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I’m always amused by the English language. There is a joke (button/Tshirt) that says the English language leads nice languages down back alleys, then beats them and steals words and grammar from it, leaving the language to die. We have nothing on the Japanese, who has a whole alphabet (syllabry if you’re nasty) dedicated to stuff they’ve taken from other languages not counting the apprehension of an entire system of pictographs from another language.
That being said, English is a living language. It’s used around the world and can vary night and day by region. Think about it this way. I took seven years of Spanish between middle and high school. Yet, I was ill prepared to be an exchange student in Mexico. How you may be asking? Well the way you ask for the check in Spain will get you beaten up in Mexico, mainly because it’s not nice to ask the waiter to masturbate for you.
The point is, what you learn in school doesn’t apply in real life. That goes for English too.
I’m sure you heard the news today that Oxford is dropping the serial comma from their style book. This has been a trend in writing for a while. Both AP and Chicago Style allow for no comma before ‘and’. In fiction writing style guides may or may not be used but I know, I’ve confused a few of my fellow critiquers by using AP style in my novel and short story. (Hey, it confused me too. Taught me to be clear about what I was doing when I ask for line edits.)
The shock and aw over what goes where in a sentence (is there punctuation rules in any other language as complicated as those in the English language?) depends on what you were taught in school, what you had to use to work and what the folks around you use. As a living language, words and punctuation change all the time, despite dictionaries and style guides.
Word usage is what really gets me though. I’m sure you heard in school that contractions are not really words and should never be used, only to have them appear on spelling tests the next year? There have been screaming matches at the use of a lot. Or in my own manuscripts I’ve had editors and critiques tell me to use all right instead of alright. Then the next batch will tell me that alright is correct. Hell, in Word, which I have set in AP Style finds alright correct in the former sentence and incorrect in the latter.
The key is to be consistent. Once you decide how to present your prose stick to that. If your publisher has a style guide they want used they’ll tell you (or put it in the submission guidelines. I have seven versions of ‘Get’em While You Can’ because of grammar requests differ depending on market.) It’s not going to kill you to remove the comma before ‘and’.
I’d say goodbye to the serial comma but I haven’t used it in years.
Sorry for the outage. We have moved servers. So back to writing!!
Nearly everyone has heard Stephen King’s advice, “Kill you darlings.” Most how-to books will tell you that your darlings are ly words or anything used in place of “said” but there is more to it than that.
We all have words that we use often. We say them, we write them. In the context of short bursts, such as articles, blogs, or short stories, writers and readers may not notice the repetitive nature of the prose. I’ve had a lot of short stories critiqued and no one has ever caught me. Even using things like, yWriter’s word use tool wasn’t enough to make me notice my over use of certain words.
Then I had the critique group got through my first completed novel.
This is one of the many reasons why this group is awesome. In my longer work, word repetition stuck out like a sore thumb, and they noticed. Every time one of the critiques said, hey, this word is used a lot, I wrote it down. These were my darlings and they needed staking something bad.
Going back over my short stories revealed the same problems, from the same list. Without a list of my darlings, my short stories were suffering as well.
Find out what your darlings are and murder them. You’ll probably need someone else to help you find them. I definitely did. Combine your list of darlings with the various darlings that how-to books mention and you will tighten your prose. This includes killing ly words that you can live without, exclamation points, stick with said, clichés, over use of and &but, and anything else you or some you respect finds horrible.
Here’s my list:
I used some of these words in this post, I know. Much revision needed.
I’ve been hip deep in revisions for a few months now. For me, this is one of the best parts of writing. Striking through words, sentences and even paragraphs.
Going through WH is hard enough. I’ve been working on this story for almost ten years now. I can’t even see the mistakes, typos, or leaps in logic that need to be fixed. That’s why I decided to start with this one with the critique group. I needed line edits, not because I thought it was done, but because I couldn’t see what needed editing. Doing the actual revision has taught me a few things.
1. Someone needs to look at this.
I cannot tell you how invaluable critiquing is for a story to work. Without another set of eyes, you can miss typos, get your facts wrong and totally screw up the plot. As a writer, you starting filling in details you know but many have never actually wrote down. The only cure for this is for another set of eyes to look at your work. Even after revisions get some folks to read it all the way through, in case you missed something.
2. Music
Having something to listen to other than people, Muzak, or construction is imperative. I have a battle mix I save just for writing. It contains fast songs with upbeat messages. Whatever your tastes are you will want to have some way to drown out the noise you don’t want. This gets you into the zone while writing and revising.
3. Love your revisions
Change is for the better and in many cases, your darlings must go. Darlings aren’t just for ly words. They are also first chapters, phrases, characters, mannerisms, actions, scenes and endings. If you love it and no one else does, kill it. Everyone’s darlings are different. I’ll have a post on my own darlings when I get through this revisions. Write down what you get rid of, because you’ll want to check future stories for these same problem children.
Revisions are unavoidable. Whether you need one or twenty, you have to commit to making the best story you can. The only way to do that, is through revision.