Episode #228: How Newspaper Writing Has Evolved Over The Centuries

Just to give you a basic idea on how long I've been blogging, this is a pic of my daughter taken circa early 2000s. She will be entering grad school this fall some 17+ years later. Imma feeling really old.😎

Newspaper writing has really evolved over the past two hundred years or so. What was acceptable to write about then, is now not acceptable; and what wasn't then, is more or less accepted practice now.

Note: what I'm about to state is pretty much verifiable. If you do a bit of Googling, or check out the various microfilm/digital archives in the possession of public libraries/historical societies/colleges, you will have a good understanding of what I'm presenting here.

As an example, let's take a look at crime and how it was reported back in the 18th thru early 20th century then, and then compare it to how it's reported today.

Back then, because newspapers were really the only game in town, the more lurid the crime, the better it was for the average writer. Because, let's face it, the philosophy of today's "if it bleeds, it leads", was very much the norm. Didn't really matter what kind of serious crime it was, it was reported to the smallest graphic detail. Now unlike today, where certain crimes involve the kind of victim where you would sensibly respect their privacy by not stating identifiable personal details (and you can take a good guess on what those would be); back then, every identifiable personal detail was given, including the lurid description of the actual crime itself.

It was definitely a shock to my system to see how certain violent crimes were reported on. However, what was also a certain shock to the system was how they censored certain words, either substituting opaque words for actual words {e.g. "ravished" for the actual vulgar description} or doing something like implying what a "bad" word was without actually writing the full word out {e.g. instead of writing "damned" they would write "d______" instead. This practice was widely used to skirt libel/slander laws as well}.

Today, a lot has changed. The truly graphic descriptions have mostly been moved to books/magazines/other video mediums, leaving the (mostly) PG-13 descriptions intact and the plethora of personal details in regards to certain crimes has been judiciously censored over the preceding decades, so that the privacy rights of the individual are respected.

Now, lets move on to advertising and see how that has evolved over the centuries. 

Back in the later part of the 19th century (1860's to maybe 1880's) advertising copy was often very outlandish, fanciful, braggadocios and at times, extremely racist. Now what I mean by the last part, is that during the latter part of the 19th century, racist tropes/stereotypes were on full display in the ad campaigns that dealt with patent medicines. Whatever offensive trope that you know of now, was effectively used in selling certain types of patent medicines, and other assorted non-consumable products.

The one that always stuck out to me, simply because it was so blatantly racist (but keep in mind this was the normal mindset for the 18th century and beyond), was the ad campaign for a patent medicine called "Dr. Sanford's Ginger" which was marketed as a remedy for an upset stomach. I would love to describe to you the reader what was contained within the ad, but the pragmatic side of me hates having anything that I say being misconstrued into something that I would stupidly believe in (yes, this has happened to me over the past 15+ years on FB). Instead, I will strongly encourage that you the reader, Google the phrase noted above to see what exactly I'm talking about.

Now, in the 21st century, advertising/marketing campaigns have become (mostly) less offensive to the average consumer. Blatantly racist tropes/stereotypes have long been discarded in favor of real world scenarios and the often gentle mocking of normal stereotypes, whether it's a person/place/thing. It's also been moved more towards the Internet (YouTube especially) where you can explicitly target without offending others.

Newspaper writing has evolved over the centuries to the point where that tired well-worn cliche of "less is more", actually does work. The better you can narrow your target with your writing (I often compare average newspaper stories to writing micro flash fiction), the more that particular reader will actually pay attention. At least, that is the working theory that is often ignored these days.

Please tune in next week when I will pontificate about another historical newspaper tidbit that was all the rage in the 18th through the early 20th century but has recently fallen by the wayside: frequency of publication!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #227: How Reading Ye Olden Newspapers Shaped My Writing

Full moons are very cool in my neck of the woods. Reminds me that the simplest things in the universe often bring the greatest amount of pleasure.

I have mentioned periodically over the past seventeen years of blogging, that one of my very first state agency jobs was working at the Connecticut State Library {1996-2003}, first as clerk, then later as an office assistant in a sub department called The Connecticut Newspaper Project, then later in a regular department called History/Archives (this moniker to differentiate from the History/Genealogy department). 

I wrote almost two dozen posts about my time spent there at my very first blog, Cedar's Mountain, which you will find at this link called Library, covering mostly newspaper humor and old newspapers in general.

Having to read 18th thru early 20th century newspapers to get certain types of information for things like programming reels of microfilm or determining a publishing schedule (tri-weeklies were very much a given in the 18th and 19th century), along with reading multiple versions of historical events (like reading three different versions of Rudolf Valentino's 'sudden' death) gave me a deeper appreciation of what actual journalists had to go through.

Back then, newspapers & periodicals were often the only form of entertainment available to the general public. Books were usually too expensive for the general masses to consume, so it often fell to the newspapers to keep people well informed and entertained. This required publishers to churn out massive quantities of very dense articles of all persuasions to keep the masses hooked, so to speak.

This in turn required the writer/journalist to churn out very precise and overly informative articles, which is why if you look at a typical newspaper from the 19th century, most stories often ran two or more full newspaper length columns, with incredibly tiny print (if I remember correctly, the font size was usually between 3 & 5 point; for modern comparison I would say the standard text on a back of any state's lottery ticket should suffice) but packed with loads of information. I would also say that, unlike today's non-tabloid style newspaper, the average size of a newspaper page was doubled the size of a page from say, the New York Times.

I spent a lot of time reading those very informative stories, digesting the often standard style of how the story was written and the kind of information contained (back then, the only words that were actually censored were curse words. seriously). I would like to think that these old newspapers had influenced the way I went about performing my descriptive writing style. To this day, I sincerely believe that my descriptive writing is still my strongest suit, and reading those early newspapers still has a continuing influence on how I write (see last week's blog post on how I choose character names as an example of this influence).

I've had a lot of fun tripping down my memory lane in order to write this blog post. Truth be told, it still remains my absolute favorite state agency job to have during my almost 25 years of state employment {1996-2020}. In fact, to borrow a former football owner's catch phrase about his commercial product, I enjoyed my trip so much that I have decided to revisit my time spent working with old newspapers at the Library with a newish series of blog posts about them. So prepare yourself for this ye olden gentleman to gently pontificate about the curious history of old newspapers, from a purely observational viewpoint.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode # 226: The Almighty Power Of A First Name

I loves me some flowers. Call me old fashioned, call me quaint, call me appreciative, but I do enjoy the simple beauty of a singular flower. I love how the simple act of stopping to admire a flower allows me to press the reset button on my day thus far and start anew in a slightly different direction.

I've had a very long and quixotic relationship when it came to names of the old-fashioned variety. For many, many decades, I always thought it was very odd for people to be called by their full first name. Whether I was reading old books/articles or watching t.v. shows/movies, it just seemed...odd.

It wasn't until the mid 1990's, when my first state job was participating in a microfilming project, did I start to understand and appreciate the morals/values/reasonings of the 18th, 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries when it came to using proper first names. The full appreciation/understanding of using proper first names really solidified when I started on this writing journey of mine.

I decided to start using proper first names, instead of short versions/nicknames, for the bulk of my characters, because I equated using proper first names, no matter if the character was a protagonist or antagonist, for people of power and intelligence. I know this sounds odd, but this is how I decided to roll with the majority of my stories.

I started off on my journey by using the name "Charles" in my latest novella, The Mortality of Familial Love. I always thought it was a good solid first name, no matter which way I decided to go, so I turned the character into a psychotic antagonist. I wound up using the name "Dmitri" for one of the protagonists, because that was one of the few Russian names that I had respected over the years.

After that novella, I moved on to another novella, which I'm hoping to publish in 2025, by continuing to use proper full length first names, thus the names of Bradley, Melvin, Terrance and Frederick for men, and Alexia, Claire and Xandra for women came into usage. Again, these are the seldom used versions of popular names, thus allowing me to really flesh out the characters for the stories.

For my current project, I went feral hog wild, so to speak. Because I was dealing with a multitude of different time periods and cultures, I had to go down the proverbial rabbit hole to find the proper names that would seamlessly fit in my books series. To whit:

1} I used a little Greek/Roman mythology when I chose the names Nyx and Myla for two of my protagonists; Adeola was a name that was used in the original draft of the story, and since I liked it so much, I simply kept it for this story. Now, as part of an extremely extensive background dump that is peppered throughout the series for the first two, I gave them the names Alexandra and Alicia.

2} Continuing on a theme of Southern European names, I chose the name Thanatos (mythology) and Mateo (Italian for Matthew) for two other protagonists/antagonists. For other male characters, I used Roberto, Armand, Felipe and Silencioso for first names. Again, all proper full length first names, save for the last, which is either Spanish or Portuguese for 'silence'.

3} In regards to using full length first names for the rest of my female characters, I performed a very deep dive of my memory archives and Google in order to find suitable names that would fit with the various time periods being referenced in the story. In no particular order of importance, we came up with the following:

• Melissa: I have an affinity for using names that begin with the letter "M", and I often have a very hard time finding a story to use them in a respectful manner. This is one, of two, is a combo protag/antag that I'm finding an increasing amount of ease in having them jump to and from (like Jekyll and Hyde).
• Emilia and Eleanor: both of these names I pulled directly from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. The were portrayed as being extremely old fashioned ladies (think Victorian or Edwardian era), and I just fell in love with their portrayal. The former is a sentient being whose host is Melissa, while the latter is a sentient being, albeit a sister, to the Pod Queen.
• Macha: I was looking for a strong warrior type of name for the Pod Queen, and doing some mythology research brought me to the Celtic universe, where I found that Macha was an upper echelon deity in their mythological universe.
• Millicent: the various stories/articles that I've read over the decades have always portrayed women named Millicent as strong, independent and resourceful individuals. So I did the same with my Millicent, but added in the fact that she's a human/sentient hybrid.
• Lady Nordic: I know it doesn't look like the moniker doesn't fit, and I admit it was used as a descriptor for her ethnic background, but by the final volume of the series, I gave her the name of Agnes. Again, very old fashioned, but I'm writing her as a complex character, in that she started out as a fearsome warrior but gradually transformed herself into a reluctant pacifist.
• Isiah: at one point I had three humanoids, two of which had Southern European names (Anatole and Arturo). The remaining humanoid, Isiah, his was pulled directly from the 19th century, when parents had a thing about using biblical names for their children. Because he was created, quite literally, from scratch, he has a certain naivete that is slowly being infused with his real world experiences.
• Chaska and Chasca: These two names were an unusual choice at first glance. I originally had them named Frankie and Nan, but due to the fact that I was using a small chunk of Incan mythology/culture in my story and decided to make them distant cousins to certain others, I needed to change their names. Hence, after a twenty minute walk through Incan mythology, we settled on these two minor(?) deities.
• Ilka and Bella: I will grant you that these aren't strictly old fashioned names, these were two more names that I had kept from the original story. The former is one of those family religious names that aren't really used in day-to-day settings, only on official paperwork; the latter is probably one of the few nicknames I decided to use, at least initially. Once I got deeper into the story and gradually transformed my two protagonists into antagonists, I decided to use two names that fit quite snugly with their increasingly poisonous demeanor: Brugmansia and Atropa Belladonna.
• Supay: Being somewhat immersed in Incan mythology/culture required introducing a deity that would help make one the secondary plots gel smoother with the rest of the story. Since we have a thing about death and dying permeating throughout this series, bringing in a deity that rules the Incan underworld made perfect sense. This particular deity is what they call "an intergender" (?), in that they're portrayed as both male and female in a given mythology.
• Vindictive: This one was also not an old fashioned name, as I decided to use this as a substitute for a real name that does not and will not exist. However, I did use a modified version of it, Vindi, for the sentient being it was attached to.

Using these types of names, proper formal as opposed to casual/nickname, is now an essential part of my writing handbook. For me, it lends some solid cachet to my writing, in that I can explore a deepness to my characters that I haven't done previously. Especially when the type of characters I write about/use (e.g. sentient beings and hybrids) require that type of depth to begin with.

Thank you for coming along yet another side tangent of my writing life that I rarely share with others.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #225: The Legend Of The Grammar Cowpoke

Pic was taken on the second to last road trip vacation that I had partook in back in the late 2000's (last road trip/vacation was in 2016). I think this was at the US Civil War Museum, Harrisburg PA. Cool museum if you're into American military history. One of a few places I would like to revisit before my health declines to the point of not being able to drive anymore.

Grammar is such a fascinating concept at times. I've always enjoyed the word play that I used to partake in when I was a young'un in the 1980's & 90's (e.g. parodies) and the creative insults that I used to throw around in the chat rooms of the mid-2000's, but I never really got serious about exploring the various parts of grammar until I started writing in the late 2000's. At that point, I went down that Mariana Trench rabbit hole and to this day I have not really left it.

Which brings us to the present. The present involves writing sometimes witty, sometimes sarcastic but always acerbic dialogue and descriptive scenes. The present also involves examining with a tighter discerning eye when it comes to songs.

It's only been the past few decades when I really started to examine the lyrics to the various songs that I listen to, because I now view them through the eyes of a writer, as opposed to a listener. Viewing a song through the writing lens allows me to interpret a song as a piece of flash fiction, which in turn allows me to pick up the nuances of the meaning behind a particular stanza. A lot of the time it's very subtle, which becomes easily missed on the first listen through.

One example of this kind of subtle change is the song "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The first half of the song starts very upbeat, like the person being sung about is going to do great things. Then, with a few simple word changes: is, gonna, gotta, was, never, shoulda, are and were, the entire second half of the song changes to a very downer of story, like failure was the only viable option to pursue. Again, very subtle, but poignant.

Another example is the song "Figured You Out" by Nickelback. This time, the first half of the song goes on about loving/admiring certifiably sh!t behavior in a person. But with one word change: like & love to hate, the sentiment changes to despising the same certifiably sh!t behavior in that same person.

Yes, I proudly admit to liking the two most hated bands of the 90's and 2000's. I own at least four c.d.s of each.

While those are the two most notable examples of audio word play that I've managed to come up, I think my forte is inflection. Changing the infliction of a word, or even the word order in a sentence allows someone to read it in a whole new context. This is something that I actually enjoy doing with my storytelling. Inflection, subtle tonal changes (e.g. witty to sarcastic), gives my writing a level of pizzazz that hasn't been experienced before.

I still can remember an insult that I used a lot in the chat rooms, that was mocking and sarcastic in tone, which was, surprisingly enough, very easy to pick up on: Arrgh! Skewered by your rapier-like wit! I am wounded! Oh wait, it's just a mosquito bite. Never mind.

Now, I do so enjoy laying out my protagonists and antagonists with biting repartee in my stories. I mean, my storytelling landscape is littered with people who have suffered the verbal equivalent of a death by a thousand paper cuts. I haven't used it as much in my social media outlets, simply because one, I've weeded out all of the pages/people/adverts that I don't care too much for, and two, I have a very low tolerance of censorship, so I studiously avoid saying things that would get me censored by the bots/admins on those platforms (and no, I'm not on "X").

So, what say you, how do you feel about reading, writing and playing with grammar, to the point that you've become your very own grammar po-po? Do you like it, hate it, or pursue it with a sadistic glee that can make people really wonder what kind of writer you really are?

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved