7 Deadly Mistakes a Writer Should Avoid, Part 2

Welcome back!

In my last post, I covered four of the seven major pitfalls every writer and editor should fight to avoid. Today I'm on to the remaining three, as promised! But first – for those of you who might not have read the previous blog, I shall briefly note the four already discussed:

1) The Dreary Opening Paragraph (Ho-hum initial sentence fails to peak curiosity!)
2) Uninspiring Description (Be clear! Root out 'very' and replace '-ly' adverbs with action verbs.)
3) Wrong Choice of Homonym ('Bear' for 'bare'; 'of' for 'have.')
4) The Unsightly Comma (As in, 'George Spencer, would never do such a thing.')

Now, with that taken care of, now we're free to move on. So ... here goes!

5) Overuse of 'That' and 'Which
THAT: This word serves a number of functions, some of them legitimate. I have no issue with its use as an identifier, often accompanied in the real world by a pointing finger, as in "That book," or simply "That." And it's downright necessary in some relative clauses as well; while it's fine to say "The book that pleased the boys most was a well crafted ghost story," for example, the sentence would make no sense (some British dialects notwithstanding) if 'that' were omitted.

Yet, for all its legitimacy in certain linguistic situations, your blog or book will make better reading if you eliminate every unnecessary use of 'that.' Why? They're dead weight, and they suck the life out of your book or blog. Feel the difference between these two sentences:
"The editor believes the blog needs work" vs. "The editor believes that the blog needs work." See how much clearer and crisper the first one is than the second?

Once again, we have a problem that arises out of our confusion of spoken and written English. The unnecessary use of 'that' is not a problem in conversation; it's only when a writer transfers spoken English to the page that it becomes an issue. In other words, 'that' is such a tiny little word in spoken English that the ear doesn't object, but when it takes up space on the page without contributing anything the eye objects.

That said, I'm not advising you to go back over your work and delete every occurrence of 'that.' No! Before you delete them, say each sentence aloud without 'that'; if it flies, put your eraser to work. If it sounds funny without 'that,' leave it in!

WHICH: Using 'which' where 'that' would suffice sets up a stumbling block for the reader. Consider the following two sentences: "The book that caused such a stir was a ghost story" vs. "The book which caused such a stir was a ghost story." While some authorities would not consider the second sentence ungrammatical, it is clumsy, and the repeated use of 'which' for 'that' will turn a blog or book into an obstacle course for the reader.

There are places where 'which' should be used instead of 'that' to introduce a relative clause – specifically, when the relative clause that does not aid in the identification of the thing referred to but only provides information about it, as in 'This book, which I didn't expect to enjoy, took my breath away.'

6) Other 'Dead Weight' Words
Do you really think it's fair to require your reader to hack through a jungle of words like 'have,' 'has been,' 'be,' 'of',' and 'with'? These little words don't contribute much content, and the creative writer finds ways to minimize their use.

• Get ride of excessive occurrences of the various forms of the verb 'be' by substituting active verbs for passive constructions. ('The library ordered the book for me' vs. 'The book was ordered for me.')

• Overuse of the verb 'have' is kept to a minimum when the writer turns past perfect verbs into simple past tense and using another expression to clarify the temporal reference. ('As kids we often walked on that road' vs. 'We had often walked on that road.')

• Overuse of 'of' can be mitigated by using the possessive form. ('Susan's book' vs. 'that book of Susan's'.)

• The word 'with' covers a lot of territory in English. Why not replace it with a descriptive phrase to clarify the meaning and enliven the text? ('She picked up a knife and slashed the box open' vs. 'She opened the box with a knife.')

7) Opaque Vocabulary and Sentence Structure
If I'm reading a book or a blog, I like to think I'm understanding its message. As a writer, there are a number of tools at your disposal to help me feel better in this regard.

•'Obfuscatory' is a word that speaks for itself – if only I knew what it was saying...! Unless you're writing for academicians, engineers, doctors or lawyers, avoid using ten-dollar words and jargon. Consider your audience and adjust your vocabulary accordingly.

• If you're writing a sentence packed with interwoven ideas, consider breaking it up into two or even three sentences. Today's harried and hurried reader has little patience for unnecessarily complex prose. Breaking up your sentences also gives you an opportunity to vary your sentence length to achieve the variety in tempo that gives texture to your writing.

• If you are expressing two or more complex bits of information about a single person or thing, I suggest you either conjoin them with 'and' or, if you use a nonparallel grammatical structure, that you keep the name of the person or thing together with the main clause. To illustrate: 'Never one to avoid controversy, John jumped in with both feet' is easier to process than 'John, never one to avoid controversy, jumped in with both feet.'

• In nonfiction, set lists of items you want me to remember apart with bullets.

If you take the time to go through your book or blog and find and eliminate the obstacles you've placed in the reader's path, your writing will be easier on the reader. Get the lead out!

Get the Lead Out! 7 Dangers a Book or Blog Writer Should Sidestep

Most of us associate lead warnings with toxic house paint or noxious clay baking dishes. The "lead" I'm talking about, though, is the chaff that weighs down your writing, making it too heavy for your intended reader to plow through.

As a freelance editor with years of exposure bringing deadly prose to life, I take it upon myself here to point out seven signs your writing needs a once-over before it meets the press. These lethal poisons emit fumes so noxious they can cause readers to yawn and click off your blog site or close your book and run for dear life. Fiction or nonfiction, as a writer you are obligated to make reading a compelling adventure. If you don't, you're history.

1. The Dreary Opening Paragraph – Today more than ever, your initial sentence must rivet your readers' attention, or they're 'on to the next.' So what can you do if you suspect it's a snoozer? One experienced writer holds that you can bring your opening to life by using at least one 'action' verb – a good idea, no matter what other tricks you have up your sleeve. Another will suggest you begin by commenting on something controversial and linking it to your topic. This can work well, too.

There are many ways to pique the reader's interest. Why not play with juxtaposing two seemingly contradictory ideas? Or set up a scene that implies a threat lurking backstage? Or make a statement that boggles the rational mind, requiring the reader to read on for an explanation? To broaden your repertoire of opening possibilities, I suggest you sit down with ten books by authors you respect and study their opening sentences and paragraphs. You may be amazed at the variety of engaging possibilities available as you begin to identify stylistic opening patterns you can use.

2. Uninspiring Description – Ahh, we're back to the need for action verbs. And colorful nouns and adjectives! Your readers want your words to paint a clear picture. Sure, they'll use their imagination to fill in the gaps, and no two of them will see what you're saying exactly the way you do. Nonetheless, any good editor will tell you readers respond better to crisp, colorful vocabulary and intriguing details.

Another important key here is to avoid weighting your sentences down with adjectives and adverbs. Yes, adjectives serve the writer well – up to a point. As for adverbs, I suggest you delete the word "very" every time you catch it in your writing, and replace the "-ly" adverbs to with verbs whenever possible:

• Instead of "He left quickly," write "He turned on his heel and headed for the door."

• Instead of "Nail the crosspiece securely to the post," write "Use two three-inch nails to secure the crosspiece to the post."

3. Wrong Choice of Homonym – This is pretty basic, but you'd be surprised at how often I see "bear" when it should have been "bare," or "lead" when it should have been "led." Oh, and here's another groaner for you: how about "of" when the writer meant "have" (as in "I should of known")?

Homonym confusion poses a danger even for a seasoned writer. Why? A lot of us store words auditorially, and when we're writing the auditory component of our brain takes charge of the typing. How many times have you gone back and corrected your own misuse of "to" for "too"? Of course you knew better! But they sounded the same to your inner ear, and the auditory speller couldn't tell the difference.

OK, just one more poison to knock out today. (I know, I promised you seven ... and yes, I will give you all seven. Come back in a day or two, and I guarantee you'll have the entire set.)

4. The Unsightly Comma – The reason this one comes to mind right now is that most comma errors are of auditory origin. An inexperienced writer will put a comma anyplace where a speaker would pause. It takes a seasoned writer to realize that placement of commas is determined by actual grammatical principles. As a speaker, you may pause for effect; as a writer, you may NOT insert a comma to achieve the same effect. To illustrate: Never use a comma to set off the name of an individual from his or her actions ("George Spencer, would never do such a thing.") Aarrgh!.

There are lots of other common comma errors, but I consider this one of the most deadly. Avoid it.

Check back with me in a day or two, and I'll have more for you! In the meantime, do what you can to edit these gruesome errors out of your writing, and your book or blog will take a major leap forward in readability.

Punk Science! A Book to Knock Your Sox Off!

Hi there, Writers! The thing about being a writer ... you gotta write! A book, a blog, a song, a short story ... there's no end to it. I write book reviews for a magazine called 'The Light Connection,' and every once in a while I'll be sharing a book with you that I particularly enjoyed. So here goes ... Punk Science Inside the Mind of God

By: Dr. Manjir Samanta-Laughton; O Books; 2006; 324 pages; $22.95 (pbk); ISBN-13: 978-1-90504-793-2 (pbk); www.o-books.net

When was the last time you sat under a tree (without a book) and let your mind go, marveling at the wonder of it all? Punk Science was born of such an experience. The author sat in an oak tree and attempted to feel the rotation of the earth, and ...

“Suddenly,” he says, “I was thrust into an infinity of spinning orbs. In a moment that seemed to transcend space and time, … I understood what I now call the Black Hole Principle. All the pieces of information I had been studying suddenly fitted together into a framework that is elegant and simple, but also allows for infinite, emergent complexity. This vision has formed the basis for this book and is nothing less than a new view of the cosmos.”

Pretty powerful claim, that. And all this from a medical doctor with a passion for putting his vision to work to offer physicists a framework big enough to hold the all-too-familiar details they wrestle with (and blog about) on a daily basis.

The early pages launch the conversation on which the book hinges: Is consciousness a result of chemical (and perhaps other) processes, or is it the other way around? Moving right into string theory and M-theory, he lays a layman-friendly foundation for seeing things in the latter light.

“We have gone as far as we can with the material paradigm,” he asserts. And then he asks, “Is anybody [today] making those giant leaps of consciousness that have always taken us forward in science? … We need people who firmly understand that consciousness is fundamental to the universe: people who know that the universe is intelligent, because they experience it as such. Like Pythagoras, Newton and Faraday, they have the skill of merging their consciousness with the universe in order to gain insights into its workings.”

Let me not give the impression he favors throwing the scientific method overboard. No, it has its place. But that place, he argues, is after-the-fact—once we have the vision, we must, as Einstein and others did, use mathematics and experimentation to support or disprove it.

I found the book an enjoyable and stimulating read. Of course, it probably helped that I agreed with him from the outset. I learned a few wonderful things and found that the book left me more able to converse about what's going on in physics, which in turn brought its own share of enjoyment. If you like to feel “in the know” without having to puzzle things out too much, you may enjoy it, too.

And check out my web site: www.wordweaver4U.com — a great place for a writer to go!

—Chiwah

"But I Can't Write a Book!" YES, YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN! "But I'm Not a Writer!" OH, YEAH?

Think you can't be a writer because you flunked high school English every term? Never went to college? Can't spell? Don't know a pronoun from a prom queen? 

Well, you're not exactly the lone string bean. If I had a mustard seed for every time I've heard a person with an incredible story declare that she couldn't imagine writing a book, I would be the envy of Dijon. Hold the mayo — we're on a mustard diet here!

You don't have to have been an English major to write a compelling book. If you can speak — and I know you can — then you can write. Oh, your sentences may run on, your commas may be in all the wrong places, and your spelling may suck ... So what? If you can get your story down on paper, then all you need is a talented editor to turn it into a book you'll swear reads exactly the way you wanted it to, only better.

One of my first editing clients had written a book about his own life — a memoir. Scott Miller probably never got a decent grade in English, and he certainly never graduated from college. No, he went to Viet Nam instead. But that man could tell a story! He could make your hair stand up on end, make you hold your ribs while you laughed yourself silly, make you long for the days when life moved at a slower, sweeter pace. But he couldn't spell for beans, and his sentence structure ... well, let's just say it wasn't going to win him any awards. 

Here's what Scott had to say when I finished editing his book: "Chiwah took what I'd written and massaged it and turned it into a book that makes me look like a great writer." And you know what? I had a good time doing it. Why? Because he wrote from the heart. He wrote about things he knew, about real life events, stories people could relate to. And that was what made the book. Yes, it needed a lot of editing, but it was the quality of the stories that made the editing worthwhile.

Don't worry about the quality of your writing. Just write. As Samuel Clemens said, "There's no such thing as good writing — only good rewriting." Get your stories down on paper. And get thee to an editor. And you will have a book you can be proud of.

The Very Best Way to Start Writing Your Stories: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW!

I hear from people every day who know they have a story inside them -- they can feel it trying to gurgle its way to the surface -- but they don't know where to begin. In almost every case, I tell them, 'Start by writing Write what you know!' Your joy, your personal experiences, your family life, your favorite pastime ... begin writing your book by writing short stories about the things that interest you. Start out by writing short pieces from your own life. Writing what you know gives a realistic feel to your story, makes it believable. And writing in your area of expertise makes it easier to put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard.

Now, anybody active in the world of writing and publishing can tell you that memoirs are a dime a dozen. That's true. Unless you're famous, the world is not likely to beat a path to your door to read your life story. But I'm not suggesting you write a memoir. (There are good reasons for writing a memoir, but that's another story entirely.) I'm simply suggesting that you begin by writing your own experience. Once you're in the groove, you're a hop-step-and-a-jump from turning your short pieces into great stories readers are bound to enjoy.

What kinds of experiences should you write about? The possibilities are endless. If you're a mom, for example, and you love being a mom, and you think every woman should be a mom at some point in her life, and guys too if only they could, then why not start out with a list of things that made today so magical? Like ...

• Doing your best to maintain lane control while refereeing the battle in the back seat on the drive to school
• The cop that pulled you over for weaving between lanes
• Your husband's accusatory grimace when he saw the ticket

Now, what do you do with the list? Write your heart out. Get your emotions down on paper ...

"I can't believe Kevin! No sympathy, no 'Oh, honey, it's OK, I know you had a tough day.' Oh no, no way. He's all going on about the money to pay the stupid ticket! Like I didn't manage to keep Jacob and Anthony from killing Samantha in the back seat? Well, the cop didn't have any trouble quieting the kids down. You could've heard the whisk of an angel's wing while he stood there looking down on me with that bored smirk on his face. Don't those guys have any personality at all? And then Jacob had to pipe up with that bit about my speeding ticket last August! You couldn't make this stuff up. Samantha looked a mess by the time I dropped them off, but I sent her off anyway. I should have fixed her hair, I suppose. I need to get a stack of notes to the teacher printed up for mornings like this, with a blank to fill in for each day's explanation as to why my dear children are showing up twenty minutes late for class."

There, you've got it down. Now file it away under today's date, and cross-reference it under 'Mom' stories. Tomorrow you can write another one. By the end of the week, you'll have several of these ... material to weave together into a funny story you can post to your blog or send in to your favorite family magazine.

Writing what you know gives your readers something they can sink their teeth into, because it's real. Readers like getting lost in stories they understand and can relate to. If you forsake what you know in favor of some topic you're excited but ignorant about, your writing is likely to turn out shallow and meaningless, if not downright misleading and dangerous.

That said, let me add that I know writers who do quite nicely writing about things they're just learning about. They get a taste of a subject and then put on their chef's had and write as if they've been cooking up that dish for years ... and they do well! But these are not beginning writers. Even for an experienced writer, this is risky business. Some people love the risk, though, and manage to pull it off time after time. But it's not a good way to learn the craft of writing.

Write what you know, in short bits, a little every day, and the stories will follow. It's less frustrating than keeping the kids from killing each other, and less likely to get you stopped by a cop.

And if you find you've written a 2-to-4-page story about an 'Aha!' moment in your life that you can't wait to see in print, I suggest you submit it for possible inclusion in Aha! Moments, a wonderful book of stories about life-changing events from the people whose lives they changed. Click here and follow the submission guidelines.