Write Mind

Roy Clark was talking to all writers in Writing Tools when he mentioned the problems with too many -ings, so I don’t think he had a personal agenda specifically for us Southern writers. It seems to be part of our speech pattern to include lots of -ings, even in our professional news casts. Last night I heard a broadcaster mention a woman who was going missing for several days. A double -ing! I’ve heard my Southern neighbors tell me what they are “fixing” to do, and our conversations (now that Clark has me really listening) are bristling with -ings. The previous sentence is a fine example of that habit.

I agree with Clark that those kinds of endings, whether on verbs, adjectives or gerunds, should be there from choice and not from thoughtless construction. Now that I’m alert to the pros and cons of these forms, I can choose to use them for effect, making my writing stronger intentionally and including -ings with care as I did three times in this conclusion.

In this chapter, Roy Clark, the author of Writing Tools, uses the last word in the last sentence in the last paragraph to make his point. This is the word position that he argues is the most powerful in a piece. In this essay about adverbs, Clark ends with “…use them sparingly” and cleanly makes his point.

For the first exercise, I searched both of my local papers looking for adverbs. I gained a new respect for the quality of their proofreader and/or editor. In one paper I didn’t find any adverbs. In the second, the only article that had adverbs in it was one in the “Community News” section.

The article is about an upscale new subdivision going up near Highway 99 that will break ground for its new polo club. (Polo club?!) Because it contains several weak adverb connections, it would appear that the article might be written by a publicist for the Polo Club or the developer rather than a trained journalist. Here are several redundant or cliche adverbs that make the sentences tighter when removed:

the polo field is specially designed; something truly remarkable, lushly landscaped

Another makes the sentence an arguable: “community will offer residents an incomparable location, conveniently situated between Shadow Hawk Golf Club and the Houstonian Golf Club. (And if I don’t golf?)

I’m currently reading a book where I was so distracted by the number of times the main character “replied mildly” to his wife that I threw the book down in frustration. The author thinks that characterization can be achieved by the adverb that follows his or her conversation tag. The king’s advisor replies shrewdly, the corrupt monarch answers carelessly or cruelly, etc. If the setting weren’t so interesting and the time period so well drawn, I would have stopped reading this book 100 pages ago!

I find it interesting that Clark distinguishes when a carefully justaposed adverb can heighten the verb, as in “killing me softly”. So far, each chapter makes me feel more empowered to craft my writing.

As Kimberly Holt said at our recent conference, the writer takes her first draft and “whittles, whittles, whittles”. I take that to mean not only trimming away excess, like useless adverbs, but also sharply defining details, as in choosing the powerful nouns and verbs, and locating them in the sentence in a way to heighten action or show who’s being acted upon.

Chapter 3 - Active verbs power the narrative, describe internal thought in an immediate way, and add energy to your writing. I examined an article I wrote to persuade school librarians to make their libraries more boy-friendly. In a single paragraph, I counted 14 active verbs and 2 passive verbs. All those pushy verbs were intended to make the reader itchy and empowered to make some changes in their own libraries. 

Chapter 4 gave me new information about the advantages of choosing passive verbs. I’d not considered they could be perfect choices when I wanted to show the subject as the receiver of the action. “The best writers make the best choices between active and passive.”
Exercise 1 asks us to read Orwell’s (author of Animal Farm), “Politics and the English Language” which he wrote in 1946. Find it at www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

Here’s a quote from the end of the article that is very helpful:
Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
   
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
   
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
   
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
   
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
   
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I didn’t have to go far to find examples of what Orwell laments in his essay. Here are a few: 

DYING METAPHORS Orwell talks about the sloppy mixing or misquoting of hackneyed metaphors. On 60 Minutes tonight, one of the speakers said, “He was going to hell in a handbag.” The mental image, a misquote of “in a handbasket”, made me laugh. Imagine a person squeezing into a handbag—even if he weren’t headed for hell! 

VERBAL FALSE LIMBS “The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations” I was reading an article by an associate professor of library and information science at Rutgers University. She seemed very well spoken and intelligent, but I mentally tripped over this paragraph lead: “The generalizability of this research is in its cumulative effect.” 

PRETENTIOUS DICTION and MEANINGLESS WORDS These seem to be the requirements of most articles that I find in the journals of my profession—and probably of yours. They appear to be English, but are as indecipherable as the parody of Ecclesiastes that Orwell created for example. Unfortunately, Orwell’s points about how the English language “is in a bad way” is just as true 60 years later.

At first I found this tool contradictory after the first chapter that preached starting with strong verbs and nouns and branching the weaker to the right. This next chapter talks about putting your strongest words at the end of the sentence, then at the beginning, and hide your weaker stuff in the middle. (My thought–what’s weak stuff doing in there anyway?)

Perhaps this is like the way you learn to dance. You learn a basic two step, then you add a glide. I’m learning that we have a real power when we pick up a pen. Power to craft in the same way an artisan does–but we shape and carve with words chosen not only for power to create pictures, but also for power of place in the sentence.

In analyzing Lincoln’s speech, words like nation, equal, endure, live, earth were at the end of sentences–almost a summary of the speech. In checking out Dr. King’s speech, I was surprised first at the length of the speech–I’ve always heard just the part where every sentence begins with “I have a dream”. Analysis showed there were also key words in the end place in a number of sentences.

I also analyzed an essay I like on how school libraries have to reinvent themselves to keep up with the technology changes. The writer’s points made an impression on me because of his thoughtful ideas which he expressed with power position words, interesting word choices and varied sentence length. He and Lincoln are similar in the way they distilled their thoughts into powerful lines that didn’t depend just on word placement, but also word choice and even the rhythm and alliteration in the sentences. Lincoln’s words are long remembered for their content, and for the beauty and power of their composition.

 What did you discover?

Yes, we are having a book study of the Writing Tools book. We are on chapter 2 and you are invited to publish your take on the chapter and your response in the writing exercises. I have been secluded, pressing to finish the eighth book in my professional series. Five hours a day after a full day at school nearly did me in–and left no time to complete my Friday work. But the book was submitted Sunday, my husband and I celebrated tonight at a nice restaurant, and I’ll be back to the Writing Tools tomorrow.

 Post your comments to this entry if you are ahead of me on this assignment.

Beginning on February 15, members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators-Houston will join me in a book study. We plan to use Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer (Roy Clark, Little Brown, 2006). Each of the 50 short chapters ends with some brief writing exercises. To keep our individual resolutions to write weekly and produce a quality piece to submit for publication, we will be using this book to develop and perfect our craft.  

Clark starts with the basics–nouns and verbs–and takes the reader/writer surely through the process. He illustrates his points with excerpts of the best in writing so you will also come away with a broad view of how a number of writers do it. The group was started to provide a service to all our members, particularly those who live too far to attend the monthly meetings. You don’t have to be a member of SCBWI-Houston to participate, but you do have to read the book and do the exercises as often as your writer’s discipline will let you. 

The book is available at local bookstores and Amazon.com. Next Friday we will begin by sharing our thoughts on the first chapter and the writing exercise that follows. This is not a critique group—we won’t be reading what you wrote, but rather your thoughts on what you wrote and what you discovered.  Our goal—to figure out how to write better and to write more often. Here’s to our best year ever!