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     Chatlog for Class #4 of
Online Course
"Editing The Novel"

Given By

Editor and Publisher

Bonnee Pierson                    bonneebw.gif (71006 bytes)

and

Silke Juppenlatz

reserve your place in this course.

Come to Class every Sunday, 3PM Eastern Time (USA)

 

Session Start: Sun Mar 19 02:58:33 2000

<Ann> I adore high politics novels ... part of why I read and write them, or try to.

<Jean> If I hadn't read other things by Yarbro, I would never even check it out.

<JL> Then Ann, make reading that book an assignment for this course. You'll want to analyze it.

<Jean> Not that I have time to check it out as things are!

<JL> Yarbro has two writing styles. One uses the kind of very strong plotting mechanism that we've been teaching here. The other uses a much more APPARENTLY formless structure -- that actually has a strong plot-skeleton underneath, but the connections are much harder to find. Her Historicals use techniques of story-tellers who worked long before the "novel" in its modern form came to be.

<Jean> OTOH, if you have to analyze a novel anyway, better one you read by choice.

<Ann> I am only now realizing how much I learned from "By Other Means"

<JL> But her novel-form is solidly modern.

<Ann> I like both forms, the only one I don't much care for is Gothic. Both should be many.

<Jean> There are not many good gothics.

<Ann> The epistolatory novel is still a quite viable form.

<Jean> Turn of the Screw is good.

<Ann> Jean, that statement could be taken many ways (about good gothics)

<Jean> Most are just fright-feasts. They date very badly.

<Ann> I was thinking of the original gothics, Stoker, Shelly, etc

<Jean> Neither Dracula nor Frankenstein is gothic. They are non-gothic horror.

<Ann> I thought they were classified as such?

<Jean> No--no Gothic Center in either. A gothic takes place in a single setting. The setting is a character. The movie Alien is a gothic.

<Ann> Ah, I see now. Or the Gormenghast books, which I am working on at the moment as well.

<JL> In TV they call that the "bottle show" --

<Jean> But it also has to be horror to be a gothic. A battle/bottle isn't a gothic.

<JL> Suspense is always an element that enhances the "horror" aspect.

<Jean> Submarine and space ship stories. But suspense transcends sub genre.

<JL> The Creeping Need.

<Ann> Thank you! ... you just placed one of my glitches in Master and Servant ... as it definitely has its horror aspects.

<Jean> Yes, the Creeping Need, taking place in a pen, is gothic.

<Ann> Sounds fun to play with for a short story, though.

<Jean> Oh, yes--a gothic is very formulaic.

<JL> A "gothic" without suspense-technique will fall flat.

<Jean> Most of us can't sustain that suspense for longer than a short story.

<JL> It's usually the kind of "horror" that has subtleties and leaves most to the imagination.

<Jean> It's too limited.

<Ann> It is tough! Dark SF uses the suspense techniques.

<JL> The kind you see in the movies today (lots of blood on the walls) isn't the right "flavor" --

<Ann> Sloppy work, too ... in my opinion.

<Jean> Try to find a video of "The Innocents."

<JL> The Gothic Romance setting is the big, old, house on a hill -- slightly run down -- a lonely brooding man. And it's what you IMAGINE as you walk up the lawn from the taxi that sets the "mood". It's based on The Turn of the Screw. 1950's, I think, starring Deborah Kerr as the Governess. Really, really scary, with no blood at all.

<Ann> I love that sort of thing ... am trying for it with my world and sweating blood over it.

<Jean> The book is one of the all-time great psychological horror novels.

<Ann> Who wrote The Turn of the Screw?

<Jean> Henry James

<Ann> We might actually not have a copy of that ... surprisingly enough ... although right now we have no idea about exactly what books we have.

<Jean> What is our topic today? Creating suspense?

<Ann> Lack of topic creating suspense? ... I would love that to be the topic though.

<MargaretI> Creating suspense has my vote.

<Jean> There is more than one kind of suspense.

<JL> But we may as well discuss how an editor judges the SUSPENSE element across the genres.

<Jean> Simple suspense has the reader asking, "What happened next?" More complex suspense has the reader asking, "What is really going on?" Another simple but effective form of suspense is dramatic irony. The audience knows what the characters don't, and keep waiting for the characters to find out. Dracula, the novel, is built almost entirely on dramatic irony.

<Ann> That seems to be the most common one used in classic horror.

<JL> Foreshadowing is one of the major, and most difficult, tools of the suspense-technique. The EDITOR reading a MS looks to see if what has been foreshadowed actually HAPPENS. If it doesn't -- if the foreshadowing is misleading, the novel won't get bought without rewrite.

<Jean> The reader can see the connections between Jonathan's adventures in Transylvania and what happens to Lucy, but the characters can't.

<tamarion> It was a good book. It did keep you wondering.

<Jean> Foreshadowing leads to "What's really going on?"

<JL> In Dracula the WONDERING takes the form of "when will this happen" more than "what will happen next?"

<tamarion> yeah

<Jean> There have to be things that don't quite match up with what appears to be the plot. Yet the writer has to be careful not to disappoint.

<Ann> Are there any really good ways, other than a lot of practice, to be able to foreshadow well without giving away too much or being too obscure?

<Jean> No--this one is practice, practice, practice.

<JL> Ann - yes, it requires OUTLINING WELL - you have to know what you're doing and start early with the hints.

<Jean> You can't foreshadow if you don't know what is going to happen.

<JL> To recognize where the hints have to go, and what form they must take, you have to know what you're hinting AT.

<Jean> That is why you outline.

<JL> One of the most effective methods of foreshadowing is to drop hints that will make sense to the reader only in retrospect.

<Ann> Exactly so on outlining.

<JL> Then the reader comes to the climax and realizes that it was inevitable all along.

<Jean> Some of them have to make sense immediately.

<Ann> What about deliberate red herrings?

<JL> Yes, there must be a trail of breadcrumbs that lead the reader to the conclusion BEFORE the characters could possibly twig to the truth.

<Jean> In a vampire story, you know the bite is upcoming.

<Ann> Serial killer stories as well.

<Jean> Red herrings are necessary in mystery. Some things at a crime scene in real life are not clues.

<JL> The editor looks for that trail of breadcrumbs to be CONTINUOUS -- and make logical sense, but still keep the reader unsure.

<Jean> Therefore some things in a mystery turn out to be false leads. And of course a character in any kind of story may plant false information.

<Ann> One thing I noted in the best mysteries, is the false leads being focused on by the character's internal conflict(s).

<JL> It is that technique of making an inevitable-feeling logical SENSE and yet keeping the reader unsure that takes "practice" as Jean said above.

<Ann> Ah, I see where the difference is ... between the character going off falsely and the clues going the wrong way.

<Jean> Yes--the detective hares off after what he wants to be a clue, revealing more about himself than about the plot. Then there is the kind of thing that is a false clue to some readers and dramatic irony to others.

<Ann> Which is where, I see, choice in publishing channels comes in ... aiming at certain readers and not others.

<Jean> In a S~G story, when someone says, "Simes don't have to kill," the neo reader gets a false clue.

<JL> In a series, like Sime~Gen -- some of the breadcrumbs pertinent to one novel are planted in a previous novel -- but those can never be crucial to understanding the climax of the current novel.

<Jean> The experienced reader waits for the disillusionment. It has to work for both kinds of readers in every book. Any one of them is somebody's introduction to the series.

<JL> You must never CHEAT the reader. With suspense built on foreshadowing, you must DELIVER as promised.

<Jean> Right--and that is hard to learn.

<Ann> Or at least try not too ... way too many books cheat me as a reader <grimace>

<JL> And takes practice.

<Jean> Some writers think surprise is more important than delivery on promises.

<JL> One reason books that are published may seem to "cheat" readers like us is that we want something different out of a novel than the general public does.

<Jean> They neglect to go back and plant clues on rewrite. That is actually all the writer has to do to make the surprise ending work.

<JL> Sometimes editors want something deleted, and the clues get left behind inadvertently. Sometimes the book the writer subconsciously wants to write is of a type that could never sell, and the result is foreshadowing of stuff that never happens.

<Jean> Does anybody remember O. Henry stories?

<Ann> Actually, everyone here has read the intro to my current novel I'm working on, it was for my final ... how did -that- work for the beginning of a novel based on suspense?

<Ann> Yes!!! Love them.

<MargaretI> Yes.

<Jean> O. Henry stories all supposedly have surprise endings. But to a mature reader, are they surprising? And would the surprises delight if they did not grow out of the heart of the story?

<MargaretI> Not today. They might have been when first published.

<Jean> I think they surprised the new reading public of the beginning of this century.

<JL> Today there have been too many imitators.

<Ann> I think much of why they don't surprise now is so many people have read them or heard of them.

<JL> Do kids still read O. Henry in High School?

<Jean> But the delight in the surprise is to think it over and say, "Oh, of course--that is really the natural outcome."

<Ann> I think that is the ultimate in ending any suspense or surprise story

<Jean> I don't think O. Henry is much read anymore. Too sentimental.

<Ann> I hate it when authors back off the logical ending to fit a genre formula.

<JL> Ann - no, that's not what happens. When it seems a writer has "backed off the logical ending to fit a genre formula" what really happened is that the writer failed to set up the BEGINNING properly.

<Jean> Ah--the secret to writing GOOD genre is to make it both logical and fitting the genre. You KNOW a romance has to end with the protags together. So you don't create two people who couldn't possibly get along after the glow is off. As great a writer as William Shakespeare made that mistake! And you can't back off from the pain.

<Greg> The Bruce Willis movie - 6th Sense seemed to have perfected foreshadowing.

<Ann> Yes! And too many authors now back away because of that, Jean.

<Jean> Channel's Destiny was VERY painful to write.

<JL> Because we know what was coming.

<Jean> But the pain was inevitable within the S~G universe.

<JL> But the reader had to keep hoping.

<Ann> I have a couple of half finished pieces I couldn't finish because I knew what was going to happen.

<Jean> The hope lay in the new, nonjunct generation. The old generation had to die. But once Rimon lost Kadi, the rules of the universe said he had to die horribly. It turned out worst case scenario, but it would have been horrible in any event.

<JL> And that was foreshadowed at the beginning of HoZ with the LEGEND. Things like that become legends for a reason.

<Jean> It's at the beginning of FCh.

<JL> Their love was a Romeo and Juliet piece -- with a twist.

<Jean> Romeo and Juliet is ALWAYS a tragedy.

<Ann> How do you keep characters from killing themselves or escaping into madness when you tighten the screws on them all the way?

<Jean> If the kids live, they can't sustain. Some characters do suicide or go mad.

<JL> You don't "keep characters from" -- you "build them to" -- you make the responses part of their inherent NATURE by designing them that way.

<Jean> However, for me, those will not be the protagonists. My characters survive, warped, crippled, but soldiering on. Until they die, of course, but not through suicide.

<JL> Jean said earlier that the SETTING of a Gothic is a character too. Likewise, the SETTING in a Gothic has to have an "ending" -- Like the house going up in flames.

<Jean> Most gothics, but not all, end with the destruction of the Gothic Center.

<JL> Or the ghosts being exorcised. Or something happening that CHANGES THE PLACE FOREVER. In good fiction, the characters change because of the events in their lives.

<Jean> The ghosts being exorcised is one of the possible readings of the end of The Turn of the Screw.

<JL> If the place is a character, it must be treated that way, too.

<Jean> Realistic characters are like real people.

<Ann> Interesting tying in the idea of setting as character with Bonnee's comment about the backgrounding acting like a character in a story.

<JL> Yes, this was what she was talking about.

<Jean> Zeor and Keon are like characters.

<JL> The parameters for handling the setting are the same as for handling characters. Sometimes the setting itself is the protagonist.

<Ann> Or quite often in horror, the antagonist.

<Jean> In all sf the rules of the universe are like a character interacting with the rest. Ditto fantasy. Probably even more important in fantasy, which is why S~G is often read as fantasy rather than sf.

<JL> In any setting where the setting is so DIFFERENT from the reader's everyday (i.e. Historicals) you have that effect.

<Ann> I read it as science fantasy because the science is now outdated ... same with Pern and Darkover.

<Jean> I'm not sure of setting as protagonist, but it certainly is often antagonist.

<JL> The effect allows the writer to feed the reader information on the setting. In Kraith, Vulcan Culture is often said to be the protagonist.

<Jean> Well, only in the sense that America is the protag in war movies. It is always represented by people.

<JL> Oh, yes, always the effect of the non-tangible is shown by it's effect on people. Well, that brings us back to horror again.

<Jean> Spock or Sarek or someone represents Vulcan Culture.

<JL> In horror -- what is horrible to the character has to also be horrible to the reader, or it doesn't work.

<Jean> Yes--and sometimes you have to plant that, as well.

<JL> One way to make something strange or different horrible is to show the meaning it has for the character, from the character's own POV. And that's something else that editors look for in judging a manuscript.

<Jean> We have to be shown how horrible heights are to a character before he has to climb that mountain.

<JL> Is the POV usage appropriate to the genre.

<Jean> Learn tight third person, and you can use it for any genre. Then you can expand to other POVs.

<Ann> Actually, the only place I can think of third cenematic being well used is in horror, interesting idea.

<JL> In SF the strange or different can be horrible to the character up until he gets to know it, and then NOT so horrible (the Horta) -- or vice/versa "Alien". <Jean> It can shift back and forth, too.

<JL> Actually the Omniscient Narrator POV has often been used in ACTION, in order to keep emotional attachments of the characters out of the story. (i.e. "neck-up-sf).

<Jean> Personally, I don't like action without emotion. Probably why I love stories that are puzzles, but hate games. I want the personal involvement.

<Ann> What I've seen is control of third limited varying from very tight to nearly cenematic to control pace between action scenes and contemplative scenes.

Although the emotional slows down the action scenes and I don't really have a grasp on how to keep it from doing so yet.

<Jean> Oddly enough, for a book with clumsy style, Gone With the Wind does that kind of POV shift beautifully.

<JL> Neither do I, but with the novel we discussed last week, the Daniel R. Kerns ALIEN MASTER, David Kyle -- the writer chosen to succeed E. E. Smith writing the new Lensman books -- taught me the formula of starting with the O.N. and closing in on the main characters. It was what the editor wanted then, so I used it. How you keep emotion from slowing down action is to make the emotion the action. In other words, the emotions CHANGE THE SITUATION and therefore advance the plot. The emotions are the BECAUSE LINE - not the physical actions.

<Jean> Action is change of situation.

<Ann> Doesn't work real well when the action is breaking someone's neck to feed off them. <grin>

<Jean> Emotional reactions change the situation. But SOMEONE reacts to breaking someone's neck. Either the killer doesn't want to do it, or someone else then wants to stop the killer.

<Ann> Oh yes, and she does so, incredibly emotionally, but balancing her internal reactions and her external were tough.

<Jean> If there is no emotion, the plot doesn't go anywhere. If no one cares, then there is just pointless killing. You have animals, not people.

<Ann> Which was what I was showing.

<JL> The most effective way to do emotion-exposition is with SHOW DON'T TELL -- take classic Trek as an example. Kirk and Spock became central to fanzine stories because their ACTIONS showed without telling their emotions, and so all the writers could share their INTERPRETATIONS.

<Jean> Even whipping out a sword and beheading the creature eating your sweetheart is an emotional act. Of course we can invent a story in which you tame the critter and it replaces your sweetheart! See the very first Trek episode, about the salt critter!

<Ann> One thing interesting about suspense, is the tie in between the suspenseful story and the suspense used to keep the reader's attention

<JL> The suspense used to keep the reader's attention MUST be 'blown off' in the CLIMAX. It has to be directly on the because-line.

<Jean> All stories have to have some kind of suspense, or readers quit reading.

<JL> That's another thing editors look for -- tracking the beginning to the end via the suspense.

<Jean> Note the origin of the word "suspense."

<Ann> And no fair dropping alligators in the transom.

<JL> The suspense line has to coincide with the CONFLICT-LINE.

<Jean> It is what the story is suspended from, what it hangs on.

<Ann> That is an excellent way of thinking of it, thank you Jean.

<Jean> Any alligators through the transom either start the story or are a natural development in that context.

<JL> When an editor finds a MS that has these elements (plot, conflict, suspense) disconnected, they just bounce it back with a form reject because it is clear the writer doesn't understand the craft well enough to take editorial direction. Well, the suspense could start on page one where someone lets the alligator escape. Every once in a while, there's a bit of news about alligator sightings building suspense. Then the reader has to be led to understand that the WORST THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO THE PROTAG is for an alligator to appear in that transom.

<Jean> But it could be fun to work out a story in which it is perfectly logical for someone to drop an alligator through the transom at the 2/3 point.

<JL> THEN the alligator falls through.

<Ann> This sounds like another 'Avilan' story, Jacqueline <grin>

<JL> Yes, Jean, that's the sort of game that is called a 'busman's holiday' for writers. Now, if the alligator is a THING OF HORROR - you have a horror novel. If the whole thing takes place in that office building, where the building has a "personality" -- you could have a gothic.

<Jean> But it could be carrying a clock ticking in its belly.

<JL> Another thing that editors look for is how these elements all 'GO TOGETHER' -- do the elements the writer has chosen all "match". Or in the techno-thriller it could be a disease.

<Jean> Any story set in Gulf Territory could have an alligator wander in. But it has to serve a dramatic purpose.

<Ann> Or for a comedy, it could be someone's lost pet.

<Jean> For a comedy, it has probably swallowed the boss's dog, and you have to get it to cough it up.

<Ann> Careful Jean, this story might land in your mailbox someday <big grin>

<Jean> This is where those crazy ideas come from. Now there will probably be an alligator in my Bru~Reeon novel! In fact, it's probably a standard "Scare the Gen tourists" ploy on the Genfarm.

<Ann> I think this is an excellent example of how nearly anything could be made to fit if you try hard enough.

<Jean> If you know your universe, you don't have to try very hard.

<Ann> That's bad, Jean ... scaring the poor tourists, unless, of course, money falls out of their pockets afterwards.

<JL> OK, Greg - would you sum up for us what the Gothic Novel is? And everyone else, prepare your definitions of Suspense.

<Jean> Part of the fun at the Genfarm is being safely scared.

<Greg> The location is central to the Gothic...and it will change at the end...it is a character.

<Jean> What genre does the gothic have to be? IOW, Trek is not gothic, despite ship or station being a character.

<Greg> it can be many genres though...romance..horror

<Jean> But the Nostromo is a Gothic Center. No--it's horror. There are gothic romances, but they have to have horror. Ghosts, vampires, etc.

<Greg> okay...

<Jean> Or at least the dark, mysterious Gothic Hero with his horrible secret. The mad wife locked in the tower. The fact that he murdered his previous wife. Jane Eyre and Rebecca, if you didn't recognize the references. Those books couldn't be published today.

<Ann> Paper published Jean, Pulsar would probably gulp them up like candy.

<Jean> The protag who chooses to stay with such a man is not politically correct in the year 2000. I don't know Pulsar, but if the editor is female she probably wouldn't like either heroine. Jane should never have returned to Mr. Rochester, and what's-her-face should have turned Maxim over to the cops. Other plot elements would have to be changed to make the happy endings fit with today's sensibilities. You do know that in fifty years we are going to be looked at as silly and sentimental as the Victorians, don't you? Just over different things.

<Ann> Oh yes, writing for the ages rarely works ... and almost always ends up looking rather odd no matter what.

<Jean> Just write for now. If it's a classic, people will accept the archaisms. Okay--what is suspense?

<MargaretI> Or even look for them as an aid to understanding our age/culture

<JL> MargaretI -- you should give suspense a whirl.

<Ann> Suspense is the conflict hook you hang the reader on to keep them reading your story, not doing the dishes or somesuch

<MargaretI> The question that HAS to be answered.

<JL> What do you look for in a MS to see if it has suspense as an essential element? All good stories have suspense, but not all are 'suspense novels' -- Greg? What kind of story will fail totally if the suspense isn't done well? Some stories can do without much suspense -- some need it because it's the main plot driver.

<Greg> Is there conflict? For one.

<JL> Which genres MUST have suspense or nothing else avails?

<MargaretI> Romance, horror.

<JL> Which types of conflict depend entirely on suspense to "work"? Romance and Horror -- how about Intrigue? What else? Ann?

<Ann> Mystery.

<JL> Mystery - Yes, detective, procedural, what else? Western -- or the "action" genre -- does it need suspense to succeed as a story?

<Ann> Spy thriller, a la Tom Clancy ... Political.

<JL> Tom Clancy -- great example. Techno-thriller (the reactor gone critical -- robots run amok -- diseases loose -- genetic experimentation gone awry -- the mad-scientist). OK, what is Romantic-Suspense as a genre? Remember when the gothic Romance was all the rage? We had the bodice ripper and romantic suspense as the main sub-genres in Romance. Look at the review sub-genre list in our reviews/romance/ section and notice those famous sub-genres are missing. But we have genres that have just as much suspense in them. OK, what is the main technique that makes suspense work? Let's go back to HORROR for this one. How do you BUILD suspense? MargaretI?

<MargaretI> Suggestions and hints.

<JL> FORESHADOWING - correct.

<MargaretI> But not answers until the climax.

<JL> Right -- hold it all back to the climax, the blow-off. Now, as an editor, how do you figure out if the MS before you has this attribute? What do you look for? Greg? Was anyone paying attention earlier?

<Greg> Are there clues that something will happen?

<JL> SOMETHING - right. Clues -- remember the trail of breadcrumbs.

<MargaretI> One clue leading to another.

<JL> The editor looks to see if that trail of breadcrumbs is unbroken and leads to the ENDING. The editor checks the beginning, middle, ending, and then if the ending is derived from the beginning, starts searching for the because-line (the plot) the conflict, the resolution, and the SUSPENSE LINE. In Essence of Story we never got to discussing the SUSPENSE-LINE in any detail, but it works just like the BECAUSE LINE.

<Jean> Okay--go forth and WRITE some more!

<Ann> I'm going to have to leave at precisely 2 PT this week ... as Bonnee and Silkie have not been showing, would you' all like to use one of my pieces to work on?

<JL> We'll get back to you on that Ann.

<Jean> I'll be away again next Sunday.

<JL> I want to check with them to see what's happening.

<Ann> For me trying to not write is like trying for a junkie to not get their next hit.

<JL> I hope I'll be here.

<Ann> Ok, wanted to ask

<Jean> Hope we've helped you.

<Ann> Yes, tremendously, thank you

<JL> If this were my course you would now have an essay to write, and a published novel to read and analyze - everyone reading the same novel. Then we'd get back to analyzing partials. I'd like to see you write out an analysis on a slushpile reader's form. Did you know that slushpile readers have to fit your MS onto a standard form and submit that report?

<Ann> No, but I would love to see the form, would be interesting.

<JL> It's all very cut and dried. No room for much variance.

<Greg> I didn't know that.

<MargaretI> I've seen a checklist form

<JL> The forms vary by line and publishing house -- yes, some are checklists. It's all very uncreative. If you don't pass that first test - even if your MS comes from an Agent -- you don't get read by the people who make decisions. The point of the form is to delete as much of the slushpile reader's TASTE from the equation as possible. Very often it's just mechanics (spelling, clean typing, format of the ms) that gets checked by the first reader. The second reader (who can also be slush reading) would check for story-mechanics. Then you might get a reading by a "real" editor. The best agents can get your MS up over the slush readers and into the actual editor's hands in one go.

<Ann> Shouldn't the mechanics also be in the synopsis for those houses who request one?

<JL> But that only happens because the agent has already done the slush reading, and is trusted to submit only publishable ms's. Yes, the query letter and synopsis etc all have to show your ability to hack the English language. 

<JL>OK, here's a homework assignment. WRITE a slushpile reader's form.

<MargaretI> Does it have to be for novels?

<JL> Submit them to me at jl@simegen.com in html format -- and copy editingcourse@simegen.com -- and we'll decide if to open a section of studentshowcase for them, or what. Yes, this is NOVEL EDITING, so writing a slushpile reader's form would be for the novel. Pretend you are the EDITOR who just got a job to launch a NEW LINE -- pick a genre that hinges on SUSPENSE.

<Greg> Is there a copy of the form somewhere?

<JL> One of the ones we've discussed here would be fine. No, you have to INVENT this form from scratch given the three classes we've had here. You've got all the elements in hand now -- everything an editor has to NOTICE on first glance has been discussed. You are now the EDITOR of a new line -- make it an e-publisher.

<Ann> Thank you, JL, that makes a big difference

<JL> You're going to buy 6 titles a month for the next 18 months. You're going to get an avalanche of ROTTEN ms's that all have to be sifted. This line is for NEW WRITERS -- so you'll have hundreds of ms's for each publishing slot. The established name writers all go to an experienced editor starting another line at the same publisher. You're new, and you get the tough job. You must write the form so that you have to read no more than oh, 40 partials a week to find the 6 you will buy. This is a somewhat realistic scenario for, say, 3 years from now. Set your filter that fine, and create the FORM -- html it and send it attached. I just made up this assignment, so I've no idea what the teachers will make of it. Do you all see how it does follow from the 3 lessons we've got so far?

<MargaretI> Yes.

<JL> Good - let's see what you can do with it.

<Ann> Due date?

<JL> OK, see you folks next week 3 pm Eastern. Make the form due -- what? Friday? I may not be able to even look at them if they come in Friday. Well, do you think that's too soon? OK, we can make it Wednesday the 29th of March -- how's that?

<Greg> Good for me.

<MargaretI> Good compromise.

<Ann> Better, actually.

Session Close: Sun Mar 19 05:09:51 2000

 

 

 

 

 

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