Weekly Writing Tips

[The Valkyrie]

Althanas is a strange mix of writer's workshop and roleplaying forum. This being the case, I'm happy to begin a new series of articles to help the writer's here develop their skills. Every week I'll post a few tidbits on a certain subject, and then welcome the mods (and possibly others) to give their personal experiences with that particular subject, and their advice on it.

This week, we'll tackle Point of View, and Viewpoint Intrusion.



Good writing streams from beginning to end without reminding readers of your construction. But both beginners and seasoned writers sometimes sabotage that flow when they allow in a writer's nemesis—The Viewpoint Intruder.

When you constantly reinsert the point-of-view character into the narrative, you make readers feel as if they keep going back to "Start." Read the following two examples of the same scene to see what I mean:


"Sally sits at a table in the restaurant, hoping her boyfriend, Jeremy, won't be late again. She notices the waiter looks tired. She turns to see a pair of Japanese men talking quietly in a booth near the corner. She watches as a baby in a high chair flings a spoonful of rice onto the carpet and sees the waiter sigh."

"Sally sits at a table in the restaurant, hoping her boyfriend, Jeremy, won't be late again. The waiter looks tired. A pair of Japanese men talk quietly in a booth near the corner. A baby in a high chair flings a spoonful of rice onto the carpet, and the waiter sighs."

When you allow viewpoint intrusion—letting Sally see the waiter and notice the baby—you haven't moved the reader into the story; you've diverted the narrative and shown the reader that someone is writing. Remember, it's understood that once you're in a character's viewpoint, you stay there until the end of the scene, and there's no need to place her in every sentence. With that in mind, here's how to find and eliminate The Viewpoint Intruder.

TAKING NOTICE

The word that opens the door to viewpoint intrusion most often is "noticed." Recently I read a student manuscript that said:


"The others were laughing and talking as they sat down at the table. As Kirk reached across the table for the bread, he noticed his hands. His fingers were long and brown, and he noticed how the light gleamed on his wedding ring."

The writer has inserted not one, but two intrusive "notices." He noticed his hands and noticed the gleam on his wedding ring. Was that the first time in his life Kirk realized he had hands? The scene would be smoother if she wrote it more like this:


"Kirk reached across the table for the bread. His fingers were long and brown, and light gleamed on his wedding ring."

The Viewpoint Intruder doesn't attack only fiction. Here's another example, this one from an essay:


"I looked over at Jenny propped up on the hospital bed. I could see her bright smile, but I knew she was in pain."

"I looked" and "I could see" are both unnecessary intrusions (and we might even include "I knew"). The point-of-view character had been in the hospital room for some time, thinking about Jenny's circumstances. So all she needed was, "Jenny was propped up in the bed. She was smiling, but I knew she was in pain." Or even, "Jenny was propped up in the bed, smiling in spite of her pain."

SENSORY OVERLOAD

When you write about sensory impressions, the Intruder might try to take over the text. Look at this example:


"Rob opened the door. He could smell fried chicken and onions, and he heard the butter crackling in the skillet. His mouth watered from hunger."

Rob's senses are great in the narrative, but you can use them better by implying, not reminding us of, his presence until you need it:


"Rob opened the door. The aroma of fried chicken crackling in the skillet with onion slices made his mouth water."
This way you begin and end with Rob, but you take him out of the description.

MEMORY LANE

When writers allow their characters to remember the past, Viewpoint Intruders can run rampant. To catch them, be on the lookout for adverbial phrases. For example: "As I stopped in front of the old house, my mind reeled back to how hard it rained the day Jim shot me." That passage would be stronger as, "I stopped in front of the old house. Rain had fallen in torrents on the day Jim shot me." This passage has more zip and we don't notice the author creeping around in the bushes near the old house.

Avoid the phrase "I remember" whenever possible:


"I remember that when I was five, I used to hide from my father in the linen closet. I crawled under an old lavender quilt on the floor, and I could hear his angry footsteps."
This passage has some good elements in it. But if you take out "I remember," you have a stronger scene:


"When I was five, I used to hide under an old lavender quilt in the linen closet, listening to my father's angry footsteps."
We don't have to see inside her head with every move or sound.

IT DOESN'T STOP HERE

Don't assume you ever outgrow the tendency to intrude. The first draft of my 20th book, Beyond Words, was full of intrusions:


"I took a break at a retreat in northern Idaho. I walked outside and sat on a log, where I watched a fat honeybee roving around a big blue pasqueflower. I could see her tasting its petals, and I heard her buzzing around the opening. As I watched, she drew back and literally hurled herself at the flower's center."

After recognizing the intrusions, I edited it down. The final copy read:


"During an afternoon break at a retreat in northern Idaho, I sat on a log and watched a fat honeybee roving around a big blue pasqueflower. She tasted its petals, snuffled at the opening, and then drew back and hurled herself at the flower's center."

That second version uses stronger verbs, and I've also eliminated my first-person viewpoint intrusions.

You may continue to write with Viewpoint Intruders, but with practice, you'll be able to weed them out. Once the "notices" and "remembers" are gone, you—and readers—can focus on your story.

(this article can be found at the following link
http://www.writersdigest.com/articles/ingram_intruder.asp )



Point of view: One of the most frequent "errors" I see in manuscripts by beginning novelists is in establishing and maintaining a singular point of view for a scene.

While it is possible to write from an "omniscient" point of view and show what any character is thinking at any time, it is a very difficult technique to master. A recent article by a professor who writes novels and teaches courses for a MFA in writing told of how he is just now confident enough to try it.

First person, the "I did this and I did that" point of view, is easy to understand and keep consistent. It is limiting, though, because you can only tell about what the character can see, know, think, and do.

Third person limited is the point of view most used in contemporary commercial fiction. It is like first person in that, while you're in a character's "head," you can only write about what he or she can see, know, think or do. "Violations" can be subtle: a recent manuscript had the point of view character knocked unconscious, then the writer went to tell more of the action which the character could not know about.

The advantage of third person limited is that you can change to another character's point of view to get new information, action, etc. But don't give the reader mental whiplash by jumping from character to character paragraph by paragraph. Stay within a character for a chapter if possible or, if you move through more than one character in a chapter (I use this technique frequently), separate the changes in point of view with an extra line space that includes three centered asterisks to cue the reader. And give the reader some time in a character's head, don't just pop in for a paragraph or so (generally speaking; there are exceptions).

(the previous excerpt can be found at this location: http://www.editorrr.com/writing_tips-techniques.html)

I hope these tips help, I know they've given me new insight on how I approach character writing.

The Valkyrie

[Storm Veritas]

(Posting per request of Valkyrie, who solicited mod input)

As a judgment mod, I come across these particular elements all the time, and it covers nearly everyone at Althanas. I certainly can’t say that I’m immune to inserting the occasional “I remember” or forcing sensory overload onto the character. They are easy things to do, but they definitely weaken the reader’s overall enjoyment in reading the thread.

As a writer with no formal training, I can relate to the bulk of Althanas in that I don’t always know guidelines and little common errors that are made frequently that decrease the quality of my writing. I can and will help Valkyrie to help point out some of the more common things that hurt or hinder threads, and reading her commentaries will help you improve your overall ability to create a better experience for your reader.

[The Valkyrie]

If there's anything you guys would like tips about, post your requests here and we'll try to get to them.

[INDK]

Ways of avoiding using a proper noun to the point of redundancy.

[The Valkyrie]

At this point, I was unable to find any articles pertaining to your question, Damon. Until I can, I've opted to briefly discuss it here, and any input from my fellow mods is greatly encouraged and appreciated.


First of all, here's an example that I just made up off the top of my head:

"Bob looked across the table at Vickie. Bob told Vickie that she was stupid. Vickie decided that Bob should be shot. Vickie had a gun thatVickie's father had given Vickie as a present. Vickie shot Bob. Bob died."

Granted this is a terrible paragraph anyways, but the point here is that it would have been moderately better had I not used the proper nouns (Vickie and Bob in this case) to the point of redundancy. This can be fairly easily avoided by simply choosing some alternate descriptors for your proper nouns. Bob could also be a young man, the stubborn fellow, the obnoxious cuss, the object of her affection, him, he. Vickie could also be the half-crazed mother, the shooter, her, she.

You get the picture?

So the same paragraph turns into something much less abrasive.

"Bob looked across the table at the half-crazed mother. He told Vickie that she was stupid. The woman decided that the obnoxious cuss should be shot. She had a gun that her father gave her as a present. Vickie shot the stubborn fellow. The young man died."

So by simply finding other ways besides the proper way of addressing the person, place, or thing, we are able to maintain the interest of the piece we are writing.

I'll try to find an article that sums this up better. Any questions?

[The Valkyrie]

Sorry that it's not Monday when I'm doing this... oh well... my husband left for Korea on Sunday, and I'm not in the mood... but here goes:

So many of us (me...) here at Althanas suffer from an affliction that causes us to write overweight sentences. We try so hard, that we end up being too wordy, too verbose. Having been docked points over this issue too many times to count, I think I'll share what I've read recently about it with you guys for our weekly writing tip.


Over time, malescribes often begin to equate quantity with quality, and they come to fear that concise sentences might not satisfy their readers. As a result, they often rely on wordy phrases to give their sentences an "adequate" lenghth.

Here is a short list of wordy phrases that malescribes typically use. They'll be listed with the wordy phrase first, followed by the concise equivalent.

after the conclusion of - after
at this point in time - at this time; now
be in possession of - possess; have
by means of - by
despite the fact that - despite
during the course of - during
filled with anger - angry
for the simple reason that - because
in an effective manner - effectively
in a state of confusion - confused
in a timely manner - promptly
in order to - to
in spite of the fact that - although
in the event that - if
is indicative of - indicates
it is often the case that - frequently
on a weekly basis - weekly
on the order of - about
owing to the fact that - because
take into consideration - consider
until such time - until
with the exception of - except for


Another way to add bulk to writing is to create unneccesarily long sentences. This technique is particularly popular with malescribes who work in law, government, insurance, and the social sciences.

Using a lot of words provides a safety margin. In the minds of malescribes, more words create more protection from error or judgement. If some words don't work, maybe the others will....

Concise sentences have a force that wordy sentences don't have. Extraneous words merely take up space and dilute the impact of the idea being expressed.



When tempted to use a wordy phrase, choose a concise alternative instead.
Make sentences as concise as possible by eliminating unnecessary words and phrases.
When confronted with the urge to use flowery phrases, instead choose simpler less pretentious phrases.
Don't use pointlessly redundant phrases.
Eliminate the deadwood from your sentences.


The previous information was borrowed from Step 6 (Stop Writing Overweight Sentences (by overcoming shame)) in Robert W. Harris's When Good People Write Bad Sentences (12 Steps to Better Writing Habits)

[Culix]

Since I haven't yet, I'd like to say that I think this little weekly mini-column is a really good idea. I mean, obviously, there are always times when it's better to break a rule than to follow it, but the better one understands the rules, the better one knows when (and when not) to break them. So, bravo, Valkyrie!

I thought I'd add to this a little something from The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.


Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Many expressions in common use violate this principle:


the question as to whether - whether (the question whether)

there is no doubt but that - no doubt (doubtless)

used for fuel purposes - used for fuel

he is a man who - he

in a hasty manner - hastily

this is a subject which - this subject

His story is a strange one. - His story is strange.

In especial the expression the fact that should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.


owing to the fact that - since (because)

in spite of the fact that - though (although)

call your attention to the fact that - remind you (notify you)

I was unaware of the fact that - I was unaware that (did not know)

the fact that he had not succeeded - his failure

the fact that I had arrived - my arrival

Who is, which was, and the like are often superfluous.


His brother, who is a member of the same firm
-
His brother, a member of the same firm

Trafalgar, which was Nelson's last battle
-
Trafalgar, Nelson's last battle

A common violation of conciseness is the presentation of a single complex idea, step by step, in a series of sentences which might to advantage be combined into one.


Macbeth was very ambitious. This led him to wish to become king of Scotland. The witches told him that this wish of his would come true. The king of Scotland at this time was Duncan. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth murdered Duncan. He was thus enabled to succeed Duncan as king. (55 words.)
-
Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth achieved his ambition and realized the prediction of the witches by murdering Duncan and becoming king of Scotland in his place. (26 words.)

[The Valkyrie]

That's an excellent book, and an excellent addition to my point. Thanks for your input!

[Storm Veritas]

I screw this one up all the time. Again, as a judge, this is one of the most commonly made mistakes among some of the better writers. I think that when you read something that uses too many inflated, pompous sounding words, your focus shifts from the content of the post itself to the definition of these insane words.

This is the exact opposite of the goal! Sometimes the really obscure words are helpful, if they are the perfect word to describe a particular thing, action, or event. If you use these obscure words to frequently, then the paragraph becomes convoluted. Try reading the paragraph out to yourself under your breath. Does your tongue get twisted a bit? Perhaps you should simplify.

Althanas is not a vocabulary test. Creativity needs to be offset by practicality at times, and DO NOT just use the "thesaurus" tool on MS Word to pull up replacement words that may be longer. The context of these words is often incorrect, and it leaves you looking either lazy or stupid.

I present to you quotes from a man who uses words he doesn't understand, a perfect example of this frightening phenomenon:



"My power is discombobulatingly devastating. I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."

"My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children."

I think we all know who said these. It's terrible to see, read, etc. to the point of being funny. I leave you with one more quote from Iron Mike, one I can relate to. It's the feeling of judging threads where people put too much verbosity behind their effort.


“I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.”

[Horizon's End]

I hope there's nothing wrong with my posting here but I found a very handy guide of Common Errors in English (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html) by Paul Brians which I thought I'd share since I see A LOT of people commiting some of them. For a sampler I'll quote a few (note that things such as commas, quotations, etc. are also covered but they tend to have longer entries):


ALL READY/ALREADY

"All ready" is a phrase meaning "completely prepared," as in "As soon as
I put my coat on, I'll be all ready." "Already," however, is an adverb
used to describe something that has happened before a certain time, as
in "What do you mean you'd rather stay home? I've already got my coat
on."

AFFECT/EFFECT

There are four distinct words here. When "affect" is accented on the
final syllable (a-FECT), it is a verb meaning "have an influence on":
"The million-dollar donation from the industrialist did not affect my
vote against the Clean Air Act." A much rarer meaning is indicated when
the word is accented on the first syllable (AFF-ect), meaning "emotion."
In this case the word is used mostly by psychiatrists and social
scientists--people who normally know how to spell it. The real problem
arises when people confuse the first spelling with the second: "effect."
This too can be two different words. The more common one is a noun:
"When I left the stove on, the effect was that the house filled with
smoke." When you affect a situation, you have an effect on it. The less
common is a verb meaning "to create": "I'm trying to effect a change in
the way we purchase widgets." No wonder people are confused. Note
especially that the proper expression is not "take affect" but "take
effect"--become effective. Hey, nobody ever said English was logical;
just memorize it and get on with your life.

The stuff in your purse? Your personal effects.

DEFINATE/DEFINITE

Any vowel in an unstressed position can sometimes have the sound
linguists call a "schwa:" "uh." The result is that many people tend to
guess when they hear this sound, but "definite" is definitely the right
spelling. Also common are various misspellings of "definitely,"
including the bizarre "defiantly."

DISCREET/DISCRETE

The more common word is "discreet," meaning "prudent, circumspect":
"When arranging the party for Agnes, be sure to be discreet; we want her
to be surprised." "Discrete" means "separate, distinct": "He arranged
the guest list into two discrete groups: meat-eaters and vegetarians."
Note how the T separates the two Es in "discrete."

IRREGARDLESS/REGARDLESS

Regardless of what you have heard, "irregardless" is a redundancy. The
suffix "-less" on the end of the word already makes the word negative.
It doesn't need the negative prefix "ir-" added to make it even more
negative.

NUMBERS

If your writing contains numbers, the general rule is to spell out in
letters all the numbers from zero to nine and use numerals for larger
numbers; but there are exceptions. If what you're writing is full of
numbers and you're doing math with them, stick with numerals.
Approximations like "about thirty days ago" and catch-phrases like "his
first thousand days" are spelled out. Large round numbers are often
rendered thus: "50 billion sold." With measurements, use numerals: "4
inches long." Never start a sentence with a numeral. Either spell out
the number involved or rearrange the sentence to move the number to a
later position.

PEAK/PEEK/PIQUE

It is tempting to think that your attention might be aroused to a high
point by "peaking" your curiosity; but in fact, "pique" is a French word
meaning "prick," in the sense of "stimulate." The expression has nothing
to do with "peek," either. Therefore the expression is "my curiosity was
piqued."

SARCASTIC/IRONIC

Not all ironic comments are sarcastic. Sarcasm is meant to mock or
wound. Irony can be amusing without being maliciously aimed at hurting
anyone.

THEY'RE/THEIR/THERE

Many people are so spooked by apostrophes that a word like "they're"
seems to them as if it might mean almost anything. In fact, it's always
a contraction of "they are." If you've written "they're," ask yourself
whether you can substitute "they are." If not, you've made a mistake.
"Their" is a possessive pronoun like "her" or "our": "They eat their
hotdogs with sauerkraut." Everything else is "there." "There goes the
ball, out of the park! See it? Right there! There aren't very many home
runs like that." "Thier" is a common misspelling, but you can avoid it
by remembering that "they" and "their" begin with the same three
letters. Another hint: "there" has "here" buried inside it to remind you
it refers to place, while "their" has "heir" buried in it to remind you
that it has to do with possession.

[AsukaStrikes]

Touche'. Don't forget about "You're and Your" as well.

You're is almost always a contraction of "you are." Either that, or it was a "you were."

Your is a possessive. Like your momma. But if you're really into rap, you'll only hear it truncated into "yo mama."

[The Valkyrie]

Sorry it's been so long. I got crazy busy. But this was a neat little exercise I found that I thought to be a very interesting and helpful tool for fiction writers (which we are!). Enjoy:


How To Avoid Too Much Back Story
From Ginny Wiehardt,
Your Guide to Fiction Writing.


Do your short stories tend to get bogged down in back story? Do certain scenes seem to drag, even to you? As Alicia Erian pointed out in an interview for this site, screenwriters have a lot to teach fiction writers about creating fiction that moves. This writing exercise will help you take advantage of these lessons to create forward-moving fiction, thinking of a scene visually, strictly adhering to the present moment, to eliminate unnecessary back story.

Difficulty: Hard
Time Required: two hours
Here's How:
1. Choose a scene from one of your short stories or novels that seems to drag. Scenes designed to be more action-oriented are particularly well-suited to this exercise.
2. Rewrite the scene as a play or screenplay. In other words, tell the story using only dialogue and brief descriptions of action and characters. (If you aren't familiar with screenwriting or playwrighting formats, don't worry. This isn't an exercise in formatting, but in thinking visually.)
3. Practice economy. Think strategically about how character can be revealed through action and dialogue. (Syd Field has excellent examples of how this can be done in his classic book, "Screenplay.") Instead of telling the reader what a character is like, find a way to illustrate character as the plot unfolds.
4. Rewrite the scene in prose, abstaining from back story and long descriptions, and incorporating some of the details you have added in writing it as a screenplay.
5. Take a few days off from the work and return to it later, noting how the pace of the work has changed.
Tips:
1. In some instances, backstory will be necessary to the plot of a story. Determine what's absolutely necessary and what the reader can surmise from the dialogue and the action. Readers generally pick up on and remember more details than you might expect.
2. Don't confuse foward-moving fiction with fiction written for the screen. It's possible to write rich, literary work that also has movement.
3. It's easy enough to reinsert any necessary information later. When you start to get feedback on the work, people will let you know if anything is confusing.

[The Valkyrie]

Okay so I haven't done this weekly as I had planned. I've had lots of bad things that have kept me from it, including my child getting salmonella and having to find a new place to live after being broken into. So. That said, I'll move onto the real reason for this post.

In the May issue of Writing Basics (a magazine by Writer's Digest) is an article by James Scott Bell called Leave Them With Hope which gives "tips to create a memorable finish that resonates with your readers". Considering that conclusion is a part of our judging rubric, and a critical part of every story, I figure this is probably going to be a helpful article for all of us (especially me who struggles with my conclusions every thread).

Enjoy!


It's no secret that a good ending seals the deal for any story. Writer Anthony Trollope compared a successful ending to a meal's dessert, while Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending."

Conclusions aren't only the most difficult part of writing fiction but also the most crucial. An ending must tie up the loose threads. It must answer every significnt story question that arises in the reader's mind - and do it in a satisfying way.

The best endings do something more than give closure. They leave us with resonance. They produce the right emotional note on that final page. Just as a patron of a great symphony says, "Ah!" when a musical piece is over, a reader will do the same with a memorable finale.

So it's worth every effort to create resonance. One of the best and most time-honored ways to do that is through a hopeful conclusion - an optimistic finish that leaves the reader satisfied.

Your resonant ending can profect a sense of hope out into the future. Anne Lamott does this in Blue Shoe:


The cascade of iridescence blew like musical notes of light; everyone was breathing out good wishes, frivolous and loving, evanescent and silly ...

Slanted rays shone through a darkening swirl in the sky, rococo castles and feathers and mare's tails in the clouds. Someone was pulling out all the celestial stops. It was so beautiful that Mattie could harldy bear it.

Note the poetic form, the use of heightened language. The style crucially fits the tone and tenor of the novel. A lyrical ending like this must feel organic, not tacked on. When it fits, it lifts the whole.

To acheive this kind of hopeful ending, do the following:


Get deep into the head of your character. Push past easy limits and dig down into his thoughts as the story nears its conclusion. Journal what the character is thinking to record the inner monologue in his own words.
Delve into your character's heart. As the author, you must feel the big emotions as much as your fictional creation does. A good method for this is to find some music that evokes the emotion. Movie soundtracks are great for this.
Write at least two pages of potentioal ending material. From this, you can glean the last few paragraphs that will be the perfect ending for your work.
Read your final paragraphs aloud. Hearing the words will give you an added perspective.


A hopeful ending doesn't need high style, however. It can come from the other direction, simple and direct, as in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Atticus Finch is putting his daughter, Scout (the narrator), to bed.


"...Atticus, he was real nice..."

His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me.

"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

This ending resonates because the image of Scout's father sitting up all night is a perfect summation of his character. In describing this one action, Lee is able to make the reader understand the kind of man Atticus is. She also indicates the effect he has on his children.

You can achieve a similar effect in your novel by doing the following:


Summarize the key relationships in the bok. Which one is the most important to your lead character? Why? How is your character's life changed for the better?
Think of several images that best convey the feeling of that relationship. It might be a symbol, action or place. Choose the one that creates the most emotion.
Write out several endings that use this image. Don't censor yourself. Later, condense the ending to its simplest components. Let the image itself do the work.
Plant this image early in the book and connect the characters to it emotionally for added power. When it repeats at the end, the readers witll recall and relive the emotion.


A middle ground between high style and simple imagery is possible, too. You combine the relationship aspect with slightly elevated language.

In John D. MacDonald's The Neon Jungle, Bonny, a drunk at the end of her rope, is helped by parole officer Paul Darmond. By the end of the book, they've fallen in love. The ending is from Bonny's point of view:


When Paul and Bonny left they walked hand in hand to the old car, in a rare moment of peace and accord. She sat close to him as they drove across the city, through the neon wasteland, through the stone jungle, holding close this small warm time of luck and of faith.

Over the course of the novel, we understand that, for Bonny, luck and faith are the only two things that can save her. They come together in the key relationship with Darmond. MacDonald gives us both aspects at the end.

Put some serious thought into your hopeful conclusion to wow your audience. It's the last impression you make. Do it well and you'll leave your readers satisfied.



So that's that. Discuss... elaborate... do your thing people of Althanas.

[Doppelganger]

I know this thread hasn't been updated in a while, so I hope it's still open for use (it hasn't been closed, so I assume it is).

I have a request for help. It's something that was touched on somewhat in the first post of this thread, but my difficulty goes a bit beyond what was covered there.

My problem is this: When writing scenes involving multiple characters interacting in close proximity, I have trouble keeping track of who's doing what without what I feel is excessive use of pronouns and proper nouns. I feel like I have to constantly reiterate who is acting when there are a number of things going on, and it makes my writing feel cluttered. I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look at my current solo quest (Seen here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=3263)) to see if you agree, but for those of you pressed for time (or those of you with a short attention span, much like myself) here is an excerpt which should illustrate what I mean:


Eltrian lunged for Theo, tackling him to the hardwood floor. In a flash, two men grabbed him from either side, one to an arm, and pulled Eltrian off, trying to haul him out the door. In a sudden burst of strength, he threw one to the ground and delivered an uppercut to the other’s jaw, watching as he toppled backwards to the floor.

In the interim, a number of the tavern’s patrons rushed to Theo’s aid, advancing in a broad semicircle towards Eltrian; before he was surrounded, Eltrian’s schiavona flashed from its scabbard, and he began making short thrusts at his assailants to keep them at bay.

Now personally, I feel that there are a few issues with this sequence, but for the purpose of my question I'd like to just focus on the one. In that brief excerpt, I included something like 11 pronouns, and trying to determine the antecedent (antecedent= the noun to which a pronoun refers) for each one becomes too convoluted. Also, note the second paragraph; they advanced towards Eltrian, and Eltrian's sword was unsheathed. I don't like using his name twice so close together, but I didn't want to use another pronoun either. What I really want to do is figure out how to skip the need for either one entirely, and that's where I need help.

So...

What might be another way to clarify the individual taking the specific action, especially in situations where two or more individuals are acting in rapid succession? Is my problem one of overused pronouns, or should I simply be organizing the actions more effectively, so those pronouns become unnecessary? Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.

And after that, if you have any other constructive criticism on my story thus far, please do let me know. I certainly don't like it when people find fault with my work, but I'm well aware of the fact that there's plenty of fault to find. So don't worry, my ego could use a little deflation anyway, just let me have it! ;)

[The Valkyrie]

I'm gonna give you a short answer for now, and if it seems necessary I'll lengthen it when I have more time. For one thing, I found that sequence to be perfectly understandable for the most part. "In a sudden burst of strength, he threw one to the ground and delivered an uppercut to the other’s jaw, watching as the man toppled backwards to the floor." I think is the ONLY change I would have made to that sentence. And you aren't using Etrian's proper name too many times too close together, because you aren't using his name twice consecutively so it really doesn't seem overdone.

I'll read the rest of the thread later, and try to come up with some pointers for you, but as for the excerpt you gave us, it really seems pretty well off.

[Doppelganger]

...Oh.

Well, thank you. If it turns out I'm imagining a problem where there isn't one, that's even better! :D Less work for me to do later.

Thanks for taking the time to look at it; having read some of your work here I value your opinion.

And I agree, using "the man" right there sounds better, otherwise it could be Eltrian toppling to the floor instead.

[AdventWings]

Response to Doppleganger: You could also use other descriptive names for both Eltrain and Theo. Allude to their physical size or features, or maybe their titles and jobs.

Like The Valkyrie said, it's not terribly hard to follow, though for others it might end up like a whirlwind of bodies where one could not be distinguished from another. In that case, try using a variety of special names like "The dark-hair man" or "the vagabond" to roughly describe who is what. Of course, you should also establish that somewhere earlier on in the post/thread.

Good luck. :)

[Doppelganger]

Thanks, that's a good idea! I appreciate the tip.

[The Valkyrie]

I haven't done one of these in a while (sorry!). Weekly isn't working out too well is it? Anyways, here is a little (or rather fairly large) piece about errors and mistakes. I found it quite helpful. It can be found HERE (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/mistakes_allen.htm).




Errors Of Style
The first errors I will discuss are in the area of how a story is written, rather than in what the story is about. You might also call these errors of structure: These are errors involving the structure of the story -- how it is put together, and the parts used to put it together.

Passive voice. This is the single most common error. More people make this mistake, and make it more often, than any other error in the writing of fiction. Let me rephrase that sentence, so as to illustrate the problem: This is the mistake most commonly made in all fiction. Note that in my second rendition, no one makes the mistake. It is simply "made." It is not clear that it is a mistake in writing. You could interpret the second rendition to mean that readers make the mistake. In passive voice, nothing is ever anyone's fault, because people do not do things. Things happen to people. "Irving ate the food" is active. "The food was eaten" is passive. Note that Irving has vanished completely. The food and the action of eating are made more important than the person who does them.

Writers most often drop into passive voice when they are unsure of themselves, when they don't want anything bad to happen to one of their characters, when they don't want their characters to do anything bad.

Remember that you story is all happening on paper. You can change everything later with a stroke of a pen. Don't be afraid. Be bold and adventurous. If you make a mistake, you can fix it later. If you kill a character, you can bring her back to life in the next draft. If your character commits a murder, you can give him a really good lawyer.

Note that passive voice cannot -- and need not -- be completely eliminated. See previous sentence for an example. There are times when it works.

Inappropriate use of summary narration. This is closely related to passive voice -- the two errors frequently overlap each other. Summary, or indirect narrative is the flip side of the coin from direct narration. You sum up events, tell about them, rather than show them. As anyone who has ever stayed awake in a writing class knows, you should strive to show as much as possible, and tell as little.

Direct narrative:

Henry walked toward downtown. He turned left on Smith Street. He stopped into Joe's Diner and he sat at his favorite stool. He ordered a ham sandwich for lunch, and made sure to smile at the waitress … (etc.)

Summary narrative:

Henry went out to lunch. Then he went back to work.
The first version is appropriate when you want to report on all of Henry's actions and his going to Joe's will have some impact on the story. The second is appropriate when the walk and the meal -- and perhaps the character -- are of secondary importance. Perhaps you, the writer, merely want to get Henry out of the way so Bob can be alone in the office to rifle through Henry's files.

Point of view errors & poor (or random) POV selection.

A good, solid rule of thumb: One scene, one point of view (POV) character. Jumping from one POV to another is downright confusing. If we readers have been inside Ned's head for the whole scene, then we are going to be really thrown if we are suddenly in Ted's head, hearing his thoughts and seeing Ned from Ted's point of view. If the point of view has shifted, and then the POV character turns and speaks to Ed, the reader will have no way of knowing if it is Ted or Ned speaking.

Allied with this mistake is the failure to chose an appropriate POV character for a given scene. Don't launch into a scene -- or a story or a book -- without due and careful consideration of the POV character. Who is the appropriate character? Who will have the most illuminating reaction, the most useful things to say, in a given scene? Whose thought would be most worth listening to for the scene in question? See: Bad Planning.

A side-bar, on an issue worthy of discussion on its own: Bear in mind that the narrator, the point of view character, and the protagonist can often be three different people.

Poor choice of tense and person.

You have three basic choices in tense: past, present, and future. Three more in person: First, second, or third. Eighty or ninety percent of all fiction is written in the past tense, third person, with most of the remainder written in past tense, first person. However, there are times when it makes sense to write in the second-person, present tense, or first-person, present tense (I just did a story in first present myself.) Each tense and person has its strengths and weaknesses, a subject beyond the scope of this list of mistakes. Suffice to say that a wise writer will consider the options carefully before choosing which to use. The foolish writer will launch into a story in whatever tense and voice pops into the writer's head (See: Bad Planning), or will write in plural second person future tense just to prove it can be done (See: Show-Off Experiments).

Time-control errors.

The most common variant of this is the needless flashback. I have seen stories that started with a flashback, then jumped forwards in time 30 seconds. What's the point? I am convinced that a great many flashbacks happen because the writer has read lots of books with a flashback and felt the need to conform to a literary convention. Yes, flashbacks can be cool, and dramatic, and exciting. But bear in mind that part of the reason they induce a sense of drama is that they cause confusion and uncertainty. They are intended to make the reader wonder "What the hell is going on?" and read further. But drama based on bafflement and doubt is a tricky thing. Far too often, flashbacks merely make the reader wonder "What the hell?" and give up in befuddlement. Straight flashbacks are only the start of it, of course. I have seen many manuscripts that included flash forwards, a quick "meanwhile" to another locale, a jump back to before the flashback, maybe a dream sequence, and then back into real time. I have seen stories that were little more than nested flashbacks, one inside another, like a Russian doll.

Bear in mind that you, the writer, know more than the reader does about your story. (At least you damn well better know more.) You will be clearer on the state of play than the reader. But just because you know what is going on doesn't mean anyone else will.

Good rule of thumb: The reader will get unstuck in time before the writer does. See: Information Not on the Page.) An even better rule of thumb: Do not violate straight chronology without a good reason. Ask yourself: What purpose is served in the story by violating chronology? Does it make things more exciting? Does it clarify something? Or does it just confuse the hell out of everyone?

Unnamed characters.

Of all the errors, this one puzzles me most. I cannot understand why people commit it so often. I suppose that it is out of a desire to induce a sense of drama, but it rarely works.

The classic example would be a twenty-page story, wherein we follow around a nameless protagonist for 15 of those pages. At long last, it is revealed, with high drama, that her name is -- "Jane." Wow. Or it could be any other name to which neither real life nor the story has attached any special significance. There is nothing surprising in a person's name. Everyone has a name. Revealing that your lead character has one too, and even revealing what that name is, will not likely shock anyone. The ONLY reason to avoid revealing a character's name is if you are doing one of those tired old things where there is a misfit little Austrian boy nearly hit by a horsecart. His life is saved by a kindly Jew and we find out the kid's name is --(what a shock!) Adolf. Even this is a rather tired old gimmick. (I have lost track of the number of stories I have read wherein a character later turns out to be A.H.)

The nameless character would be a harmless trifle were it not for the fact that this conceit requires the writer to perform all sorts of elaborate literary gymnastics to avoid revealing the name. I once read what was otherwise a fine piece of work wherein the lead character's name (and gender!) were hidden through the first 57 pages, including a fairly graphic scene of the character having sex. Neat trick, no? Neat trick, no. See: Show-Off Experiments.) This bit of legerdemain was accomplished by arranging that every person in the book just happened to talk to and about this person without using a name, and by the writer referring to the protagonist as The Ranger, the Leader, the captain of the band, etc., etc., etc.

It did not take long for it to turn stilted and awkward. Nor did the eventual revelation of the character's name and gender have any particular effect on the story, or have any dramatic purpose. The sex scene was especially baffling, as the writer, of necessity, could not reveal the sex of the character's partner in bed. While the writer made it clear what was being done, the writer, trapped by her own cleverness, was unable to make it clear who was doing what to whom. Oy. If your character has no name, or if you keep his or her name hidden with a series of allegedly clever artifices, you will spend 23 pages stuck with damn fool locutions such as "the boy in the shirt." Knock it off. If his name is Fred, say so.

Errors of Substance
Here, I am talking about "substance" in the sense of what the story is about: the ideas, rather than as opposed to the execution of those ideas.

The weird opener & the unintegrated opener.

"Sarah walked down the aisle, still unclear why she had agreed to marry a giraffe. The groom, waiting patiently at the altar, resplendent in black tie, spats and spots, swung his long neck around to watch her approach, all the time placidly chewing his cud." Pretty wild, huh? The whole intention of that opener is to make you, the reader, wonder how such a thing could have come to pass. Well, I wrote it, and I haven't the faintest idea. Don't let this happen to you.

I have sat in on (but not taught, thank God) workshops devoted entirely to the opener, and there is even some reason to focus on the opener that intently. Those few words do have to draw the readers in, get them interested in the story, and all that. However, many writers pay so much attention to the opener they forget all about the rest of the story, with the result that the opener has little or nothing to do with the story. The reader keeps going, eager to find out about that giraffe, and does not discover for 10 pages that (God forbid) it was all a dream, or that the writer has some other equally lame excuse for an explanation.

I have come across an equally unfortunate problem -- the writer who launches in with a wild, randomly selected killer of an opening, having no idea whatsoever where the story is going. (See: Bad Planning.) In fact, this error could have gone under the head Planning Errors.) Yes, the opener should be interesting, intriguing, should draw the reader in. But it should also have something to do with the story, be integral to it. The story itself should be interesting enough that some element of it should make for a good opener. As with all the notes in this essay, this is equally true for a novel or other longer work.

Retread of the same old same old.

There are lots of stories that have been done before, and need not be done again. In science fiction, these include the-nuclear-war-wipes-out-everything-and-it-just-happens -the-last-two-people-left-are-named-Adam-and-Eve story. In mysteries, you have the detective who turns out to be the killer. In The New Yorker, you have stories about people on Long Island who have no problems, whining to each other about their problems. With the exception of the final example, these stories are unpublishable because they have been done to death. (For some reason, The New Yorker just can't get enough of whiny Long Islanders.) Even the surprise twists on these old chestnuts have been done. It has been said, with a great degree of justice, that there is no such thing as a new idea. I have more than once written a whole novel based on something I thought was dazzlingly new and original, only to discover I could fill whole bookshelves with books on similar themes. I at least like to think that my take on those ideas was different enough, fresh enough, that I could get away with it. There is no clear line between a fresh take on an old idea and a hack rewrite of a theme that has been beaten to death. But you should at least try to avoid writing stories about writers writing stories about writers writing stories about writers having midlife crises. At some point, even The New Yorker will say enough, already. God willing.

Errors of Motive and Results
In short, these errors involve the art and science of screwing up on the question of why people do things, or why things happen, and on the question of what happens as a result of whatever the author has dreamed up.

Confusing the author's motives with the character's.

Your character wants to get home and sleep in his own bed. You, the writer, want him to be there when all hell breaks loose. You have a good plot a reason for sending him to the edge of the volcano's crater. But does he have reason? Your plot may require your heroine to fall in love with the sleazy thug -- but doesn't she have more sense than that? Is it in character for her to find such a scuz-bucket attractive? Or think of it another way. You are a lab scientist who puts rats in a maze. You plan to kill them and dissect them to see how learning changes their brain chemistry. This is not the rat's reason for going through the maze. The poor little bastard is just looking for a piece of cheese. Both writer and character must have a motivation for each action in the book. Much or most of the time, their motivations will not coincide.

Failure To Deal With Consequences.

Let me give a prime and recent example. One of my students wrote a story set in a post- collapse world where the U.S. government had ceased to exist, manufacturing and transport had essentially stopped, and the only source of order was local fiefdoms. She still had the characters using paper money. This just would not happen.

Failing to deal with consequences has to do with more than technology. If you write a story about someone who grew up in an orphanage, and that person goes to a big family dinner at a friend's house, the orphan's background will affect his reactions to a roomful of grandparents. It will seem damned odd if he doesn't have some massive emotional response to the family relationship that been denied him. It can something subtle, like a city person using language and imagery that only make sense if you are from a rural area. Of course, science fiction and fantasy are especially prone to this law of unintended consequences. Some other examples, which have, sadly, seen print: knights in armor climbing aboard a starship. A high-tech civilization based on machines operated by uneducated slave labor. A world of cybernetic connection where anyone can assume any guise or appearance at any time -- and yet people are discriminated against for being what no can know they are. If you write a story where they finally do shoot all the lawyers, who'll try the cases when the guilty are brought to justice? Don't just ask yourself what if once. After you get your answer, ask yourself what if about the answer, and then ask it about the answer to your answer.

Development Errors
These are mistakes made in the process of planning a story. Suffice to say they are very tough to fix on page 432of your manuscript. The closer you are to the initial blank page when you deal with issues of planning, the better off you will be.

Bad planning.

After waltzing through hundreds of partial manuscripts, and talking with hundreds of students who have gotten stuck, I have concluded that bad planning, the failure to work things out ahead of time, is the prime cause of stories not getting done.

This happens, in part, because inspiration is overrated. We have all seen the plays and the movies, read the books, where the lightbulb goes off over the writer's head and she suddenly starts cranking out brilliant copy non-stop. This is nonsense. It takes me something like six months to a year to write a book. If I had to be that inspired in order to write, I would have had a heart attack by now. The wise writer takes notes, jots things down, makes a mental note, mutters into a bedside tape recorder those things that seem inspired at two a.m. and are merely incoherent in the morning. Those jottings and mutterings and scribbles are inspiration preserved.

This essay is based on just such written, taped, and mental notes made over a long time. Those notes allowed me to crank this piece out in one day -- once I had the time and the notes and knew what I wanted to do. (However, just for the record, I have gone back and revised this article at least a half-dozen times as I have learned more, and as I have prepared it for different audiences. Don't be afraid to revise.)

Do a plot summary. Do character sketches. Work out the geography and the history of your story. Most importantly, know what the ending is going to be before you start. Know your ending, and you'll be able to get to it. But do not let yourself be locked in by your planning documents. (See: Not letting the story evolve.) A plot synopsis is not a blueprint, where everything is rigidly and precisely positioned, and if you move this pillar from here to there the whole damn thing will collapse. Your plot synopsis is a roadmap, showing where you are and where you want to go, sketching out one of many possible routes that could get you there. You could change direction, or pick anew destination -- or even a new starting point. But you cannot do any of that without first knowing the lay of the land. There is not much point in changing direction if you don't know where you are going.

Not letting the story evolve.

In one of my short stories, the scene that inspired the story in the first place never appeared in the actual text. In one book, a scene intended for chapter one ended up as the start of chapter seven. In another book, a character I intended as a one-shot walk-on ended up as a central figure in the story. Planning is important, but it should not lock you in. If you knew the whole story in immutable detail before you began, writing it would be damned dull. Be prepared to explore the new paths that open on your story as you write. But don't overdo it. (See: Self-indulgent digression.)

Presentation Errors
In short, the question of leaving in what should be cut, and leaving out what belongs.

Failed Exposition.

This typically -- but not always -- happens at the beginning of a story. Instead of getting action, or the story, we get background, told from no particular point of view. Sort of an encyclopedia entry on the subject in question. For some reason, fantasies are particularly prone to this flaw. The story will open with a long explanation of how the castle (or fortress, or bus station) came to be there, and who all the ancestors of the current duke (or king, or wizard, or head chef) were, and how the magic (jewel or ring, or crown, or polo mallet) came to be imbued with its powers and then stolen (or lost, or locked in a spell, or pawned). We then spend the rest of the book in search of the map (or book of spells, or claim ticket).

As in the rather interchangeable example above, most of what goes into such expository lumps is pretty generic. All castles were built, all rulers had some sort of ancestors or predecessors, all macgufffins (that being Alfred Hitchcock's term for the magic jewel or secret formula or other gimmick around which the plot revolves) are important, and if they weren't out of the hero's possession, there would be no story. Much of such material can be assumed, or else you can work it into the story here and there, rather than spewing it all out at once. Rule of Thumb: The only things that should be in your story are those that get a yes to these two questions:

Will this be of interest to the reader?

Does it have something important to do with the story the reader is reading? (It doesn't matter if it is vital to some OTHER story that happened 300 years before your story opens.)

At times, I have caught myself injecting whacking dull history lesson into my books. When I do catch such things, I find that putting all the exposition in a character's head, and letting that person think about the data in question, often makes it more interesting and allows that character to offer his or her opinion on the subject. Othertimes I find it just plain whacking dull no matter what and I cut it completely.

A side-bar on the subject of cutting and pasting and inserting and changing text in this modern computer age: Do it. Don't be afraid to cut and paste ferociously. Hit the save key first, and keep a back-up of your original, but chop the working copy to ribbons. If the original is backed up, you have the liberating knowledge that you can doing anything you like to the working copy without doing any damage to your first version of your deathless prose. If you don't like the changes you have made, you can always print out a fresh copy of the first draft.

Information that does not get on the page.

This is pretty basic, but awfully common. In short, you, the writer, have imagined every element of your story so completely that you assume the reader knows it all too. You might neglect to give a physical description of a place or a person that you can see perfectly in your mind's eye. The only real check against this is to put the story to one side after you finish it, then come back to it a week or a month later, so as to achieve some perspective on it. It's easy to fix: just put in what you've left out.

Ego-Driven Errors
These have much less to do with the story, and much more to do with the writer. These are the mistakes made by a writer in love with every single one of his or her words, who secretly feels that the only possible reaction to his or her work is unalloyed reverence. To such writers, I can only say: Get a life.

Self-indulgent digression.

Just because you are interested in something, that does not mean it belongs in the story. One of my students brought every one of his stories to a screeching halt with an off-the-point diatribe railing against the government for forcing psychotics to take mood-altering drugs. I told him if he was that interested in that subject, he should write a story about that subject, and get it out of his system, rather than injecting it into his otherwise good stories on wholly different topics. And maybe adjust his own medication while he was at it.

Just because you have done six months research on bonsai, that does not mean you should put five pages on tree-shrinking into your Japanese saga. Don't wander off on 23 pages of some off-the-point concept that you happen to find fascinating. If it does not belong in the story, nuke it. (See: Failed Exposition.)

The error that is not an error.

I have lost count of the times a student has explained why something that does not make sense really does make sense, if only I would read the74 pages of information he has on the subject, or if only I were (like the author) an expert on renooberated gravistrans. Whether or not the writer has his or her information right does not matter. The question is whether information feels right -- or wrong. A seeming error is an error because it has exactly the same effect on the reader as a "real" error.

It makes the reader lose confidence in the story, distracts the reader from the story and makes him or her worry about the error, and damages the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. Getting it wrong or seeming to get it wrong will have exactly the same undesired effects on the reader.

While we're on the subject of overdone research, I should point out that it is just as bad to get your research wrong-- or not do it in the first place. Assume that your readers are knowledgeable, and that some of them, at least, will spot what you got wrong.

An example from personal experience: Science fiction and fantasy writers seem to do a lot of stories that concern caves. These really bug me, as I like to go in caves, and most of these stories get every damned detail wrong. Caves in fantasy all seem to be airy, well-lit places full of perfect marble staircases and veins of pure gold -- which generally are not found in the limestone formations where caves usually form. When a story takes me into a cave like that, I ask myself -- Where is the mud? Where is the darkness? Where is cool, slightly clammy air? Where are the loose rocks on the floor, and the smell, and the bats? Even if the writer has, in reality, gotten it right, it is too late. Once I am in that state of mind, it will do no good at all for the writer to have five thousand pages of documentation on the principles of natural cave formation in igneous, ore-bearing, and metamorphic rock.

I always try to assume that someone who knows more than me is going to read my stories. If some detail conflicts with generally held knowledge, I will try and work in a sentence or two that explains my variant idea, or that at least acknowledges the existence of the generally received knowledge. Doing this lets the reader know I have at least taken common knowledge into account. It reassures the reader, keeps the reader from being irritated by what I got wrong, and thus prevents the reader from becoming distracted from the story. In short, I do a little research, and try to avoid both errors -- and seeming errors.

Writing to impress rather than communicate.

I am convinced that this is in large part a product of what passes for writing in school, government, and business. We are taught, over and over again, to impress the boss or the teacher with how much we know, how many big words we can use, how important we can make our subject seem. If the meaning itself is lost in a blizzard of jargon, all the better. Few people have the nerve to admit they don't know what you meant, and if you yourself are unsure, a little bureaucratic vagueness can often serve to hide what you don't know.

Inevitably, something is lost when things are made pompous. "Never enumerate your feathered progeny until the incubation process is thoroughly realized" just doesn't have the same punch as "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." Do not, under any circumstances, dumb down your work, but why be deliberately obscure? A good rule of thumb: Use the shortest words and simplest sentence structure that will convey the meaning you intend. A side-bar: In these dark days, we are deep in the thicket of politically correct verbiage. Ignore the trend. Say what you mean, not what you think someone would say you ought to have meant. After all, there are times you want to offend people. While there is little to be said in favor of hurting people needlessly, such idiocy has gotten completely out of hand. My favorite recent sample of this nonsense: the term "temporarily able-bodied, "denoting all those persons who unfairly do not have a handicap at the moment. This term was used in deadly seriousness. Fun people.

Show-off experiments.

Someone reading this is going to think something like this: Ha! So Mr. Know-it-all says to follow all these rules. I'll write a story in future tense plural second person with all the characters nameless and of undetermined species. The plot will consist entirely of nested flashbacks, I'll make the whole thing up as I go along, and I'll put in anything I want, whether or not it is related to the story.

I once tossed out the concept of flying pigs in a class exercise wherein I was deliberately dealing with absurd plot elements. Just to show me it could be done, half the students came back with flying-pig stories. Some of them not bad. With one possible exception, every single story could have been improved by removing the pig. "Just to show them" is a lousy reason to write a story, and usually results in a failed story. We readers don't want to see how smart you are. We want a good story. (See: Writing to impress rather than communicate.) A while back, I came out of the theater with a friend of mine and said to her "That wasn't experimental theater -- it was too good, and it worked." In theater, and in fiction, we have developed the myth of the Noble Failure. The artiste struggles endlessly and produces a work so dense, so sophisticated, so brilliant that no one can understand it, and thus it is shunned by the critics and the public alike. The artiste, however, knows it is brilliant and they are all fools.

Very rarely, this myth is true. It is, however, far more common for someone to crank out a mass of technically inadequate, self-indulgent, incoherent drivel, and then hide behind the myth, rather than accept the failure of his or her own work. It's a tempting option. Writing crap makes you look stupid, whereas being a misunderstood artist makes you look cool, sort of the way wearing a beret does.

[Massacre]

In the interim, a number of the tavern’s patrons rushed to Theo’s aid, advancing in a broad semicircle towards Eltrian; before he was surrounded, Eltrian’s schiavona flashed from its scabbard

Perhaps saying something like;
"In the interim, a number of the tavern’s patrons rushed to Theo’s aid, advancing in a broad semicircle towards Eltrian; before being surrounded, Eltrian’s schiavona flashed from its scabbard"

"He was" seems a bit unnecessary since it is implied that Eltrian is doing the action already. It seems to make it flow a bit better as well.

Then again English isn't my first language so perhaps I'm not the best source.

[Aryr de Morte]

In an attempt to revive this seemingly unused but important thread, I've decided to begin posting tips and such things of my own.

First off, we'll start with a term that not everyone knows, the malapropism.



Malapropism
Distinguishing Features

An instance of mis speech is called a malapropism when:

1. The word used means something different from the word (as indicated by the context in which the word was used) the speaker or writer intended to use.

2. The word used sounds similar to the word that was apparently meant or intended. Using "obtuse" (stupid or slow-witted) when one means "abstruse" (esoteric or difficult to understand) is a malapropism. Using "obtuse" (wide or dull) instead of "acute" (narrow or sharp) is not a malapropism.

3. The word used has a recognized meaning in the speaker's or writer's language. Simply making up a word, or adding a redundant or ungrammatical prefix ("irregardless" instead of "regardless") or suffix ("subliminible" instead of "subliminal") to an existing word, does not qualify as a malapropism.

Examples:
From The Rivals;

"He's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile." (i.e., alligator)
"He is the very pineapple of politeness." (i.e., pinnacle)
"If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" (i.e., apprehend, vernacular, arrangement, epithets)
"Why killing's the matter! Why murder's the matter! But he can give you the perpendiculars." (i.e., particulars, from a scene in Horrible Histories)

((Another example, easier to understand if you ask me.))
"It were my secret to successive. Thanks to Jimmy Jenkins my ovulary size is much, much not smaller then ever before" - (i.e. "success", "vocabulary")



This rather simple but hard to use trick is usually applied to achieve a comedic effect and often used by Shakespeare to grab the attention of his audience.

"A mender of bad soles" from Julius Caesar is a great example. This is supposed to be confused for "souls" as in, the man could be then mistaken for a priest, when in reality he is a cobbler, or a shoe repairman.

Another variation of the malapropism is called a technopropism. It is basically the same concept but made in technology (hard one to figure out, eh?) in things such as IM's/emails/forums *cough*

This can include misinterpretation of acronyms. Such as thinking "lol" stands for "lots of love" when it actually means "laugh out loud"

You get the idea.

[Aryr de Morte]

Although this is more than weekly and a double post I feel that it's worth it for anyone who is interested in improving their writing.

This is oriented towards essay or literary writing but important nonetheless.


My first advice is to read aloud what you have written. Generally your ear is
better than your eyes, and if you read it aloud you are much more likely to find awkward sentences, bad tenses, and other errors.
I find many people are good at sentences, but less good at forming paragraphs. Ousterhout has a solid rule, which led me to write shorter paragraphs. A paragraph is about a single idea, with a single key topic sentence. This sentence is almost always the first, but sometimes the last sentence of the paragraph, and the rest of the sentences somehow support that topic sentence. If it works, you can get a quick summary of a section just by reading the topic sentences.

Excerpt from Dave Patterson's Writing Advice (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~pattrsn/talks/writingtips.html)

A deadly enemy, the writer's block! There are reasons that when known can help you overcome this obstacle.

The author acknowledges his/her inability to complete this paper due to:


A "dearth of ideas, a state of self-dissatisfaction, and an inability to organize"

He "knows something is wrong, but can't identify it" because he has reached a "technical impasse" and is experiencing "a time when the words just won't come together"

He once received "thoughtless" and "insensitive" criticism and is unable to maintain the fragile balance between "motivation and enthusiasm in the face of continued self-doubt and self-criticism"

Is self-conscious about the writing situation because he has failed to do any "preliminary work such as brainstorming or outlining"

Feels "pressure to be brilliant in the first try" and "fear of failure, self doubt, and depression [have] become heavy loads"

Has no established schedule for writing and "writes only when the muse strikes" , yet has only this one project to work on and can think of nothing else

Has conflicted feelings, wanting "the writing to be perfect" and wanting "the damned thing done as soon as possible", yet fears deadlines and plans to postpone working on this paper until the last possible moment;

Fears that he lacks original ideas but can't stand to "write down an idea until it is perfectly worded" and this stifles his creativity;

Has no imagination, has not been inspired and, because he believes everything he writes is drivel, he worries heavily "about what [his] instructor or other reader[s] will think of [his] paper"

Fears that to be "original, insightful, profound, [and] funny … requires some mental digging" that he finds "uncomfortable" and because he knows that "writing something down [is] exposing a part of [himself] in an exceptionally public way," fears that what he writes is "unprofound, unfunny, uninsightful, and uninteresting and that putting [his] name to it is signing a confession to [his] un-ness"

Is having difficulty with the assignment because it is "restrictive"

Has become "stuck" and can't think of anything to write and the more he worries about writer's block, the more "he fear[s] its sudden onset" and so always stops to look up words, spending endless time thumbing through dictionaries and thesauruses seeking the perfect word instead of actually writing

Is upset by "something [that] happened earlier in the day" and is so preoccupied by that event that he has "thinker's cramp" and is unable to recognize the multitude of "excuses" he has for not writing;

And, because he has "psychological problems" "entirely unrelated to writing" and is "lazy", he has decided that "it's more fun to rest on the laurel" of having published once than to back up his claim of being a writer by creating new work.

Info taken and reorganized from here (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/block.htm).

The best way to overcome writer's block (I've found) is to just write anyways. If you come out with a product you don't like, save it! You may find your inspiration later and you may even come out with a product you like that reflects your mood that you find is actually a fine piece of writing.

[Aryr de Morte]

Writing an interesting character even the toughest Althanian writer would love to spend time with!

Quoted from: Kathryn Lance (http://www.klance.com/Whats_At_Stake.htm)


How can you make your main character so interesting and believable that readers will want to spend time with her? The students in my novel-writing courses often think that all they need are some quirky details (“a woman of a certain age who always wears polka-dots and raises Basenjis”) or a few changes in an autobiographical character (“like the author, Johnny went to Vietnam at a young age”). Quirky can be good (though usually not too quirky), and it is probably impossible to avoid some autobiographical elements, but for characters to be believable and sympathetic, they must possess more than a collection of character traits. Above all, the protagonist of a novel must have a central problem that is solved during the course of the plot. It is this problem that motivates the character, that explains why and how she does what she does—and that enables the reader, who also acts based on her own problems in life, to identify with the character.

To focus on the problem, it’s helpful to ask yourself: What does the character want? Put another way: What is at stake? Like you and me, our characters want many things, but to keep readers turning the pages, your protagonist must have one overriding want that is so important that there will be serious consequences if she does not get it. This want must not only be important, it must require great effort to achieve. And there must be forces that try to prevent its achievement. No matter how endearing, interesting, or unique a character may be on paper, unless he has something compelling at stake, there is no reason for readers to care about him.

For example, what does Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz most want? To get home to Kansas. How much would you care about her if she simply showed up in Oz with a pre-paid ticket home in her basket that she could use any time she was in peril? Probably not very much.

Of course there is much more to character than the central problem. Sandra Gurvis, author of the novel The Pipe Dreamers (Olmstead, 2001) and a work-in-progress, Country Club Wives, emphasizes the need to recognize that all of us have good and bad qualities. “An effective fiction writer,” she says, “can create a villain with compassion and a protagonist with flaws.”

One way to help make your character multidimensional is to be sure that in addition to a central problem, the character also possesses clear inner and outer conflicts, usually connected with achieving what she wants. Over the course of the story, these conflicts help drive the action; they must be resolved by the end.

The resolution of inner conflict leads to change in attitude; the resolution of outer conflict leads to change in circumstance. In Oz, again, Dorothy’s inner conflict is her attitude toward Kansas, which by the end of the book has become “there’s no place like home.” Her outer conflict is the difficulty of escaping Oz. Resolution of the inner conflict—realization that she really does want to go home—leads to resolution of the outer conflict, and a change in her circumstances.

Other time-tested ways to get readers on your protagonist’s side:

Pile on the difficulties. Readers will feel fear and sympathy for your character as things get worse, then cheer for her as she overcomes all the obstacles you place in her path.

Make your character the agent. Your character may have one or more sidekicks, but he is the one who must solve the most pressing problems, especially the one that leads to the resolution of the book. Remember that it was Dorothy who melted the Wicked Witch, not the Scarecrow or Tin Man.

Be willing to change your own ideas. Maxine Rock, the author of nine non-fiction books, recently followed her agent’s suggestion to make the heroine of her first novel “more sympathetic." To do that, Rock says, “I had to change what she wanted out of life: instead of being single-minded about her success, I gave her the more sympathetic trait of wanting happiness but being unsure how to get it. The story became much more believable. I'd been blocked by my own dislike for my character. Now that I saw her as a good but confused kid, I was able to write more happily.”

Seems simple, doesn’t it? By changing her character’s inner conflict, Rock made the character both more sympathetic and believable—even to the author.

[Nein]

Question on Malapropism:

In my attempts to improve my writing, I've been looking over these improvement threads, and have made definite attempts to use several techniques that I thought would work well.

Malapropism was one of them, and I've just a question on whether or not I used it properly.


All the unimaginable panes of violence and unsettled hatred stirred within that lasting fierce stare.

I wrote panes of violence, instead of pains, hoping that the word 'panes' implies transparency or specifically a window. So the unimaginable violence would be a window into the mans character.

Now, is that proper usage or have I done something terribly wrong? :P

[Aryr de Morte]

It's not a word that sounds exactly the same, it's a word that almost sounds the same.

For example:

"Except me to come later, okay?"
Could become,
"Accept me to come later, okay?"

It would be like saying "old tomato" in place of "ultimatum" or something.

Final edit: That would be a technopropism unless read aloud, since we're on the internet if you want to be technical, but the word is supposed to sound different if it's a malapropism so that the audience would get the joke.

[The Valkyrie]

Malapropism isn't typically a tool to use but a serious error to avoid.

[Aryr de Morte]

In dialogue though I think it can make its point.

Shakespeare used them for a comedic effect after all.

Edit: A malapropism is supposed to be for dialogue, not descriptions!

[Nein]

Ah, I see.

Learning already.

"Technopropism."

So, where would we come upon this information ourselves?

[Aryr de Morte]

I learned most of it and school and looked up the written stuff online.

[Massacre]

The following was found by The Valkyrie, the red is her, the rest is the article. Thanks to her (yay for that Southern girl, her!) and thanks for reading!

Recently we’ve discussed the place of sexual content within our threads, and in the spirit of growth, it seemed appropriate to post portions of an article concerning this particular topic. The original article written by Paula L. Fleming which was quoted here, can be found at this link (http://www.writing-world.com/columns/sf/edge23.shtml).

“Life is much more interesting, and complicated, because people find other people attractive. Likewise with fiction. Our characters' romantic desires and the way they pursue them can tell us volumes about their personalities, not to mention create intriguing wrinkles in the fabric of our plots; and the sheets!
So let's say that two, or more, of our characters feel some form of attraction toward one another. And it's mutual. And they have a time and place to do something about it. Should we have them melt onto a pile of silk-covered cushions in a flurry of caresses, then fade to black? Or should we describe everybody's body parts and what they do with them? Is one approach coy or even prudish? Is the other approach gratuitous?
In deciding how to approach sensuality in our own stories, it's helpful to consider the palette of sexuality encompassed by the genre, both past and present.

Decisions, Decisions . . .
So when our characters feel hot and bothered, we have a full range of options available. We don't have to be explicit if we don't want to. We can be explicit if we do want to. Most genre readers will be accepting either way.

So what to do?

Fortunately, we don't need to handle sexuality any differently than we handle any other story element. We can use exactly the same criteria to decide how much space in the story and how much detail to devote to sex as we'd use to decide whether to describe what a character eats for dinner or what they talk about over the dinner table.

Characterization. We find out a lot about someone when we sleep with them. Likewise, our characters can reveal a lot about themselves if we let our readers accompany them between the sheets. For this to happen, however, we need more than a blow-by-blow description of tab A in slot B. If you're describing how a spaceship is put together, including lots of technical details can be interesting because most of us haven't built a spaceship. But most of your readers have had sex, so spare us the technical manual. It won't tell us anything we don't already know.

Instead, let your characters' approach to sex show us how they feel about themselves, how they feel about the person (people) they're with, and the mood they're in that day. In other words, we describe a sex scene for the same reasons we include a character's body language and dialog in any other part of the story.
Major Plot Points. A lot can happen during sex, or because of it. Jans can spot an identifying tattoo high up on the inside of Daria's thigh, but only if he's looking there. Mark can use a surprising and very pleasurable sexual technique to distract Everett from his partner's escape, but to buy that, the reader needs to know what technique Mark is using and just how much Everett enjoys it. Layla may get the first inkling that the queen's cousin isn't as shy and sweet as she pretends when that woman grabs Layla's wrists and bites her hard in the throes of passion. Onyx16 can discover that Beryl5.2 has a mysterious visitor in the wee hours every morning, but only if Onyx16 regularly spends the night in Beryl5.2's cocoon complex and is awake at that hour.

Sexual desire can be a great excuse for characters to go where they otherwise wouldn't and find out things that otherwise would stay secret. Again, lengthy descriptions of tab A and slot B may just bog down the story. If Onyx16 was on a stakeout in the web of Beryl5.2's cocoon complex, you probably wouldn't describe every boring minute of every boring hour. Likewise, with sex scenes, we need to know enough to understand why the story takes a new direction, but we don't need to know more than that. Get on with the story!

Highlighting Differences. Sexual activity is an ideal way to explore a pervasive theme in SF/fantasy: navigating difference. You might be writing a first-contact story about alien explorers and indigenous humans in which an Joolah finds a lot in common with Bob -- despite his ugly, scale-free skin and sunken, unstalked eyes. Or you may be exploring crown prince Rudolph's discomfort with power as he tries to initiate a relationship with a palace maid -- without being exploitative.
Whether your characters are struggling with differences of biology, culture, class, religion, etc., the sexual interface is one of the most powerful places to play out those challenges -- and opportunities. Don't be shy about giving us enough detail to understand your characters' complex, often ambivalent emotions as they move away from what's comfortable or socially approved. This is fascinating thematic territory.

Don't Get Lazy!

Sex is inherently interesting. But that doesn't mean we can slack off and let sex scenes carry themselves. Sexual activity needs to be written with the same care we'd give any other part of the story. In particular:
Use telling details. Not everything needs description, just those elements that tell us something interesting. And don't lapse into clichés. If I read one more time about a woman's "small but perfect breasts," I may barf. Come on: what do bodies really look like? "Imperfections" -- otherwise known as uniqueness -- in lovers are exciting.

Use precise, original language. One well-chosen verb is greater than a vague verb plus a couple of adverbs. The cliché alert applies here, too, as does a euphemism alert, since many euphemisms are also clichés.
Avoid silliness. In trying to convey just how fantastic the sex is, authors sometimes go overboard and become unintentionally funny. It's the same problem some horror writers have: in trying to show how truly terrifying something is, they describe so much blood and so many dismembered body parts that we aren't scared anymore, just amused. "Spasmodically clenching buttocks twitching in feverish ecstasy" are probably more comical than sensual.”

So take all this into account when you consider writing a “love-scene” in your next quest. It can be done, both with taste and creativity, without losing the eroticism or intimacy you seek to illustrate between your characters. Enjoy the advice, add your own, or comment otherwise!

[chichi]

I was wondering if someone could help me with this.in fights i usually don't have very long and descriptive posts like other people do when i'm in the middle of a fight.Like if someone swings a sword at me i would have my character dodge it and maybe run off or swing a paw at them.Yet other characters respond to someone swinging a sword at them with a post long enough to be a novel.I don't know how everyone does this but i sure can't.Am i the only one having this problem.Please help.

[AdventWings]

One thing you may have trouble with is the visualization of the fight. As you sometimes see in movies (or even in video games), there are variably infinite paths and reactions within a single second. Take this mock battle, for example:

Rin and Kit are in an arena lined with ceramic. In the last post, Rin swung her two-hander longsword at Kit in an overhead smash.

In Kit's post, she could write...


Kit dodged the sword and throws a punch at Rin.

Now, what can you see from that post?

That Kit dodged the attack and swung her fist back at Rin.

And that was pretty much it. There was no emotion behind the movements, no rationalization for doing such a thing. How was her footing? If her dodge had been a haphazard one, would she be in a position to even strike back? That is generally what is lacking in the evidently simplistic post. Nothing terribly wrong with that... but it's just plain boring.

Now, what if Kit wrote this instead...


Seeing the overhead strike from a mile away, Kit spun around on her heel with her arms hugged tight at her waist. She could feel the steel blade sing as it flew by her ear, slicing a few of her precious locks in the process. Rage blew through her mind at the thought of losing her perfectly-groomed hair to a sword-swinging vagabond such as Rin, the fighter lashing out from the spin with a vicious hook flying towards her target's jaw.

Now... What can we see in this post?

Kit dodged the attack with a spin, although she didnot dodge it completely. Anger moved her to throw a punch at her attacker, the intended target mentioned in the fight scene as well. We could even imagine (along with the other readers) how angry she was and could somewhat gauge how badly that punch might have felt if it struck home.

Of course, this is taking into account the momentum of the spin and how far away these two were.

In all, each fight sequence is like a still-image of a fight. Asides from showing who is doing what and where, it is telling a story that evokes an image in a reader's mind.

Try writing out a few fight scenes on your own and have other people around you read it. If they can understand exactly the same thing (and see the same image) as you had in your mind when you were writing it up, it means that you are writing better and at least you're not just talking to yourself.

I've used this method often times in my writing, just to see if I'm still sane or not. :p

[Xos]

Its been quite awhile since this thread was posted in, but I had a question on topic with this thread and felt it better to ask here rather than starting a whole new thread for the subject.

My question is, what of the use of Vulgarity and colorful language in the use of writing. I'm sure few if any want to read sentences composed entirely of cursing, swearing, an speech of things not mentioned in polite society or the more mannered sections of the public.

However, what if your character is that sort of a person, what if they happen to be the sort of person that occassionally says a word you wouldn't dare tell your mother? What if they happen to be in a situation where repeating to the reader just exactly what they said and how they said it is better than being vague on the subject for fear of insulting the sensabilities of your readers?

How much is too much? When does it stob being the character speaking as he/she normally would and the author being stupid? This is a concept that has troubled me for quite a long time, and have usually avoided it by making clean cut characters, even the evil ones that just normally don't use that language, but then it gets to be restrictive after awhile.

I'm sure that by this point in time most of us have heard some foul language, and I've even read stories where a certain character was known for being rather vulgar, but again, I'm afraid of having a character with a colorful vocabulary, and then most people thinking of me as being a fool for taking it too far, or some other similar line of thought.

[Justice]

I'm shocked that this section hasn't been updated in months. I don't have enough writing talent to submit my own thoughts, but I found an article a few days ago that I liked.


Verbs

One of the most common writing pitfalls writers is the use of passive versus active verbs. When speaking, most people tend to use active verbs without thinking, but when writing, many revert to a passive approach. This is a more formal style, which although suitable for some types of writing, can be boring and lifeless to the reader.

To keep your writing lively and interesting, you should look to use active verbs in the majority of your writing.

Technical writing also favours the use of active verbs, sometimes called 'the active voice' as it removes ambiguity from the writing and assists with a reader's understanding of the content.

You can generally spot a passive verb in a sentence by the other words used. The sentence will probably contain words like 'were', 'was', 'been' or 'being'.

For example:

- Your letter has been filed. (passive)
- I have filed your letter. (active)
- The customer will be informed. (passive)
- We will inform the customer. (active)

Use your thesaurus mercilessly. Many verbs are overused or don't convey the subtlety of what you, as the writer, may be trying to get across. The English language is rich in vocabulary and you should exploit it. Most verbs will have alternatives that convey a subtly different shade of the action you are describing. For example:

- He said...

This is fine, but is relatively lifeless and uninteresting for the reader. Try:

- He mumbled…
- He shouted…
- He whispered…
- He boomed…
- He stuttered…
- He sobbed...

In all of these variations, it is still clear that something was said, but the manner in which it was expressed is also now evident.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Many experienced writers believe that adjectives and adverbs are overused, especially by inexperienced writers. In general, you should monitor your use of adjectives and ensure that they are kept to a minimum. Use adjectives only where you believe they are necessary and where they add definite detail to your work. Some rules to try and remember as you write:

- A descriptive verb will usually be more effective than an adverb.

- Lengthy use of adjectives and adverbs makes reading difficult for the reader.

Analyse your sentences and descriptions. If you are using more than one adjective or adverb in each, try removing all but the most vital one, and see whether the sentence reads better. In some cases, you may wish to use a simile or a metaphor to convey an image of what you are trying to describe. This will help reduce the number of adjectives and adverbs but is not appropriate in all cases.

SOURCE: http://www.freewritingadvice.com/index_files/language.htm

[Kovalai]

One thing I'd like to point out in regards to what Justice quoted is that in a lot of what I've read about writing, they totally agree with using descriptive verbs than throwing on adjectives. But one of the examples there, the 'he said' one, I have to disagree with. Everything I've read from professional writers says that even though in 4th grade all our teachers would have us write dialog where every comment needed to be followed by something other than 'said,' this gets really really irritating to read.

The advice I've read said that for dialog, especially in fantasy, you can gauge who's speaking, and what the tone is just from the dialog. If you pick up your favorite book, and find a page full of dialog, you aren't going to see a fancier version of said after every comment. Very likely, you won't see 'said' very much at all, and you'll still know what's going on.

Also, this is a handy little article. http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda/, but you have to go down for a bit and click on 'resources for new writers'

[The Valkyrie]

Okay I haven't done this in ages, and I apologize for the long time between doing this. Family issues have to take precedence sometimes. But recently someone commented that they missed them, so I thought I'd contribute to that again.


Non-Errors
(Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.)



Split infinitives
For the hyper-critical, “to boldly go where no man has gone before” should be “to go boldly. . . .” It is good to be aware that inserting one or more words between “to” and a verb is not strictly speaking an error, and is often more expressive and graceful than moving the intervening words elsewhere; but so many people are offended by split infinitives that it is better to avoid them except when the alternatives sound strained and awkward.

Ending a sentence with a preposition
A fine example of an artificial “rule” which ignores standard usage. The famous witticism usually attributed to Winston Churchill makes the point well: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” see The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Jack Lynch has some sensible comments on this issue. If you think you know the original version of this saying, click here.

Beginning a sentence with a conjunction
It offends those who wish to confine English usage in a logical straitjacket that writers often begin sentences with “and” or “but.” True, one should be aware that many such sentences would be improved by becoming clauses in compound sentences; but there are many effective and traditional uses for beginning sentences thus. One example is the reply to a previous assertion in a dialogue: “But, my dear Watson, the criminal obviously wore expensive boots or he would not have taken such pains to scrape them clean.” Make it a rule to consider whether your conjunction would repose more naturally within the previous sentence or would lose in useful emphasis by being demoted from its position at the head of a new sentence.

Using “between” for only two, “among” for more
The “-tween” in “between” is clearly linked to the number two; but, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, “In all senses, between has, from its earliest appearance, been extended to more than two.” We’re talking about Anglo-Saxon here—early. Pedants have labored to enforce “among” when there are three or more objects under discussion, but largely in vain. Even the pickiest speaker does not naturally say, “A treaty has been negotiated among England, France, and Germany.”

Over vs. more than.
Some people claim that “over” cannot be used to signify “more than,” as in “Over a thousand baton-twirlers marched in the parade.” “Over,” they insist, always refers to something physically higher: say, the blimp hovering over the parade route. This absurd distinction ignores the role metaphor plays in language. If I write 1 on the blackboard and 10 beside it, 10 is still the “higher” number. “Over” has been used in the sense of “more than” for over a thousand years.

Gender vs. sex
Feminists eager to remove references to sexuality from discussions of females and males not involving mating or reproduction revived an older meaning of “gender,” which had come to refer in modern times chiefly to language, as a synonym for “sex” in phrases such as “Our goal is to achieve gender equality.” Americans, always nervous about sex, eagerly embraced this usage, which is now standard. In some scholarly fields, “sex” is now used to label biologically determined aspects of maleness and femaleness (reproduction, etc.) while “gender” refers to their socially determined aspects (behavior, attitudes, etc.); but in ordinary speech this distinction is not always maintained. It is disingenuous to pretend that people who use “gender” in the new senses are making an error, just as it is disingenuous to maintain that “Ms.” means “manuscript” (that’s “MS”). Nevertheless, I must admit I was startled to discover that the tag on my new trousers describes not only their size and color, but their “gender.”

Using “who” for people, “that” for animals and inanimate objects
In fact there are many instances in which the most conservative usage is to refer to a person using “that”: “All the politicians that were at the party later denied even knowing the host” is actually somewhat more traditional than the more popular “politicians who.” An aversion to “that” referring to human beings as somehow diminishing their humanity may be praiseworthily sensitive, but it cannot claim the authority of tradition. In some sentences, “that” is clearly preferable to “who”: “She is the only person I know of that prefers whipped cream on her granola.” In the following example, to exchange “that” for “who” would be absurd: “Who was it that said, ‘A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle’?”*

*Commonly attributed to Gloria Steinem, but she attributes it to Irina Dunn.

“Since” cannot mean “because.”
“Since” need not always refer to time. Since the 14th century, when it was often spelled “syn,” it has also meant “seeing that” or “because.”

Hopefully
This word has meant “it is to be hoped” for a very long time, and those who insist it can only mean “in a hopeful fashion” display more hopefulness than realism.

Momentarily
“The plane will be landing momentarily” says the flight attendant, and the grumpy grammarian in seat 36B thinks to himself, “So we’re going to touch down for just a moment?” Everyone else thinks, “Just a moment now before we land.” Back in the 1920s when this use of “momentarily” was first spreading on both sides of the Atlantic, one might have been accused of misusing the word; but by now it’s listed without comment as one of the standard definitions in most dictionaries.

Lend vs. loan
“Loan me your hat” was just as correct everywhere as “lend me your ears” until the British made “lend” the preferred verb, relegating “loan” to the thing being lent. However, as in so many cases, Americans kept the older pattern, which in its turn has influenced modern British usage so that those insisting that “loan” can only be a noun are in the minority.

Near miss
It is futile to protest that “near miss” should be “near collision.” This expression is a condensed version of something like “a miss that came very near to being a collision” and is similar to “narrow escape.” Everyone knows what is meant by it and almost everyone uses it. It should be noted that the expression can also be used in the sense of almost succeeding in striking a desired target: “His Cointreau soufflé was a near miss.”

“None” singular vs. plural
Some people insist that since “none” is derived from “no one” it should always be singular: “none of us is having dessert.” However, in standard usage, the word is most often treated as a plural. “None of us are having dessert” will do just fine.

Scan vs. skim
Those who insist that “scan” can never be a synonym of “skim” have lost the battle. It is true that the word originally meant “to scrutinize,” but it has now evolved into one of those unfortunate words with two opposite meanings: to examine closely (now rare) and to glance at quickly (much more common). It would be difficult to say which of these two meanings is more prominent in the computer-related usage, to “scan a document.”

That said, it’s more appropriate to use “scan” to label a search for specific information in a text, and “skim” to label a hasty reading aimed at getting the general gist of a text.

Off of
For most Americans, the natural thing to say is “Climb down off of [pronounced “offa”] that horse, Tex, with your hands in the air”; but many UK authorities urge that the “of” should be omitted as redundant. Where British English reigns you may want to omit the “of” as superfluous, but common usage in the US has rendered “off of” so standard as to generally pass unnoticed, though some American authorities also discourage it in formal writing. But if “onto” makes sense, so does “off of.” However, “off of” meaning “from” in phrases like “borrow five dollars off of Clarice” is definitely nonstandard.


Till vs. ’til.
Since it looks like an abbreviation for “until,” some people argue that this word should always be spelled “’til” (though not all insist on the apostrophe). However, “till” has regularly occurred as a spelling of this word for over 800 years and it’s actually older than “until.” It is perfectly good English.

Teenage vs. teenaged.
Some people object that the word should be “teenaged,” but unlike the still nonstandard “ice tea” and “stain glass,” “teenage” is almost universally accepted now.

Don’t use “reference” to mean “cite.”
Nouns are often turned into verbs in English, and “reference” in the sense “to provide references or citations” has become so widespread that it’s generally acceptable, though some teachers and editors still object.


Feeling bad
“I feel bad” is standard English, as in “This t-shirt smells bad” (not “badly”). “I feel badly” is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they know better than the masses. People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know they mean to say they’re healthy.

Unquote vs. endquote

Some people get upset at the common pattern by which speakers frame a quotation by saying “quote . . . unquote,” insisting that the latter word should logically be “endquote”; but illogical as it may be, “unquote” has been used in this way for about a century, and “endquote” is nonstandard.

Persuade vs. convince
Some people like to distinguish between these two words by insisting that you persuade people until you have convinced them; but “persuade” as a synonym for “convince” goes back at least to the 16th century. It can mean both to attempt to convince and to succeed. It is no longer common to say things like “I am persuaded that you are an illiterate fool,” but even this usage is not in itself wrong.

Normalcy vs. normality
The word “normalcy” had been around for more than half a century when President Warren G. Harding was assailed in the newspapers for having used it in a 1921 speech. Some folks are still upset; but in the US “normalcy” is a perfectly normal—if uncommon—synonym for “normality.”
Aggravate vs. irritate
Some people claim that “aggravate” can only mean “make worse” and should not be used to mean “irritate”; but the latter has been a valid use of the word for four centuries, and “aggravation” means almost exclusively “irritation.”

You shouldn’t pronounce the “e” in “not my forte.”
Some people insist that it’s an error to pronounce the word “forte” in the expression “not my forte” as if French-derived “forte” were the same as the Italian musical term for “loud”: “for-tay.” But the original French expression is pas mon fort, which not only has no “e” on the end to pronounce—it has a silent “t” as well. It’s too bad that when we imported this phrase we mangled it so badly, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. If you go around saying what sounds like ”that’s not my fort,” people won’t understand what you mean.

However, those who use the phrase to mean “not to my taste” (“Wagnerian opera is not my forte”) are definitely mistaken. Your forte is what you’re good at, not just stuff you like.

“Preventive” is the adjective, “preventative” the noun.
I must say I like the sound of this distinction, but in fact the two are interchangeable as both nouns and adjective, though many prefer “preventive” as being shorter and simpler. “Preventative” used as an adjective dates back to the 17th century, as does “preventive” as a noun.

People should say a book is titled such-and-such rather than entitled.
No less a writer than Chaucer is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as having used “entitled” in this sense, the very first meaning of the word listed by the OED. It may be a touch pretentious, but it’s not wrong.

People are healthy; vegetables are healthful.
Logic and tradition are on the side of those who make this distinction, but I’m afraid phrases like “part of a healthy breakfast” have become so widespread that they are rarely perceived as erroneous except by the hyper-correct. On a related though slightly different subject, it is interesting to note that in English adjectives connected to sensations in the perceiver of an object or event are often transferred to the object or event itself. In the 19th century it was not uncommon to refer, for instance, to a “grateful shower of rain,” and we still say “a gloomy landscape,” “a cheerful sight” and “a happy coincidence.”

Dinner is done; people are finished.
I pronounce this an antiquated distinction rarely observed in modern speech. Nobody really supposes the speaker is saying he or she has been roasted to a turn. In older usage people said, “I have done” to indicate they had completed an action. “I am done” is not really so very different.

Crops are raised; children are reared.
Old-fashioned writers insist that you raise crops and rear children; but in modern American English children are usually “raised.”

“You’ve got mail” should be “you have mail.”
The “have” contracted in phrases like this is merely an auxiliary verb, not an expression of possession. It is not a redundancy. Compare: “You’ve sent the mail.”

It’s “cut the muster,” not “cut the mustard.”
This etymology seems plausible at first. Its proponents often trace it to the American Civil War. We do have the analogous expression “to pass muster,” which probably first suggested this alternative; but although the origins of “cut the mustard” are somewhat obscure, the latter is definitely the form used in all sorts of writing throughout the twentieth century. Common sense would suggest that a person cutting a muster is not someone being selected as fit, but someone eliminating the unfit. See the alt.usage.english faq explanation of this term.

It’s “carrot on a stick,” not “carrot or stick.”
Authoritative dictionaries agree, the original expression refers to offering to reward a stubborn mule or donkey with a carrot or threatening to beat it with a stick and not to a carrot being dangled from a stick. Further discussion. This and other popular etymologies fit under the heading aptly called by the English “too clever by half."

“Spitting image” should be “spit and image.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earlier form was “spitten image,” which may indeed have evolved from “spit and image.” It’s a crude figure of speech: someone else is enough like you to have been spat out by you, made of the very stuff of your body. In the early 20th century the spelling and pronunciation gradually shifted to the less logical “spitting image,” which is now standard. It’s too late to go back. There is no historical basis for the claim sometimes made that the original expression was “spirit and image.”

“Lion’s share” means all of something, not the larger part of something.
Even though the original meaning of this phrase reflected the idea that the lion can take whatever he wants—typically all of the slaughtered game, leaving nothing for anyone else—in modern usage the meaning has shifted to “the largest share.” This makes great sense if you consider the way hyenas and vultures swarm over the leftovers from a typical lion’s kill.

“Connoisseur” should be spelled “connaisseur.”
When we borrowed this word from the French in the 18th century, it was spelled “connoisseur.” Is it our fault the French later decided to shift the spelling of many OI words to the more phonetically accurate AI? Of those Francophone purists who insist we should follow their example I say, let ’em eat bifteck.

Borrowed from http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/nonerrors.html

[Visla Eraclaire]

All very good. I still admit that I cling to some of the "technically incorrect" examples, but only in my own writing. I don't consider them errors when used by others.

I will say "I feel bad" without question, but if someone asks, "How are you doing?" I will always say "well" or "badly".

I also insist on putting periods outside of quotation marks when I am quoting something that is not a sentence on its own. I wonder if I'm alone on that.

E.G.

Quotations for sarcasm or emphasis: I can't believe we're being subjected to this "small delay".
Quotations of a single word or phrase: Many people are now referring to it as "teh intarwebz".
Quotation of an actual sentence: I said, "I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this."

I've taken a lot of flak about that opinion from militant grammarians, who say I am welcome to either follow the British rule and always put the punctuation on the outside, but that I have to be consistent.

Nuts to them.

[Raphai]

Quotations for sarcasm or emphasis: I can't believe we're being subjected to this "small delay".
Quotations of a single word or phrase: Many people are now referring to it as "teh intarwebz".
Quotation of an actual sentence: I said, "I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this."

You should be consistent in my opinion. As soon as I saw what you were doing my OCD started to act up! It looks, wierd-for lack of a better word-and unprofessional. I don't know, it's just how I see it.

[Veatrix]

Writing tip: Write.

[Slavegirl]

We haven't done this in a while, but I'll try to get it started back up, and hopefully my fellow mods will help me keep it going.

Considering our current poll, and the fact that a good portion of those who participated told us they don't post more than once every one or two weeks, I thought some info about how to get motivated to write more often might be appropriate.

From www.epic-fantasy.com (http://www.epic-fantasy.com/creativity/how-to-motivate-yourself-to-write.htm) here are some tips:



How to Motivate Yourself to Write

Writing is a wonderful, yet sometimes, very hard thing to do. Often it is very easy to not “make the time” to write and nobody is going to motivate you. You have to motivate yourself. Here are three techniques that will get you writing.



Technique 1: Modify Your Internal Dialogue

The biggest reason why a person doesn’t write is the internal dialogue that is run when making the attempt to write. It usually takes the shape of unreasonable questions like “What should I write? Or What if my writing doesn’t make any sense? Or What if my dream of writing is just silly?” These questions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you hear yourself asking these questions you should immediately interrupt this pattern by replacing it with new questions like: “What kind of fun things are going to happen in my fictional world today or what challenges will my main character overcome today?” This shifts the focus from you to the world you are writing about. This is extremely effective in that it erases the thoughts of doubt you are having and starts a train of thought about the writing.

Technique 2: The Carrot

There are common tools used to motivate people in all sorts of ways and there is no reason why you can’t use these tools on yourself. I keep a pint of my favorite ice cream in the freezer with a note on it: “Did you write?” It is as simple as that. If I don’t write I don’t get the reward. You can set yourself a word or page count goal and then establish a reward for achieving it. And with writing it is very important to establish a time line too! You have to say something like: “If I write a page every day this week I am taking myself out to dinner on Saturday to celebrate.” And make sure you stick with it. No writing and no ice cream.

Technique 3: The Stick

As funny as it sounds this is a technique that really works on two different levels. Assign yourself an unpleasant task like cleaning the bathroom or organizing the garage. If you don’t make your writing goal then this will be your penalty. I have used this technique and it is really effective. And the interesting thing about how this technique works for me is that while I am doing the chore I assigned myself I am thinking up new ideas, scenarios and plots for my writing. For me, simple tasks that take a few hours seem to clear my mind and free me to think. So even if I lose the challenge I still win.

Writing is an extraordinarily rewarding pursuit. Yet sometimes it can be a very hard thing to do. It is just putting words down on paper (or on a computer screen) and you have been doing this since the age of four. So don’t worry about anything and just write. The only way to get good at it, as with anything else, is to actually do it.

[Logan]

I want to, in light of the last post, reiterate what Veatrix and Slavegirl posted. Sometimes, the best thing you can do when you have a writer's block is just simply write. This does not always have to mean that you have a planned out entire thread with every detail predetermined, if that is what you are used to doing. For some people, that is their method of writing, and it works.

For others, like myself, I just write. I try to invoke the character, in my case Logan, and write what he experiences, feels, thinks, etc, and from the standpoint of more story-telling than novel-writing. This was something I realized recently in terms of how I write, and to me it was quite the revelation.

Some readers find it easier to read through the story-telling style of writing, which includes bits and pieces of objective narrative from the author (or is it subjective?) or story-teller. It is akin to reading a book out-loud and commenting every now and again on something in the story that maybe the words on the pages wouldn't normally have.

Authors like Tolkien use the standardized novel-writing method. Less story-telling, and far more direct in it's written style. In this style, it is typical to find stories that span a far longer period of time than that of the story-telling method.

I drone on and on to simply say this...

No matter your style, your method, or your talent, if you get stuck just simply write. And keep writing.

The methods listed above by Slavegirl are great methods to try to overcome a block, and I definitely recommend trying them. On the off-chance they don't resolve your block, try simply writing. Pick a singular idea and just write it. Write and keep writing. Don't stop to re-read what you wrote. Just let your thoughts transfer to your fingers and through the keys to the page before you.

I can't tell you how many times this has worked for me. Even if I ended up throwing out what I wrote, and then wrote a far more eloquent and fluid post immediately following.

Wow, I am horrible about rambling...at least at 1:30 in the morning. *sigh* Sorry...

[Slavegirl]

Just a nice little tidbit to keep in mind....

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, READ THIS!!!! (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling)



That is all.

[Kerrigan Muldoon]

I am studying Psychology and the current topic happens to be psycholinguistics (I guess it would be ironic to have named it simpler).

So I thought I would share some insights with you. The neat thing is that this information does not come from some 'experienced author' (knowledge based on experience is as subjective as it gets) but is based on or supported by empirical data (studies have proved that empirical data is true).

Anyhow, four factors negatively affecting comprehension: (according to Matlin)

1) Negatives
- e.g: "Judge denies bid to stop retirement by professor"
- With four negatives people only correctly understood a sentence 59% of the time (which is only barely better as guessing (=50%))
- "She didn't deny that she wasn't unaware when he failed to not refuse the lack of bla bla bla."

2) Passive Voice
- Passive: The dog was rescued by the woman (correctly understood 81% of the time + it's boring)
- Active: The woman rescued the dog (94% + APA advices it, and APA is omnipotent so you better listen to them)

3) Nested Structures
- e.g: "The plane that I want to take when I go to Denver after he returns from Washington leaves at 8:30."
- According to my text book, it is not nice to use sentences like this because goldfish (and humans with a crappy short term memory) don't get it.

4) Ambiguity
- Two sisters reunited after 18 years in checkout line.
- Eye drops off shell.
- Stolen painting found by tree.
- Enraged cow injures farmer with ax.
- Squad helps dog bite victims.
- British left waffles on Falkland Islands.
- Sometimes I wake up grumpy.
- Biweekly.
- Wet paint.
- Prostitutes appeal to pope.
- Miners refuse to work after death.
- Handel's organ works.
- Foot to head joint body.
(Btw, most of these sentences are actually newspaper headlines.))


Making fun of people with aphasia. A description from someone with Wernicke's aphasia:
"I called my mother on the television and did not understand the door. It was not too breakfast, but they came from far to near. My mother is not too old for me to be young."
I especially love the last sentence. Try this at home, school or at work; it's fun.

[Wynken]

- Foot to head joint body. (I don't get this one, but I'm pretty sure it will be funny to those who do have English as a first language. Btw, most of these sentences are actually newspaper headlines.)


Foot is likely someone's last name, and they are going to head (or lead) a joint body of committee members. :p

[Kerrigan Muldoon]

Then I was right: it is in fact funny.

[SirArtemis]

For those who may be interested, I found a list of homonyms that may come in handy. If you find yourself unsure if you are using the proper form of a word, even if it is spelled correctly, feel free to refer to this fairly concise list.

Homonym List (http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html)

[SirArtemis]

Edit: apparently I was WRONG

[Christoph]

If I read something littered with those, I would quickly become annoyed. The real trick is to trim off dialogue verbs as much as possible, mixing in normal action lines and letting the dialogue itself speak for itself, no pun intended. Stick to a short list of more commonplace words to go along with "said", and use the above listed words very sparingly, lest they lose their effectiveness.

[Visla Eraclaire]

The post by Artemis is actually the opposite of what you want to do.

It's called Said Bookism (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SaidBookism).


An artificial verb used to avoid the word "said." "Said" is one of the few invisible words in the English language and is almost impossible to overuse. It is much less distracting than "he retorted," "she inquired," "he ejaculated," and other oddities. The term "said-book" comes from certain pamphlets, containing hundreds of purple-prose synonyms for the word "said," which were sold to aspiring authors from tiny ads in American magazines of the pre-WWII era.

I used to do it a lot. Nowadays I try to leave out said phrases altogether if it can be done clearly, or stick to said unless I'm trying to make a particular point or having fun. I had a conversation once where Visla used "said" synonyms that all began with one letter and the person she was speaking with used ones that all began with another. That was humorous, but only because Said Bookism is such a problem.