Not That Kind of Test

The Reading

"Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "" (New International Version)
"And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God." (American Standard Version)
"Jesus answered, "It's been said, Don't test the Lord your God."" (Common English Bible)

The Reasoning

"Christ quoted Deu. 6:16 , where it is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, by desiring a sign for the proof of divine revelation, when he has already given that which is sufficient; for so Israel did, when they tempted God in the wilderness, saying, He gave us water out of the rock; but can he give flesh also? This Christ would be guilty of if he should say, "He did indeed prove me to be the Son of God, by sending the Spirit upon me, which is the greater; but can he also give his angels a charge concerning me, which is the less?’’" (Matthew Henry)

"Jesus points out to the devil that testing God is not trusting God" (Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament).

The Myth of the Sad Ending

            Pretty much everyone in an English-speaking country with some formal education has probably heard of William Shakespeare or read one of his plays. After years of archeology, preservation, and transcripts, one can be fairly sure of the accuracy of most texts today. Interestingly enough, the people living in England around the late seventeenth century did not have this assurance.
(word of warning, for those who haven't read King Lear yet, there will be spoilers).

It seems that around 1687, a poet named Nahum Tate read Shakespeare's King Lear and didn't like the way it ended. Therefore, he wrote an entirely new ending, stuck it on to the end of the original play, and tried to set that up as the original play. Apparently, audiences believed it, and it took some years before someone found a copy of the original play and exposed Tate as the author of the revised version.

In Which We Reach 50

          Yes, dear readers, we have now reached fifty posts, which means I will be writing something off the established track.

           For this particular post, rather than pose questions like I did last time, I'm going to link to a post I wrote on Editing and Revision over at the Young Christian Writers blog.

          Although it might sound like it belongs in Craft Talk, it's actually a separate topic altogether.


          Enjoy!

Introducing a New Topic

         After writing several posts about fiction writing, I have decided to illustrate what I've been teaching with fiction of my own.  As always, any comments or suggestions for improvement are welcome.


         With that said, meet Adam Tipper . . .

This picture (self-drawn) is the reason why this is not a blog about drawing ;-)

        . . . who will be starring in my first blog short story, Whether You Want to or Not

Out of This World

As you all will notice, I've added a new label to the side. It's called "Just Some Warm-Ups."

Under this category, I'm hoping to post writing exercises I have constructed in my spare time. Whether they will be exercises in poetry writing, fiction writing, or otherwise will vary.

Here's my version of an exercise that I've seen in a number of how-to-write-fiction books. I call it, the "Out of this world experience."

Why Do You Keep Telling Me That?

              While listening to last week's sermon, my pastor made an illustration that raised an interesting question.

              We've been discussing Philippians 3:15-4:1, where Paul is telling the church at Philippi to reject self-indulgence (or libertinism) because following Jesus is so much better. Better than the internet, better than riches, even better than raspberry dark chocolate.

              Isn't it true that Christians hear this a lot? Shouldn't we move on to other aspects of the Christian life? Do we need to constantly be told the same thing over and over? Not just that Jesus is better than chocolate, but that we are sinners, that we need to repent, etc. Can't we learn that and move on to something else?

             I would argue that it is helpful to be reminded for a couple of reasons.

This Post is About . . .

. . .

. . . when three periods are lined up in this way (. . .), this is known as an ellipsis. When placed at the end of a sentence, a period is added afterwards, making (. . . .). After the semicolon, the comma, and the exclamation point, the ellipsis is probably the most misunderstood punctuation mark in English. Here's a basic breakdown of when and where to use an ellipsis.


     1. When shortening a quotation

          For example, in an earlier post , I quoted Gail Carson Levine's saying "The best way to write better is to write more. The best way to write more is to write whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer." For simplicity's sake, I easily could have written "The best way to write better is to write . . . whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer." This is perfectly fine as long as my omission does not change the original meaning of the quotation. That would be dishonest.

     2. When indicating a pause in dialogue

         "I couldn't give it to her . . . what I mean is . . . oh I don't know what I'm saying!" something like that. Be warned that readers tire of this kind of construction very quickly, so make sure you know what you're doing when you use an ellipsis this way.

     3. When something is left out of speech

        In the title of this post, I did not finish the sentence. Instead, I used an ellipsis. This is grammatically allowable, but carries the same caution as rule number two. If every sentence ends with an ellipsis, it'll look like the writer is trying to be funny, which isn't something one should try. While humor in books is great, it won't be if it seems like the humor is forced.

     As mentioned, the biggest issue you face with using the ellipsis is that one gets used to it quickly, and it starts to look/sound boring. Also, even though people do have pauses in their speech, that doesn't mean a writer should try and use an ellipsis in place of every other comma. The trick is to use the right punctuation over the stuff that "looks good."


Source here