Sweet Anticipation

I recently saw the first episode of the Morgan Spurlock series 30 Days, in which Spurlock and his fiancée go to Columbus, Ohio, and try to live on minimum wage jobs for a month. "The working poor," they kept saying, and I kept feeling like they were talking about me and husband. He's found a job in his field, but it doesn't pay enough for us to buy health insurance, much less to really get set up. In Columbus, when they filmed, there existed "free stores" where said "working poor" could come and pick out donated items that they might need, without charge. The Spurlocks picked up tables and chairs and mattresses and got really nicely set up for that kind of budget! Alas, I haven't found any such free stores in Tucson. There are more thrift stores here than I've ever seen anywhere else, but even if you find something that makes you feel like it's not full of bedbugs, you still have to have your own way of getting it back to your place of residence. Our Honda Civic wouldn't cut it.

So last Saturday night we finally gave in to the irresistible urge to go to Sam Levitz. 

The worst part about buying a new couch is that time period between the purchase and the delivery. Luckily, our waiting period was short. We gave up on the folding chairs, as I mentioned, on Saturday night. We decided that since there was no couch waiting for us in storage in Pennsylvania, it was worth the risk to charge a very reasonably priced futon. It could serve as both a bed and a couch, two things we presently lacked. 

Sunday we imagined how much more wonderful it would be to watch the Criminal Minds marathon on our borrowed TV if we could only relax on some seating that wasn't metal. 

Monday I dreamed about how all the kinks in my neck would be gone if only I could sit on a couch and work with the laptop instead of hunch on the floor or the air mattress. 

Monday night we groaned into the air mattress and tried to figure out whether the sheets would work on the new futon, now so near to us! Sweet anticipation! 

And here it is early Tuesday afternoon and the apartment is finally starting to look halfway furnished. The futon nicely simulates a real couch when it's up. It's soooo soft and cushy, I might have to take a nap on it before I can get to work. Also, the salesman at Levitz told us to go back in and check whether the price had gone down, so we could maybe get a refund as big as $100. So what could possibly be wrong? Sorry, Mom, the only color available was chocolate brown. I guess beggars can't be choosers. 

Showing versus Telling

"Telling" gets a really bad rap in the writing world. The strong, universal preference seems to be for lush, sensory-enhanced descriptions of every detail and emotion that happens to fall into the scope of a story. In writing courses, instructors always admonish, "Show, don't tell!" But for someone like me, who can appreciate brevity, telling has its uses. While I would not care to read a whole novel of bare telling, consider the following opportunities:

• Moving the story along: "Three days passed with no news."

• Shorthand for a minor character: "Melissa had lived next to Bob since they were children."

• Keeping under a word limit: Sometimes all you have room for is "He was handsome." Admittedly, as I mused in my last post, most editors want more words instead of fewer, but there will always be a time in a writer's life when words are at a premium.

• Summarizing the first book, if this is a subsequent book in the series. J. K. Rowling did this at the beginning of  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, so technically you never had to read The Philosopher's Stone. Of course, most people did read it, and they were allowed to skip over the summary in the second book if they were so inclined. The telling did no damage to anyone in that case.

• Otherwise avoiding repetition: "He sat them down and told them what had happened, leaving nothing out."

Just as a single short sentence can be the strongest among long ones, a well-placed instance of telling, set like a diamond on a cushion of showing, can make the biggest impact. Used consciously and skillfully, a writer can consider telling one more tool in her kit.

So, for Pete's sake, move the story along, people!

Book Length as Cultural Index

At the beginning of January,  Goodreads released a list of "Books of 2010," obtaining votes from users for a list of pre-selected tomes as well as a few write-in winners. And so we confirm yet again that there are too may wonderful books to ever read.

I noticed a strange trend. Most of the most voted-for books were over 500 pages long, and many of these were mere parts of a series, meaning that the entire story would run thousands of pages. For some reason, I remembered English classes in grade school, which were just one long string of students complaining about how many pages the assigned books were. When we had to read Great Expectations, only the abridged version was required. Those of us who were curious enough to read the uncut version may have received extra credit just for intrepidness.

Are these people who would read the unabridged Dickens the same ones driving the voting for Goodreads' Best Books? Maybe they consider themselves "serious readers," who have to set themselves apart by reading epic tomes just for fun.

The long book phenomenon may have something to do with publishers, whose biggest cost is actually the paper the book is printed on. A shorter book doesn't generally become cheap enough for publishers to lower the price to meet consumers' expectations. And so, publishers choose to print longer works that make the readers feel they're getting their money's worth of paper and words.

Not to mention that series become addictive, and sales of one volume in a series boosts the next volume's sales, etc.

Another trend we've seen in the last few months is the increasing popularity of e-readers and thus, e-books. Obviously, paper costs are not an issue for e-books. Publishers can cut the prices significantly while delivering less traditional lengths of quality writing. Shorter books might have a fighting chance! I think that's the logic behind Amazon's recent announcement of a new category in e-books:

"Each Kindle Single presents a compelling idea--well researched, well argued, and well illustrated--expressed at its natural length."


"Natural length" here is defined as 5,000 to 30,000 words. I've always valued economy in writing: getting the most out of each word, making extra ones unnecessary. So I welcome the advent of this new category with open arms.


Tree/House fits neatly into the Single category. I'm not too snobbish to say that I valued a fast read without excess a full two years ago, when I, a publishing pioneer, first made Tree/House available to the Kindle reading public. I've waited patiently for the novella form to again fall into favor. Thanks to you, users of e-readers, it's well on its way! 


The best-selling novella, Tree/House: Now Unveiled in Its Proper Place as a Kindle Single! Thank you so much for reading. 

"Unpredictable Factors" as an Educational Piece, Plus! Check Out My New Site

When "Unpredictable Factors in Human Obedience" was published in Bewildering Stories, I was pleasantly surprised to see it featured in Issue 414's "Challenge." The editor's observations, implied in the questions he posed, showed a degree of insight that not only flattered me as a writer, but also got me thinking about the story in completely new ways.

I now believe that "Unpredictable Factors" could be used in the classroom as a jumping-off point for discussions of professional ethics. The story presents both the education and science research sectors and would surely result in some great critical thinking. So, please suggest to the story to any rhetoric, reading or writing instructors you may know.

Here, I've adapted the editor's questions as possible discussion points.

What political or cultural statement does the story imply?

Even if Emily Mattheson weren’t a schoolteacher, she ought to know better than to do what she does. How is she characterized?

As a hardened criminal?

As a sociopath?

As a terrorist? 

As an opportunist? (As the author, I vote for this one!)

As a naive and careless incompetent? (This one works, too.)

What other endings might the story have?

Why might the author choose to avoid having the story associated in any way with her business plans?


I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I have finally been able to obtain my own domain name: www.jessicaknauss.com! When I get the site up and running, it will include book club guides and fully developed teaching tools for my fun and meaningful stories, among many other wonderful things. I am in need of some funding before this can be realized, however. Please take a moment to take advantage of the never-again-lower, limited-time price of Tree/House in Kindle edition. Or make the decision now to add the paperback to your library. As everyone knows, Tree/House is the most desired novella among book clubs. All proceeds will go directly into a fund for site hosting. Ever wanted to be a philanthropist? I will even put your name on a donor page! Thanks!

My Humble Book Club Hit is Now a HUGE Bargain, Update

Thanks to DailyCheapReads.com and the wonderful support of you, my readers, I have sold 40 digital copies of Tree/House since it was put up on the site. It's important to note that since I get a lower royalty when the price is reduced, I would have to sell 245 more copies in order to fully fund the website venture the way I would like to. But it's also important to note that the Kindle edition will remain at 99 cents only through January 31.

Anyone who's splurged for the deluxe print edition, contact me for a free bookmark and who knows what else!

I hope you enjoy the story! Leave a note on Amazon or Goodreads if you do. Thank you! I'll put you in the website acknowledgments.

My Humble Book-Club Hit is Now a HUGE Bargain

Tree/House has made it onto the amazing site DailyCheapReads.com! As of 8 pm tonight (PST, 9 pm for me and 11 pm EST), you can find the listing. Click on it and buy in Kindle edition, and you'll help these bargain-hunting gals maintain their incredible public service. If you're new to e-reading, Daily Cheap Reads has informative and easy-to-follow guides and suggestions. You'll never build a library so inexpensively again.

Click on the ad here and buy the book in any edition and you'll help me continue providing you with fun blogs and great reads.

The price will never get lower, and it's for a limited time.

All proceeds will go toward building my new site, www.jessicaknauss.com.

Tell all your friends!

Tree/House goes over really well in book clubs. Ask me for classroom tools, teachers! I'm also looking for talent to make a movie version.

Learning in College

A recent article from the AP, "Student tracking finds limited learning in college," reported on a study of university-level learning. The findings ranged all over, but focused on a potentially depressing trend in college students to just not try very hard. Because of this general lack of effort, they didn't learn a whole lot while attending these universally expensive institutions.

Failing to learn anything in college is a terrible waste of time, money, and a spot in a university program. But the only reason the study found trends is that learning is a personal effort. My anecdotal evidence is that there are not a lot of people willing to work hard for any reason, much less for something so intangible as the ability to think critically. The anecdote is supported by two of the findings cited in the article:

• Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains.

• Social engagement generally does not help student performance. Students who spent more time studying with peers showed diminishing growth and students who spent more time in the Greek system had decreased rates of learning, while activities such as working off campus, participating in campus clubs and volunteering did not impact learning.

In plain English: nerds do better. They do better because they have a personal commitment to making the effort to learn. The commitment makes them prioritize learning, thinking, and growing intellectually over all the cited social activities. It makes them read and write more than others, and for that reason many of them can attend more selective schools. 

I was a nerd throughout my schooling, but I never realized it at the time, because my priority was to learn and to get everything I could out of my educational opportunities. I had a few friends with the same priorities as me, and I didn't care what anyone else was doing. I never compared myself, negatively or positively, with the "popular" kids, because they obviously didn't have the core value of love of learning that I had. There was no basis for comparison. 

Whether nerds' personal commitment to learning comes from within or from something environmental is up for debate. I would suggest that, if the government is concerned with producing more smart people, someone should look into what makes those "nerds," who put out the effort to learn, want to do so. Because when it comes to learning, wanting it badly enough to work for it is the only secret.