Some things you should only do once…
March 24, 2010
One of the hats I wear is Writing Coach. I coach MBA students and I love the work. One recent student was a professional musician. She wrote of her love for the arts, and as we read her essay aloud parts of it flowed like music…but then other sections just kind of trailed off…
This student was overly fond of the ellipsis. She had one in the title and three in the body of her essay. I told her to choose one. She argued. I stood my ground: One ellipsis only. It’s an unofficial rule of writing.
The ellipsis is not an everyday punctuation mark. When we see it, we notice it. And if we see another one a paragraph or two later, we are pulled out of the writing to make a mental note of it. The third one becomes irritating and if there are any others…well, let’s just say the writer who overuses the ellipsis could be giving her readers a reason to put the writing aside…
It’s not just ellipses. Exclamation points should be used with care, as well! Too many, and you risk looking like you’ve had a few javas too many! And don’t use two together or you’ll look like a teenage girl!!
I pointed out to this student that in two instances, she could just as easily—and in fact, more correctly—use a dash. (No, I didn’t use the term em dash. I’ve never met anyone who’s ever actually used an en dash, so why differentiate?) Okay—I admit it—the dash can be overused, as well. And I suppose—though no editor has called me on this lately—that I overuse it in my own writing now and then. But for me, the dash is almost an everyday punctuation mark. I say, dash away. But then go over your writing and ask yourself about every single dash: could a comma or semi-colon or period be used here instead? And if so, use one of the latter. Save that lovely dash for something more important.
But the ellipsis: one per essay, article or short story. In a book-length work, maybe two.
I’m not and never have been an editor (note my two incomplete sentences above) but here’s what I tell students about punctuation marks:
• Period. The everyday workhorse;
• Comma, the pause that refreshes, and be careful, not to use it when you don’t, need a pause;
• Parentheses (when you want the written equivalent of an aside);
• Dash—for when you want to set something off with panache (couldn’t help myself);
• Semicolon; I’ve seen writers and editors get downright heated discussing its use and some want to ban it outright but I say, sometimes the semi-colon is the best mark for the job and people should just chill;
• Colon: the semi-colon’s big brother and use it only when you want to give something emphasis or to start a list;
• Exclamation point! You know you shouldn’t always be using this!
• …Ellipses…
And while we’re on the subject, be careful of using unusual, attention-getting words more than once in any piece of writing. But that’s for another post.
Bad books: why they’re good
January 11, 2010
It seemed like a good idea at the time: Pick a book off the shelf not because I’d read the review or had it recommended to me by someone or knew of the writer, but simply because the title caught my eye.
As well, it was a mystery, a genre that goes well with rainy winter afternoons and mugs of tea. This mystery was set in a country I’ve been to and remain interested in.
I wasn’t expecting anything especially literary but I was surprised at the clumsiness of the prose. Still, I read on for several chapters, partly because I hoped it would get better, partly because of the setting—and partly because you can learn from bad writers as well as excellent ones. You can’t learn as much, true, but if you ever want to be reminded of why writing teachers tell you to beware of the cliché, be it in description or plot, or of dialogue that does nothing to advance the story, there’s no better way than to see such things in action.
Stephen King puts it this way: “Every book you read has its own lessons, and quite often bad books have more to teach than the good ones.” (He uses The Bridges of Madison County and Valley of the Dolls as examples of bad books, by the way.)
Still, I had to close this book about one-third of the way in—I couldn’t stand it anymore. But it reinforced what I know about what not to do.
About a week later, my mother-in-law gave me a book. It’s a novel by an author frequently called the Queen of Suspense. The woman has no doubt earned multi-multi-millions from these books. Her novel began well, grabbing my interest enough that I kept turning pages, anyway—but soon, by chapter two, I was more than a little dismayed by the writing. Again, I carried on. I’ve had writing instructors tell me to be careful of interior monologue, but reading lines like, “Our client is innocent, he thought, sarcastically,” really make the point. (People actually think “sarcastically”?) In this same novel, characters frequently tell each other things they both know well, all too obviously for the sake of feeding information to the reader.
And, um, realistic dialogue anyone? Here’s one cop talking to another outside of a mansion in which a murderer is almost certainly advancing on his victims:
“[the bad guy] may be dangerous, and he may be armed. More police officers will be here soon. If you see [the bad guy], try to avoid any contact with him, and alert the other officers as soon as they get here. He may try to drive out. Tell the guard at the gate what is happening and make sure he closes the gates as soon as the other police arrive.”
Do people speak in full sentences in the heat of the moment? I certainly don’t. And, aside from the fact the first cop thinks the second cop is an idiot who needs to be told exactly what to do, would anyone in such a situation speak as if his contraction-hating, high school English teacher was within earshot? (ie., Why not “what’s happening”?)
“Show, don’t tell,” is a well-worn—but worthwhile—cliché of writing manuals. As the above example demonstrates, showing can have more power than telling when it comes to learning about how (not) to write, too.
