Write Well Me

Beware the Writing Wasteland

I was recently reading a science fiction story from the 1960s, and parts of the story just draaaaaaaaaaag. There's this old writing saying that if your character is going to open the door, then you, the writer, need to be able to see the doorknob. It doesn't mean that the readers need to see the doorknob; just that the writer has to be very clear on what's going on in his story.

However, in this science fiction story, it's as if the writer needed to make sure that the readers see every doorknob, every stain on the carpet, every fray in the fabric. For me, it feels like I'm slogging through a wasteland with little hope of getting to the other side.

As trail guide, the writer's job is to help the reader navigate the trail easily and without pitfalls, chasms, boulders, logs, and wastelands. The reader should glide along, noticing what must be noticed, and getting to the end of the trail pretty much on his own (with the not-too-heavyhanded help of the writer).

The reader does not want to be reminded that he is reading the written word. He wants to be immersed in the message, the story, the solution.

But, of course, the writer wants to make sure the reader has all the information. This piece might be important! What if the reader isn't smart enough to figure it out? Then, let's make sure to tell the reader EVERYTHING!

And then the reader is trapped in a reading wasteland. Here is your own guide to avoiding the wasteland:

1. Show; don't tell. You probably hear this all the time, and it bears repeating, oh, about ten times a day. Don't tell the reader what he sees, smells, tastes, hears and experiences. LET him see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, experience it. Don't write, "The food was too salty." Instead use "He grabbed a handful of peanuts and threw them in his mouth. He almost gagged at the overuse of salt. Was this someone's idea of good food? He launched himself at the bar and downed a glass of Diet Coke as quickly as possible." See the difference?

2. Edit, please. In a first draft, it's absolutely appropriate to give "too much" detail. You as the writer have to be able to see what's going on. You have to see that doorknob. But if you give yourself enough time in between drafts, when you go back to the draft, you can better see what needs to be there and what doesn't. (Hint: not everything needs to be there. We really don't need to see the doorknob.)

3. Determine what is crucial. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter should be there because it MUST be. Do we really need to know that Great Aunt Madge's curtains were blue? If it's not a crucial piece of information, then get rid of it. Your writing will be tighter and more concise as a result.

4. Create tension and suspense. Whether fiction or nonfiction, move your writing along like a master storyteller. Think cliffhangers, surprises, twists, convenient chapter breaks. Keep your readers hungry for the next word.

See the doorknob. Be the doorknob, if necessary. Just don't let your reader see it, unless it's crucial.

Perfect or Professional?

I take classes, writing and otherwise, because I"m constantly developing, changing, evolving, perfecting. In running my business, I attend workshops, join a mastermind group, work with mentors, try new things, tweak my marketing activities. I don't believe that it's possible to BE perfect, but I do believe perfection is something to strive for, without being attached to attaining it.

That means I take risks and that I make mistakes. Does that mean I'm less professional because I make mistakes? Could I wait to launch or publish something, in the name of professionalism, until it's perfect? Sure, but would that something truly ever be perfect? Or would that just be an excuse for delaying, out of fear?

Writers run into this all the time. Don't want to send the query letter because the manuscript isn't perfect. Don't want to write the book proposal because the book isn't done (when in reality, you only have to submit a couple of chapters). Don't want to join a writer's group because you're afraid people might not like your writing. Don't want to publish a website because you can't figure out what you want it to look like, so you do nothing....

Does professional mean perfect?

William Wordsworth hated to publish his works because he knew that once he did, they were essentially dead. There would be no room to change, evolve, perfect his words.

We see imperfect all the time. In the book on writing I'm reading, Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell, there's an error on page 61:

"When using first-person narration, especially in literary fiction, your can capture attention through voice and attitude as J.D. Salinger does."

Do you see the error?

Does that error make what Bell has to say any less valuable? Do I choose not to recommend the book because there was a word usage error that he, his proofreaders, and even his editors missed?

NO!!! (It's a great book on structuring your fiction plot.)

I've seen errors like this in almost every book I've ever read, whether traditionally published or self-published. Books by Stephen King, Suze Orman, you name it. Is it possible to put out a perfect work? Again, no. Does the fact that there might be a typo take away from the beauty of the words and the message? I don't think so.

This goes beyond even typos though. Think second and third and so on editions. In 1991, Stephen King released an expanded edition of The Stand, with an additional 500 pages left out of the original. Well, if the first one was perfect, why an expanded edition?

Funny enough, this came up after I wrote a recent article for Fuel on "Wal-Mart, Chico's, and Nordstrom." Like a smart article writer, I also publish the article on my blog, and I received this comment:

"Your post might, ah, look more professional if you fixed 'your a professional'"

Here's what's amusing about this. The person who submitted it used an obviously false name and email address. How professional is THAT?

Professional is how you treat people, how you respond to others, how you react to situations, what kind of proactive measures you put in place once you discover a hole in your systems. It's basically how you are in the world. It's writing your query letter as a professional, not as a bratty diva. It's acting as if you care (and hopefully you do). It's treating people with respect.

I would have liked to thank Professional Commenter if he/she had given a real name and email address, appreciating that he/she allowed me to fix something that was a mistake.

Should I have made the mistake in the first place? It was a silly mistake, and came about because I'm putting out a lot of content each week, along with everything else we do here at Write Well U. But if I waited until I was sure each letter was perfect, you might get Fuel, oh, say, next month, instead of each week. I'd rather get content out there and help people, and strive for perfection along the way.

Guest Post: Do you have a Chronic Case of Lazy Writer?

Several months ago I had an interesting encounter with one of my clients. She hired me to edit her book. I knew she was a talented writer and was eager to dig into her manuscript. However, within the first few pages I saw numerous typos, verb/subject disagreements, passive verbs and dead writing.

"What happened?" I inquired.

"In my effort to meet my deadline, I got lazy with my writing," she responded.

I ask you now the same question I posed to her then, "Do you have chronic case of lazy writer or is this just a sporadic episode?"

I can't be too hard on my client; I've been guilty of lazy writing as well. I think all writers go through periods of apathy and lethargy. Here are six signs of a Chronic Case of Lazy Writer.

Lazy writers...

• Don't edit thoroughly. They do a rough draft and a Word grammar and spell check without looking through the document for these common errors: passive writing, weak adverbs and adjectives; weak verbs; repetitions and redundancies, poor character development and dialogue, grammatical errors, spelling errors. While no edit can catch every mistake, lazy writers don't even bother looking.
• Expect the first draft to be good enough - and are ok with "good enough." Yes, you can write and publish a book in 90 days, but it probably won't be great; it probably won't even be good. It'll just be good enough. That's not okay with most writers.
• Don't read their writing out loud. I'm fascinated by how many writers neglect this step in writing. Reading your query, article, book, even e-mails, out loud, will reveal common errors.
• Plagiarize, quote too much from outside sources and overuse clichés. Lazy writers are unoriginal. It takes time to mull over research, paraphrase and verify sources. Lazy writers don't hassle with these things.
• Don't use every opportunity they are given to write and/or don't write enough. Lazy writer think free writes are a waste of time. They think they need large blocks of time to write anything worthwhile. Lazy writers don't make an effort to write at least a little every day. Passionate writers use every opportunity to write. Enough said.
• Don't care about their readers. Lazy writers just want to get the piece done and don't take the time to consider the work from the reader's perspective. Why do we do this? To say we've written something? To pontificate and brag to our friends? Or do we have something important to say and want to share it with others? I write every word for that one reader who will finish the piece, sigh and say something like, "I get it. That was wonderful. What should I do now?" Are you that one reader for this article?

The best cure for Chronic Cases of Lazy Writer – write often and edit your work even more often. It's a simple request, but it's not easy. Writing is hard work. Writing well is even harder and more time consuming. But if you have the tenacity it will pay off, not just in sales and with your readers, but in your personal pride in the craft we love.

Angela Dion is the owner of Dion Communications, LLC. To subscribe to her free e-magazine Write Words and get the free 9 page booklet, Write Killer Queries, go to http://www.dioncommunications.com/writewords.

Angela's mastery level class, Eight Steps to Successful Nonfiction Magazine Articles, starts this week at Write Well U/AuthorSmart?

Writing Well As a Barrier to Creativity?

A few years ago, I ran across a blog post where the author claimed that those who think that writing well is important sap the life out of creativity. She recounted how she was discouraged from sending a letter to Mad Magazine because her English teacher critiqued it too harshly.

I feel sorry for her that she let one person's comments keep her from doing something that to this day she regrets. How much do we read and hear that if we're really passionate about something we should go ahead and do it anyway? How passionate are you about something if one person can stop you cold? In the words of Scott the Nametag Guy: stand up, speak up, or get shut down.

The blog author cited an excerpt from Stephen King's book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. In it, King describes a childhood experience in which he wrote a grisly story that horrified his teacher. Now, the teacher was horrified by the gory stuff that was in the story he wrote, not so much by the bad spelling. What she commented on was the gory details. The blog author tried to use this as an example of how teachers and others shouldn't harp on grammar and spelling and such.

That wasn't King's point. His teacher wanted to know why he was wasting his talents writing like this. Her words (quoted by King): "What I don't understand, Stevie, is why you'd write junk like this in the first place. You're talented. Why do you want to waste your abilities?" Not a thing in there about how he shouldn't even attempt writing since he couldn't spell. The teacher admitted that he had an incredible talent.

King goes on to say that he was ashamed of what he had written. Again, not by the bad spelling and grammar, but by the content. He says he spent the next forty years feeling ashamed about what he wrote.

Now that's a great example of how we should just keep on and do what we're meant to do despite what the naysayers say. However, this isn't a good example of how the "grammar Gestapo" should just leave us be.

The blog author made this plea to writers:

Correct English is the worst way to articulate something. If I tell you that at my last family reunion we ran woefully short of poultry due to an equipment malfunction, you don’t understand the situation as well as if I write, “my second cousin told everybody ‘We don’t got no fried chicken ’cuz daddy done broke mamma’s deep fry tryin’ to boil the tar off his lug nuts.'”

I'm sorry; correct English doesn't mean stilted, stuffy, and inflated English. Correct English means using words correctly. Would anyone (even I) actually say, "We ran woefully short of poultry due to an equipment malfunction"? I don't think so.

The final blow for me was "so us writers intentionally ignore the rules and say things like 'the person with a smile on their face' (instead of his or her face) knowing that as enough of us add a gender neutral pronoun to the vernacular, it becomes accepted practice."

We writers do nothing of the kind.

Okay, so let me get this straight. If enough of us say something incorrectly, then the incorrect version becomes correct? Is it just easier to do it incorrectly than to make an effort to do it right? I can think of several ways to avoid the awkwardness of assigning a gender. If you're trying to describe the person with a smile, then I'm betting you know the gender and can just say "the person with a smile on his face." If you're talking in general about a smiling person, then you don't need to point out a specific person; you could say something like "people with smiles on their faces." Or just take the plunge and assign a gender: "The person with a smile on her face." Gasp!!! Can we really do that?

Yes.

We don't have to be stuck with bad grammar and incorrect pronoun agreement. If you know the correct way to do it, and you do it incorrectly, I think it makes you look lazy. (Now, I'll say right here and now that one can deviate from "proper" grammar and usage for stylistic reasons. Heck, I do it all the time. However, there are some things that just aren't right any way you cut it.) Take the time to do it right.

Epilogue to this story: I ranted about this for several days, and my family absolutely agreed with me about the pronoun agreement. (Smart family.) To explain to my seven-year-old, I used this example: "It's like saying that if enough people declare that 2 + 2 = 5, then 5 becomes an accepted answer." You might think that it's going overboard, but I don't think so. If you have a singular thing, you need a singular pronoun. If you have a plural thing, you need a plural pronoun. How is that different from basic math facts?

My husband's favorite metaphor was this: "If enough people start robbing convenience stores, then 7-Eleven will start giving Slurpees away for free."

Don't count on 7-Eleven giving away Slurpees for free any time soon.

Final Note: This article was written using about 90% correct grammar and usage. I gave myself 10% leeway for the informal and conversational tone of the article. I'm guessing that you were able to understand my writing and didn't feel that the good grammar ruined the story.

Guest Post: How to Pick the Right Editor for Your Book

I edit book-length manuscripts and have an excellent track record and happy clients; nevertheless, I hear horror stories about people who chose the wrong editor. Each sad story represents lost time, lost money, and an end product that reflects poorly on the author. When I ask what made the unhappy author choose a particular editor, I get one of two answers: low price or quick turnaround. Of course! Those factors are uppermost in the minds of most buyers of editing services, yet they should be the least important, because they are the most short-lived and shortsighted.

Instead, look for a reputable editor with credentials and an understanding of the type of book you have written. For example, if the book is self-help, your editor should be a reader of self-help books and should have a history of editing such books. If the book is a thriller, fantasy, reference, or romance, the same holds true.

How can you be sure you're getting a reputable editor who will do what he or she promises and who will still be in business later, if you need help? Here are things to check. Find out if he or she…

1. Is a full-time editor and doesn't have another job that detracts from editing
2. Follows Chicago Style guidelines for editing books
3. Line edits for clarity and correct capitalization as well as the standard grammar, punctuation, syntax, and typos
4. Has edited books that have been published by traditional publishers, not just by self-published authors
5. Has written or contributed to books that have been traditionally published (not just self-published)
6. Has been editing in general for at least a decade
7. Has been editing books for at least five years
8. Is willing to supply you with a list of recent clients, along with contact information, so you can check references
9. Has a Web site listing accomplishments, services, and prices
10. Offers follow-up guidance and mentoring-allows you to ask questions afterward
11. Offers concept editing if you desire it, in addition to line editing (Concept editing should include a written report on elements that apply to your book-that is, for fiction it should at least cover plot, characterization, pace, conflict, and resolution; for nonfiction it should address organization, clarity, pace, and marketability.

When the editor you find fills those requirements, no matter how long you wait or what price you pay, you will get the results you want.

In choosing an editor, low price and fast turnaround both work against you. The best editors charge for their experience, spend a great deal of time with each manuscript, and have a backlog of work. To get the right editor, be patient and be willing to pay, because you will get what you pay for, and you'll be rewarded with a good editing job. As a result your books will reflect well on you and sell well, too.

Bobbie Christmas is the author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing, a division of Cardoza Publishing, Simon and Schuster, distributor) and owner of Zebra Communications, a book-editing service. Sign up her free e-zine, The Writers Network News, at www.zebraeditor.com. Her book is available in bookstores in America, Canada, and Australia as well through Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.