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Write Great Fiction - Plot & Structure
Table of Contents
Write Great Fiction - Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
Since this is not a subject I am familiar with, it is hard to judge how good the advice is, or how novel! The structure was slightly confused, there was a bit of repetition. Over-all it was more like a grab-bag of tips than a structured plotting system.
Table of contents
Introduction: Putting the Big Lie to Sleep Chapter One: What's a Plot, Anyway? Chapter Two: Structure: What Holds Your Plot Together Chapter Three: How to Explode With Plot Ideas Chapter Four: Beginning Strong Chapter Five: Middles Chapter Six: Endings Chapter Seven: Scenes Chapter Eight: Complex Plots Chapter Nine: The Character Arc in Plot Chapter Ten: Plotting Systems Chapter Eleven: Revising Your Plot Chapter Twelve: Plot Patterns Chapter Thirteen: Common Plot Problems and Cures Chapter Fourteen: Tips and Tools for Plot and Structure
Location: 108 Just reading a book on plotting is not going to make you a better writer. You have to try out what you learn, see if you get it, and try some more. You test the principles in the fire of the blank page. As you read this book, take time to digest and then apply what you learn about plot and structure to your own writing.
Yes, really, like everything, it seems that practice is 60% of what matters (most of the rest is talent?)
Location: 111 I love books on writing. I have shelves full of them. I've read every one with a yellow highlighter. Then I've reread almost all of them with a red, felt-tip pen, marking things I missed the first time. Then I've gone through most of them a third time, writing out new insights on a yellow legal pad. Then I've taken my notes and typed them up. What I'm doing is digesting the material as deeply as I possibly can. I want it to be part of me. I want it there when I write my next novel.
Location: 120 "First get it written, then get it right." I can't remember who said them, but these are words of wisdom. Don't spend too much time worrying and fretting and tinkering with your first draft. The guidelines in this book will help you not only in the planning of your plot and the writing of it, but most of all when you get to the revision stage. Your job with that first draft is to pour yourself onto the page. In Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity, Ray Bradbury says, "Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper."
Location: 124 Set a quota. Writing is how you learn to write. Writing daily, as a discipline, is the best way to learn. Most successful fiction writers make a word goal and stick to it. A time goal can easily be squandered as you sit and agonize over sentences or paragraphs.
Location: 130 The daily writing of words, once it becomes a habit, will be the most fruitful discipline of your writing life. You'll be amazed at how productive you'll become, and how much you'll learn about the craft.
Location: 134 The main difference between successful writers and unsuccessful writers is persistence.
The main difference between successful X and unsuccessful X is persistence
Location: 211 the LOCK system. LOCK stands for Lead, Objective, Confrontation, and Knockout. […] a strong plot starts with an interesting Lead character. In the best plots, that Lead is compelling, someone we have to watch throughout the course of the novel. This does not mean the Lead has to be entirely sympathetic. […] Objective is the driving force of fiction. It generates forward motion and keeps the Lead from just sitting around. An objective can take either of two forms: to get something or to get away from something.
Solid plots have one and only one dominant objective for the Lead character. This forms the "story question" — will the Lead realize her objective? You want readers to worry about the story question, so the objective has to be essential to the well-being of the Lead. If the Lead doesn't get it (or get away from it), her life will take a tremendous hit for the worse. […] confrontation. Opposition from characters and outside forces brings your story fully to life. If your Lead moves toward his objective without anything in his way, we deprive readers of what they secretly want: worry. Readers want to fret about the Lead, keeping an intense emotional involvement all the way through the novel. […] People watch boxing for the knockout, he explained. They'll accept a decision, but they prefer to see one fighter kissing the canvas. What they hate is a draw. That doesn't satisfy anyone. Readers of commercial fiction want to see a knockout at the end. A literary novel can play with a bit more ambiguity. In either case, the ending must have knockout power.
Probably goes without saying, but if you are good you can stray from this sort of structure. If you are not good, and you stray, it will probably not work well (same with music)
Location: 278 Love? Sure, that's simple. Boy wants girl. Girl denies boy his objective. He battles to win her love. He confronts her resistance by buying her flowers, singing her songs, protecting her from bad guys and all that romantic stuff. He gets her at the end or not. That's one variety of the love plot. You can substitute the boy's and girl's families as the opposing forces, and you come up with another variety of the love story. See Romeo and Juliet. Take another plot, Change. Here, the plot focuses on an inner transformation in the Lead character. The Lead desires to stay as he is. Forces arise that challenge his complacency. He tries to resist the forces. But he is overcome at the end, and he changes. See A Christmas Carol.
Location: 322 Knowing why plots work is freeing. Master the principles, and you're at liberty to add all of your personal touches. Good chefs have their secret spices, ingredients they use to give their creations something extra and unique. For writers, the spices you add to make your plot your own include characters, setting, and dialogue.
Location: 333 Don't let any of your characters plop into your plot like plain vanilla. Spice them up.
Location: 336 It could mean simply setting your scenes in places that are fresh. How many times do we have conversations between two potential lovers in a restaurant? Back and forth they go, with the only original element being what they are served by the waiter. Why not put them in a tree house? Or on the subway stuck in a tunnel? Or underneath the boardwalk by the sea?
Location: 340 Tom Clancy created a whole new genre called techno-thriller because he put his hero, Jack Ryan, into a world of complex military hardware. That was new. Readers love to read about the details of other people's working lives. Do research. Immerse yourself in some occupation, either by training for it or by interviewing an expert about it.
For example, the martian
Location: 385 Alfred Hitchcock once said that a good story was life, with the dull parts taken out.
Location: 389 The choices you make for scenes, the raw "what happens" material, also contribute to your spice. But our minds naturally jump to clichés as we decide what to write next.
Location: 390 That's why it's critical to develop the sort of imagination that considers several possibilities before deciding which scene to write. You can do this just by pausing, writing a quick list of possibilities, and waiting for something to click. Location: 396
Consider various ways of finding new ideas, like: inversing the cliche, mashing together with other ideas, etc.
Location: 444 In a novel, we must get to know some things in Act I before we can move on in the story. Then the problem is presented, and the Lead spends the greater part of the book wrestling with the problem (Act II). But the book has to end sometime, with the problem solved (Act III). It has been said in writing classes and books that the three-act structure is dead (or silly or worthless). Don't believe it. The three-act structure has endured because it works.
Location: 458 Beginnings are always about the who of the story (chapter four goes into greater detail about beginnings). The entry point is a Lead character, and the writer should begin by connecting the reader to the Lead as quickly as possible
See: American Gods, we feel connected with Shadow very very quickly at the beginning of the book, allowing the rest of the book to work
Location: 464 Beginnings have other tasks to perform. The four most important are: Present the story world — tell us something about the setting, the time, and the immediate context. Establish the tone the reader will rely upon. Is this to be a sweeping epic or a zany farce? Action packed or dwelling more on character change? Fast moving or leisurely? Compel the reader to move on to the middle. Just why should the reader care to continue? Introduce the opposition. Who or what wants to stop the Lead?
Location: 469 The major part of the novel is the confrontation, a series of battles between the Lead and the opposition.
Location: 476 The best endings (and we'll look at some examples in chapter six) also: Tie up all loose ends. Are there story threads that are left dangling? You must either resolve these in a way that does not distract from the main plot line or go back and snip them out. Readers have long memories. Give a feeling of resonance. The best endings leave a sense of something beyond the confines of the book. What does the story mean in the larger sense?
Location: 505 The Disturbance In the beginning of your novel, you start out by introducing a character who lives a certain life. That is his starting point or, in mythic terms, the hero's ordinary world. And it's the place he'll stay unless something forces him to change.
Location: 508 So very early in Act I something has to disturb the status quo. Just think about it from the reader's standpoint — something's got to happen to make us feel there's some threat or challenge happening to the characters.
Meeting Wednesday on the plane
Location: 512 Dean Koontz usually begins his novels with such a disturbance. Here's the first line of The Door to December (written as Richard Paige): As soon as she finished dressing, Laura went to the front door, just in time to see the L.A. Police Department squad car pull to the curb in front of the house. Now that's a disturbance, something small to begin with, but a disturbance nonetheless.
Location: 534 Doorways How you get from beginning to middle (Act I to Act II), and from middle to end (Act II to Act III), is a matter of transitioning. Rather than calling these plot points, I find it helpful to think of these two transitions as "doorways of no return." That explains the feeling you want to create. A thrusting of the character forward.
Location: 537 We are creatures of habit; we search for security. Our characters are the same. So unless there is something to push the Lead into Act II, he will be quite content to stay in Act I! He desires to remain in his ordinary world.
Location: 541 the second doorway of no return must send the Lead hurtling toward the knockout ending. These two doorways hold your three acts together, like pins in adjoining railroad cars. If they are weak or nonexistent, your train won't run.
These are one way doors, no turning back, pushed through the door
Location: 557 Lead's normal world, a place of safety and rest, is on one side of the doorway. Problems may happen here, but they don't threaten great change. Lead is content to stay here. Something has to happen to push him through the door. On the other side of the door is the outside world, the great unknown, the dark forest. A place where the Lead is going to have to dig deep inside and show courage, learn new things, make new allies, etc.
Location: 582 The Second Doorway Lead is facing a series of confrontations and challenges on one side of the door. It will go on indefinitely unless some crisis, setback, discovery opens the door to a path that leads to the climax. On the other side of the door the Lead can gather his forces, inner and outer, for the final battle or final choice that will end the story. There's no going back through the door. The story must end.
Location: 614 In a novel, however, that first doorway needs to happen earlier, or the book will seem to drag. My rule of thumb is the one-fifth mark, though it can happen sooner.
Location: 677 In school, I was taught to sit and think and formulate an idea, then set to work. That's the path to the reaction, "I've seen this before." You need to do the opposite. You need to come up with hundreds of ideas, toss out the ones that don't grab you, and then nurture and develop what's left. In a moment, I am going to give you twenty ways to come up with hundreds of ideas for your fiction. But first, some rules: [1] Schedule a regular idea time. Once a week at least. [2] Get yourself into a relaxed state, in a quiet spot where your imagination can run free. [3] Give yourself thirty minutes of uninterrupted time. [4] Select one or more of the exercises below. Read the instructions. [5] Begin by letting your imagination come up with anything it wants to, and record everything on paper (or the computer). [6] The most important rule: Do not, I repeat, do not censor yourself in any way. Leave your editorial mind out of the loop. Just let the ideas come pouring out in any way, shape, or form they want to. Do not judge anything. [7] Have fun. Lots of fun. You're even allowed to laugh. [8] Save all your ideas. [9] After two or three sessions, it's time to assess your ideas. Use the guidelines in "Nurturing Your Ideas" at the end of this chapter. [10] Repeat the process as often as you want. Note:do exercise
Location: 898 Okay, you've got a bunch of ideas there. (You don't? Get busy!) Now what? Choose your favorite idea and write a hook, line, and sinker. The hook is the big idea, the reason a reader browsing in the bookstore would look at your cover copy and go, "Wow!" The big idea in Midnight by Dean Koontz is the abuse of biotechnology, which affects an entire town. What's the big idea behind your book?
Location: 901 Now comes the line. Write the grabber copy for your idea in one or two sentences. Another of Koontz's novels, Winter Moon, was summed up this way: "In Los Angeles, a city street turns into a fiery apocalypse. In a lonely corner of Montana, a mysterious presence invades a forest. As these events converge and careen out of control, neither the living nor the dead are safe."
Location: 913 [5] Is there some other element you can add that is fascinating? Think of the idea from every angle, and how you might add a twist or two that enlivens the whole.
Location: 963 A great prologue. Many page-turners begin with a mysterious, shocking, or otherwise gripping prologue. The Midnight prologue introduces a character who is jogging at night and who is killed by a mysterious beast at the end of the prologue. We never see her again. But we are left wondering about the cause of her death (as, indeed, are the lead characters). Koontz may have just written this prologue off the top of his head, and only later figured out what to do with it.
Location: 1,000 Here are some ways to grab readers from the start.
Location: 1,011 What are the successful elements of these opening lines? First, they give the name of a character. This specificity creates the illusion of reality from the get-go. A variation on this is to begin with a pronoun: She heard something moving in her bedroom.
Location: 1,014 The second thing to notice is that something is happening or about to happen to the character. And not just anything — something ominous or dangerous. An interruption to normal life. Give readers a feeling of motion, of something happening or about to happen. Give them this feeling from the very start.
Harry potter prologue he is left on the doorstep, first door is of course hogwarts, second door is entering the chamber of secrets.
Location: 1,018 Don't misunderstand. Descriptions are not out of bounds — so long as you include text that gives the feeling of motion. And only a character can be in motion. So — give us a character as soon as possible.
Location: 1,027 Unless something disturbing happens to your Lead early on, you risk violating Hitchcock's Axiom: A good story is life with the dull parts taken out. So stir up the waters. What happens doesn't have to be huge, like a house blowing up. It can be something as seemingly innocuous as a telephone call in the night or a bit of unsettling news.
Location: 1,055 This brilliant opening now allows the author to drop back in time and spend the rest of the book bringing us back to the point where it begins. We want to read because we have a character who is immediately sympathetic and interesting, tied up in the battle of his life. We were there from the very first sentence.
Location: 1,091 The use of prologues is a venerable one, used by all sorts of writers in many different ways. But the most effective prologues do one simple thing — entice the reader to move to chapter one. All of the rules we talk about in this chapter apply to prologues as well, with one primary exception: The prologue does not necessarily have to introduce your Lead character. It does, however, eventually have to connect to your main plot.
Location: 1,155 Identification Since the Lead character provides access to a plot, it follows that the more the reader can identify with the Lead, the greater the intensity of the plot experience. With identification, you create the wondrous feeling that the story, in some way, is happening to me.
Location: 1,159 The Lead appears to us to be a real human being. What are the marks of a real human being? Look inside yourself. Most likely, you are: (1) trying to make it in the world; (2) a little fearful at times; and (3) not perfect.
Location: 1,170 In contrast to mere empathy, sympathy intensifies the reader's emotional investment in the Lead. In my view, the best plots have a Lead with whom some sympathy is established. Even if the Lead has negative qualities, like Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, you can find ways to generate sympathy nonetheless.
Location: 1,178 [2] Hardship. If the Lead has to face some misfortune not of her own making, sympathy abounds.
Location: 1,183 The Underdog. America loves people who face long odds. John Grisham has used the underdog in many of his books. One of his best, The Rainmaker, is the classic David-and-Goliath story switched to the courtroom. We can't help rooting for Rudy Baylor as he battles a huge defense firm.
Location: 1,188 Readers worry about a Lead who might be crushed at any time. In Rose Madder, Stephen King follows a battered wife who, after years in a hellish marriage, finally gets up the courage to run away from her psychopathic cop-husband. But she is so naive about the ways of the world, and her husband so good at tracking people down, we worry about her from the moment she steps out the door.
Location: 1,198 right. You can write about an unlikable Lead if you compensate in other areas. Giving the Lead power is one good method. Scarlett O'Hara has a certain power over men. She also demonstrates her power to overcome obstacles as the story progresses.
Location: 1,201 Make the unlikable Lead fascinating in some way, or readers will be turned off.
Location: 1,202 Inner conflict Characters who are absolutely sure about what they do, who plunge ahead without fear, are not that interesting. We don't go through life that way. In reality, we have doubts just like everyone else. Bringing your Lead's doubts to the surface in your plot pulls the reader deeper into the story.
Location: 1,209 Present the Story World What sort of world does your Lead inhabit? Not merely the setting, though that is important. But what is life like for the Lead?
Location: 1,245 "Don't warm up your engines," Jack M. Bickham counseled in The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes. "Start your story from the first sentence." Bickham warns of three beginning motifs that can stall your story on the very first page. Excessive description. If description is what dominates the opening, there is no action, no character in motion. While some brief description of place is necessary, it should be woven briefly into the opening action. If a setting is vital to the story, at least give us a person in the setting to get things rolling. Backward looks. Fiction is forward moving. If you frontload with backstory — those events that happened to the characters before the main plot — it feels like stalling. No threat. "Good fiction," wrote Bickham, "starts with — and deals with — someone's response to threat." Give us that opening bit of disturbance quickly.
Location: 1,260 It is perfectly all right that there is a mysterious opponent out there, someone to be revealed later. But that there is an opponent is all important. Make sure the opponent is as strong as or, preferably, stronger than the Lead. And do not scrimp on the sympathy factor! Give the opponent his due, his justifications. Your novel will be the stronger for it.
Location: 1,263 Nothing will slow down plot faster than an information dump. This is where the author merely tells the reader something he thinks the reader needs to know before moving on with the plot. It's bad enough when this is done in the narrative portion, but dreadful when it is done in dialogue.
Location: 1,275 Rule 1: Act first, explain later. Begin with a character in motion. Readers will follow a character who is doing something, and won't demand to know everything about the character up front. You then drop in information as necessary, in little bits as you go along. Rule 2: When you explain, do the iceberg. Don't tell us everything about the character's past history or current situation. Give us the 10 percent above the surface that is necessary to understand what's going on, and leave 90 percent hidden and mysterious below the surface. Later in the story, you can reveal more of that information. Until the right time, however, withhold it. Rule 3: Set information inside confrontation. Often, the best way to let information come out is within a scene of intense conflict. Using the characters' thoughts or words, you can have crucial information ripped out and thrown in front of the reader.
Location: 1,346 He's got an attitude. That's one key for literary novelists. If you're doing the book in first person, then give us a voice that intrigues us. Earlier, I warned about not starting with descriptions of setting, weather, and the like. That is not an ironclad rule, but simply a helpful tip. Readers today are impatient, and want to know why they should keep reading.
Location: 1,400 Brainstorm five possibilities for your Lead in each of the following categories: Identification. How is the Lead "like us"? Sympathy. Think about jeopardy (physical or emotional); hardship; underdog status; and vulnerability. Likability. Witty? Cares about other people? Inner conflict. What two "voices" are battling inside your Lead?
Location: 1,439 The opposition merely has to have a compelling reason to stop the Lead. Three keys will help you come up with good opposition: Make the opposition a person. (A master like Stephen King can make the opposition nonpersonal, as in Tom Gordon, where it's Trisha against the woods. But don't try this at home until you've had lots of practice.) If it is a group, like the law firm in The Rainmaker, select one person in that group to take the lead role for the opposition. Make the opposition stronger than the Lead. If the opposition can be easily matched, why should the reader worry? Then ask yourself, "Why do I love my opposition character?" Climbing into the opposition's skin will give you an empathetic view, and a better character as a result.
Location: 1,453 You must figure out a reason why the Lead and opposition can't withdraw from the action. Writing your novel will then be a matter of recording various scenes of confrontation, most ending with some sort of setback for your Lead, forcing her to analyze her situation anew and take some other action toward her objective.
Location: 1,509 But keeping in mind that worrying the reader is the primary goal of the middle of the book, it is actually much better if the character does not attain his goal. In fact, if the situation can be made worse, then so much the better for us, your readers.
Location: 1,547 Stretching the Physical Physical peril or uncertainty is perfect material for the big stretch. The way to do it is simple — slow down. Go through the scene beat by beat in your imagination, as if you're watching a movie scene in slow motion.
Location: 1,549 Then, as you write the scene, alternate between action, thoughts, dialogue, and description. Take your time with each one. Milk them.
Location: 1,585 Notice how Mitchard uses physical descriptions that show rather than tell: throat kept filling with nastiness; stomach roiled. She places us in Beth's mind as her thoughts come one after another, accusing
Location: 1,613 Go for it, and don't worry about overdoing it or wearing out the reader. You have that wonderful thing called revision to save you. If you write hot, packing your scenes with physical and emotional tension, you can always revise cool, and scale back on rewrite. That's much easier to do than trying to heat things up the second time around.
Location: 1,625 Daffy should have been asking himself, Who cares? That's a question all novelists must repeat, over and over, as they write. Is there enough going on to make readers care about what happens? What does the Lead character stand to lose if he doesn't solve the central problem of the novel? Is that enough?
Location: 1,671 So ponder things like this: How can things get more emotionally wrenching for my Lead? Is there someone the Lead cares about who can get caught up in the trouble? Are there dark secrets from the past that can be revealed?
Location: 1,783 Do that with your novel. Maintain the tension in the story until the last possible moment. As you near the end, it should look as if the opposition is the one who will win. He has everything going for him. The Lead is up against the ropes. Only when the Lead reaches deep within and makes her move will the knockout blow be thrown.
Location: 1,870 In the final choice type of ending, the hero is on the horns of a terrible dilemma. He can choose a course that gets him to his objective, but at a moral cost. Or he can "do the right thing" but lose the most important goal, the thing he's hoped for throughout the novel.
Location: 1,896 But as you get closer to the end of your first draft, pause and come up with ten alternative endings. Yes, I said ten. And I don't mean take four weeks to do this. It should take less than thirty minutes. Brainstorm. The quicker the better. Let yourself go, and don't worry about justifying every one of them. Once you've got your list, let your imagination cook the possibilities for a day or two. Come back to your list and take the top four. Deepen them a little bit. Let them cook some more. Finally, choose the one alternative ending that seems to work best as a twist — not an alternative ending at all, but an added surprise. Figure out how to work that into your ending, and then go back into your novel and justify it somehow by planting little clues here and there. There is your twist ending.
Location: 1,925 Working to make your last page like that is worth every ounce of your effort. It's the last impression, what psychologists call the recency effect. Your audience will judge your book largely by the feeling they have most recently, namely, the end. Leave a lasting impression and you will build a readership.
Location: 1,988 What sort of ending do you have in mind for your novel? Try writing the climactic scene. This does not have to be the scene you'll actually use, but it may be. At the very least it will get your writer's mind working on the end and allow yourself to understand your characters more deeply. Use this information in your writing. EXERCISE 3 Come up with two or three alternative endings. List as many as ten one-line possibilities. Then choose the two or three most promising, and sketch out the scenes in summary form (250 words maximum). If an alternative seems stronger than the one you've had in mind, use it. Keep the old ending as a possible twist at the end. Or keep your original ending, and use
Location: 2,003 Readers may be willing to forgive other writing sins if they are reading scenes that plop them down on an emotional roller coaster. On the other hand, flat scenes are like the trams that take us to and from the park — slow, crowded, and hardly worth the ride. And readers aren't likely to take a ride like that more than once. So make your scenes count, every one.
Location: 2,012 Most often, the best way to create an unforgettable scene is to intensify the clash. Two characters oppose each other. They have the strongest possible reasons to do so.
Location: 2,117 Setup Setup scenes, or beats, are those units that must occur in order for subsequent scenes to make sense. All novels need a certain amount of setup. We have to know who the Lead character is, what he does, and why he does it. We have to see how he gets into whatever predicament is going to dominate the book. Further, there may need to be some setup beats in the course of the story. How, then, do you do this without writing dull exposition? You simply build in a problem, however slight, to the setup scene. It can be anything from the character feeling anxious, to an argument, to a problem that must be dealt with immediately. Setup scenes are minor chords, and should be kept to an absolute minimum. Usually they occur early in the book.
Location: 2,156 The hook is what grabs the reader's attention from the start and gets him pulled into the narrative. And here is where many a writer stumbles. Feeling there needs to be an adequate description of the location first, then the characters, a writer may tend to start his scenes slowly. This is, of course, a logical choice. We think in a linear fashion, and figure we have to get the readers seeing the location, then the characters in the location, before we can get to the good stuff, like action and dialogue. Don't fall into this trap. Readers don't care about the natural order if they are intrigued.
Location: 2,213 Always go over the scenes you've written with an eye for intensity level. If it isn't strong enough, try to ratchet it up. Even a relatively quiet scene (which you use to modulate the pace of your novel) can give us the thoughts of the viewpoint character, showing us her worries or anxieties, thus allowing for emotional intensity.
Location: 2,218 Finally, you need to end scenes with a prompt, something to make readers turn the page. So often new writers let their scenes fizzle out, ending on a boring note: People walk out of rooms, drive off in cars, or offer dull parting phrases like "Good-bye" and "Nice talking with you." Don't ever let your scenes droop at the end. You have many ways to move the reader along.
Location: 2,234 A mysterious line of dialogue A secret suddenly revealed A major decision or vow Announcement of a shattering event Reversal or surprise — new information that turns the story around A question left hanging in the air If a scene seems to sputter to a close and you're not sure what to do, here's a great tip: try cutting the last paragraph or two. You don't have to write every scene to its logical conclusion. In fact, it's often the best choice not to. Cutting creates interest, a feeling of something left hanging — and that makes readers want to find out why.
Location: 2,319 DEVELOPING YOUR THEME At some point in your plotting, ask yourself what the take-home value of your story is going to be. What is the lesson or insight — the new way of seeing things — that you want the reader to glean? Put it into one line. This will be your theme.
Location: 2,325 Themes deepen fiction, but you must beware of a common danger. It is tempting for a writer to take a theme and force a story into it. This results in a host of problems, including cardboard characters, a preachy tone, a lack of subtlety, and story clichés.
atlas shrugged?
Location: 2,436 In a parallel-plot novel, you switch back and forth between the plot lines. If you can manage to end each section in a fashion that makes readers want to read on, you're going to achieve that magical effect — I couldn't put it down!
Game of thrones – if one of the storylines is weaker you do risk people not caring enough though, done well it does work great.
Location: 2,495 Make three columns on a sheet of paper. In the first column, record the rich details that stand out in your scenes. In the middle column, list your main characters. In the last column, catalogue the significant settings. Now look for connections between the columns. Connect a detail with a character and place. Or work the other way, from place to character to detail. Pick the strongest two or three connections, and see if you can weave them into your plot as motifs or symbols.
Location: 2,499 Determine the take-home value for your novel, and put it into one line. This can be done at any stage of your plotting. If you do it early, keep it in mind as you develop your scenes. But be careful of heavy-handedness when you do. The message must come out naturally.
Location: 2,512 What makes a plot truly memorable is not all of the action, but what the action does to the character. We respond to the character who changes, who endures the crucible of the story only to emerge a different person at the end.
Location: 2,516 What deepens a plot is when characters grow. Events happen and should have impact on the characters.
Location: 2,681 Write a short profile about your Lead character's personality at the beginning of your plot. Describe his: Beliefs Values Dominant attitudes Opinions Now ask what things will happen in the course of the plot to change or challenge these elements.
Location: 2,820 Here is one suggested method. Spend a few hours coming up with vivid scenes in your mind and recording these scenes on index cards. You don't have to do this all in one sitting. In fact, it's better if you don't. You'll find as you start collecting scenes that your writer-mind will work in the background, and when you come back to the cards, you'll have ideas bubbling up to the surface that will be exciting to you. A scene card can be as simple as this: Monica drives to John's house; chased by bikers. Saved by Fireman Dan.
Location: 2,872 I believe it was E.L. Doctorow who compared his plotting to driving at night with the headlights on. You have an idea as to your direction, but you can see only as far as the headlights. When you drive to that point you can see a little farther. And so on, until you reach your destination.
Location: 3,064 write it as quickly as you comfortably can. This means you don't spend hours, Proust-like, laboring over pages and words. You can do that later. Oh, you can linger a little, looking for just the right style, but keep pushing ahead. Set a good-sized word quota for each day, and then write on through to the end. This is the "what's happening" draft.
Location: 3,067 The reason you press on is that your heart will be eager to take your imagination in hand and explore fictional possibilities. If you stop and get too technical, too concerned with getting it exactly right, you may never find the most original parts of your story.
Location: 3,161 Finally, move on to the polish. As the name suggests, you go through and give everything that last bit of shine. Do a scene read-through, and ask yourself the following questions: Are you hooking the reader from the beginning? Are suspenseful scenes drawn out for the ultimate tension? Can any information be delayed? This creates tension in the reader, always a good thing. Are there enough surprises? Are character-reaction scenes deep and interesting? Read chapter endings for read-on prompts. Are there places you can replace describing how a character feels with actions? Do I use visual, sensory-laden words?
Location: 3,167 Dialogue is almost always strengthened by cutting words within the lines. For example: "I do not want to go in there now because it looks too scary" becomes "I don't want to go in. Too scary." In dialogue, be fair to both sides. Don't give one character all the good lines. Great dialogue surprises the reader and creates tension. View it like a game, where the players are trying to outfox each other. Can you get more conflict into dialogue, even among allies?
Location: 3,549 it's a good one for generating new plot material based on getting to know your character better. Close your eyes and see your character vividly. Dress her up for a night on the town. Have her go to a social event where she will see a number of old friends as well as some of the most powerful people in her world. She opens the door, steps into the party, and then what happens? Watch this scene in your mind. Hear the sounds, smells the smells, make it as real as possible. At some point have someone come over to your Lead and throw a drink in her face. What does she do? What do the others around her do or say? Let the scene go on of its own accord. Then take your character back home, have her getting ready for bed. She's talking to someone she lives with, or her dog, about what happened. What is she feeling? Get into her emotions.
Location: 3,581 Sometimes you can jump ahead in your story, come up with the scene, and then think about how to connect your story up to that scene. Do a scene that has a lot of conflict or otherwise grabs you. This can get the juices flowing again.
Location: 3,608 Often after I've written a scene, I'll go back and try to live the emotions. I'll act out the parts I've created. Almost always what I feel "in character" will make me add to or change the scene.
Read the dialogue out loud
Location: 3,657 Showing is like watching a scene in a movie. All you have is what is on the screen before you. What the characters do or say reveals who they are and what they're feeling. Telling, on the other hand, merely explains what is going on in the scene, or inside the characters. It's like you are recounting the movie to a friend.
Location: 3,705 If your plot allows you to, cut away from one scene that leaves the reader hanging to another scene, then leave that scene the same way.
Location: 3,766 You do the opposite of what they expect. You "unanticipate." Here's how it works. You conceive your scene or plotline. You put down the first thing that comes to your mind. It will most likely be something that's been done because you are part of that vast audience of readers you are appealing to. Our minds jump to clichés. That's probably what you'll come up with first. Then you make a list of three, four, or five alternatives to your original conception. You brainstorm. Say you're working on a scene where a husband bursts in to find his wife in the arms of his best friend. What does he do? One answer might be this: He goes to the bedroom to get a gun and shoot the two of them. We've seen that before. It's a cliché. Readers anticipate something like this. What can we do to throw a little unanticipation into the mix? Let's brainstorm on the reaction part. Instead of the usual, the husband might: Welcome his friend. "Hey, nice to see you." Walk out without a word. Run and jump out the window.
- Linkback: Three-Act Structure


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|PDF (Download Only)
|Goosie Girl
|No Reviews Yet (Be the first to rate it)
The Pillbox hat has made a comeback in a big way~ from retro pin up models and photo shoots to costuming and even, royalty. Kate Middleton and other noteworthy people with celebrity status are bringing the pillbox hat back into mainstream fashion.
Goosie Girl presents her Prissy Pillbox Hat PDF Pattern, for girls-women. This is a fully functioning hat (not just a photo prop or costume accessory).
Full Supply List, Clear, Concise Instructions with one or more photo of each and every step. Tips for embellishing and also a list of suggested suppliers.
No Sewing Required!
Buckram Pillbox Hat Form (or substitute)
Hot Glue or Fabric Adhesive
Copyright ©2014 Heather Niziolek Kavolino for Goosie Girl. All Rights Reserved.
Note: www.YouCanMakeThis.com provides this copyright & terms of use policy review as a courtesy to our site users and eBook authors. The copyright policy applies to the associated eBook and is specified and owned by the individual eBook author.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettinger at gmail.com> added the comment: Please don't make these kind of changes. Guido has been clear that the docs need to affirmatively state what the language does. Except for certain security risks or segfault risks, the docs should avoid wording along the lines of "feature x is dangerous" or "experts only". These kind of value judgements belong in blogs and wikis, not in the core documentation which should simply focus on what the language does and examples of how to use it effectively. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11948> _______________________________________


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Half the Price
Fastbraces costs about half the price of traditional orthodontic treatments. Our highest price is $2800 for Fastbraces Classic with in house payment plans available.
Half the Time
Achieving a terrific smile no longer has to be an expensive, two-year ordeal. With Fastbraces, the process from start to finish can take less than a year. Some people have seen finished results in just 3 months. That means you take less time off work and school for orthodontic visits, saving you time and money.
More Comfort
Most people look forward to getting out of their braces much more than they look forward to getting into them. Fastbraces users report less discomfort than patients wearing traditional braces.
A revolutionary approach to straightening your teeth
Fastbraces® is the fast, safe, easy, gentle, and affordable alternative to traditional orthodontic braces. Fastbraces quickly and effectively resolve issues including severe crowding of teeth, open bite, high canines, overbite, spacing issues and crossbite. The Fastbraces® method straightens teeth at the roots from the very beginning of treatment. This award-winning technique saves time and money.
Fastbraces® Master Provider, Dr. Hayden, and Senior Master Provider, Dr. Sabourin, have managed numerous cases and provided education to general dentist and orthodontists through workshops around the world. Drs. Sabourin and Hayden have developed the most efficient process for the use of Fastbraces® brackets, which results in the most effective treatments for beautiful smiles!


text:
3d printing architecture is an independent knowledge and inspiration platform for architects, designers, researchers, engineers and fabricators with an interest in additive manufacturing for the building industry, started by Erno Langenberg. The goal is to stimulate innovation by sharing knowledge and connecting people.
Connected to this blog is a Linkedin group, in which discussions will focus on both the technical aspects of large-scale 3d printing and the different goals to be achieved.
Join us on Linkedin
or check out the Facebook page


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Horseshoe Bend. This is another one of those places we've passed so many times while headed to Lake Powell and I'm so glad I finally got to see it. It's beautiful, and as we walked the .75 miles up the hill to the top, I had no idea what to expect! It totally blew me away though, with the gorgeous water color, that green moss contrasting with the red rocks, and just sheer size. I love places that make me feel so small.
Have you ever been? It's a quick stop that is totally worth it, in my opinion. It's located just north of the Grand Canyon and outside Page, Arizona. Alana, Erinn and I had a bit of a hard time finding it, which seemed so weird and funny once we DID, because it's so obvious. It's an easy turn off, which ample parking, and you simply walk down a short path to get there. There's no railing of any kind, and I was very nervous to see so many little kids running around and people bending over backwards trying to get the entire landscape into their selfie. Scary.
After getting lost and then finding simplified directions, the best way to go is just to look for the well-marked turnout between mileposts 544 and 545 on 89. That's it! If you stumble upon a detailed list of directions DO NOT follow it! Trust me. It's much more simple than you're led to believe.
Let me know if you decide to check it out, and happy exploring! I'll be back soon sharing photos from Antelope Canyon.


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The benefits of getting regular exercise are numerous and well known, and more attention is being paid to the power of simple movement, such as walking. Indeed intense, heart pounding workouts are absolutely incredible for both our hearts and physical fitness, but we shouldn't underestimate the power of simply getting up and moving.
Not that we need an excuse to get outside to enjoy the beautiful fall weather, but we've got some extra motivation for you! Taking movement outdoors could be even better for your health. Getting outside a few times a day not only forces you to break out of the normal cycle of your day, it actually affects your stress response – which we could all use a pause button for. As it turns out, science shows that some fresh air really will do you good.
Outdoor movement is enjoyable and may even be addictive. Creating an exercise habit is difficult, but finding something simple you enjoy makes it easier to come back to. If you have an afternoon break time habit of say, a latte or a cookie, especially on a stressful day, try switching it out for a 15 minutes afternoon walk. The shot of pleasure you get from getting fresh air can quickly become a habit.
Benefits for the body:
- Exercise leads to an increase in natural killer cells, neutrophils and monocytes, these ultimately lead to better immune function. Goodbye frequent colds!
- Fresh oxygen energizes: research shows that spending time in fresh air increases energy in 90 percent of people. Often when we feel depleted we reach for a cup of coffee, but research suggests a better way to get energized is to connect with fresh air.
- Canadian researchers found women reaped more physical benefits from outdoor walking vs. indoor walking.
- When we're outside we get vitamin D, which strengthens bone health, boosts metabolic function, helps you sleep better at night, improves immune function and increases 'endorphins' – those feel-good hormones we like to keep in production.
Benefits for the mind:
- Even a short walk can calm the mind, provide a mental break, and give your body a chance to recharge.
- Evidence from the University of Essex says that outdoor exercise can improve self-esteem.
Research shows that spending time in fresh air increases energy in 90 percent of people.


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Chickasaw National Recreation Area is known for its fresh water, calming mineral springs, cool streams, and beautiful lakes. It is located in a partially forested area outside Sulphur, OK, which is about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City.
Established in 1902 through an agreement with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indian Nations and the federal government, this area was originally called Sulphur Springs Reservation. Then in 1906 additional acreage was added, and the reservation was renamed and re-designated Platt National Park.
Most recently, in 1976, officials combined the park with the Arbuckle Recreation Area plus additional lands, and renamed it Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
A few highlights include the Travertine Nature Center and its live animal exhibits, over 20 miles of hiking trails such as the Rock Creek Multi-Use Trail, as well as hunting and fishing. Lake of the Arbuckles and the Lincoln Bridge in the Platt Historic District are also very popular spots within Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
|Clad Proof
|Silver Proof


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We took this photograph last year in the Pantanal, Brazil. It shows two Jabiru Storks sleeping in their nest while the stars rotate overhead. The camera was positioned so that the southern celestial pole was behind the nest and an exposure time of 40 minutes was used to capture the star trails. The tree was illuminated by a single lamp placed about 100m away.
The southern celestial pole can be located by identifying the Southern Cross constellation and following it down about four and a half cross-lengths. In the Northern Hemisphere, you can find the north celestial pole by pointing your camera at the North Star. You can find out more about locating the celestial poles here.
2 Comments
Bob Sutton said: April 3, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Will, this is a gorgeous photo… not my favorite of yours (as you suggest on twitter :)), but it is really inventive. It is quite amazing that those birds stayed in the same spot for that long! Great fore-thought on using the star trails as a way to highlight your subject. Beautiful!
ian said: April 5, 2011 at 3:34 am
Really cool shot and an interesting bit of background information to go with it


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8 Traps to Avoid When Making Procurement Decisions
By Stephen C Carter
Bad decisions can often be traced back to the way decisions were made. The alternative were not clearly defined; the right information was not collected; the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed.
But sometimes the fault lies not in the decision making process but in the mind of the decision maker. In fact, the way our brains work can sabotage the choices we make.
An article by American academics ("Hammond, Ralph & Raiffa: The Hidden Traps in Decision Making," Harvard Business Review, January 2006) identifies eight psychological traps that are particularly likely to affect the way in which we make decisions. Here they are:-
- The anchoring trap leads us to give undue weight to the first information we receive.
The status quo trap biases us towards maintaining the current situation even in the face of evidence of better solutions.
The sunk cost trap leads us to perpetuate the mistakes of the past.
The confirming evidence trap leads us to seek out information that supports our existing views.
The framing trap occurs when we misstate the problem.
The over-confidence trap makes us overestimate the accuracy of our forecasts.
The prudence trap leads us to be overly cautious when we make estimates about the future.
The recallability trap leads us to give undue weight to recent, dramatic events.
The best way to avoid all the traps is to be aware. The authors of the article describe ways in which you can take simple steps to protect yourself from these traps. They include:
- Always view a problem from different perspectives – use alternative starting points and approaches rather than stick with the first train of thought that occurs to you.
Be open-minded – seek information and opinions from a wide variety of sources.
Never think of the status quo as your only alternative.
Identify other options and carefully evaluate all the pluses and minuses. Ask yourself if you would choose the status quo if it wasn't the status quo.
Get someone you respect to act as devil's advocate; to argue against the decision you are contemplating.
Check to see whether you are examining all of the available evidence with equal vigor.
To reduce the effects of over-confidence in making estimates, always start by considering the high and low ends of the possible range of values.
Examine all of your assumptions to ensure they are not unduly influenced by your memory.
The authors of the report also warn that dangerous though each of these traps are in isolation, they can also work in concert with devastating effect. For example, a dramatic first impression might anchor your thinking and then you selectively seek out confirming evidence to justify your initial view. You then make a hasty decision and that decision establishes a status quo. As your sunk cost mount, you become trapped, unable to find the right time to seek a new and possibly better course of action.
Thinking through these ideas may pay dividends next time you analyze a supply market or enter into negotiation with a supplier.
Steve has been a consultant, coach and interim manager since 1987 specializing in purchasing category management, strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management. His clients come from both the public and private sectors and include many household names as well as SMEs. He has also held a variety of senior line management positions with both a UK and a US multinational and has extensive experience of working with subsidiaries across the world. He now offers online training and coaching courses on a variety of Procurement and Supply Management topics. You can email Steve at email@example.com


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Check out the logo I've designed for Stray Factory. They're an entertainment collective, who're into a lot of awesome projects, a majority of which are contemporary theater experiments in Chennai.
Want to see more? Check out this poster for a play called Dystopia
Update: Stray Factory and Indiblogger are hosting The Great Indian Blogologues to take blogs onto the theater stage for the first time ever. Any post of yours, be it a rant or a rave will be converted into a performance if you win! > Stray Factory is also in the press here.


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- Home
- City Services
- Public Works
- City Projects
- Tahoe Valley Stormwater Improvement Project
Tahoe Valley Greenbelt and Stormwater Improvement Project
The Tahoe Valley Stormwater and Greenbelt Improvement Project is located south and east of the "Y" intersection on the west side of the City (Figure 1) and consists of a 320-acre Project drainage area that is bisected by the US Highway 50 (US 50) and State Route 89 (SR 89) corridors.
The Tahoe Valley Greenbelt project includes multi-benefit stormwater, stream environment zone (SEZ), bicycle and pedestrian improvements and recreational amenities. Water quality and SEZ enhancements will include improving existing drainage ways and drainage systems to spread, treat, infiltrate, and retain flows from roadways, commercial areas, and other high priority, directly connected urban areas. Pedestrian and bicycle enhancements will include improving connectivity within the project area and to regional networks.
NEW: In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), an Initial Study and TRPA Initial Environmental Checklist has been prepared for the project. The full Tahoe Valley Greenbelt Draft Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration/Initial Environmental Checklist is available here, and the appendices are available here. Based on the information in the Initial Study and Initial Environmental Checklist, a Notice of Availability and Notice of Intent to adopt a Mitigated Negative have been prepared. The CEQA document is available for a 30 day public review period, beginning on March 1, 2019 and concluded at 4:00pm on April 1, 2019.
Full CEQA document (large file)
Any comments on the CEQA documents may be submitted to the City of South Lake Tahoe Public Works Department, (Attention: Tahoe Valley Stormwater and Greenbelt Improvement Project), 1052 Tata Lane, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150; or emailed to: email@example.com.
The City Planning Commission will receive a presentation and hear public comments on the Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration at their regularly scheduled meeting:
March 14, 2019, 3:00pm, 1901 Airport Road, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
The City Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing and consider adoption of the Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration at their regularly scheduled meeting:
May 9, 2019, 3:00pm, 1901 Airport Road, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
Copies of the proposed mitigated negative declaration, initial study, initial environmental checklist and all supporting documents are available for review between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm at the following location: City Services Center at 1052 Tata Lane, City of South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150.
Tahoe Valley Area Plan included a goal to create the Tahoe Valley Greenbelt to reduce pollutant loading while creating a walkable, bikeable and scenic connection from one of the more densely populated areas of the City to adjacent neighborhoods. The Tahoe Valley Area Plan was approved by the TRPA on July 22, 2015. The Project area is a priority for treatment as storm water runoff discharges directly to the Upper Truckee River, which drains to Lake Tahoe. The project will include water quality improvements to reduce pollutant loads discharged to the Upper Truckee River in accordance with the City's Pollutant Load Reduction Plan.
The City conducted a public workshop on December 14, 2016, in partnership with the Tahoe Resource Conservation District "Community Watershed Partnership" to present the project alternatives and solicit public feedback on the conceptual plans and alternatives (presentation available here). The results of the public workshop and online survey are available here.
Public Workshop Presentation (December 2016)
Public Outreach Summary (2017)
More information is available on the Tahoe Regional Planning (TRPA) Environmental Improvement Program (EIP) website:
Lake Tahoe EIP Project Tracker (Tahoe Valley Greenbelt)


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Hello friends – I am Ishwaran, and I come from a small village in Thrissur district of Kerala. As a kid, I was always fond of reading and listening to ghost stories. The story which I am going to tell you today happened during my childhood – I think I may be around 7 or 8 at that time.
My father, along with two of his brothers owned a small shop in our village that sold vegetables and grocery items. We also had a piece of land where my father and uncles did farming. Being a part of a joint family, we were almost 15 siblings living together in our ancestral home. We had a lot of fun together – we were in the same school (actually, there was just one school in our village), we played together, and every night after dinner, we used to listen to stories from our grandparents. During winters, we used to light a campfire and have dinner around it. After dinner, we used to listen to these stories. Occasionally, my grandfather would tell us spooky stories that he had heard, or had experienced. At that time, we had never seen a ghost, or didn't even understand what it meant – but listening to those stories gave us goosebumps.
Soon, my father and uncles decided that it was time that we expanded our business – being in a village, our shop had very less customers. Although we did make sufficient money – it was time we looked at a better opportunity. All in all, it was decided that we set up another shop in the nearby Chavakkad taluk, and my father can look after it. A month later, my father, mother and I moved to Chavakkad, where the three brothers had rented a shop, which had two rooms attached to it, which we lived in. This place was located in the heart of the town, right on the main road, due to which our shop was very successful, and my father made a lot of money. My mother helped him run the shop while I attended a school close by.
Our house consisted of two rooms above the shop, which were connected by an iron staircase behind the shop. The rooms were pretty high and had a sloping roof. The windows were pretty small, due to which the rooms used to be dark, even during the day. There was a small balcony attached to the hall (living room), where I used to stand every day and watch the people and vehicles on the road.
Being used to a living in a big family, I used to get very lonely in this house. There weren't many kids living in our block, which is why I spent most of my time alone, while my mother and father looked after the shop.
This happened on a Sunday afternoon. I had just had my lunch and as usual, was standing in the balcony, looking at the main road. Suddenly, I could hear footsteps coming up through the iron staircase. I assumed it was my mother, since father was out for some work. The footsteps stopped and I looked back. To my surprise – there was no one! However, I didn't give it much thought. The same afternoon, while I was lying on the bed – I heard sounds as if somebody in the next room was tearing papers. A bit scared, nevertheless, I went inside – there was no one!
That evening – I narrated this story to my mother. She just laughed at me and said that I was getting too lonely and that my mind was making up all this things. I agreed, and went to sleep.
The next day – one of my uncles came to visit us, along with my two sisters, and a cousin. I was very happy – we played all day, and had dinner together. Then we went to sleep. In the middle of the night, a sound woke up. It was the same sound of someone walking up the stairs. I woke up and began looking at the corner (from where the stairs reached up). In the dark, I could see the figure of a small girl with loose hair standing in the corner. I assumed it was my younger sister – I yelled at her, "Meena – what are you doing there?"
To this – the girl got frightened and ran down the stairs. Frantically, I woke up to run behind her – and then I looked at my side. Both my sisters and my cousin were sleeping in the corner!
Over the next couple of days – I heard the footsteps a lot of times, and even saw this girl again one night. I was really scared and even tried telling mother and father about it. However – both of them were pretty tired with their routines and kept telling me that it was my imagination.
Then one night, I was asleep, when a sound woke me up. It came from the loft above me – it was as if someone was crawling. Scared, I woke up and stared at the loft, trying hard to see in the dark – and then I saw her! A little girl – maybe 4 or 5 years old was sitting up there – looking directly at me. Her hair was let loose and she had a smile on her face. As I kept looking at her, she began crawling ahead, until she was at the edge of the loft.
I let out a loud scream, as the girl looked at me again and disappeared in front of my eyes. My parents woke up and comforted me, as I kept shouting. Then I narrated them the whole incident. Although my father told me it must be a dream, my mother looked convinced.
I did not see this girl over the next few days. Then one day, our landlord came to visit us for lunch, along with his wife. After having lunch, I sat with my mother as she chatted with the landlord's wife. The landlord's wife told my mother that when she lived here, they had a small daughter who died when she was 5 years old, due to typhoid. After hearing this – my mother and I got terrified and looked at each other.
The same day, my mother narrated this story to my father. Although my father somewhat believed it, he stayed firm on the decision that we cannot move out of this place – mainly because the shop was running quite successfully.
We stayed at that place for quite a couple of years – however, I never saw the girl again, ever.
A Personal Encounter by I. R. Asokan (Thrissur | Kerala)


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Designed to provide an introduction to chemistry as it relates to the Hazardous Materials Technician, this program addresses the competecies required by NFPA 472 at the Technician level. The program covers various phsyical and chemical properties as well as the chemistry terminology necessary to enable the entry level Technician to conduct a product hazards analysis. Topics include:
- Program introduction
- Physical and Chemical Properties
- Basics of Rapid Product Hazards Analysis
- Atomic Structure & Isotopes
- Periodic Table
- Chemical Bonding
- Salt Compounds
- Inorganic Non-Salt Compounds
- Hydrocarbon Compounds
- Derivatives of Hydrocarbons
- Application in a Hazards Analysis
The major focus is the recognition of chemical families based upon product name for the purpose of determining overall product hazards. Although chemical formulas are discussed in a cursory manner, balancing equations and reactions is NOT a focus of this program.


text:
State : Maharashtra
City : Mumbai
State : Maharashtra,
City : Mumbai
Details :
Investor/investors required for a goat farm with about 300 animals. The investor can Invest from one lakh.
He/She will get double amount within 3 years. Big investors welcome.
Contact Details
Please Login to See contact Details..!


text:
Astable multivibrator is capable of producing square wave for a given frequency, Amplitude and Duty cycle.
The output of OP AMP is forced to swing between positive saturation, +Vsat and negative saturation, -Vsat repeatedly.
Which will results in Square wave output. This circuit is also called as Free Running Oscillator. Because, it doesn't requires any trigger pulse to get active.
The output of an operational amplifier will be in positive saturation Vsat, if the differential input voltage is negative and vice versa.
The differential voltage, Vd=Vc-βVsat.
Where β is the feedback factor and βVsat is the potential at non-inverting terminal of the op amp.
Consider the instant at which Vc=+Vsat. Now the capacitor charges exponentially towards +Vsat through R. Automatically, Vd increases and crosses zero. This happens when Vc=+βVsat. At the moment Vd becomes positive due to further charging of the capacitor. Output changes to -Vsat. Now capacitor starts discharging to zero and recharges towards -Vsat. Now Vd decreases and crosses zero. This happens when Vc=-βVsat. At the moment Vd becames negative again, output changes to +Vsat. This completes one cycle of output.
Astable multivibrator is useful for generating audio frequency signals.
+Vcc and -Vee are Not shown in circuit diagram.


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University of Kerala (The University of Travancore ) was established in 1937 by a promulgation of the Maharaja of Travancore, the first Chancellor of the University. Sir C. P Ramaswamy Ayyar, the then Diwan of the State, was the first Vice-Chancellor. It was the sixteenth University to be set up in India.
In 1957, the Kerala University Act, Act 14 of 1957, was brought into force and the University of Travancore was renamed University of Kerala. The area of the jurisdiction of the University of Kerala has been limited to Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha Districts and some parts of Pathanamthitta District.
At present, the University has sixteen faculties and 41 departments of teaching and research. There are 157 affiliated colleges. Of these, 46 are aided Arts and Science colleges and 14 are unaided . There are two Law colleges, 17 Engineering colleges , four Medical Collegesseven aided Teachers' Training colleges, 30 unaided Teacher Training Colleges, four Ayurveda colleges, two Homeopathy colleges, one Sidha Medical College, two Fine Arts Colleges, one Music College, three Dental colleges , four unaided Pharmacy colleges and one college of Physical Education.
During 1997, the University celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. The celebration involved the starting of new teaching Departments and setting up of new buildings like the International Youth Hostel at Thiruvananthapuram.
The National Assessment and Accreditation Committee has placed the University at the B++ grade
For advertising in this website for free Call 8547 8547 87


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In Australia, if there is a problem - what to do about the gambling industry; how to fund long term care for the aged; how to deal with scarce urban water - the Government's answer is to ask its Productivity Commission to take a look.
Its name betrays its origins - and its approaches. The Productivity Commission grew out of the Australian Tariff Board set up in the 1920s. It went through various changes until it was finally established in its current form in 1998, replacing the Industry Commission, Bureau of Industry Economics and the Economic Planning Commission.
It bills itself as "the Australian Government's independent research and advisory body on a range of economic, social and environmental issues". Its role, put simply, is "to help governments make better policy in the long term interest of the Australian community".
It does this by:
- overseeing regulatory impacts
- reporting on service performance (a sensitive issue in Australia's federal structure)
- also undertaking policy reviews and public inquiries commissioned by the government.
The Productivity Commission is part of the Treasurer's portfolio - and receives its commissions from him. But its reviews - which take between six and 12 months - are independent. They are overseen by 11 Commissioners appointed by the Governor-General, and undertaken by the 100 plus staff who work for the Commission.
Reports are sent to the government which is obliged to present them to Parliament within 25 days. The government does not have to accept the recommendations - but the Commission's own prospectus suggests that more of its recommendations are accepted than not. And Australia's nearest neighbour, New Zealand, has seen enough of the model to decide it is worth setting up its own version (though with a narrower remit).
I recently met its acting first assistant commissioner Lisa Gropp, an economist (all the professional staff have economics backgrounds). She explained the Commission's approach allowed difficult issues to be aired in a way that governments might find politically challenging and thus improved the quality of public debate and widened the political space.
The Commission can take a genuinely cross-cutting view since it is not organised on departmental lines – and can call in subject experts to supplement the permanent staff. Having a standing commission means that it has an established reputation, developed a strong research capability and effective consultation processes.
The Commission's critics point out that its reports can be constrained by the terms of reference it gets from the government. However its Act allows it to look at anything relevant to the task and it has the capacity to undertake work on its own account.
They also see the approach as very grounded in neoclassical economics – though the Commission draws on insights from other approaches such as behavioural and evolutionary economics and its methodologies are exposed to scrutiny in the public consultation phase.
The development of the Commission has also coincided with a hollowing out of policy making capacity within the Australian government.
A UK version?
There is clearly demand within government here to put some issues out to commission or independent review. Indeed, our 'policy reunions' on the Pensions Commission and the national minimum wage have shown the benefits of doing so.
But the UK has also seen independent reviews fail to deliver - not least where they are serviced by civil servants too obviously still serving their home department and where the review is there to give a cover for decisions already made.
If we are to have a large number of reviews in the future, there is an interesting question of whether we ought to build a standing capacity to support them.


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Canon USA has published a service advisory regarding issues users are reporting when trying to watch uploaded videos on YouTube. It's a relatively minor issue, and I'm glad it's not as big a deal as the D600 dust concerns. However, I just wish Canon and Nikon would put out cameras that were truly complete, and had no widespread issues to speak of in their first few weeks on the market.
From Canon USA:
We have identified a phenomenon which prevents movie files shot using Canon EOS 6D Digital SLR Cameras from being played back on YouTube.
Affected Product
EOS 6D Digital SLR Camera
- While we continue to investigate this phenomenon, please follow the instructions outlined below to upload Canon EOS 6D movie files to YouTube. After our investigation is complete, we will make an update to this announcement.
- Download the movie file(s) from the EOS 6D camera to your computer.
Start ImageBrowser EX, an application bundled with the EOS 6D.
- After selecting the movie file(s) to be uploaded, select [Edit Movies] in the [Edit] tab from the menu bar of ImageBrowser EX.
"MovieEdit Task" will start. Save the movie using the [Save] menu on the screen.
- Upload the saved movie to YouTube.
[Via Canon Rumors]
12 Comments
well maybe it´s an youtube error?
because i can watch the 6D videos without a problem on my PC......
Not all users are affected.
so it´s only a problem for some users and only a problem with youtube...?
and you making such a fuzz about untested products?
come on... get real .. you can hardy buy a electronic product these day that works in 100% of all possible configurations.
and that it´s only a problem with youtube let me think that it is more or less a youtube issue.
uploads to myvideo are fine?
they work fine for me.
Don't shoot the messenger, unless with your camera of course.
Just reportin' the news man.
well no you voiced your opinion too.... :
" I just wish Canon and Nikon would put out cameras that were truly complete, and had no widespread issues to speak of in their first few weeks on the market. "
I agree with you, Jaron. Provide it to us when it works completely.
well are you willling to PAY for such testing?
testing products for 100% of all possible issues... as an engineer i tell you that is a nice idea..... but you could not pay for it.
im assuming this means unedited footage straight from the camera?
I think that's what they're saying, since it has the upload feature and the fix is to first get it off the camera.
ah no biggie then, ive been using the 6d pretty extensively and recently shot a BMW commercial with it, and had no problems, footage looked great
Yeah I probably wouldn't have noticed this problem because I can think of 0 times I would ever upload direct from my DSLR.


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I'm sooooo exhausted. My eyes can barely focus. Blurrrrr city. blur blur city. But guess what? I got a trail for some fucking weird bizarre type of freelance work that I don't even fully understand yet, and I have to finish it by 7pm tomorrow. Hahaha yeah. I'm alternating between chill confidence and gut wrenching fear. I need to look at the things and figure out what I'm doing and figure out if I have any questions I need to ask the client, but I don't want to do that stuff at all. Nah son. Nah son. Not at all. But really I had a nice day today mostly. I spent a lot of it with my parents. We went on a long walk with the dogs, and I pet two horses and one of them really liked getting scratched under the chin, and I named him chin horse, and we were friends. Also we saw a bunch of alpacas, and they were way on the other side of a field, but they came over to check us out and they were super cute and v curious about the dogs. I'm really fucking tired, and I need to do more stuff with my life in general. I really do.
Monthly Archives: March 2015
The backs of my ears
Fucking tired but not tired. Having fairly bad cramps cuz I just fucking started my period, which is g.r.8 timing, since I'm spending the night at my parents house away from my heating pad and other comforts. Also I'm sleeping on the futon in my brother's room cuz I let him have the big bed because his sheets were already on it and I didn't feel like dealing with it and it's 6am already and I'm getting *maybe* 3 hrs sleep. I'm worried about money and I'm worried about my s.o and I'm worried about myself tbh. But… We did have some significant recording success. Laid down vocals for TWO FUCKING SONGS!! I did next to none of the vocals, just ran the board all night and laid down some "ooooh"s. For one song. So that means 8 down 5 to go. Holy shit. Things are happening. I hope I can sleep at least a little. This bed isn't so bad. I'm probably guna wake up confused about where I am tho. But that's okay. I'm gonna read a little and then try to pass out. Need to do laundry in the morning.
Weekend times
I'm not doing well. I have no motivation and I feel empty inside and all I want to do is sleep and be gone and not have to think. I need to find work… Like… a week ago. They keep saying it's coming soon but I haven't heard anything and I should probably just suck it up and find a terrible job somewhere that pays less than I deserve but is actually reliable. That's the responsible move. Kill my childish notion that I can somehow escape the daily grind prescribed by a morally bankrupt capitalist society. If something doesn't happen soon things are guna be real bad money wise and it's my fault.
I dunno. I have no excuses for any of the things I hate about myself. At least I'm not in excruciating physical pain anymore. Just beating myself up mentally wishing I could get a break from myself. Sleep. Sick of living in the midst of stupid gross loud losers and college kids. Walking on tip toes trying to keep everything together. Not looking forward to the epic recording session that's coming up soon. By the end of next week. I'm dry and scared and completely uninspired. If it was up to me I'd probably let the project die, so I guess it's good it's not up to me. I can't even move, I feel paralyzed and unable. Stuck in a swimming pool of jello. Not good. Not doing well.
Help, I'm alive
So the past few days have been pretty terrible for me. I've been in huge amounts of pain, feeling sick as fuck, not sleeping. I'm finally starting to feel marginally normal again. *knock on wood* I wanted to sleep even more but it seems like my garbage neighbor is playing his garbage music like a huge disgusting piece of living shit. Cool. Whatever. I think I did finally get 8 hours at least. Last night was kinda fun, it was raining and I was finally feeling human, and we went on a fucking *mission* to get popeyes chicken cuz I wanted that shit. I love driving in the rain, even though it can be scary sometimes due to other drivers being terrible. I'm gonna chill and rest now. I really fucking hope I get some work soon, seriously, please??? I really need it.
Watching the last Harry potter movie by myself. Chillin. Thinking about heteronormitivity. Wondering if my complete apathy and lack of any motivation or excitement about anything and general emptiness feelings are clinical depression. Cool cool! I will try. I will call you in a bit if you want, and then we can make it work. I will call you in a bit if you want, and then you 😛 I will navigate to the gym and running into the store right now. I will call your house around? Or just wait? Or just buy a couple gallons of drinking water. Nice job phone auto fill. Cool! Oh shit snape just died. Like fuck you snape. Harry why did you name your fucking kid after that creep? That's some bullshit. I don't believe it.
I need a shower. I need some work soon please.
Daylight cravings
Hahaha I want to stay awake forever and punch everyone in the face. I hurt my knee by tripping over a fucking rock in the dark and I'm the fucking worst. Hahaha haha ha ha just the worst. So awake and fragile like a baby deer. Like a little baby baby baby deer. A fawn squinting against the dawn because it's fucking daylight savings, stealing an hour and suddenly it's 6 am. Six a.m. and I'm still open like a wound. After so long, i'd forgotten how good it could feel. How fucking calm and real and me I could feel. But I'd also forgotten how vulnerable it
leaves me, for how long. Sing a little song, scream until it's gone. Relax, lie down, embrace the night. Oh fuck, oh wait, that's morning light.


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It's so difficult, in fact, that many companies need help to navigate licensing Microsoft products. Both Noles and Hultquist said they use third parties to help them wade through Microsoft contracts. "I think it's overly complicated. Even the rep that we use locally has said, 'If it wasn't so complicated, I wouldn't have a job,'" Noles joked.
With more companies pondering or implementing a mix of traditional software and hosted services -- such as Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite, a bundle of hosted collaboration and productivity services -- Microsoft licensing is bound to get even more complex, DeGroot said.
He said that the way Microsoft's enterprise agreements (EAs), or special licensing contracts available to enterprise customers, work now, many companies are still paying for CALs for all of their internal users, even if they have switched some of them to Microsoft's hosted services.
For instance, if a company with an EA has 1,000 people using Exchange, and half are accessing the software on-premise and the other half using Microsoft's hosted Exchange service, that organization will be paying more than it should for that hybrid environment.
"You would have to buy 1,000 licenses for internal users even though only 500 people are using it, then you would buy 500 subscriptions [to the hosted service] on top of that," he said.
Microsoft is still working out how to balance this hybrid licensing, and right now offers some credit back to companies in such a case, DeGroot said. However, a company still could be paying twice for licenses if they try to mix software and services.
As Microsoft tinkers with its licensing to better accommodate these hybrid environments, Elop said it's important to keep in mind that Microsoft's reason for having a variety of licensing options is to give customers choice. While it might take them some time to figure out which provide the best fit, he said, it will ultimately be worth it.


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Getting able to go to the proper college matters no matter what anybody tells you. In Guyana the medical school is accredited by the National Accreditation Council of Guyana. The healthcare system ranges from four years to 6 years. Students are taught the basic sciences aspect of the plan within the 1st two years of medical school. In the clinical sciences program, students are introduced to the hospital setting exactly where they obtain hands on instruction from the qualifying physicians and staff at the various teaching hospitals across Guyana.
The initial year of the health-related degree is the fundamental sciences year, which comprises study in chemistry, biology, physics, and biochemistry as nicely as population overall health and behavioural sciences. The following two years are spent studying human organ systems and pathological processes in much more detail as properly as professional and communication development. Toward the finish of the third year, students begin direct contact with individuals in hospital settings.
A student can join a single of the six medical universities of Myanmar if he gets the highest scores in the science mixture of the matriculation examination. This exam is highly competitive. Entrance is solely primarily based on this examination and academic records have really minor consequences on an application. The undergraduate program is 5 years plus 1 year for function expertise in government hospitals. Following medical school, Myanmar healthcare graduates are beneath contract to commit one particular year of internship and 3 years of tenure in rural locations ahead of they are eligible for most residency positions. The degree granted is Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery ( M.B.B.S. ). Additional postgraduate qualifications may possibly be obtained as a Degree (. Sc) and ().
There are no medical school entry examinations or interviews and admission is primarily based on students' performance in the higher college exit examination ( Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education – KCSE). Students who took the AS Level or the SAT can also apply but there is a really strict quota limiting the quantity of students that get accepted into public universities. This quota does not apply to private universities.
In Kenya, medical school is a faculty of a university. Medical education lasts for five years soon after which the student graduates with an undergraduate ( MBChB ) degree. This is followed by a mandatory 12-month full-time internship at an authorized hospital after which 1 applies for registration with the Kenya Healthcare Practitioners and Dentists Board if they intend to practice medicine in the nation. The very first two years of medical school cover the standard healthcare (preclinical) sciences even though the last 4 years are focused on the clinical sciences and internship.…


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Managing the Business Owner: When Do I Hire A Coach?
It's not unusual for a small business owner to be talented and intuitive enough to steer their businesses through early growth. In fact, you want that foundation! Then, one day, there is an inspiration to go for a bigger push. Sometimes this inspiration is like a whack on the head…your biggest client leaves or you've hit some other financial wall. Other times it is illumination…your product or service feeds a need in your market or the business is attracting attention and interest from your uber-ideal customers.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Stephen Covey ( who passed away on July 16, 2012) recommended seven habits and one of these is "Begin with the end in mind". This is often the starting point when we consider our wishes, hopes and dreams. Sometimes we articulate them to our business partners or friends but often business owners keep them quiet. Like the business owner I was speaking with last week who said he wanted to increase his revenues by 50%, it's easy to come up with huge goals. It's harder to determine why they are the best ones for both your personal growth and the growth of your organization.
Where's the gap between your big goals and you? Click here to read more »


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Get DVD Talk Feeds
The Plot:
Contained on this two disc DVD set are eight shows from Tomorrow's various incarnations. All but one feature Snyder (the last episode, with The Ramones as special guests, is hosted by someone called Kelly Lange) and all have other individuals besides the musicians as part of the proceedings. So while each installment clocks in at between 30 and 40 minutes, you really only get about eight to nine minutes of artist per show (the first episode excluded, which deals exclusively with punk and new wave for the entire running time). Other guests are there to hawk religion, their recent run-ins with the legal system (civil, mostly) and current starring roles. In essence, a typical chat show with various mini-moments coordinated into an entire presentation. Here are the musicians featured, and the day and date of their appearance:
Disc 1:
Episode 1: 10/11/1978 - Promoter Bill Graham, Rock Critic Robert Gilberth Producer/Manager Kim Fowley, Musicians Joan Jett (The Runaways) and Paul Weller (The Jam)
Episode 2: 2/3/1981 - Rev. Donald Wildman, Elvis Costello and the Attractions (Songs: "New Lace Sleeves", "Watch Your Step") Frank Capra
Episode 3: 2/12/1981 - Actor Ricky Schroder, Iggy Pop (Songs: "Dog Food", "Five Foot One", "TV Eye"), Economist Jerome Smith, Poet Dorothy Greenpepper
Episode 4: 5/20/1981 - Attorney Rick Horowitz, Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics (Songs: "Head Banger", "Master Blast")
Disc 2:
Episode 5: 5/11/1978 - NBC Staff Announcer Donald Rickles, Author Robert Townsend, Patti Smith
Episode 6: 6/25/1980 - Producer Alan Carr (Can't Stop the Music), John Lydon and Keith Levene (PiL)
Episode 7: 5/27/1981 - Author James Michener, Journalist Judith Crist, Radio Personality Dick Maurice, The Jam (Songs: "Pretty Green", "Funeral Pyre")
Episode 8: 9/1/1981 - Guest Host Kelly Lange, Inventor Stanley McDonald, The Ramones (Songs: "We Want the Airwaves", "I Wanna Be Sedated", "The KKK Took My Baby Away")
Thus we enter the first phase of revisiting old television, something more easily referred to as the pain prospect. There are two very uncomfortable episodes here, examples of guest giving host a hard time, and one where the interviewer is so condescending that you want to slap her across the face. If that previous sentence was not clue enough, Kelly Lange invites us into her closed off world of wounded judgment and turns the usually genial and pithy Ramones into disquieted, defensive young men. She challenges their look. She mocks their fans. She finds way to embarrass all four members (she is really fixated on Joey's hair) and basically belittles them before introducing another "hard rocking" number. As guests, the band brings the house down, playing effortless versions of their three songs. But when seated across a non-caring cow who wants to prove how provocative she can be, they are reduced to incoherent icons. How terribly, terribly sad.
Similarly, the John Lydon/ Keith Levene sit down is equally excruciating to watch. Lydon hasn't quite loosened up yet - he is a notoriously opinionated and intelligent interview who will not play games and does not cotton to idiots at all - and he is instantly on the smarmy attack when Snyder mentions the Pistols. Everything the host tries is rejected and redirected in clipped British quips or long drawn out silences. Snyder keeps swinging, trying desperately to find a way in. But the bratty boys aren't budging. So he finally gives up and adds his own pinched pride to the mix. By the end of the mercilessly short segment, all three have made a mockery of making music, the concept of cooperation and the human decency.
Thankfully, these are the rarities. Most of the time, Snyder is fine - if a tad out of touch. He reprimands Iggy Pop for being "too loud" and can't quite get a handle on Wendy O. Williams' shock rock tactics (it's like he's never heard of Alice Cooper before). Pop provides a nice counterpoint, genuinely wanting to open up, while Williams is anxious to get on with her next heavy metal stunt (it is quite astounding, by the way). The best episodes here revolve around actual dialogues, communication between guest and host. Elvis Costello is wonderful - witty and warm, and quick with a nice self-deprecating dodge. Equally effusive is Paul Weller, both with and without The Jam. It is stunning to see the baby faced 18-year-old stand up for himself and his music during the 1978 music roundtable (it couldn't have been easy with record producer Kim Fowley goofing around, dressed like the world's oldest - and oddest - Blitz kid). When the band plays three years later, he once again matches wits well with Tom. He really attempts at relating and creating depth in the discussion.
It's interesting, when looking back at these shows, how absolutely clueless Snyder and his prep people appear when addressing the arriving onslaught of pissed off punk rock archetypes. You can see the acute difference in the way the talk show format framed its material then (start from zero and work your way toward understanding) versus how, today, the presentation is polished and perfected (start off as a know it all and work your way to EPK exactness). You would never see a current chat fest guru gape in disingenuous awe as a band blasts it's way through a set. No right thinking programmer would allow their host to hound and harass the artists the way Snyder does. Back before the publicists and the bookers got in bed together to make sure everything was timed and tempered for absolute maximum marketing effectiveness, television was a tightrope, and sometimes you crashed and burned. That is why Snyder's show is best considered dangerous TV now. Unlike the only other purveyor of ill-prepared Q&A in the arena (Larry King is proud of being blissfully unaware of his guest guidelines before starting a show) Snyder was always ready for a fight, a fifth of compunction layered on top the classic "colortinis' he was so fond of.
The performances are, for the most part, fabulous. The Jam jostles the joint, and The Ramones rip it up. Elvis is evocative and casual while Iggy is almost trying too hard to connect with the hip young crowd (he was only 34 at the time). What is there to be said about Wendy O. Williams. Watching her perform, or chat with Tom, she's a bio-pic waiting to be made. You can just see the wounded little girl inside the mangled mohawk and bondage outfit. As for the Plasmatics, well, they're like the Cramps with more crunch (and substantially less chords). The other guests are interesting, but ignorable. What Shout! Factory should have done is dig up some more music clips (Adam and the Ants are mentioned, as were other Punk/New Wave acts), get rid of the filler, and offer up nothing but artists and their tunes. When you consider a single DVD here contains nearly three hours of overall content, but only about 25% featuring the musicians (and that is being generous), you have to wonder why you're buying more unknown talk show entities than rock and roll rebellion. The answer makes this an ultimately unsettling package. Seeing these old shows, and the bands taking part in them, is great. The surrounding stuff is acutely uninteresting at times.
The Video:
Since this is broadcast TV direct from the 70s and 80s, don't expect digital miracles. This is old fashioned video with all its defective variables in full view. Feedback, ghosting, muddiness and bleeding are among the analog artifacts you will experience as part of the otherwise decent looking 1.33:1 full screen image. The transfers appear taken directly from tape, and occasionally can look very clean. But for the most part, this is like watching old found footage from the boob tubes past. It is presentable, but not very pristine. Frankly, it's impossible to imagine how it could have been improved.
The Audio:
Here's the real downer - TV did not go into full-fledged legit stereo mode until 1984. This mean the DVD presentation we have here is nothing but good old conventional single channel Dolby Digital Mono (spread out over two speakers, of course). It has not been remixed. So we get a completely flat and bottomless reproduction of the bands playing live and the sound is flat and tinny. The subwoofer suffers the most as there is no bass to speak of here whatsoever. Most of the feed is rather flawless - the groups sound great. But their amplified vibe just does not translate across the ages and into a DVD home theater set up. Thankfully, the conversations are all clear as a bell.
The Extras:
Aside from various menu configurations - you can play all the episodes, select a single one to view, play only the musician segments or select just the songs - there is no other added content as part of this package. No historical information. No data on the other guests involved (what ever happened to Mr. McDonald and his pain stopping device, anyway). No context as to when, where and why these shows aired, save for a date. And, sadly, no information on Snyder (at least in the check discs sent by Shout! Factory to this critic). An archival presentation like this needs complimentary material to flesh out its importance in the grand scheme of music. Why this DVD set chooses to ignore these necessary elements is rather disquieting.
Final Thoughts:
Though it still ranks a rating of Recommended, one can easily imagine the DVD presentation of Tomorrow that would instantly gain a substantially higher score. Drop all the non-musical guests, include as many famous punk and new wave acts as the vaults have available (the show ran from 1973 to 1982), remix the entire presentation into Dolby Digital Stereo or 5.1, and then toss in a few discographies, a little background on each show, and maybe a word from Snyder (he's still around). What we have here instead is an engaging, enjoyable and often entertaining time capsule, a throwback to an era when pop culture consisted of the old guard and the young tuffs. It took a lot to get the establishment steamed and the two usually didn't mesh well within a controlled setting - say, a talk show. Sometimes smarmy, often insightful and just plain painful at times, this DVD collection is more of a curiosity for completists. The average music fan will still have questions about all these bands once their limited time in the limelight has passed.
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