TQR Genesis: The Initial Document
TQR, What's It All About Alfie
By Theodore Q. Rorschalk
What's TQR?
First it was nothing. The whole thing about scrolled stories on the Web finally pissed me off enough to where I asked myself the question: Why couldn't their be a better way? Page-by-page perhaps. It seemed to me like a revelation and a key to the Internet actually getting more people to read stories directly on it instead of buying Glimmertrain or Paris Review because 'Oh, I just can't give up the feel of a book in my hands and the wonders of paper!' So, I went around screaming this from the roof tops for a few days before it dawned on me that this innovation was, though revelatory, not The Revolution, but only a small spoke in its (The Revolution's) wheel. Then, the whole concept started landsliding in my brain.
I've always been a huge fan of SCTV and had been watching and re-watching their just released DVDs over and over and driving my wife insane. I just watched the film "The Matrix" again last week for the 10th time or so. Although, on first glance, these two different television entities may not have the slightest thing in common, you gotta take a closer look! Both play with what is reality and what isn't. The Matrix co-opts the Internet to create an alternate world that cloaks the nightmarish actuality Mankind has fallen into. SCTV co-opts television by creating a fictional station whose management structure and their foibles become just as hilarious as the faux programming they produce. In both cases, one world is shadowed by another. I'm not able to communicate the true genius of the contrivances. But they sure tapped into the collective unconscious somehow. At least The Matrix did. The timing for that movie was perfect because of how it took this fledgling Internet technology and stood it on its head. SCTV was too far ahead of it's time, imo, and so didn't garner as much public success.
So what the fuck does this have to do with my stumblings and bumblings around here? Well. I guess those are just two of the straws that broke my back, so to speak and made me start looking at E-pubs in a wholly different light.
Lemme explain myself. It's a common refrain: editors of e-zines lamenting their second class status in regards to literary (and genre) print journals. "Why oh why can't they be nice to us and give us the respect we deserve?" Well. The obvious answer is because why would they want to give credence to something that has the potential of sending their circulations plummeting? Why'd they want to give a helping hand to their potential competition? I ask you, why! No good reason pops to mind. The print editors are smart to give a little wave and a passing smile from afar. And that's how it will remain until e-zine editors stop whining and begin to understand that they will never be able to compete with print journals if they keep their current formats and standard operating procedures. The examples of why this is are many, but here are one or two of the biggest.
1. People like to read on paper just cuz that's how they learned to read, which puts e-publishing in a huge hole right off the bat. I don't buy the 'there's something about the feel of smashed pulp on my fingertips that just makes me orgasmic' line anymore than I believe the old writer's "There's something about the feel of a pencil in my hand and the sound of lead scratching on paper that I just can't pull myself away from.' (in lieu of composing straight onto the screen using a keyboard.) See? That stigma has been overcome, imo, because basic word processing programs have been around a hell of a lot longer than these stylized story mills known as e-zines. What's needed to push people over the hump from reading on paper to a computer monitor more comfortably is an improvement in software comparable to say, Microsoft's introduction of Word or even that old program Wordstar that I cut my teeth on back in the day. Who in my generation writes longhand anymore? Not a large percentage. Had you told Hemingway 70 years ago that pen to paper would one day be passe he probably would have given you the old one-two and thrown you over the bar. Back then it was unthinkable. You needed to peck with index fingers as hard as sledgehammers to operate a typewriter and, thus, even the types qualitative improvement couldn't overcome the cumbersomeness of the power pecking method needed to type back then. What happened to get people to compose on keyboards was the advent of the personal computer and it's companion, the keyboard. Improved technology. Granted, I don't think the paradigm shift from reading on a paper page to the screen is going to be as high a percentage of those who've gone from longhand writing to keyboard, but it will happen!
Before this shift will occur what needs to be addressed is, as I've alluded to in the previous paragraph, technology, software improvements of page layout specifically. Scrolling is a terrible application, imo, in it's current manifestation. Those who've grown used to it are a relatively small percentage of even those people too numerous to count who regularly surf the Web. In my opinion, that particular application has to change or be seriously modified before the public will start to read fiction more online (not to mention other types of textual material). Also, look at the word 'scroll' itself. How many thousands of years have passed since scrolls were in common use? You may laugh at this point, but words matter, even if on an unconscious level. The uninitiated's first contact with a story on the Web is facilitated by a 'scroll' bar? This could be the proverbial "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" bad first impression. The unending block of text that scrolling uses is a bane to all e-zines, no matter the aesthetic quality. The Paumanok Review, for instance, is a beautifully layed out e-zine. It's scroll is broken up nicely with white space and it's not too bad to read. But, what if Katherine Arline took the next step and went to a page-by-page or even a hybrid scroll/page format? In that particular e-zine's case, because it is already so superiorly layed out, it would be the closest thing to reading a print journal you could get on the Web. And K. Arline's hits, imo, would probably increase.
2. Aesthetics, too, are lacking for an e-zine culture to ever be able to differentiate itself from print. Why? Listen now, THIS IS IMPORTANT! E-zines cannot differentiate themselves from print journals (other than the fact that they are constantly living in the print's shadow, automatically looked down upon by both the public, the writing community, and the prints themselves) because most of e-zines DON'T EVEN TRY! Most them DON'T EVEN WANT TO! If they had their druthers, they'd be print journals themselves. They are essentially bastard step children, pixelated soft covers melted behind a flat screen of glass not because the public, their own peers and the print journals themselves are mean, backbiting, uneducated cretins, but because the fact their creator(s) couldn't afford the printer's fees and the logistical aggravations! If you follow what I'm saying (and I think I'm straying a little bit here, so'se lemme try and reiterate somehow and pull it all together), the fact is e-zines are simply print journals that happen to be floating around in cyberspace waiting for their underused url to be typed, instead of sitting on a shelf in some Barnes and Noble.
Here's the quarterly arc of most e-zines: Their editors and designers craft the new edition. Send out a few e-mails to search engines or post on the message boards of this place and various other specialty writing sites. For about a day, much festive hijinx ensues and accolades are sung. Then the fucking magazine sits there for 3 months like a stagnant pear that somebody forgot to throw away after it had shriveled up into a withered peel that'd lost all its juice. Nobody has thought to take advantage of the features exclusive to the Internet that the print journals couldn't even come close to realizing. And if they have, they've not done it in a way that has made much of any difference, as far as I know. (McSweeney's pops to mind, perhaps, as being an exception.) Which is a shame. There is the opportunity for real time editorial disclosures that submitting writers and writers in general could hugely benefit from. And the public at large, due to the human voyeuristic proclivity (reality televistion anyone?), might also be intrigued by this heretofore hidden world. This is just one boat all internet publishers have missed before now. And that is all I'm going to say about it further. I don't trust most of you bastards farther than I could throw you. If you are sincere and want to know the whole scoop, depending on who you are, I will share more. Until then. Good night.
TQR essay clarification
By Theo Q. Rorschalk
It's been brought to my attention, that my essay is easily misunderstood to be calling for a Web revolution that will shake the foundations of print journal publishing. And I can understand that it could be read that way because I spend a lot of time talking about print v. Web. The only revolution (or evolution, perahp, to put it more precisely) I am suggesting, however, needs to happen insularly: e-zines need to forget about print journals altogether and retool themselves. Stop trying to compete with print journals on print journal's terms, at least. E-zines need a whole new way of operating. They need to maximize the Internet's strengths, instead of ignoring them. Until e-zines start utilizing all the technology that is available to them to interact with their audience the way print journals cannot and never will be able to do, then all you're going to have is wannabe print journals lost in cyberspace. Thank you. #
By Theodore Q. Rorschalk
What's TQR?
First it was nothing. The whole thing about scrolled stories on the Web finally pissed me off enough to where I asked myself the question: Why couldn't their be a better way? Page-by-page perhaps. It seemed to me like a revelation and a key to the Internet actually getting more people to read stories directly on it instead of buying Glimmertrain or Paris Review because 'Oh, I just can't give up the feel of a book in my hands and the wonders of paper!' So, I went around screaming this from the roof tops for a few days before it dawned on me that this innovation was, though revelatory, not The Revolution, but only a small spoke in its (The Revolution's) wheel. Then, the whole concept started landsliding in my brain.
I've always been a huge fan of SCTV and had been watching and re-watching their just released DVDs over and over and driving my wife insane. I just watched the film "The Matrix" again last week for the 10th time or so. Although, on first glance, these two different television entities may not have the slightest thing in common, you gotta take a closer look! Both play with what is reality and what isn't. The Matrix co-opts the Internet to create an alternate world that cloaks the nightmarish actuality Mankind has fallen into. SCTV co-opts television by creating a fictional station whose management structure and their foibles become just as hilarious as the faux programming they produce. In both cases, one world is shadowed by another. I'm not able to communicate the true genius of the contrivances. But they sure tapped into the collective unconscious somehow. At least The Matrix did. The timing for that movie was perfect because of how it took this fledgling Internet technology and stood it on its head. SCTV was too far ahead of it's time, imo, and so didn't garner as much public success.
So what the fuck does this have to do with my stumblings and bumblings around here? Well. I guess those are just two of the straws that broke my back, so to speak and made me start looking at E-pubs in a wholly different light.
Lemme explain myself. It's a common refrain: editors of e-zines lamenting their second class status in regards to literary (and genre) print journals. "Why oh why can't they be nice to us and give us the respect we deserve?" Well. The obvious answer is because why would they want to give credence to something that has the potential of sending their circulations plummeting? Why'd they want to give a helping hand to their potential competition? I ask you, why! No good reason pops to mind. The print editors are smart to give a little wave and a passing smile from afar. And that's how it will remain until e-zine editors stop whining and begin to understand that they will never be able to compete with print journals if they keep their current formats and standard operating procedures. The examples of why this is are many, but here are one or two of the biggest.
1. People like to read on paper just cuz that's how they learned to read, which puts e-publishing in a huge hole right off the bat. I don't buy the 'there's something about the feel of smashed pulp on my fingertips that just makes me orgasmic' line anymore than I believe the old writer's "There's something about the feel of a pencil in my hand and the sound of lead scratching on paper that I just can't pull myself away from.' (in lieu of composing straight onto the screen using a keyboard.) See? That stigma has been overcome, imo, because basic word processing programs have been around a hell of a lot longer than these stylized story mills known as e-zines. What's needed to push people over the hump from reading on paper to a computer monitor more comfortably is an improvement in software comparable to say, Microsoft's introduction of Word or even that old program Wordstar that I cut my teeth on back in the day. Who in my generation writes longhand anymore? Not a large percentage. Had you told Hemingway 70 years ago that pen to paper would one day be passe he probably would have given you the old one-two and thrown you over the bar. Back then it was unthinkable. You needed to peck with index fingers as hard as sledgehammers to operate a typewriter and, thus, even the types qualitative improvement couldn't overcome the cumbersomeness of the power pecking method needed to type back then. What happened to get people to compose on keyboards was the advent of the personal computer and it's companion, the keyboard. Improved technology. Granted, I don't think the paradigm shift from reading on a paper page to the screen is going to be as high a percentage of those who've gone from longhand writing to keyboard, but it will happen!
Before this shift will occur what needs to be addressed is, as I've alluded to in the previous paragraph, technology, software improvements of page layout specifically. Scrolling is a terrible application, imo, in it's current manifestation. Those who've grown used to it are a relatively small percentage of even those people too numerous to count who regularly surf the Web. In my opinion, that particular application has to change or be seriously modified before the public will start to read fiction more online (not to mention other types of textual material). Also, look at the word 'scroll' itself. How many thousands of years have passed since scrolls were in common use? You may laugh at this point, but words matter, even if on an unconscious level. The uninitiated's first contact with a story on the Web is facilitated by a 'scroll' bar? This could be the proverbial "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" bad first impression. The unending block of text that scrolling uses is a bane to all e-zines, no matter the aesthetic quality. The Paumanok Review, for instance, is a beautifully layed out e-zine. It's scroll is broken up nicely with white space and it's not too bad to read. But, what if Katherine Arline took the next step and went to a page-by-page or even a hybrid scroll/page format? In that particular e-zine's case, because it is already so superiorly layed out, it would be the closest thing to reading a print journal you could get on the Web. And K. Arline's hits, imo, would probably increase.
2. Aesthetics, too, are lacking for an e-zine culture to ever be able to differentiate itself from print. Why? Listen now, THIS IS IMPORTANT! E-zines cannot differentiate themselves from print journals (other than the fact that they are constantly living in the print's shadow, automatically looked down upon by both the public, the writing community, and the prints themselves) because most of e-zines DON'T EVEN TRY! Most them DON'T EVEN WANT TO! If they had their druthers, they'd be print journals themselves. They are essentially bastard step children, pixelated soft covers melted behind a flat screen of glass not because the public, their own peers and the print journals themselves are mean, backbiting, uneducated cretins, but because the fact their creator(s) couldn't afford the printer's fees and the logistical aggravations! If you follow what I'm saying (and I think I'm straying a little bit here, so'se lemme try and reiterate somehow and pull it all together), the fact is e-zines are simply print journals that happen to be floating around in cyberspace waiting for their underused url to be typed, instead of sitting on a shelf in some Barnes and Noble.
Here's the quarterly arc of most e-zines: Their editors and designers craft the new edition. Send out a few e-mails to search engines or post on the message boards of this place and various other specialty writing sites. For about a day, much festive hijinx ensues and accolades are sung. Then the fucking magazine sits there for 3 months like a stagnant pear that somebody forgot to throw away after it had shriveled up into a withered peel that'd lost all its juice. Nobody has thought to take advantage of the features exclusive to the Internet that the print journals couldn't even come close to realizing. And if they have, they've not done it in a way that has made much of any difference, as far as I know. (McSweeney's pops to mind, perhaps, as being an exception.) Which is a shame. There is the opportunity for real time editorial disclosures that submitting writers and writers in general could hugely benefit from. And the public at large, due to the human voyeuristic proclivity (reality televistion anyone?), might also be intrigued by this heretofore hidden world. This is just one boat all internet publishers have missed before now. And that is all I'm going to say about it further. I don't trust most of you bastards farther than I could throw you. If you are sincere and want to know the whole scoop, depending on who you are, I will share more. Until then. Good night.
TQR essay clarification
By Theo Q. Rorschalk
It's been brought to my attention, that my essay is easily misunderstood to be calling for a Web revolution that will shake the foundations of print journal publishing. And I can understand that it could be read that way because I spend a lot of time talking about print v. Web. The only revolution (or evolution, perahp, to put it more precisely) I am suggesting, however, needs to happen insularly: e-zines need to forget about print journals altogether and retool themselves. Stop trying to compete with print journals on print journal's terms, at least. E-zines need a whole new way of operating. They need to maximize the Internet's strengths, instead of ignoring them. Until e-zines start utilizing all the technology that is available to them to interact with their audience the way print journals cannot and never will be able to do, then all you're going to have is wannabe print journals lost in cyberspace. Thank you. #
posted by Theodore Q. Rorschalk at 7:53 AM
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