New Takes on Taxes

Here's another editing gaffe... from Reuters. This is from the article

Most Americans: "Tax the rich but not me", posted on Monday, March 29, 2009 at their site: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S44B20100329.

As you can see, the plan is to not "raise takes" on those making less than $250,000. Whew! We barely made that cut. ;) How about you? Are you looking at getting your takes raised?

Worst Storyline Ever Contest

This has got to be fun. If I can scrape up the time, I may even try to join in. Have fun with this... it will be great. :)



Have you got a horrible idea for a story? Well I want to hear about it. Welcome to the (third) "Worst Storyline Ever" Contest - a competition that encourages terrible loglines.  This contest happened before, so click on "Contests" at the bottom of this post and scroll down a bit to see previous incarnations. (If you have any problems or concerns, e-mail me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.)

"Worst Storyline Ever"

Contest

A logline is a one-sentence line that explains what your story is about and shows the "hook" - the unique idea that makes people want to see more.  You see loglines all the time in TV Guide and on the back of DVD boxes. Here are some examples:

• "Three middle-aged men defeat their midlife crises by starting a college fraternity." (Old School)
• "When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an evil prince, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge." (Gladiator)
• "In a future where criminals are arrested before the crime occurs, a cop struggles on the lam to prove his innocence for a murder he has not yet committed." (Minority Report)

But that's all the examples I'm going to give you, because I'm not looking for good examples of a logline; I'm looking for bad examples. Nay - terrible, stupid, "oh-my-God-that-idea-is-dumb-as-hell" examples.

Examples of Bad Loglines

1. "After an unidentified cow swallows an armed nuclear device in a botched Homeland Security raid, Agent Tom Anderson is thrust into an unlikely partnership with buxom organic farmer Daisy Jones to sift through three hundred cows and 10 barns full of manure as the clock runs down in a desperate quest to save Kansas City from a moo-clear disaster." (past contest winner from Livia Blackburne).
2. "A man's lifelong plan to dress up like Jabba the Hutt and star in a new line of workout tapes finally comes to fruition, but everything goes horribly awry when the man gets ink poisoning, lead poisoning and mercury poisoning all at once."

3. "After losing badly in The Kentucky Derby, a horse is sold to the glue factory where he is processed and bottled, and we follow the stories of everyone who uses the glue, from a nose-picking pre-schooler to a dyslexic kidnapper who glues cut-out letters on a ransom note, until the last drop is gone." (past contest winner from Chris Whigham).

Here are the rules:

1. Stick to the format, but have fun with the idea. You want your logline to be one sentence only and must be 60 words or fewer, and explain what the story/movie is about. It's what you put in that one sentence that will win you this competition. So the trick is to make your logline a terribly creative idea that's pitched in a professional manner.
2. The contest will go until the end of the day, 11:59 p.m., EST, Sunday, March 28.  Submissions received after that will not be considered.
3. To participate, simply click on "Comments" at the end of this post and leave your submission as a comment with your full name and e-mail. You must include your real name and e-mail.  If you are super paranoid about leaving your name (Google!), use "L. Martin Smith" instead of "Leonard Smith."
5. You can submit up to two (2) bad loglines. You can include both in the same comment post as you wish.
6. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA's publisher, F+W Media (formerly F+W Publications).
7. By posting a terrible logline for consideration in this contest, you are agreeing to the terms written here.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, I ask that you do one of two things: 1) Mention and link to this contest twice through your social media - blogs, Twitter, Facebook; or 2) just mention this contest once and also add the Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blogroll. Please provide link(s) so I can verify eligibility. You can e-mail the links if you wish (literaryagent@fwmedia.com).

The Prizes:

First prize (grand prize): 1) A query letter critique from me. 2) A follow-up phone call to discuss the query critique and a plan of action for seeing your work published (basically: you ask questions, I answer). 3) A one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com; 4) Praise on this blog from yours truly.

Two runner-up prizes: 1) A one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com (value $50).

The Story is Great... The Editing--Not So Much

I stumbled across this wonderful news story about a business in a town I am very familiar with. Eugene, Oregon is known for being easy-going and has a bit of a reputation for hippy behavior and tie-dye. A bank in town lets employees bring their babies to work with them. Not only that, parents get to do their work while caring for their children. How awesome is that??? Kudos to this bank, which is the Pacific Cascade Federal Credit Union, by the way.

However, the station who did the story, KATU in Portland, did not edit the story before putting it up on their website, as you can see below.

The story quotes the woman in the photo: "Starting at 8:30am he'll come with me to work and then he's usually hear with me all day..."

Apparently the reporter misheard her. LOL They must have relied on a computer spell-checking program, since any editor worth their salt would have caught the misuse of "hear" instead of "here." Beware the computer spell-checking programs! They cannot be trusted! Always—ALWAYS check it manually before it is published!

Whose Fault is This?

A friend posted a link to this great blog: http://failblog.org/2010/03/10/grammar-fail/. The post in question was perfect. The picture (you can see it when you click to visit them) is of people rallying to save their school. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like school did them much good.

The signs they carry say: Who's schools? Our schools!

Okay, that was not correct. But wait. They tried to fix them. They added an "e" after the "s" in "who's."

That's right.

Now the signs say: Who'se schools? Our schools!

Can I bang my head against the wall now?

Weathering Decisions

Here we go! Our first submission comes from Debby Sapp... thanks, Debby for your sharp eyes! This error occurred at Many MDs Speak Out Vaccine Dangers (which should be an error in its own right... not because they are speaking out, but because they omitted necessary words that would make the title complete). 

Since my other passion is pregnancy and parenting, I challenge everyone to see what mistakes we can find, especially in those genres.

Apparently vaccines will let you choose the weather now. That is amazing! Not! Of course, than you need to decide if you truly want this new power. [snicker]

Our first entry has not only used the wrong word (weather instead of whether), but they capitalized the n in not when it falls in the middle of the sentence. If you read further, in the very next sentence, there is the improper use of "than" when it should be "then."

"Here you will read what many of these health professionals have to say. The bottom line is that we need to let the powers that be KNOW that we want the right to choose weather to vaccinate or Not to vaccinate. If you are pro vaccine than you need..."

Let's Have Some Fun While Editing

My life has taken a turn over the past few months. I have a book idea that I'm itching to write if I can ever find the time. I am honing my editing skills. What would be a fun way to do this, I ask myself? Find huge gaffes online and post them here!

That's right. I'm on the lookout for spelling errors, improper use of quotation marks, exclamation points, horrible grammar... whatever is horribly WRONG so we can post it for the world to see.

I know we all make mistakes. But some mistakes really deserve to be pointed out so we can all learn from them. Like the one I saw right after the earthquake in Chile on CNN.com. I wish it was still there. I wish I had copied and pasted it when I first read it... alas, I did not. They caught it before I went back and edited the article.

Suffice it to say the sentence went something like "... decided to AIR on the side of caution..."

That's right. To air on the side of caution. Um. Yeah. The phrase should be "...to ERR on the side of caution..." That is all they needed to do. Instead they rewrote the entire paragraph.

So... if you come across any gaffes that you just can't believe or that made you laugh out loud, send them my way by posting them here with the URL. I'd love to see them. In fact, I think this could grow into a really fun, big project that will leave everyone rolling in the aisles (definitely not isles!) while we may learn a bit about our wonderful language. C'mon... who wants to play?

I can't possibly do it all alone. There aren't enough hours in the day. Send 'em in and we can all have a good laugh. :)