Category: vocabulary

August 3, 2012 / 2 Comments

Cut to the Quick

            Two cutting references in two weeks.  Hmmmm…

            Bonus points and a vocabulary star if any of you actually know what that title phrase refers to.  No, don’t cheat and look it up.  Be honest about what you know and what you don’t.
            So, since I was away editing for a bit I though this would be a good time to toss up some thoughts on editing.  I’ve been doing this professionally for almost a decade now–full time for close to six years–and I still need to do lots of editing.  It’s just one of those unavoidable truths–99.9999% of us don’t write usable first drafts.
            For the record, that .0001% is Paul Haggis, so don’t think you’re the exception.  He is.  And it took him thirty years to become the exception.
            Cutting is painful, though, because it means losing lots of stuff.  I poured my heart into the first draft of 14, but in the end I still needed to cut over 20,000 words from it.  That’s a hundred pages, gone.  And it’s a leaner, tighter, stronger book because of it.
            Well, because of most of it.
            Knowing that my writing needs work is a strength.  It’s not admitting failure.  It’s admitting I can improve, and if someone can’t admit that they’re never going to improve.
            The thing is, so many folks think making cuts means lopping off entire subplots or removing well-developed characters or cutting out that three page monologue from a random guy on the street explaining how tax cuts for the rich are really good for the middle class.  Editing doesn’t mean cutting all that (although you probably could lose that monologue and not a lot of folks will complain).  It can mean just a general tightening and trimming of all the little things. 
            Think of those Olympic swimmers, runners, and bicyclists.  They know that shaving their exposed hair and wearing tight clothes reduces drag.  Not by much, but the little things pile up and can make the difference between a gold medal and a silver one. 
            So here’s a couple very easy, straightforward ways you can make cuts and maybe trim a few thousand words from your writing…
            That— Whenever I start editing, I always start with a “that” pass.  It’s a word we all drop into our writing in an attempt to be grammatically perfect, but four out of five times the writing would be just as clear (and more concise) without it.
————————————–
            Phoebe thought that Wakko would love her new dress.
            He chose the same weapon that his predecessor had used.
vs
            Phoebe thought Wakko would love her new dress.
            He chose the same weapon his predecessor had used.
————————————–
            On my first pass through 14 I removed over 600 uses of that.  That’s over two pages.  In Ex-Communication, I cut over 200 of them.  Use the Find feature in Word (it’s up there under Edit) and search for it in your writing.  See how often it shows up.  Check how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find at least half of them aren’t.
            Adverbs—  This is usually my second pass through the editing draft.  This time I use Find to locate all the places “ly” shows up.  I can admit it—as I get caught up in the flow of words a lot of adverbs sneak into my writing.  And they’re pretty useless…
————————————–
          They all screamed loudly at the approaching psychopath.
          “Shut your damn mouth, bitch,” snapped Phoebe angrily.
          He eagerly grabbed the statue he’d spent weeks searching for.
————————————-
            Do those adverbs add anything to their sentences?  Would a reader figure out that Phoebe was angry, or that the scream was loud?  I’d guess three out of five times I find an adverb in my writing I don’t need it.  The fourth time I’ve chosen the wrong verb, and once I’ve got the right one… well, I don’t need the adverb.  If I’m using my vocabulary well, there aren’t many times I’ll need one.  I cut over 500 adverbs and adverbial phrases out of 14 and 330 out ofEx-Communication.
            I heard a great rule of thumb from writer/ editor Pat LaBrutto that I’ve mentioned a few times.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s just a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging six or seven adverbs per paragraph maybe you should give them all a second look.  And then a third look.
            Useless Modifiers — I’ve also called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times.  This is one I struggle with a lot, but I’m getting much more aware of it.  It’s when I pepper my sentences with  somewhat, almost, a bit, slightly, and other such modifiers.  They show up in dialogue a lot, and sometimes in prose when I’m trying not to sound awkward with a bunch of specifics.
            Nine times out of ten they’re not doing anything, though, except adding to my word count and slowing my story down.  Use the Find feature again, see how many of them are doing anything, and look how much tighter and stronger your writing is without them.  I cut almost 450 of these out of 14and over 200 from Ex-Communication.
            …Of…–The word of can be a flag that something could be cut.  A fair amount of the time, of is being used to tack on an extra bit of description.  More often than not that description’s unnecessary and something the reader already knows.  Which means it’s dragging my prose down and slowing the pace.  There’s a reason we all tend to say United States far more often than United States of America.
            Check out these examples…
————————————–
Captain Lancaster of the Defiant is here to see you, sir.
The razor-sharp edge of the sword flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.
vs.
Captain Lancaster is here to see you, sir.
The razor sharp edge flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.
————————————–
            It’s not a sure-fire thing, but once I went looking I found three or four of these in Ex-Communicationthat could go away.
            Appeared to be…   –This is one of those phrases some people latch onto and use all the time.  It slips into my writing, too.  It tends to be used as an introduction of sorts, leading the reader into some purple-prose description.  This phrase sometimes disguises itself as looked like or seemed to be or some variation thereof.
            The thing is, though, appeared to be doesn’t get used alone.  It’s part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction to the appearance.  So when you’re saying…
            –Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall.
            …what you’re really saying is…
            –Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall, but she was actually closer to five foot five without her stiletto heels.
            And what you meant to be saying all along was just…
            –Phoebe stood six feet tall.
            If you aren’t trying to establish a contradiction, using appeared to be and its bastard stepchildren isn’t just wasted words– it’s wrong.  I cut thirteen of these that had slipped into Ex-Communication at one point or another.
            “As you know…” –I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  If you take nothing else from this little rant, take this one lesson.
            “As you know…” is probably the clumsiest form of exposition there is.  Really.  Think about it.  Just by saying “as you know,” I’m stating that you–the person I’m speaking to–already know the facts I’m about to share.  As a writer, why would I have two characters engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?
            When a writer uses “as you know” or one of its half-breed cousins (“you may recall” or “if you remember” or many others), it’s a weak attempt to put out some exposition through dialogue.  My lovely lady pointed out that a lot of these sentences tend to start with “Look…”.  If I’m using any of them, almost across the board there’s either (A) a better way to get the information to the reader or (B) no need for this information because it ‘s already covered somewhere else. 
            If I’ve got a really solid manuscript–I mean rock-solid– I might be able to get away with doing this once.  Just once.  As long as I don’t do it your first ten pages.
            In Ex-Heroesit’s on page 98.
            Anyway, there’s half a dozen quick, easy, and relatively painless cuts.  Try them out and see if you can drop a thousand words or more.
            Next time, I think we’re long overdue for a talk about spelling.  And I’ve got a great list for you this time.
            Until then, go write.
14adverbsdraftseditingEx-CommunicationEx-HeroesHaggisvocabulary
February 9, 2012

The Lessons of Petrichor

            Normally, on the entry before Valentine’s day, I try to post something about ways to effectively use love as an element in stories, or at least sex.  The thing is, I haven’t really had any clever thoughts on these topics in the past year (well, not about writing it, anyway).  Rather than bore you all with a straight repost—or a thinly-reworded one—I figured I’d just put up a few links to the old stuff and move on with something new.

            So, Happy Valentine’s Day.  Enjoy the love.  Or at least the sex.
            Moving on…
            I’ve talked more than once about the dangers of writers using flowery language and obscure words for no other reason but to show off their vocabulary.  It alienates and often frustrates readers because they can sense there’s no point to this except the writer trying to act superior.  After running into archaic words six or seven times they’ll just put the story down in favor of doing something productive like folding laundry or watching episodes of Chuckon DVD.
            This week, I thought I’d give an example of how you can use obscure words in your story in a way that not only makes them natural, but will make your readers love you for it.
            So… biology lesson.
            “Petrichor” is an extremely specialized word that was coined by a couple of botanists back in the sixties.  It’s so rare and uncommon it won’t show up in most spellcheckers.  It has to do with plant oils that get absorbed into dry soil and then released into the air when that soil gets exposed to moisture.  Simply put, petrichor is that unique smell you get just as it starts to rain somewhere that’s been very dry.
            Over the past year or so, I’ve seen this word cropping up all over the place.  I don’t think I’m out of line by giving all the credit to Neil Gaiman, who used it in a phenomenal episode of Doctor Who called “The Doctor’s Wife,” and the word carried over later in that season as well.
            So, how did Gaiman get away with using such an obscure, specialized word?  Not only that, how did he do it in such a way that hundreds of other people immediately added it to their vocabularies and began using it?
            Here’s how, in three easy steps.
            First, within the context of the story, it makes sense to use an obscure word at this point.  This is supposed to be a password to a locked part of the ship, and it makes sense that a password wouldn’t be a common word or one that could be deduced without much effort.  So on this level, the audience (viewer or reader) can accept that there’s a valid, in-story reason for the writer to be using a word they’ve never heard before.
            Second is that it’s a real word that’s explained within the course of the episode.  It isn’t just a jumble of syllables I need to reason out through context.  It gets defined, which means its no longer an obscure word the audience doesn’t know, it’s a word they just learned.
            Finally, it makes sense within the story that this obscure word is introduced and then defined.  It isn’t just mindless exposition to justify the vocabulary.  The TARDIS is so advanced that its locks are telepathic.  Amy and Rory need to know this word and what it means in order to open the door into the old control room.  So when Idris explains “petrichor” to Rory, there’s a perfect in-story reason for this bit of ignorant stranger-ism.
            That’s the kind of thing I need to do when I want to randomly toss a rarely-seen, little-known word into my writing.  I don’t do it at the expense of the story, I do it in a way that strengthens the story.
            Next week I plan to blather on about birdhouses.
            Until then, go write.
gaimanvocabularyWho
January 12, 2012 / 4 Comments

We’re All Domed! DOMED!!!!

            Will, its thyme too tock abut spilling a gain.  Eye no fur must off yew this top pick is suck a none-eschew, butt their our sum idioms out they’re whom thank they or grate spillers jest bee cause there smell-chick tills then all they’re wards are spilled rite,   ant they knead two sea this moor than you duo.

            You all understood that last paragraph, right?  Context and all that?  Cool, and the spell-checker says it’s okay so I’m just going to call that good…
            No, wait.  If we go that way I’ve got nothing to talk about this week.
            Hot tip for the week.  Spelling matters.  Last week I mentioned there are certain things that are always right and wrong.  Spelling is one of them.  There’s no quicker way to tell an editor or reader you’ve got no idea what you’re doing than to have a lot of spelling mistakes in the first few pages of a manuscript.  And if I’m going to put a lot of effort into double and triple-checking the first ten pages, I might as well act like a pro and check them all.
            Hot tip number two.  Every spell-check program is an idiot.  They can be outsmarted by my almost-one-year-old nephew banging on the keyboard with his eyes closed.  If I decide to take on an idiot as a writing partner, whose fault is it when there are mistakes in my manuscript?  Heck, we’ve all been stuck with an idiot at work at some point in our lives, yes?  But did we ever depend on the idiot?  Did we let everything ride on the idiot doing their job, or did we cover our butts and make sure everything was getting done regardless?
            Now, there are those people who try to say spelling and grammar don’t matter.  If the story’s good, you should be able to enjoy it even with a few typos and malonyms and failed parallels and so on.  And there’s some truth to that.  I’ve enjoyed a lot of stories with two or three typos in them. 
            What I haven’t enjoyed are stories that have two or three typos on the first page.  And the reason I haven’t enjoyed them is because I stopped reading at that point.  Just like any other casual reader will.  In the few cases I’ve been required to read the rest of the manuscript, I usually found that the writer who couldn’t be bothered to learn how to spell also couldn’t be bothered to write a remotely interesting story.  No big shock there.
            Another argument I’ve seen a few times is that spelling and grammar and conjugation are all arbitrary anyway.  There isn’t a “right” way to spell words, it’s just a set of rules some people made up and decided everyone had to follow.  Of course, by that logic, there aren’t any real rules to football–those were just made up, too.  So next time you play a friendly game of football with your friends, try giving hockey sticks and cricket bats to your linebackers.  Please let me know how it goes over with everyone.
            And there’s also a few folks who try to use first person as an excuse for typos.  “It’s not me, it’s the characterwho doesn’t know how to spell.”  The problem here is that a reader can’t tell the difference between deliberate mistakes and accidental ones.  All they see on the page is a mistake, plain and simple.  And a manuscript loaded with mistakes is going to be one that probably ends up in the big pile on the left.
            Soooooo…with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the ways wanna-be writers proved they didn’t know how to write.  As before, I remind you that all of these are actual typos I’ve come across.  Most of them more than once.  To be honest, almost a quarter of these came out of one particularly incoherent screenplay I had to read.  One came from the first paragraph of a proudly self-published book whose author claimed the people mocking his spelling were just jealous because they’d never written a book.  And one I’ve seen repeatedly at a much larger website that likes to put up posts about stupid spelling mistakes people make…
heel and heal – one of these is a command to a dog
beet and beat – two reds–your kid should not be one of them
vale and veil – one of these often refers to death
bare and bear –one of these means to endure or tolerate
here and hear—one of these is where you are right now
minuet and minute—one of these means small
can’t and cant—one of these is a secret language
pedal and peddle—one of these deals with motion
strait and straight—one of these refers to waterways
trusty and trustee—one of these is a person
moors and mores—one is social, one is ethnic
sheer and shear – one means to slice, the other means perpendicular
cloths and clothes – one of these is made into the other
site and sight—one is found on a firearm
profit and prophet—one of these is often religious (don’t be snarky)
imminent and eminent —one will be happening soon
baited and bated—you don’t want your breath to be one of these
calender and calendar—one is a tool, the other is a machine
essay and assay—only one of these in a verb
breath and breathe—only one of these is a verb
domed and doomed – one you’re screwed, one you’re protected
ramped and rampant—one of these is just out of control
trader and traitor—one sells loyalty, one sells goods
surely and shirley—this writer never saw Airplane…
nee and knee—married women are sometimes addressed this way
tied and tide – one of these will have to hold you over until later
            It’s also worth noting that—much like my first paragraph up above–none of these words are spelled wrong, which is why spell-check programs ignore these mistakes when a writer makes them.  They’re just the wrong words, period.  The only mistake on the spell-checker’s part is that it assumes the writer knows what the hell they’re doing and there’s a real reason you put down moors when you meant mores.  Of course, as I mentioned before, the spell-checker is an idiot…
            Y’see, Timmy, using shear when I mean sheer is no different than calling that new girl Elizabeth when her name’s Andrea—in both cases I look like an idiot who can’t be bothered to learn the right word to use.  Or like someone who trusted an idiot to get these things right.
            I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—get a dictionary.  You’ll retain more searching through a dictionary than you will by tapping change or ignore on your spellchecker.  There’s some nice ones on Amazon, or you can probably find one cheap at a used bookstore.  Don’t worry if it’s a couple years out of date—99% of the words are the same.  The big red one on my desk is from 1997 and I’ve never had a problem with it.
            Next time I’ll probably just have a quick tip for you.  Assuming I don’t start overthinking it and freeze up or something.
            Until then, go write.
spellingvocabulary
September 8, 2011 / 12 Comments

An Ode to OED

No, don’t worry. There will be no poetry.

There will, however, be mocking. And some shameless plugging.

Ex-Patriots is now out in both paper and ebook formats, available pretty much anywhere fine books are sold. Mysterious Galaxy, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Bord… well, okay, not Borders. But I got to see Ex-Heroes there a few times, at least. Please feel free to pick up a copy.

Anyway, let’s talk about the Oxford English Dictionary. Or Webster’s, if you prefer. I’m actually a dictionary traitor. One of my college professors was on the OED board and I have a huge Webster’s dictionary on my desk.

But I digress… again.

Remember last week’s little rant about tools? Those folks who insist on carrying their tools around one at a time even though it makes the job take ten times as long? Well as bad as it is to be the person showing up on the jobsite with only one tool at a time, imagine if someone showed up with a basic tool they didn’t know how to use?

Seriously–what would you do if you were the foreman and one of your workers–someone who claimed they were a skilled, professional carpenter–admitted they had no idea how to use a hammer? Their excuse? “Well, y’know… I always work with Wakko, and he does all the hammering. So, really, I don’t need to know how to use one.”

Would this guy still have a job at the end of the day?

And yet, it’s stunning how many would-be-writers—people trying to convince publishers that they’re skilled professionals—don’t know how to spell. Their excuse? They’ve got a spellchecker on their computer. It already knows how to spell, so why should they learn how?

Words are our tools, and knowing what they are and how to use them is the most basic skill any of us has to have if we want people to take us seriously as writers. If you don’t know how to use them it is painfully obvious to someone who does.

Let’s go over a little list of words and see how many definitions you can get.

pour, poor, and pore – only one of these means to read intently

confirm and conform – one of these means to become similar

faze and phase – only one of these deals with a blow to the head

role and roll – only one of these is a list of names

further and farther – one of these usually refers to physical distance

glutton and gluten – only one of these words is a person

desert and dessert – only one of these comes after supper

barely and barley – one of these is a food source… almost

satin and satan – one of these is a silky fabric

lightning and lightening – only one of these is an atmospheric event

conscience and conscious – one means being awake

Done with the list? Good.

Now, I’m sure two or three of these made you laugh. Satan and satin? Really? I mean, they’re so obviously different words only a complete idiot would mess them up, right?

Bad news, everyone.

Your spellcheck program is a complete idiot. It’s the worst writing partner you could possibly ask to have. As far as it knows, your main character is supposed to be making a gluten of himself by shoving barely down his throat for desert.

Y’see, Timmy, whenever I make these lists they’re from words I’ve seen misspelled in manuscripts or screenplays I’ve been given to read. Not once or twice in a hundred pages but consistently. These are all mistakes made by people who were trying to convince me (or, through me, someone higher up) that they know how to write. People claiming to be professionals.

One story I recently read had someone trying to resist the temptations of Satin all the way through it (which makes it sound like a very different story, believe me). The power of Satin, get behind me Satin, resisting the will of Satin, all that. If the writer hadn’t asked an idiot to check the whole thing for them, they wouldn’t’ve had that problem. And my opinion of the story wouldn’t’ve dropped every single time I came across it.

I’ve said many times before that people need to buy a dictionary, and more than once I’ve gotten a chuckle from folks over it. After all, the computer does that sort of thing for us, right? Silly dinosaur, telling people to resort to books. Modern writers don’t need such antiquated tools.

As the above list proves, though… a sizeable percentage do.

Using a dictionary doesn’t just mean looking up how a word is spelled. It also means you’re going to look up what the word means. These two things are inherently bound together in a dictionary and they’re not in a spellcheck program. I look up barely and realize it’s not a grain, it’s an adverb. I also just learned that baresark is another form of berserker, which I can probably file away and use sometime later.

But the spellchecker? It looks at barely, grins, and gives you a big thumbs up. “Looks cool—send it off to a publisher.”

Plus, when you use a dictionary, odds are you’ll learn something and not need the dictionary next time. My mechanic’s worked on my car a few times, but I didn’t learn anything about auto repair because I wasn’t the one doing the actual work. I’ve also gone out to eat several times, but having someone else cook for me didn’t teach me anything about cooking. If your writing partner’s doing all that vocabulary work–idiot or not–how do you expect to learn anything?

I’m about to start my fifth novel. Not my fifth attempt at a novel. Not my fifth manuscript to sit in a drawer. My fifth already-got-a-contract-and-deposited-a-nice-advance novel. And I still reach for the dictionary at least once a day to make sure I’m spelling a word correctly or that I’m using it correctly. Using the dictionary doesn’t make me a lesser writer. It makes me a better writer. I’m the guy who shows up at the jobsite with all his tools and who knows how to use them. I don’t need anyone else to do the work for me. Which is why I’m the guy the foreman hires again and again.

If the foreman didn’t hire you… maybe it’s because you’ve got an idiot for a partner.

Not sure what I’m going to rant on about next week. I’ve got a half-formed post of random screenwriting tips. Also got one on villains. And the bare bones of one about motivations…

Any of those sound interesting? Let me know.

Until then, go write.

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