Let some air out of those gasbag expressions!

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain
photo (with text added by the author).

The sting from some cutting remarks scribbled on your papers by teachers of yore can last a lifetime. For example, I’ll never forget the venomous response my use of the pompous phrase “So I say” (as a lead-in to one of my conclusions) elicited from my high school English teacher. Needless to say, until this very moment, I had never written “So I say” again in my life.

Likewise, I often cross out “I believe” (as well as "My opinion is that...") in student papers. Though “I believe” is certainly less pretentious-sounding than “So I say,” it is nevertheless redundant. If you are writing a paper and asserting your beliefs, then there is seldom any reason to write “I believe” in it. After all, we know it’s what you believe because you’re the one writing it. Just say it!

Now quick, puncture those gasbag expressions and let the wind out before your prose explodes!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

That qualifier is so very really totally NOT necessary!

One type of word that too frequently springs up like a noxious weed in student writing is the qualifier/intensifier. Intensifiers are words like very, really, actually, and truly. Most of the time, they are either: 1.) not needed at all; or 2.) best eliminated by thinking of a better word (adjective, adverb or verb), thus embedding the “very-ness” into the newer, better word.

Let’s take for example the ever (over) popular intensifier “very,” a word I habitually cross out in student writing. Instead of writing that a building is “very tall” -- yawn, how blandly vague! -- why not describe the building as “monolithic” or “gargantuan,” both words that encapsulate the “very-ness” (and some massiveness too) into the “tallness”?

If “she runs really fast,” the intensifier “really” modifies the adverb “fast,” which in turn modifies the verb “runs.” So why not just replace the intensifier AND the adverb with a stronger verb? “She sprints” or “she dashes.”

Here’s another good example. Frequently, where I work, teachers will receive a message that announces, “Fire drills will be conducted today unless it is actively raining.” This message always leaves me scratching my head. How is “actively raining” different from “raining”?... Anytime you can eliminate an unnecessary word, that’s a great and beautiful revision and you should celebrate accordingly!

Perhaps the worst offenders are “truly” and “actually.” If “she is truly going to do it,” then “she is going to do it.” If “he handed me an actual loaf of bread,” then “he handed me a loaf of bread.” Adding “truly” or “actually” doesn’t make an object or action more real than it already is. In recent years, I’ve seen “physically” used too often as well. “The man physically handed me a dollar bill.” Ooookaaayyy… How about, “The man handed me a dollar bill” instead?

So, in sum, you should truly, really and actually stop using these unnecessary qualifiers and intensifiers!

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Size matters … when writing description

Source: Wikimedia Commons
 public domain photo

In my high school classroom, we’ve just finished reading the novella “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin, a fantastic story I had mentioned in an earlier post. One superior characteristic of this story is Martin’s vivid use of description, and one aspect of his descriptions that struck me this year is his use of familiar comparisons to describe size. Yes, size matters.

Rather than describe the dimensions of an object (as in “four feet wide by two feet tall”), which might indeed be appropriate for a mechanical drawing or blueprint, Martin compares the size of unknown, imaginary things to recognizable objects.

“Sandkings” is a science fiction/horror story full of imaginary creatures that grow in size as the story progresses. The “maws” are queen bee-like creatures that control ant-like “mobiles” called sandkings. Both of these fictional creatures grow to match the size of their surrounding environment. Here are some of the descriptions that Martin employs.

Early on, as a salesperson in a “pet” store describes the maw:

“The maw lives in the castle. Maw is my name for her. A pun, if you will; the thing is mother and stomach both. Female, large as your fist, immobile.”

Then, later, when sandkings bearing their maw escape from a larger tank:

“He watched as a column took shape, a living, writhing square of sandkings, bearing something, something slimy and featureless, a piece of raw meat big as a man's head. They began to carry it away from the tank. It pulsed.”

At the beginning of the story, the ant-like sandking mobiles live in a small tank at the “pet” store:

“It still looked like an insect to his eyes. Barely as long as his fingernail, six-limbed, with six tiny eyes set all around its body.”

Later, the sandkings escape from a larger tank in the main character’s house:

“They were larger than he remembered. Some were almost as big as his thumb.”

Later still, an escaped sandking attacks one of the other characters in the story:

“A great white sandking had clamped itself around her wrist. Blood welled through her skinthins where its mandibles had sunk in. It was fully as large as her hand.”

Finally, an escaped sandking menaces the main character:

“Something moved from shadow into light. A pale shape on the seat of his skimmer. It was as long as his forearm. Its mandibles clacked together softly, and it looked up at him from six small eyes set all around its body.”

Fist to head; fingernail to thumb to hand to forearm. With these descriptions, a reader need only consult his or her own body to sense the size of the creatures being described. How much more real and vivid this is than “two inches long,” etc. One way to help readers understand the unfamiliar (as in science fiction) is to relate it to the familiar. Furthermore, the increasing size of the creatures helps to mark the passage of time and to establish the chronological sequence of the story.

As writers of creative nonfiction such as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and many others have recognized for decades, the techniques of fiction can inform nonfiction writing too. Writing an essay for sociology or economics class does not restrict you to boring, bland descriptions. Whenever possible, make them vivid and make them real.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Writing dialogue: show, don’t tell

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain
 photo (with text added by the author).

One of the mantras in a creative writing class is “show, don’t tell.” In other words, in a work of fiction, show the characters doing things (performing actions); don’t talk about them doing things. The distinction can be subtle. For example, instead of “the man became frightened of the approaching train,” rather write that “his face turned pale and his eyes grew wide as he saw the train rush toward him.” The reader will “get it” from the details you provide that this dude is scared of the onrushing locomotive.

Another way to “show” characters doing things is through effective use of dialogue. Dialogue can be used in nonfiction as well as in fiction. For example, you may have conducted an interview with a source and want to insert a portion of the interview directly into your essay or research paper. Or you may be reconstructing dialogue from a past event based on recollections of the participants. Also, nonfiction authors sometimes write hypothetical dialogues to set a scene or illustrate a point.

At any rate, several years ago, as part of a lesson on writing dialogue, I took a passage of dialogue from a published story and reworked it so that it was badly written. So that it “tells, not shows” – the opposite of what a good writer strives to do.

Here is my rewritten passage of dialogue, taken from the short story “The Shelter” by Rod Serling:

      Paul came up from the basement and asked his father what else he should bring downstairs. Paul’s father asked his son if he had brought all the canned goods to the basement. Paul said that he brought all the canned goods to the basement that he could find. Paul’s mother, Grace, asked the boy if he had cleared out the fruit cellar. Paul said that he had.

      Paul’s father told his son to get his bag from the bedroom and to bring that down, too. Paul asked about the books and other things. Grace became angry and shouted at her son, telling him to get his father’s bag.

Clearly, this passage as currently written is wretched. It talks about people talking instead of showing them talking (through dialogue).

Here is the (so much better!) original:

Paul came up from the basement.

“What else, pop?”

“All the canned goods down?”

“All that I could find.”

“How about the fruit cellar?” Grace asked him, keeping her voice steady.

“I put all those in too,” Paul responded.

“Get my bag from the bedroom,” Stockton said. “Put that down there, too.”

“What about books and stuff?” Paul said.

When Grace spoke her voice broke and the words came out tight and loud -- louder than her son could ever remember, and different, too.

“Dammit! Your father told you to get his bag--!”

Show, don’t tell.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

Get rid of clutter -- don’t be a word hoarder!

Source: Wikimedia Commons public domain photo

You’ve probably seen the reality TV series “Hoarders: Buried Alive,” which shows the unseemly lifestyles of people compulsively unable to part with any of their material possessions. Well, like apartments and houses, sentences and paragraphs and essays can also become cluttered with too much stuff -- in this case, unnecessary words and phrases.

Revision, the process at the heart of all good writing, is largely about deciding to eliminate words and unnecessary material -- the same way a butcher trims fat from a prime cut of beef. Some of these decisions are easy and others difficult. Getting rid of unnecessary words contained in empty expressions and wordy constructions is easy. For example, as a journalism student I was taught never to use the phrase “the fact that,” which can often be replaced with simply “that.” Much worse was “due to the fact that,” a cumbersome phrase that even today makes me break out in hives. “We went to the store due to the fact that we needed some bread” can always be shortened to “We went to the store because we needed some bread.” One word instead of five is always a bargain. Never write “due to the fact that.”

Other cuts can be more painful, however. These are the beautiful, polished little gems (phrases, sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs) that just don’t fit in with the topic or focus of your essay. We love them because they are so clever. Creative writing teachers have a blunt slogan to describe the act of cutting these precious statements. They say you have to “murder your darlings.” Anything that interferes with clarity and communication, no matter how lovely, must go. Those are the tough cuts to swallow, but swallow them we must.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.

These are a few of my least favorite things... (5 pet peeves of an English teacher)

Here are five of my pet peeves from student writing in recent years.

1.) Mistakenly writing “defiantly” instead of “definitely.” Bill Gates is partly to blame for this. When you misspell “definitely” and right-click in Microsoft Word to get a list of possible spellings, for some reason the word “defiantly” consistently pops up at the top of the pick-list. This leads to an overabundance of adolescent defiance in student-written sentences. For example, “I will defiantly not make that mistake again!”

2.) Misspelling “lose” as “loose.” To lose is the opposite of to win. Loose, on the other hand, is the opposite of tight. Their spellings are not interchangeable. Just remember -- when you lose something, lose an “o.”

3.) Spelling “all right” as one word: “alright.” What’s wrong with this? It’s “alwrong.”

4.) Using “over” instead of “more than” in terms of number. My opposition to this usage is a remnant from my newspaper days and the guidance of the authoritative Associated Press Stylebook. “Over” indicates a spatial relationship, as in “My hand is over the table,” whereas “more than” indicates number. “We have more than 20 desks in the classroom.” By this guidance, you would never write, “We have over 20 desks in the classroom.” Having worked up my dander about this issue, the latest guidance from the AP Stylebook apparently now allows “over” in such situations (http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/244240/ap-removes-distinction-between-over-and-more-than/). I suppose this just proves the evolutionary nature of language. (Next time we’ll cover “less than” vs. “fewer than”).

5.) The last pet peeve mystifies me. For some unfathomable reason, students consistently use the plural “women” in place of singular “woman.” As in the sentence, “A women put on her dress.” In high school writing assignments, girls seem to make this mistake as often as boys do. But students never reverse “men” and “man.” Alas, I have no rational explanation for this.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.