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The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language Word-Study, by Sherwin Cody is part of HackerNoon Books Series.
 You can jump to any chapter in this book here . CHAPTER IX. THE STYLE OF FICTION: Narrative, Description, and Dialogue. Dickens. In fiction there are three different kinds of writing which must be blended with a fine skill, and this fact makes fiction so much the more difficult than any other sort of writing. History is largely narrative, pure and simple, newspaper articles are description, dramas are dialogue, but fiction must unite in a way peculiar to itself the niceties of all three. We must take each style separately and master it thoroughly before trying to combine the three in a work of fiction. The simplest is narrative, and consists chiefly in the ability to tell a plain story straight on to the end, just as in conversation Neighbor Gossip comes and tells a long story to her friend the Listener. A writer will gain this skill if he practise on writing out tales or stories just as nearly as possible as a child would do it, supposing the child had a sufficient vocabulary. Letter-writing, when one is away from home and wishes to tell his intimate friends all that has happened to him, is practice of just this sort, and the best practice. Newspaper articles are more descriptive than any other sort of writing. You have a description of a new invention, of a great fire, of a prisoner at the bar of justice. It is not quite so spontaneous as narrative. Children seldom describe, and the newspaper man finds difficulty in making what seems a very brief tale into a column article until he can weave description as readily as he breathes. Dialogue in a story is by no means the same as the dialogue of a play: it ought rather to be a description of a conversation, and very seldom is it a full report of what is said on each side. Description is used in its technical sense to designate the presentation of a scene without reference to events; narrative is a description of events as they have happened, a dialogue is a description of conversation. Fiction is essentially a descriptive art, and quite as much is it descriptive in dialogue as in any other part. The best way to master dialogue as an element by itself is to study the novels of writers like Dickens, Thackeray, or George Eliot. Dialogue has its full development only in the novel, and it is here and not in short stories that the student of fiction should study it. The important points to be noticed are that only characteristic and significant speeches are reproduced. When the conversation gives only facts that should be known to the reader it is thrown into the indirect or narrative form, and frequently when the impression that a conversation makes is all that is important, this impression is described in general terms instead of in a detailed report of the conversation itself. So much for the three different modes of writing individually considered. The important and difficult point comes in the balanced combination of the three, not in the various parts of the story, but in each single paragraph. Henry James in his paper on “The Art of Fiction,” says very truly that every descriptive passage is at the same time narrative, and every dialogue is in its essence also descriptive. The truth is, the writer of stories has a style of his own, which we may call the narrative-descriptive-dialogue style, which is a union in one and the same sentence of all three sorts of writing. In each sentence, to be sure, narrative or description or dialogue will predominate; but still the narrative is always present in the description, and the description in the dialogue, as Mr. James says; and if you take a paragraph this fact will appear more clearly, and if you take three or four paragraphs, or a whole story, the fusion of all three styles in the same words is clearly apparent. It is impossible to give fixed rules for the varying proportion of description, narration, or dialogue in any given passage. The writer must guide himself entirely by the impression in his own mind. He sees with his mind's eye a scene and events happening in it. As he describes this from point to point he constantly asks himself, what method of using words will be most effective here? He keeps the impression always closely in mind. He does not wander from it to put in a descriptive passage or a clever bit of dialogue or a pleasing narrative: he follows out his description of the impression with faithful accuracy, thinking only of being true to his own conception, and constantly ransacking his whole knowledge of language to get the best expression, whatever it may be. Now it may be a little descriptive touch, now a sentence or two out of a conversation, now plain narration of events. Dialogue is the most expansive and tiring, and should frequently be relieved by the condensed narrative, which is simple and easy reading. Description should seldom be given in chunks, but rather in touches of a brief and delicate kind, and with the aim of being suggestive rather than full and detailed. Humor, and especially good humor, are indispensable to the most successful works of fiction. Above all other kinds of writing, fiction must win the heart of the reader. And this requires that the heart of the writer should be tender and sympathetic. Harsh critics call this quality sentiment, and even sentimentality. Dickens had it above all other writers, and it is probable that this popularity has never been surpassed. Scott succeeded by his splendid descriptions, but no one can deny that he was also one of the biggest hearted men in the world. And Thackeray, with all his reserve, had a heart as tender and sympathetic as was ever borne by so polished a gentleman. As an almost perfect example of the blending of narrative, description, and dialogue, all welded into an effective whole by the most delicate and winning sentiment, we offer the following selection from Barbox Bros. & Co., in “Mugby Junction.” POLLY. By Charles Dickens. Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day at noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamplighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice said: “O! If you please, I am lost!” He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl. “Yes,” she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. “I am, indeed. I am lost.” Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none, and said, bending low: “Where do you live, my child?” “I don't know where I live,” she returned. “I am lost.” “What is your name?” “Polly.” “What is your other name?” The reply was prompt, but unintelligible. Imitating the sound, as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, “Trivits?” “O no!” said the child, shaking her head. “Nothing like that.” “Say it again, little one” An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a different sound. He made the venture: “Paddens?” “O no!” said the child. “Nothing like that.” “Once more. Let us try it again, dear.” A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syllables. “It can't be Tappitarver?” $ªזđ said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture. “No! It ain't,” the child quietly assented. On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinction, it swelled into eight syllables at least. “Ah! I think,” said Barbox Brothers, with a desperate air of resignation, “that we had better give it up.” “But I am lost,” said the child nestling her little hand more closely in his, “and you'll take care of me, won't you?” If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man was. “Lost!” he repeated, looking down at the child. “I am sure I am. What is to be done!” “Where do you live?” asked the child, looking up at him wistfully. “Over there,” he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of the hotel. “Hadn't we better go there?” said the child. “Really,” he replied, “I don't know but what we had.” So they set off, hand in hand;―he, through comparison of himself against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant;―she, clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment. “We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?” said Polly. “Well,” he rejoined, “I―yes, I suppose we are.” “Do you like your dinner?” asked the child. “Why, on the whole,” said Barbox Brothers, “yes, I think I do.” “I do mine,” said Polly “Have you any brothers and sisters?” “No, have you?” “Mine are dead.” “O!” said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would not have known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready for him. “What,” she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, “are you going to do to amuse me, after dinner?” “Upon my soul, Polly,” exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, “I have not the slightest idea!” “Then I tell you what,” said Polly. “Have you got any cards at the house?” “Plenty,” said Barbox Brothers, in a boastful vein. “Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. You mustn't blow, you know.” “O no!” said Barbox Brothers. “No, no, no! No blowing! Blowing's not fair.” He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying, compassionately: “What a funny man you are!” Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack, than he to be bound in slavery to Polly. “Do you know any stories?” she asked him. He was reduced to the humiliating confession: “What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?” said Polly. He was reduced to the humiliating confession: “Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must remember it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards?” He professed that it would afford him the highest mental gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavor to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with the words: “So this,” or “And so this.” As, “So this boy;” or, “So this fairy;” or “And so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep.” The interest of the romance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, an ear bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be examined in it by-and-by and found deficient. Exercise. Rewrite this little story, locating the scene in your own town and describing yourself in the place of Barbox Bros. Make as few changes in the wording as possible. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Cody, Sherwin, 2007. The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language Word-Study. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19719/pg19719-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html . Photo by on Waldemar Brandt Unsplash

The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language : Chapter IX - The Style Of Fiction

Demons in Digital Gold, Part 7 article from February 1960: well past is useful life, though illustrative of the debate If you have not already done so, please read to this series. the introduction Today’s must-have killer app/smartphone/widget is tomorrow’s landfill. — Sentence from previous post, tweeted by prominent environmentalist You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. — Buckminster Fuller This post picks up where the previous post left off. Wink wink nudge nudge, you might want to before continuing with this post. read the first half Anonymity Many people are attracted to (et al) for purposes of anonymity. Indeed, it is THE primary property that attracts many users. The website clearly highlights anonymity, though not quite how you might think … Bitcoin [ed: redacted] Bitcoin.org Bitcoin is not anonymous Bitcoin is often perceived as an anonymous payment network. But in reality, Bitcoin is probably the most transparent payment network in the world. At the same time, Bitcoin can provide acceptable levels of privacy when used correctly. Always remember that it is your responsibility to adopt good practices in order to protect your privacy. The statement “acceptable levels of privacy when used correctly” is at best an understatement, at worst woefully misleading. Not only do YOU need to maintain flawless OpSec to remain anonymous, everyone you transact with needs to do the same, even if they don’t give it a shit about their own anonymity. That “stone tablet” foundation of an IMMUTABLE LEDGER? Not your friend if you are trying to maintain anonymity. Let’s examine the requirements of “used correctly” for Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash, and then discuss an alternative coins that is optimized for anonymity. IMPORTANT: following my quaint suggestions might improve your anonymity, but you need far more thorough homework if you’re serious. “Say what?!?!” Even if you finagled your way through the KYC process with a fake identity, you leave ALL KINDS of breadcrumbs on a cryptocurrency exchange. Forget exchanges, you'll need to procure coins elsewhere. And forget other people too, as they’ve left their OWN trails of breadcrumbs. Never transfer coins to/from an exchange. Your IP address so traceable that it might as well be your IRL address. Most VPNs keep logs that connect both ends of the tunnel, spitting in the face of the ‘P’ in the acronym VPN. A few VPNs swear up and down that they do not keep any logs, and some of those accept Bitcoin. Always transact through Tor or a carefully selected VPN. Many wallets FORCE you to use a single address every time you receive Bitcoin, which is poor security even if you are NOT hell-bent on anonymity. Reusing addresses leave breadcrumbs. Always generate a new address for every receive transaction. Search “ forensics” for an eye-opening look at why this requirement is so critical. Cliff notes: your always flawless OpSec can be cracked by analyzing the transaction history of your less-than-always-flawless counterparties. Enforce all of these rules on every counterparty. blockchain Even the most seemingly innocuous tidbit can provide an adversary with a tiny crack to exploit into a full-blown attack. The irony here is the immutable ledger that is the blockchain — recording each and every leak of information for eternity — will be your unmasking, unless all of your counterparties (and all of their counterparties, etcetera) maintain 100% flawless OpSec. A fundamental precept of cryptography is “never leak information.” You’re using an alias. Not much protection, that. Bottom-line: for all but the most informed and assiduous people, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (Ether, Litecoin, and most others) are pseudonymous. **ZCash cometh**Leveraging the Bitcoin codebase and adding some extremely contemporary cryptography called “zero knowledge proofs,” Zcash aims to fix anonymity. Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies expose your entire payment history to the public. Zcash is the first open, permissionless cryptocurrency that can fully protect the privacy of transactions using zero-knowledge cryptography. — Zcash homepage Confession: I was so taken with the zk-SNARK cryptography underpinning Zcash, I considered writing a book called . I enjoyed everything I learned, and it goes without saying that I could make this a PAINFULLY long blog post extolling the power and beauty of the cryptography. There is summary in the . Here is a highlights to pique your curiosity: The Zcash Tutorial (No, don’t bother searching for it, I came to my senses.) Zcash FAQ Zero knowledge proofs allow you to prove knowledge of some facts about hidden information . The property of allowing both verifiability and privacy of data makes for a strong use case in all kinds of transactions, and we’re integrating this concept into a block chain for encrypting the sender address, the recipient address, and the amount. without revealing that information At first blush, you might think “Oh, I get it. They’re encrypting the sending address, recipient address, and amount … and only the sender and recipient know the encryption key.” Strictly speaking, Zcash transactions DO encrypt the sending address, recipient address, and amount. Mind-twisting as it sounds, however, nothing ever decrypts that data. The recipient address is NEVER revealed: as in a conventional blockchain transaction, it is generated by the recipient and transmitted to the sender. The transaction includes a mathematical proof that VERIFIES — without REVEALING the data — that sender owns the coin at the sending address, and that coin is equal or grater than the amount specified. The description above illustrates “shielded transactions” using Z-addresses. Zcash includes “transparent transactions” using T-addresses, and those work exactly the same as a conventional blockchain transaction. (Transactions may use a mix of T-addresses and Z-addresses.) Why would anyone use transparent transactions? Yeah, about that. Turns out that SERIOUS computation is required to construct the zk-SNARK used in a shielded transactions, tens of seconds or a few minutes depending on your compute horsepower. And while the Zcash folks openly share the requisite code, nobody has yet taken them up on the proposition of integrating shielded transactions. As it stands, the only means for sending or receiving a shielded transaction is the Zcash wallet included in Zcash full node build. NOT ideal. Running any full node is a PITA, and generally an unsound idea for Normal People. The undeniably fantastic utility of shielded transactions, as described above, is limited to very technically savvy people all running full nodes. More acutely — and you’ll want to sit down about now — NO EXCHANGE currently handles shielded transactions. The Zcash folks are making strides to reduce the computation required to construct zk-SNARKS and handle shielded transactions. Fingers crossed, they’ll make progress with exchanges and unaffiliated wallets alike. For the time being, shielded transactions are the domain of the very dedicated. Security The bitcoin system has had the biggest target on its back for the better part of five years, painted by ne’er do wells pining for the combination of ginormous sums of money and the distinct possibility of getting away with a heist. A remarkable state of affairs from a cyber-security perspective. The most gifted hackers worldwide have studied and probed from every angle, to no avail. — Store of value / Vulnerabilities in store This post is NOT about “everyday” implementation (i.e. code) vulnerabilities. This post tackles the potential of “unkown unknown” PROTOCOL vulnerabilities. And yet — yeah, you just KNEW this was coming — five years is not very long in terms of new and innovative technology. While the former can be dangerous, the latter can be dinosaur killers. — Ibid Simple as that. I’ve covered the reasoning in multiple posts earlier in this series, so I am not going to belabor the point. All of them can be picked. Complexity being the enemy of security, well, let’s all count our blessings vis-à-vis cryptocurrency blockchains. The Bitcoin blockchain has been stunningly secure. One day it won’t be. The honest truth about locks? Question: what might a “more secure” cryptocurrency look like? Answering that without a specific threat in mind is damn nigh impossible. More accurately, answering that question in a manner that would clearly demonstrate utility is damn nigh impossible. When something BREAKS with a major cryptocurrency, there will be unimaginable utility in an alternative solution that eliminates the vulnerability. Improved security can manifest itself as utility along one or more of the OTHER properties already discussed, for example: Mitigate double-spend risk in a manner that dramatically reduces . transaction confirmation time Mitigate 51% attack risk in a manner that slashes , by reducing the burning (pun intended) issue of power consumption. transaction cost Increase in a manner that stands a chance of working for Normal People. anonymity And there may be value in more contemporary (perhaps lattice-based) cryptography, in order to build some additional temporal runway against attacks unknown. While security as a property “by itself” seems fairly amorphous, cyber-security is a $150B+ business annually. With increasingly alarming frequency ) we see that cryptocurrency participants are NOT taking fear/security seriously enough. ( $500B last week User Experience While improvements in each of the above properties would improve the overall user experience, that is not what I am driving at. I am talking about the Normal Person User Experience handling cryptocurrencies, which if you’re intellectually honest, just plain sucks. Yeah, yeah, I’ve watched countless beginner-intro-how-to YouTube videos. I’ve personally guided countless Normal People through cryptocurrencies, and the universal takeaway from them is “Silicon Valley Early.” Sure, I can get just about anyone onto Coinbase — though I would never do that to anyone that I like — but just try to take a baby step outside their tiny little walled garden. It ain’t pretty. If I knew how to improve dramatically the Normal Person User Experience, I would be off doing it RIGHT NOW. Let’s agree that there is great room for improvement on a great number of different pain points: buying, holding, sending, spending, taxation … the works. Here’s a compare-and-contrast illustration for you: Apple Cash, the P2P companion to Apple Pay. Setup is little more than linking a debit card and takes a minute. Sending cash is done WITHIN iMessage with a tap of an icon and takes seconds. Moving received cash back to your bank is tappity done. (Venmo is arguable better, with the modest exception of requiring its own app.) There may be solutions that accomplish that lofty objective with existing cryptocurrencies, or it may take a disruptive solution built from the ground up optimized for the Normal Person User Experience. The objective is completely hiding the cryptocurrency mechanics, and that’s heretical to the vast majority of people and projects. Coin obsolescence and cryptocurrency investment Don’t invest in coins that are likely to become obsolete. ¡Sencillo! El fin. OK, OK, it is not simple. Let’s rewind to the opening of Part 1. of this post. At some point in the post-speculative-mania phase, fundamentals will matter and the price of a coin will be driven by underlying measures of its value. When price is driven by fundamentals, whatever the metrics, a NEW coin with substantially superior metrics will appreciate in price. Should the new coin closely overlap the properties of an OLD coin, competitive forces will obsolete the old coin over time. All sarcasm aside, these basic concepts at best LIGHTLY apply in today’s cryptocurrency markets. That leaves long-horizon investors in a lurch, as the guideposts they would like to see are absent from market pricing. User-perceived value. Utility. Fundamentals. The old “buy and hold” works far better for blue chips than it does for any rapidly evolving technology. I can dive into an existing coin and analyze strengths and weaknesses. I can investigate a new coin and assess its competitive position. It would be another book. Come to think of it, GRAHAM and DODD themselves needed an epic book — the seminal — to explain themselves. I cannot boil those exercises down to set of Graham-and-Dodd rules. Security Analysis Given the nascent state of cryptocurrencies as an asset class — coupled with the current reality of momentum following, fast money speculation — it will be years before we have a structured framework like Graham and Dodd. “Well, shit,” the few of you still reading this manifesto curse, “You could have told us THAT in a single tweet.” (I’ll leave it to one of you long-attention-span readers to tweet the above excerpt with a link to this post.) Short of enlisting my consulting services, how might investors proceed? First and foremost, recognize that with new technologies, the vast majority of early offerings fail. Not just products, entire companies go from “darling” to “dead” in a heartbeat. Why would today’s cryptocurrencies — early offspring of truly innovative blockchain technology — bypass a century-plus gauntlet and enjoy longevity? Few, if any, of them will. Long-horizon cryptocurrency investors need rigorous portfolio construction. , though given today’s “signal to noise” ratio, focus on larger (by circulating supply) and more stable (stop laughing) coins. Diversification is critical , especially in the current high-volatility environment. Complimenting a focus on larger and more stable coins, place small “high-risk/high-return” bets on the most promising emerging coins. Careful position sizing is vital Cut your losses, let your winners run, and eat balanced meals. I get it: this is Peter Lynch Investing 101. I’ve talked with super-smart investors, far more accomplished and successful than me, who describe strategies for orders-of-magnitude returns that seemingly break every rule in THEIR OWN books. In the introduction to this series , I commented that my motivation is to provoke BALANCED thinking.” So when I hear “unbalanced” reasoning from otherwise super-reasonable people, pardon my nudge. Next in the series … Xenon-135: anticipating knock-on effects Follow me @ Pressed250 on Twitter Copyright © 2018 Bruce Kleinman. All Rights Reserved.

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