupidity about Chicago Bears superstar Devin Hester: “Hester is as controversial as the Goodyear blimp.”

Footnotes

* - What can I say? I’m a bipartisan heckler.

** - Defensive safety Tom Zbikowski joked before the game that he had been named quarterback. He went to high school a mile away from me, incidentally, and was also a star high school athlete. No, wait, that was a different BMac? That probably explains why coaching staffs stopped calling me.