writers.com newsletter

a monthly electronic publication from
Writers on the Net
http://www.writers.com
Vol. 7, No. 5
May 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:

TRAVEL WRITING
~~CLASS SCHEDULE~~ [to current class schedule page]
PUNCTUATION POINTER: Apostrophes
ROOTS: Trojan War Words & Phrases
~~NEWSLINKS~~

TRAVEL WRITING

Planning a summer vacation? If you travel and you write, there's a good chance that sooner or later you are going to write about your trip. Whether it is a summation for family and friends or a full-blown professional article, writing about your journeys can be a rewarding experience for both you and your readers.

We hope these few tips will prove helpful, but if you'd like to learn a great deal more from professional instructors, Writers on the Net [offers the classws sucha as "Roads Taken: Journey Memoir and "Travel Writing: From Free Trips to Flat Tires." Check our current class schedule for dates.]

* Take a notebook along to jot down impressions. Don't be overly reliant on photos to jog your memory. Snapshots record a view, but they don't capture the essence of the place, time, or people there.

* Just like good fiction, good travel writing "shows" rather than "tells." Let readers experience everything through your eyes. Use your senses to tell them what your newly discovered (or rediscovered) world feels, smells, and tastes.

* Use vivid descriptive language but avoid adjective overload and cliched accounts. (Yes, we know spectacular Niagara Falls is a breathtaking majestic natural wonder.)

* Statistics, if used at all, should be kept to a minimum. (Is not so important that we learn that the brink of Niagara's Canadian Horseshoe Falls is 2600 feet long or the falls are 167 feet high or that the water flow rate is 600,000 U.S. gallons of water every second. It is important -- and interesting -- to get an idea of the immensity and power of the falls.) If you do use them, get them right.

* If possible, try to cover something out-of-the-ordinary about your trip. (A hike on the Niagara Gorge Rim Trail is less ordinary, for example, than yet another ride on the Maid of the Mist.)

* Do not write a step-by-step account of what you did on your summer vacation -- even your fifth grade teacher didn't want to read it.

* Plan what you are going to write. Select a theme or decide on a specific point with which to work.

* Consider concentrating on a single aspect that conveys an overall impression or a concentrated taste of your trip. Trying to cram everything in is usually too much of a good thing.

* Make sure you start off with an interesting "hook" that will pull the reader into your story. ("Emergency rescue personnel plucked me safely from the roiling waters below Horseshoe Falls..." Okay, maybe not THAT interesting.)

* Use active voice and clear writing.

* Enjoy your trip and enjoy writing about it!

PUNCTUATION POINTERS
apostrophes (')

Apostrophes ['] are used to show possession or to link words together in contractions.

Add an apostrophe and an *s* for singular possessive nouns or indefinite pronouns that end in "one" or "body" that show possession.
EX: Mark's class, everybody's favorite

Add only the apostrophe for plural possessive nouns ending in *s*.
EX: my brothers' rooms, the teachers' choice

Add an apostrophe and an *s* for plural possessive nouns that do not end in *s*.
EX: the women's dresses, her children's father

Add an apostrophe and an *s* for singular possessive nouns that end in *s*.
EX: Dennis's car, the class's assignment

Do not use an apostrophe with possessive personal pronouns including yours, his, hers, its, ours, their, and whose.

When two words which have been combined into a single word, the apostrophe "stands in" for missing a letter or letters.

cannot = can't
he is, she is, it is = he's, she's, it's
I am = I'm
I have = I've
let us = let's
they are = they're
who is = who's
you are = you're

AVOID CONFUSING *IT'S* WITH *ITS*.
*IT'S* IS A CONTRACTION FOR *IT IS*;
*ITS* IS A POSSESSIVE PRONOUN.

The word "apostrophe" comes from _apostrephein_, the Greek word for "of turning away."

ROOTS
Trojan War Words & Phrases

With the Hollywood version of the Trojan War filling screens and theaters this weekend, here's a look at some words and phrases with roots in the Greek legend:

* hector: bully; intimidate with threats; bluster
Hector was the mightiest of the Trojan warriors. He shouted at and insulted the Greeks from atop the walls of Troy.

* myrmidon: obedient and unquestioning follower
The Myrmidons were soldiers under Achilles' command from his homeland, Phthia.

* odyssey: a long series of wanderings or travels
Odysseus was the cleverest of the Achaean commanders. After the war he wandered for a decade before finding his way home to Ithaca. Homer wrote of his adventures in an epic poem, THE ODYSSEY.

* palladium: safeguard or protection
The Palladium was statue the Trojans believed ensured the safety of Troy

* stentorian: extremely loud
Stentor, a Greek herald whose voice was, according to Homer, as powerful as those of fifty other men

* mentor: a trusted counselor or guide; a tutor or coach
Odysseus entrusted the education of his son Telemachus to his wise friend, Mentor, while the warrior was fighting the Trojan War (and after).

* * *

* Achilles heel: a weak point
* Achilles' tendon: anatomically, a tendon that stretches from the heel bone to the calf muscle.
The great warrior Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the nymph Thetis. Thetis dipped her infant in the waters of the river Styx in order to make him immortal. She held him by his heel as she submerge him, thereby leaving one spot on his body susceptible to injury. (This myth is not in Homer's ILIAD. Not until Statius (c. A.D. 45-96), a Roman poet, was Achilles' heel mentioned as the vulnerable spot.)

* [a] Cassandra: one who makes unheeded prophecies or someone who constantly predicts bad news.
Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, the king of Troy, and Queen Hecuba. Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, but when she spurned his amorous advances, he cursed her so that no one believed her accurate predictions. (Homer makes no mention of Cassandra's prophetic power. The poet Pindar (522 BC - 443 BC) called her a prophet and Aeschylus (525?-456 BC) portrays her tragic gift in his play, AGAMEMNON.)

*"beware of Greeks bearing gifts": be cautious about accepting anything from an enemy.
The Trojan priest Laocoon warned against bringing the huge horse supposed left by the Greeks into Troy, saying (more or less), "I am wary of Greeks even when they are bringing gifts."

*"face that launched a thousand ships": refers to Helen or one of Helen-like beauty
Christopher Marlowe, in his 16th century play, Doctor Faustus, refers to Helen of Troy with:

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

The "thousand ships" were ships of war. Ilium is another name for Troy. The beautiful Helen was a daughter of the god Zeus. Married to Menelaus, the ruler of Sparta, she was taken by Paris (a prince of Troy and son of Priam and Hecuba) to Troy. This became the pretext for the Trojan War.

*"fight like a Trojan":
to fight with great determination and zeal In the tenth year of the war, the Greeks finally had to resort to trickery to defeat the Trojans.

* Trojan horse:
1) subversive group or device placed within enemy ranks. 2) program that appears to be legitimate but is designed to have destructive effects, as to data residing in the computer onto which the program was loaded.
The Greeks devised a hollow wooden horse in which they hid and gained entrance to Troy, later opening the gates to their army.

QUOTATION: "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." -- St. Augustine (354-430)

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