What will happen to stories?

This is the question Michael Chabon poses in “Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood” in The New York Review of Books. He points out that the current generation of parents are overprotective, shuttling their children in cars, never allowing them to go outside and explore. He claims that people read and write stories because they have once been explorers.

Many stories for children are about children exploring on their own from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to Un Lun Dun. Many adults today remember exploring on their own without constant oversight. We had rules, but we were allowed to roam the neighborhood, meet other children, and imagine new worlds. A writer draws from experience, and writing a good adventure story requires familiarity with adventures.

I still like to explore. I explore my city, the mountains, the universe through books and telescopes. And I explore imagined worlds by reading and writing. My parents encouraged exploration by pushing me outside and taking me to visit strange landscapes like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. I also remember exploring books, reading about astronomy, famous explorers, and volcanos. Reading encourages exploration, asking questions, and exploration encourages more reading. Do children today explore? Do they exercise their imaginations?

The stories of tomorrow are safe. People still share the tales of their lives. Some stories may appear in new media such as YouTube, Storybird, or interactive games, but they will be much like the stories we’ve always known. Exploration has been a part of humanity since the beginning. We are too curious. We want to know the reasons why. Periods of discovery wax and wane. Someday people may even begin colonizing the solar system in a period of great exploration like the sailing ships of the past discovering new lands across the sea. Even if children today do not explore, some will grow up and discover exploring. They will encourage their children to explore and ask the hard questions. And write stories from their imaginations.

I can’t wait to read the future stories.

Mountain biking down single-track trail enjoying a beautiful summer day along 8-mile creek near Mt. Hood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm_37qo-lRk

The helmet camera is VIO POV 1.5. Two lessons I learned: I need to find a better place to hide the microphone from the wind, and find a rider to follow. Next time I will experiment with other camera positions.

Twitter gives authors a means to share micro-fiction constrained by the 140-character limit, an exercise in conciseness. Fiction across Twitter appears as poetry, serials, and single micro-fiction tales including a few six-word stories. Tweet the Meat offers a dollar—generous considering the word count—for publishing horror micro-fiction.

My goal is to tweet a few micro-fiction stories each week. They mix with other posts, so here are a few of my attempts including two of exactly 140 characters:

Gliding on toes, she danced along the path. A werewolf crept, waited. He asked about her day. Smiling, she offered wine and went on her way.

Night wore a dress of darkness gliding over the land. Ushering Sleep and Death, she chased after Dusk, shadow in hand.

As Luna met Sol for midday tea, Dawn hugged Dusk in the shadow-night. The tea too brief, Dawn found her arms empty on the far side of Night.

For other micro-fiction, see the following authors: @arjunbasu, @twae sometimes incorporates physics, @midnightstories posts precisely at midnight central time, @trapphic has a web page on micro-fiction, and @VeryShortStory.

Try a 140-character story.

Lush greenery, fir and pine floated on the breeze. The paved road, needles speckling the edge, snaked through the forest. Sunlight filtered through the canopy between openings, bright glimpses of the mountain range. Signposts reminded drivers of the CB channel where the truck operators called out their position by mile post marker. A truck rumbled around the corner carrying a load of gray logs.

The forest suddenly gave way to desolation leaving behind a wall of trees. The ridges and valleys were gray, a lifeless land of fallen trees ripped free of bark. The gray sticks slept in lines fanned out away from the crater beyond the hillside. The fresh asphalt was a ribbon of gleaming black hanging onto the side of the ridge.

At the road block, visitors parked in a gravel lot. A wreck of a car, smashed and burnt, attracted attention. “A miner’s car,” the ranger said. He told the tale of the car landing in the spot, thrown from a mine a few miles away. The volcano hid behind a ridge, but the fallen timber gave her position away. Each log, even the ones on the backside of the ridge, pointed the direction to the crater. The road continued, a dusty hike winding over Independence Ridge where a trailer served cool drinks to hikers taking in the view.

Rising dust clouds marked log trucks following the dirt road beneath the volcano. After resting feet, the hikers trudged on up the hill pausing for rumbling trucks. A trail led to a ridge, a view into the crater and the surrounding destruction.

Onlookers peered around in silence while they imagined the blast, the searing heat rolling over the ridges followed by a rain of ash. When they spoke, the visitors kept their voices quiet in respect for the mountain. And others. The wind carried voices far. Gazing at the devastation made the little volcano models in the science fairs seem inadequate.

Life returned to the mountain. Trees and bushes emerged along the creeks, and flowers appeared across the meadows. Elk bounded in and out of the forest. Even after a quarter century, much of the blast zone remained nearly barren. Plants peeked out growing bolder. Hikers, climbers, and mountain bikers took in the scenery and imagined the destruction. Many remembered the landscape before the blast while enjoying the new face of Mount St. Helens.

The pictures above were taken in 1983 by my father, Jerry Shrock. Below is a picture I took in 2004 on the Plains of Abraham.

Learn more by visiting the US Forest Service Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument website.

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Geoffrey K. Pullum’s essay, “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice”, offers criticism for The Elements of Style with some humor. Pullum points his finger at the authors claiming they are responsible for degrading American students’ grasp of English grammar. Instead of supporting this claim with evidence, he spends the majority of the essay with false accusations based on poor comprehension.

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White is a reference guide about improving writing. The guide contains advice and lessons about grammar, but it is not a textbook on grammar. The rules presented are not inflexible. Reminding novice writers of common mistakes is the primary goal.

Pullum’s essay makes a curious claim:

Since today it provides just about all of the grammar instruction most Americans ever get, that is something of a tragedy.

How did Pullum arrive at this conclusion? He provides an example from personal experience, but offers no evidence. Perhaps some students use the reference guide as their sole source of grammar instruction, but the majority?

Where Pullum fails is in his misinterpretation of the text. Part of his evidence is the claim that Strunk and White do not understand passive construction. He points out errors in the section titled, “Use the active voice.” He claims that three of the four examples given are mistakes, that three of the examples are not passive such as:

“There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground” has no sign of the passive in it anywhere.

Nowhere in the text do the authors claim this example is in the passive voice. The section never implies that all of the examples given are in the passive voice. The examples illustrate making a sentence stronger as noted in the text with the alternate version, “Dead leaves covered the ground.” The paragraph in The Elements of Style before these examples makes clear the intention:

The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively or emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.

And the text after the examples:

Note, in the examples above, that when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.

The authors know the difference between the active voice and the passive voice. It is up to the reader to read and understand the entire section. Perhaps the section could be more clear, but careful reading shows that Pullum’s assertion that the examples are in error is false. Each example shows a sentence made stronger.

Pullum defends his conclusion with this statement:

The only clauses that are not active are the passive clauses: “active” and “passive” are antonyms. Putting those four sentences (one of which is genuinely a passive) in a section that opens by attacking (illicitly) the use of the passive voice, and recommending that they be replaced by active equivalents, is equivalent to saying that they are passives.

This is an example of poor logic (not equivalent*, and again read and understand the entire passage.) Flawed logic leads to poor comprehension.

In another response, Pullum concedes that maybe Strunk and White understand the difference between passive and active, but maintains that the text makes it look like all the examples are in the passive voice. In a later response on the same page, he mentions that he cites evidence supporting his claims. But his essay lacks evidence supporting the claim that Elements “provides just about all of the grammar instruction most Americans ever get.”

Pullum asks us to try the following:

These examples can be found all over the Web in study guides for freshman composition classes. (Try a Google search on “great number of dead leaves lying.”)

A Google search including quotes without a period reported 358 results (70 without duplicates; skip to last page to find actual result count.) Ignoring all the links to Pullum’s essay and other blogs about it, a number of sources stated that the sentence is not passive. A few results showed a misunderstanding including a science course, a computer course, and a blog. A source showing understanding. Minnesota State made the mistake. Of the resulting sources aimed at English or writing students, 3 made the mistake and 6 correctly identified the sentence. Pullum has a point. Some readers do not understand what they read including Pullum. Considering the results revealed very few study guides for freshmen composition, this evidence is weak.

Another curious statement by Pullum:

Some of the claims about syntax are plainly false despite being respected by the authors. For example, Chapter IV, in an unnecessary piece of bossiness, says that the split infinitive “should be avoided unless the writer wishes to place unusual stress on the adverb.” The bossiness is unnecessary because the split infinitive has always been grammatical and does not need to be avoided.

Again, the authors make no claim about grammatical correctness. The text advises on style, and states in Chapter V (referenced from Chapter IV) that using the split infinitive is “a matter of ear.” Strunk and White want writers to think about and improve their writing.

Near the end of the piece, Pullum makes this claim:

Consider the explicit instruction: “With none, use the singular verb when the word means ‘no one’ or ‘not one.’”

Pullum cites counterexamples including Dracula and The Importance of Being Ernest. The counterexamples are valid only if instruction is truly explicit. Within the introduction of The Elements of Style, White states that style rules are a “matter of individual preference,” “established rules of grammar are open to challenge,” and “unless he is certain of doing well, he will probably do best by following the rules.” And throughout the text, White reiterates that the rules are not inflexible. Pullum’s statement is false and his evidence, irrelevant, apparent to anyone with basic comprehension.

Pullum’s response to criticism shows a lack of professionalism by attacking his critics, however much of it may be in jest considering the source of criticism.

I agree with Pullum that The Elements of Style should not be the sole resource for learning grammar, but grammar instruction is not the intent of the book. Is it responsible for degrading grammar in America? Pullum does not offer any evidence.

When I read an essay (or blog) from a linguist, I expect a well written piece based on solid comprehension citing strong evidence. (I don’t expect basic logic.) Do I ask too much?

Read and understand.

Other responses to the essay:

• Athens & Jerusalem
• NPR
• Grammar Girl
• Orange Crate Art includes a response from Pullum and again here.
• Another from Orange Crate Art
• Ask Nicola contains a response from Pullum.
• Overcoming Bias
• Daily Writing Tips

*Pullum tries to argue using a binary system (passive vs active) based on the section starting with an example of the passive voice. For a definition, see An Introduction to Analysis Third Edition by Wade, page 590. There are other ways to show this false including a counterexample found within the text itself.