The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

The writing process, writing advice, and updates on your work in progress
xouba
Posts: 49
Joined: May 11th, 2010, 3:27 am
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by xouba » September 10th, 2010, 1:12 pm

maggie wrote: SUMMARY
Avery shrugged. Avery nodded. Avery shrugged. Avery nodded.
Avery thought. "Avery!" Avery screamed.
"Jack!" "Avery!" Avery nodded.
Awesomely hilarious. +1 vote for featuring it in Nathan's Blog.

User avatar
maggie
Posts: 50
Joined: August 22nd, 2010, 10:50 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by maggie » September 15th, 2010, 10:02 pm

I swear, Avery has learned to express things other than agreement and confusion since this summary. :)

(and @One of the Mad Ones - I'm in New Mexico too! Albuquerque.)

One of the Mad Ones
Posts: 77
Joined: July 14th, 2010, 12:54 am
Location: southern New Mexico... almost old Mexico
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by One of the Mad Ones » September 16th, 2010, 1:17 am

maggie wrote:I swear, Avery has learned to express things other than agreement and confusion since this summary. :)

(and @One of the Mad Ones - I'm in New Mexico too! Albuquerque.)
I'm in Las Cruces!

I summarized my entire novel and got a few really hilarious sections, too. Not as fantastic at yours, but I ended up with snippets from a conversation between a student and a professor who are talking about books and her last essay, which got abbreviated to seem like she was about to get an abortion and was angry with him about it. I think that auto-summary function works in part by locating like phrases and stuff, though, so some of the repetition is just because of similarity, not necessarily because you overuse certain phrases. At least I think. Word bubbles, on the other hand. Like Wordle? Those go by numbers, I believe.

User avatar
maggie
Posts: 50
Joined: August 22nd, 2010, 10:50 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by maggie » September 17th, 2010, 1:02 am

Yea, the autosummarize isn't only words you use the most, but it sure is funny!
One of the Mad Ones wrote:I ended up with snippets from a conversation between a student and a professor who are talking about books and her last essay, which got abbreviated to seem like she was about to get an abortion and was angry with him about it.
hehe :)

I think it actually works much better (or at least makes a more coherent summary) if the thing you're summarizing is in 1st person, because it ignores the most common words (including "I") and in 3rd person, it's impossible for your MC's name not to come up a lot!

JennaSaisPas
Posts: 11
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 6:57 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by JennaSaisPas » September 22nd, 2010, 6:30 pm

maggie wrote:This is horribly embarrassing (and funny) but since it showed me this exact thing about an early part of my first draft, I just have to show you.
Word has an "AutoSummarize" feature, which I guess takes the most common words and phrases in whatever block of text you give it and somehow makes a little summary out of them. I saw someone do this their blog and it was so cool, so I had to try it with one of the early chapters of my first draft. You can choose various lengths of summary, and I went for the shortest, and what came out was so funny that I had to save it to embarrass myself with in the future:

SUMMARY
Avery shrugged. Avery nodded. Avery shrugged. Avery nodded.
Avery thought. "Avery!" Avery screamed.
"Jack!" "Avery!" Avery nodded.

Wow. Needless to say, it was a wake up call to STOP IT. :) I'm just glad I found out early on...though keeping an overuse of them out of my writing is still a struggle!
CRIKEY. I just ran mine. O_O

I didn't know this option existed. Thanks! (I think. I'm gonna have to get this spear out of my gut first... WOW, I overuse some words.)
-----Jenna

This signature will self-destruct in 42 seconds. Have a nice day.

JennaSaisPas
Posts: 11
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 6:57 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by JennaSaisPas » September 30th, 2010, 3:02 am

Ok, I just had to post my 10-sentence summary as done by Microsoft Word.

Please be warned, it has sweary-type words in it.

.ahem.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Spoiler:
" The blank door opened.
Fucking brilliant.
Fucking brilliant."
Shit. "Shit. "No problem."
"Uh - yeah." "Um, thanks?"
"Um-"
Table 23. "

ROFL! Are you KIDDING me?!?!?

Granted, this is about a girl who hires a hit man, so the swearing is expected, but the work doesn't swear THAT much! XD
Last edited by Nathan Bransford on September 30th, 2010, 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited by Nathan to use new Spoiler button for those who might be offended by language.
-----Jenna

This signature will self-destruct in 42 seconds. Have a nice day.

User avatar
maggie
Posts: 50
Joined: August 22nd, 2010, 10:50 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by maggie » September 30th, 2010, 11:47 am

Wow, that is...
F**king brilliant!

Awesome :)
Last edited by maggie on October 4th, 2010, 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

RitaB
Posts: 2
Joined: August 25th, 2010, 2:14 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by RitaB » September 30th, 2010, 12:44 pm

Thanks to 'maybegenius' for the Emotional Thesaurus! Just checked it out. I think it will be a huge help as I struggle with trying to not repeat myself and avoid using yet another cliche to express emotion.

User avatar
J. T. SHEA
Moderator
Posts: 510
Joined: May 20th, 2010, 1:55 pm
Location: IRELAND
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by J. T. SHEA » September 30th, 2010, 6:31 pm

I wonder did anyone NOT press the spoiler button.

JennaSaisPas
Posts: 11
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 6:57 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by JennaSaisPas » September 30th, 2010, 10:19 pm

"Last edited by Nathan Bransford on 30 Sep 2010, 09:36, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited by Nathan to use new Spoiler button for those who might be offended by language."

Wow, thanks Nathan! That's an awesome feature! :D
-----Jenna

This signature will self-destruct in 42 seconds. Have a nice day.

JennaSaisPas
Posts: 11
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 6:57 pm
Contact:

Re: The importance (and difficulty) of gestures

Post by JennaSaisPas » September 30th, 2010, 10:21 pm

maggie wrote:Wow, that is...
F*cking brilliant!

Awesome :)
"F'ing brilliant" is my Protag's catch phrase. She uses it like some people use "cool" or "Rad". I think that MS word catching this is hilarious.
-----Jenna

This signature will self-destruct in 42 seconds. Have a nice day.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests