Reposting: B.S. (Be Specific)

July 10, 2018June 20, 2018 / Deborah Lee Luskin / 31 Comments

B.S. is one of the abbreviations I pencil in the margin of prose I’m reviewing –my own or a client’s. It stands for Be Specific, though it evokes a different two-word expletive that means much the same thing.

The best way to be specific is to know what you want to say – and sometimes that takes several meandering drafts. Once you’ve figured out what you want to accomplish in a scene or a post, a chapter, a story or a report, you can guide your reader to understand you clearly with specific language – with words.

Words can be general, like the word food – the fuel that sustains life. A general word fails to give your reader much guidance, leaving her to imagine grapes when you imagined roast beef.

Words that are more specific are limited in scope, like the word snack – which is a small amount of food between meals. This narrows what your reader can imagine, though one reader might think carrot sticks and another chocolate chip cookies with milk.

Words that are concrete are even more specific, and tell your reader exactly what to imagine. Make the snack chips, and you’ve given your reader the kind of narrow direction that allows him to see just what you intended.

Of course, words don’t exist by themselves, and the more specific you can make them all, the clearer your reader will see. Here are two different examples.

George held the bag between his knees, pushing a steady stream of chips in his mouth as he sat in traffic.

Jeremy set out blue corn chips in a yellow bowl to brighten the November afternoon.

Here are some other examples of general, specific and concrete words:

Clothes, business casual, khakis
Writing, poetry, sonnet
Birds, raptors, eagle

You get the idea.

Adjectives are another opportunity to Be Specific. Here’s an example from My Writing Bible, The Harbrace College Handbook:

Bad planks: rotten, warped, scorched, knotty, termite-eaten
Bad children: rowdy, rude, ungrateful, selfish, perverse
Bad meat: tough, tainted, overcooked, contaminated

Every time we use a general adjective, we miss an opportunity to guide our readers closer to what we mean. English is a rich language, so there’s no excuse for using small when you could say so much more with tiny, microscopic, sub-atomic, undeveloped; or big when you could say plump, hulking, towering, Herculean.

A thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms, and it’s a good place to find words. I find mine in The Original Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, originally published in 1852 and revised many times since. I love poking around in it, and find it much more complete and satisfying to use than the thesaurus in my word-processor.

It is a writer’s job to direct readers to reimagine for themselves what you mean. Since readers bring their own, varying, experiences and prejudices to your work, you must give specific instructions that narrow how your work can be understood. You must be authoritarian. And one of the best methods is to cut the BS and Be Specific with your words.

Deborah Lee Luskin

While I’m away, I’m rerunning some posts with writing advice worth repeating. This post originally appeared here on December 3, 2013.

When I’m not traveling, I live a rural and rooted life in Vermont, which I chronicle in my weekly blog, Living in Place. Look for replies to your comments in mid-July.

Please visit my website to learn more about my mission: advancing issues through narrative; telling stories to create change. Thanks!

Reading out loud for a final edit

January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 47 Comments

The kids are all back at school, Marc is out of town, and I have reserved this week to do a final edit of my manuscript.

“But how do you do that?” my son asked me last night at dinner.

Behold the new “Red Pen”

“Well,” I told him, “I start on page one and I begin to read the entire thing out loud.”

And then, I explained, I look for areas where there are continuity breaks. For example when I was working on a chapter yesterday I noticed that I had written about “taking Motrin *again*” and yet I hadn’t mentioned any previous times that we had taken it. Oops – I went back and added that first instance.

Gone are the days of using a red pen, now I read out loud from the screen to find words that have been dropped and spellings that made it through spell check but were the wrong word. (Form instead of from.) All edits are done using my computer.

If I come across a passage that is particularly clunky and I can’t think of how to fix it, I highlight it to remind me to come back to it and I move on.

Quotation marks that weren’t added because they are a pain in the neck when you are brain dumping your story need to be added to dialogue.

When you read out loud, you “hear” the areas where your voice might have changed. Where you (I) might have added a snarky bit that doesn’t add anything to the story – out it comes.

When I read out loud, I also hear where I might have gone a little too light on descriptions. I stop to recall what it was I saw and felt and I add in those details.

I also hear some of the repetition that I didn’t seem to catch when I wrote the piece. When spoken, those words jump out front and center.

Reading out loud isn’t for everyone, it’s a slow process and I have to have absolute silence which is why this week is so good to do it – Please don’t interrupt me when I’m deep in my story.

But for me, it’s the best method for a review.

How about you? How do you do a final edit?

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens). (www.simplethrift.wordpress.com) She writes about her chickens for GRIT, Backyard Poultry, Chicken Community, and Mother Earth News.

A little bit of bribery often does a writer good

October 27, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 8 Comments

I’ve been writing up the walk I took this summer with my son, but it’s going slow. I found out that each day took about 3-4 posts to complete. What I was doing was writing the post, editing it and then getting it up on my blog.

Then I’d go have lunch.

Seriously. A single post expanded to the time I allowed it to have – which was all morning.

In reality, that’s not so bad, I mean it was a way to get the work out – slowly but surely.

But the problem is I have other projects that I want to start, other stories that I want to write.

So I’ve begun bribing myself.

I take myself to the beautiful library the next town over (that has a quiet room) and I sit my butt in the chair until I write up a full day from my walk. This morning I finished Day 9 (of 16.) It takes about 3.5 hours to write up each day, but in that time I get almost a week’s worth of posts. And it will soon free up my time to write other pieces.

You would not believe how my mind tries to get out of sitting in that chair.

My back hurts.
I need to get up and stretch.
I wonder if I locked the car.
Maybe I can stop early and then tack on what I need to do to tomorrow’s writing session.

Here’s where the bribery comes in. *If* I can finish a full day’s write-up (about 4,000 words total) *then* I can have lunch in a nice restaurant. Trust me, when you work out of your home and lunch usually consists of leftovers from the night before, a good lunch is tempting.

Tempting enough for me to finish what I need to do.

While my wallet is getting lighter, my manuscript is getting larger and that sits well with me.

So if you find that you’re stuck, if you feel like you’d rather do *anything* than sit down and write, try a little bribery.

I can personally recommend the Massaman curry just around the corner.

My favorite.

***

Grammar-ease: Let’s Talk about Lets

August 1, 2016July 31, 2016 / Lisa J. Jackson (@lisajjackson) / 8 Comments

I’ve seen a lot of lets and let’s and different technical pieces I’ve edited in the past couple of weeks, so I thought it would make a good grammar post.

Let’s is the contraction for “let us” (introduces a suggestion or request); whereas lets means to allow or permit (third-person singular — he/she/it lets).

Let’s see some examples:

Let’s go to the beach.
My twin sister lets me borrow her clothes.
Let’s forget this ever happened, okay?
He lets the rabbit run around the house.
Let’s go, girls and boys.
Bart lets his daughter walk to the bus stop on her own.
Let’s consider all the facts before making a decision.
The teacher lets his students eat during class.
Let’s be kind to one another.
Facebook lets you connect with people around the globe.
We can forgive, but let’s not forget.

Confusion comes in, I think, with phrasing such as “Let’s you and me get out of here.” since it evolves to “Let us you and me get out of here.” The “you and me” portion can be considered emphasis for specifying who should actually get out of here (if there are more than two people), but overall the wording is a bit of overkill, redundant, a mouthful, and not standard English. You can simply say, “Let’s get out of here.”

Here’s an example of wording that might sound incorrect, but it’s not: Don’t let’s throw away the baby clothes. We can donate them.

In summary:

“Let’s” = “let us”.
“Lets” is a verb.

What grammar topics are you finding challenging lately?

Lisa J. Jackson is an independent writer and editor who enjoys working with businesses of all sizes. She loves researching topics, interviewing experts, and helping companies tell their stories. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

“Well duh” and “Show don’t Tell”

July 28, 2016July 28, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 13 Comments

You know that old writers’ adage “show don’t tell?” It’s an incredibly important piece of advice. As important as tight lug nuts on the wheels of your literary car.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best one, but you get the picture. “Show don’t tell” means that you include enough imagery, enough action and dialog for the reader to figure things out on their own. It’s as important to your progress as wheels staying on your car.

colfer I recently picked up a book by Chris Colfer – he played Kurt on Glee and it turns out he’s quite the writer. I like him. I think he’s funny and talented.

But my praise for him falls short in his most recent book. The Land of Stories – an Author’s Odyssey Book 5. Granted I hadn’t read the previous books (shame on me for not paying attention when I bought this book) and granted it’s written for a young (middle school) audience but Geeze Louise! Just take a look at the following passages.

“I’ve brought you all here to witness the birth of an era,” the Masked Man preached. “But before we achieve a new future, the ways of the past must be destroyed and the leaders of the past are no exception!”

The Masked Man gestured to a large wood platform below the balcony, on the lawn between the palace and the dried lake. A very tall man in a long black cloak climbed to the top of the platform and placed a large wooden block in the center.

A dozen flying monkey pulled a wagon out from behind the place. It carried all the former kings and queens of the fairy tale world…(long list of names)

The tall man on the platform withdrew a large silver axe from inside his cloak. The civilians began screaming and shouting in horror once they realized the purpose of it – the Masked Man was going to have the royal family executed!”

It’s that last sentence that I object to. Colfer had done a great job to that point of showing his audience what was happening. The characters in the story even figured it out, but then he threw in a sentence to make sure we were told what was happening.

Look at the passage again and remove that last italicized part of the sentence. It leaves us hanging with horror and outrage, an appropriate response. It does not leave us with an exclamation point of excitement. This is an excellent example of how showing is so much more effective than telling.

I read that passage out loud to my daughter emphasizing the italicized sentence.

“Well duh,” she said “it’s an execution.”

Little bit of writing advice here – writers NEVER want their readers to say “Well duh.”

A few pages later, we read about how a trap door opened and how the entire royal party managed to escape by way of horses and a carriage hidden underneath the execution platform.

“To his horror, he saw Goldilocks on Porridge and Jack on Buckle! The couple steered the horses and the carriage into the forest beyond the palace, knocking over dozens of Winkie soldiers as they went. The execution had turned into a rescue mission right before the Masked Man’s eyes!”

Again, “well duh.”

Once again, remove that “telling” sentence at the end (and while you’re at it get rid of about half of the exclamation marks he uses) and you end up with a tighter, more vivid story that relies on the reader to connect the (very obvious) dots.

Now granted I haven’t read the first 4 books and this may be Colfer’s style. I know that his audience is young readers, but please – as writers you must give your readers credit. If you’ve done a good job with the descriptions, action, and dialogue you shouldn’t have to spell out *anything*. Your readers should be able to figure it out on their own.

Next time you hear “show, don’t tell” think of this example. When you write, it’s your job to set things up clearly enough for your readers to “get it.” If you haven’t, then it’s also your job to go back, figure out why not, and then strengthen your work so they do.

***

Our Summer Vacation: Editing

July 20, 2016July 20, 2016 / Julie Hennrikus aka Julia Henry / 12 Comments

Week three of our summer series, and a topic I know very well. Editing. I just submitted book #3 of my Clock Shop Mystery series, and the editing is still raw. Before I go into more specifics about my process, let me frame what editing is/when it comes in.

For some people, a first draft is a slog through molasses going uphill in January. For others, it is an easy brain dump that gets you to the shaping part of your novel.Everyone has a different first draft experience, so have your own. But always remember two truths. First, no matter how wonderful a writer you are, editing is part of the process. Give yourself time to do it, and don’t shortchange that part of the process. Second, someone said you can’t edit a blank page, and they were correct. I am a firm believer in moving forward while writing. A reminder, I am a plotter, so my first draft has some surprises (you can’t anticipate everything the muses offer), but I have a roadmap moving forward. I have learned to trust that, and keep moving.

Editing is an art. As a writer, you can do a lot yourself. Here are some of the layers of editing I’ve discovered.

Developmental. This layer of editing is big picture, first reader editing. Does the story make sense? Are there plot holes? Are the characters consistent? Does the scene order make sense? Do things need to be shifted around? I have a trusted first reader who is a friend, knows the genre I write in, and gives me some tough love. I find this to be a vulnerable time in my process, so I have chosen this first reader carefully.

Structural. I had a tendency to make leaps of logic that make sense to me while I am writing, but I don’t always connect the dots for my readers. Or I make a change in my story (he becomes a she, he goes from married to single, her cat becomes a dog) and the change isn’t consistent throughout the novel. Maybe a subplot needs to be fleshed out, and interwoven with more elegance. This phase of the editing makes sure the frame of the story is strong.

Enriching. He said. She said. He said. They did. All great for scenes. But add some physicality to the scene. She’s making dinner. He’s folding laundry. That grounds the scene. Add descriptions. Help the reader understand your intention not by telling them, but by showing them. This layer is where the art comes in. For my most recent manuscript, I was thinking about the theme of the novel, and how each scene supported it. Then I realized that one of the subplots could be tweaked and would better serve the overall theme. It was fun adding that layer to the work.

Polishing. Final layer of editing is cleaning things up. Spell check. Reading not for content, but for words. Checking grammar. Triple checking punctuation. Doing a “find” for words that you overuse, and getting rid of them. (This blog post is a big help in finding some of those words.)

Final step? Letting it go. There comes a point where you need someone else to look over your work. You can get an editor at any one of the above stages. But you will need to know when to let your work go, either for querying to an agent or submitting it to your editor. I try to stop working on my manuscript before I screw it up. Sounds like I am being funny, but I’m not. Tweaking and adjusting becomes addictive, but at some point practically perfect becomes a hot mess. Let it go before it gets to the hot mess stage.

Spend time on editing–all phases of editing. It is where the fun of writing lives.

Dear readers, do you prefer one phase of editing over another? Where do you bring in others to help?

*********************
As Julianne Holmes, Julie writes the Clock Shop Mystery series. The second book in the series, CLOCK AND DAGGER, will be released on August 2.

The most important thing I’ve learned about writing

July 19, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 19 Comments

I was recently asked by a student – “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about writing?”

My answer to this question is – Behold the power of time.

There are so many instances where I’ve budgeted time to write and then *something* happens. The kids need a ride, I get a call in the middle, I’ve clicked on one too many articles on the internet, etc.

I’ve learned that if you want to write, really want to write, then you have to write. If that means closing a door, so be it. If it means going somewhere else to write, setting a timer so you stay in your seat to write, if it means you do anything you can in order to write then so be it.

Because you can’t be a writer if you don’t write.

I’ve also recognized that a written piece needs its own time. Time to mix and muddle – until its purest essence comes out. When I was in college I never did much more than 1 draft (why should I? I knew my writing was already amazing.) Now with years of experience behind me, I know that I have to do at least 3, if not more drafts on every publishable piece. Turns out I’m not as amazing as I once thought I was. You’d be surprised at how many typos I catch (my mind is already racing to the next sentence that it knows is coming.) And how I can whittle a piece down when I have some distance from it and I can begin to see redundancies and areas that need clarification. I’m a much better writer when I have reflection.

I’ve also realized that some pieces take longer than others. As a journalist I’m used to working on deadline.

“Wendy, have a 1500 word article in to me by end of day.”

“Yup, you got it, getting started on it right now.”

While I can do articles and assignments fairly quickly, (they follow a familiar template) my own creative writing takes a little longer. It needs to be coaxed and sometimes even pulled screaming with protest from the depths of my soul.

Different types of writing take different amounts of time.

So my answer to that question is -Time. It’s what I’ve learned is the most important thing about writing. You have to have it and you have to manage it well.

How about you? What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about writing?

***

How Janet Evanovich Writes

July 7, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 5 Comments

I recently picked up a copy of Janet Evanovich’s (with Ina Yalof) How I Write – Secrets of a Bestselling Author (2006.) The book is written in question/answer format which makes it a little tough to read (no real continuity) BUT if you can stick with it, it’s filled with tons of good information from a very accomplished (and fellow Granite Stater) writer.

janet I have yet to go to see an author without someone asking if the writer is a “pantser or plotter” A pantser writes by the seat of their pants and a plotter outlines and plans what they will write (for the record I am a 100% plotter.)

It’s the question everyone wants to know – how do you do that voodoo that you do so well? Read how Janet answers this question in her book:

Q. How do writers set up their books? Do you outline them first, or do you just have an idea in your head and then spin the tale?

JANET. I have lots of writer friends, and we all have our own system. I know people who make detailed fifty-page outlines before they begin, and I know people who start on page one and just wing it. I’m somewhere in between. I start with the characters. I do a short character sketch for each of my major characters. Next, I pick a location and then I decide what the crime is going to be.

Once I have those elements down, I make a time line of the action. This means that I know the beginning and the end and a bunch of things that will happen along the way. The time line is usually about five pages long. It gives me some plot points and a definite direction. The details come to me as I write. As it turns out, I usually stick to the original outline, but I don’t have it carved in stone. I try to be flexible when I need to be.

How I Write is actually a brilliant little book that has, for the most part, flown under the radar. Sure some of it’s dated, but it’s filled with lots of time-tested little nuggets about the whole writing experience from conception to pitching to selling. It is well worth the read to find out exactly how a bestselling author ticks.

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Big Magic and Get to Work

June 29, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 8 Comments

I recently read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and while it is a book intended for “creative souls.” It really hits home for writers. She talks about creativity and harnessing the spirit needed to bring forth a creation.

big magic In her book, Elizabeth tells the story of having a great idea with a South American plot for a book. This was an idea that had never been covered before (involves people from Minn., murder, and developers) and she “just felt” it would make for a good book. Problem was she kept putting it aside, things interfered and the story never got told.

One day she meets Ann Patchett and they embrace – soul sisters in writing. A few months later, they have lunch and Ann tells Elizabeth she is working on a new book about South America.

“Well isn’t that funny,: said Elizabeth, “I was working on an idea like that, but then let it go.”

Ann asked Elizabeth to describe her plot line and it turned out to be the *exact* same plot line that Ann was working on.

Co-incidence? Trends? Timing? Who knows? But you have to admit, it is a little woo, woo hair raising.

Elizabeth uses this as an example of Big Magic (as in there is a creative force that surrounds us.) She puts forth the intriguing idea that creative ideas can “visit” us and then choose to leave if we don’t nurture them.

I’ve seen this in my own writing. I’ll have a great idea for a story, not be able to devote the time to give to its “birth” and then I’ll see that someone somewhere else picked up the ball and ran with it. In a way, this philosophy of “visiting ideas” makes it easier – it falls into the “if you love something let it go, if it was yours…” It’s a way to make lemonade out of lemons – guess that idea was never really mine to keep.

But it’s also a cautionary tale. Great ideas need to be nurtured and they need work, lots of work. If you have a fantastic idea then you absolutely need to set the time aside to work on it so that it can grow and mature.

Because if you don’t it’s very likely that someone else will.

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Your story’s logline and roadmap

June 16, 2016June 15, 2016 / Wendy E. N. Thomas / 7 Comments

This weekend I gave a writing workshop for teens on story development. It was sponsored by Adaptive Studios – a company that takes old screen scripts, turns them into novels (primarily YA) which are then turned into movies (I know, it’s kind of like YA Inception.)

The workshop starts off with the assumption that you already have a story and it walks you through creating a logline. The logline (a term that is typically used when talking about movies and scripts) is a 2 to 3 sentence description of your story. It must answer:

Who is the main character (protagonist)?
What is the inciting incident?
What is the protagonist’s quest?

Note: Adaptive also suggests that you include the film’s genre, but for obvious reasons I’m leaving that out of this discussion – although you should always know your writing genre and who will be your reading audience.

I spent much time on this part of the workshop. For many of the young writers, it was a new concept. A few of them questioned why you needed to know this information at the beginning of your work. Couldn’t you put it together very quickly when you were done?

I took a piece of paper, drew a few lines and showed it them, saying “This is why you need the logline.”

This one looks a lot better than my scribbled example.

A logline is the essence of your story. It is the backbone of facts from which you can then create the body of your work. “How on earth,” I asked the group, “can you hit your target if you don’t know where your target is?”

The logline created at the beginning of your work gives you a place from which to start.

Let’s say you want to write a story about a young girl (protagonist) who doesn’t appreciate her home and what she already has (quest). Her house gets washed away in a flood (inciting event) and she meets friends who help her discover that she really wasn’t missing anything in her life.

Okay, so you’ve got the log line, you can start writing. You create your characters, the landscape, the inciting incident and then… you hit a brick wall. You have writer’s block (which is another term for “I’ve gotten lost in my story’s roadmap.”)

Because a house washed away in a flood is a house that is *probably* destroyed. And a house washed away in a flood is *probably* a house that didn’t travel that far away from the problem.

Hmm, you go back to your logline, that initial target. What if, you say to yourself, what if I turn the flood into a tornado and the house gets lifted intact and is then dropped somewhere that is far away?

Not likely, but it *could* happen right? But now you’re talking, you’ve gone back and refined your initial premise to something that is more specific and more helpful to the quest.

You get back to writing.

As you can see a logline is not cast in stone – *especially* at the beginning or for a work in progress, but it does show you the initial direction you need to go. It points you to your ending, your target.

Take a few minutes to figure out the backbone of your story and write a logline. Write it on an index card and then tape that card to your office wall to remind you of your story’s path. Look at it often.

Because, not to get all zen on you or anything, in the end, you can’t know where to go, if you don’t know where to go.

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