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	<title>Sin and Syntax</title>
	<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com</link>
	<description>An online salon for those who love wicked good prose.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:56:19 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Parataxis, paradoxis</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My third year of teaching at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism wound up last night, in a place called The Monday Club Bar in Harvard Square. We spent the last few weeks looking at the way different writers make their prose musical through the use of rhythm, and playing with the rhythm in our own paragraphs. I lectured these Nieman and Loeb fellows on parataxis and hypotaxis, even writing an essay on the search for rhythm to try to make some sense out of these somewhat obscure terms of lit crit.


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		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/parataxis-paradoxis/</link>
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		<title>Constance Hale on the search for rhythm</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a class on the postwar novel, Harvard professor James Wood commented on Cormac McCarthy’s use of parataxis in The Road. Para-what? I wondered. More recently, I’ve been ruminating about rhythm. In my writing classes with journalists in Harvard’s Nieman and Loeb fellowship programs, I wanted to explore techniques leading to rhythmically masterful prose. It was time to find out more about parataxis.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/parataxis-paradoxis/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Parataxis, paradoxis'>Parataxis, paradoxis</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/total-risk-freedom-discipline/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Constance Hale on Risk, Freedom, Discipline'>Constance Hale on Risk, Freedom, Discipline</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/on-bucks-and-books/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing'>Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/constance-hale-on-the-search-for-rhythm/</link>
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		<title>Best of narrative journalism (books)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Writers and editors throw the term narrative journalism around loosely, and many don’t really know how to define it. Here’s my own short definition: narrative journalism is reported nonfiction that uses the techniques of fiction to enliven the story.

Here is a sampling of some of the best works of narrative journalism that have been published in books.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/talking-story/favorite-sites/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Where to find narrative journalism online'>Where to find narrative journalism online</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/e-books-twit-wit-and-susan-orlean/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: E-books, twit wit, and Susan Orlean'>E-books, twit wit, and Susan Orlean</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/usage-guides/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Books on usage and abusage'>Books on usage and abusage</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/best-of-narrative-journalism-books/</link>
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		<title>Grammar, in doorstoppers &amp; handbooks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Having trouble remembering when to use who and whom? Confused by which and that? Want to bone up on the parts of a sentence? Well, hie thee to a bookstore and buy Sin and Syntax, which will also tell you how deploy these grammatical fine points to write “wicked good prose.” If you hunger for more, here are my favorite grammar guides—from the geeky to the goofy.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/grammar-sites-and-blogs-that-bite/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Grammar sites and blogs that bite'>Grammar sites and blogs that bite</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/grammar-in-doorstoppers-handbooks/</link>
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		<title>Vex, Hex, Smash, and Smooch</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I'm excited to announce that I just sold a proposal for a new book to W. W. Norton. This one will do for verbs what Sin and Syntax does for sentences. Here's how I described it in the proposal:

Caesar got ‘em. Matthew got ‘em. Bellow got ‘em. Even E. B. Farnum and my dog got ‘em.

Got what?

Verbs.

Vital, vibrant, voluptuous, and, yes, sometimes vexing verbs.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/the-exquisite-corpse/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The Exquisite Corpse'>The Exquisite Corpse</a></li>
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		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/vex-hex-smash-and-smooch/</link>
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		<title>Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am! Well, maybe not afraid. Perhaps cowed.

I’ve just started reading To the Lighthouse for the first time in about 12 years. In previous reads, I’ve marveled at the giant leap Woolf takes into stream-of-consciousness writing. I love wallowing in Woolf’s metaphors and Mrs. Ramsey’s full-blown inner monologues.

Separately, this week I’ve been thinking about what I call “melody”—the use of sound in sentences, whether alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, or rhyme. I have suggested that writers sit near a window when it’s raining, or near the ocean, or near a fountain, and listen to the water, finding words that in some way echo the flow. 

Then I read this passage in To the Lighthouse...


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		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/who-is-afraid-of-virginia-woolf/</link>
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		<title>A-lists, e-books, and the iPad</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some chewy bits and pieces to offer you this week. First, kudos to David Finkel, whose book The Good Soldiers was just named the recipient of the Anthony Lukas prize. I’ve long been an admirer of Finkel’s narrative journalism, which came to my attention when I edited the Nieman Foundation's Narrative Digest. The Good Soldiers offers an interesting counterpoint to The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins.

How will books like these fare in the future, as traditional publishing adapts to new technology? Read  about that and a list of tips from a writer/editor pal of mine in California.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/try-a-little-frisson-with-your-nonfiction/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Try a Little Frisson with Your Nonfiction'>Try a Little Frisson with Your Nonfiction</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/constance-hale-on-demystifying-books/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Demystifying Books'>Demystifying Books</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/e-books-twit-wit-and-susan-orlean/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: E-books, twit wit, and Susan Orlean'>E-books, twit wit, and Susan Orlean</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/a-lists-e-books-and-the-ipad/</link>
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		<title>Sarah Baker with an E to Z on e-books</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Electronic rights are the chaotic bazaar of book publishing. Here authors barter with agents, agents haggle with publishers, and publishers brawl with e-retailers. Everyone is vying for his or her claim on the best pomegranate.

This frenzy, and a barrage of media attention, has left most people involved feeling confused. So what should a writer know in a labyrinth of twisting alleys and ad-hoc product stands? Here are some key terms and general guidelines to the unstable warren of the U.S. market.


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/on-bucks-and-books/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing'>Constance Hale on Bucks and Book Publishing</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/constance-hale-on-demystifying-books/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Demystifying Books'>Demystifying Books</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/sarah-baker-on-the-art-of-writing-free/' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Sarah Baker on the Art of Writing Free'>Sarah Baker on the Art of Writing Free</a></li>
</ol>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/sin-and-syntax-salon/e-to-z-on-e-books/</link>
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		<title>Down the carved names the raindrop plows</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you recognize those words—the last line of a poem? They were cited recently by a poet who came to speak to a gathering of reporters...

The poet registered, physically, with a jolt. His face was purplish red, as were his hands, where large bruises bloom. His thinning gray hair, grown four or five inches, scythed in every direction: an exuberant J on the right side of his head, a backward J on the left, preposterous spikes on top. 

His pronouncements were as fierce and unruly as his hair.


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		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/down-the-carved-names/</link>
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		<title>When style suits substance to a T (or a tea)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m celebrating spring (which has arrived ahead of schedule, with balmy temperatures and birds chirping) by taking another literature class at Harvard with my favorite book critic.

I recently cracked a very famous novel and was confounded by its first sentence. (“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”) I ask you, why did the writer launch his novel this way? Answer this and two other questions, and you might win  a free, signed copy of Sin and Syntax.


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		<link>http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/style-suits-substance/</link>
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