From: Jasper
Date: 17 Apr 2000
Time: 08:21:24
Remote Name: dyn1-tnt12-173.detroit.mi.ameritech.net
Charlie,
Hold everything. It sounds like you are saying something different from what I understood before. I may have to redo everything. On the other hand, I may not have had the problem I thought I did in the first place.
I wanted the on-line reader to see my writing process as it unfolded. That means knowing that what they read is incomplete. No matter what you write, the only way you can know what your reader is reading is for the reader to tell you. You can see that with your posts when you think you have written one thing and people read something else. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're not. But you can't do anything about it until you know what it is. The problem is, if you give the same information to several different people whatever it is will be too much for some (don't insult me with unnecessary explanations-what you said was obvious) and not enough (what the hell are you talking about?). That's why the few people who comment on the first drafts have such a tremendous influence on the final product.
The Smoking Gun was designed to have an index for every reference to every movie on every page. Perhaps I should have said this in the first place but I didn't think it would be necessary (that's why I need feedback). I hoped that the on-line reader would understand that what I was doing would change from week to week or even day to day as I gathered more information, corrected errors and got a better feel for how best to cover a given subject. That means you can't do the index until you finish the book--which is one more reason I held off putting the chapters up until I'd written that last one.
In other words, what I did may not have answered all of your concerns.
For example, as I was about to put up the chapters last night, I discovered a Robocop link that will have an affect on several chapters going all the way back to chapter 9. One change like this can throw off the whole page numbering system and I have had to make hundreds of changes like this all along. Do you think I should hold off until I've finished the index, or do you still want to see what I've done so far? --Jasper
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Glad that you are making the changes I suggested about more referring back to other things you wrote with details. It may have been a function of reading it in "parts" but I found the references before vague and had to actually go back and try to find what you had written before without really knowing which chapter to go look for it in. Also you are much more familiar with the movies and their plots than your readers are so what came "naturally" to you was a struggle for the readers.
I hope you took it in the spirit of Constructive Criticism because that is how it was meant. I take nothing away from the work that you have done. What I wanted you to see was that the work would be wasted and/or your readers would miss a good many of your points if they were not as familiar with the movies and the references as you are. Constantly having to go back and try to find something to recall a reference would defeat the purpose of the reader having an instant understanding of what you are trying to say.