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The Writing Coach: Don’t Be Fixin’ to Get Ready
Editing one’s own writing can be a journey of self-discovery, especially when one edits a fantasy series of over two million words. In that much writing, one is bound to find evidence of one’s writing and thinking foibles. I found two bits in an earlier round of editing, and now I have found another. My character never does things. Instead, he starts to do things.
I started distributing money . . .
No, no, Jack, distribute the money. Don’t start to do it.
Now, I am a Southron, and fixin’ to get ready to do something is not unusual for me. And since my character is not a Southron, I can’t have him fixin’ to get ready. Instead, he starts to do things. But about a million-and-a-half words in, I decided maybe he ought to do things rather than starting to do things. Thus I am editing out many of these starts or false starts and simplifying down to have my character do what he’s supposed to do.
In the current volume I am editing, which has a bit over 110,000 words, I have some version of the word “start” 219 times. I bet I don’t need more than ten of them. The rest are all fixin’ to get ready. And I’m fixin’ to get ready to purge them.
The others started bringing their contributions in and setting them on the table.
Or maybe the others brought their contributions in and set them on the table. That’s one more writing habit to be paranoid about for me. No more fixin’ to get ready or its non-Southron equivalents.
How about you? Have any foibles to add to my writing paranoia list? Notice any of your own bad habits? Have other tales of writing discovery or insights into the human condition?
Published in Work and Hobbies
Tangentophilia. The inability to exclude marginally related but seemingly interesting points from the theme under construction to its detriment, not sticking to the point and core purpose much like the Hittite army at Kadesh losing sight of the opportunity to defeat the initially retreating Egyptians in detail and instead stopping to loot their camp, or the overwhelming distraction of baroque churches festooned with superfluous curves and implied movements to take attention away from the sacred center of the place or a predator’s broken concentration when a mother kildeer makes an elaborately enticing but fake display of a broken wing to lure the predator away from her nest and then fly away…
I believe it was Dr. Johnson advised that when one has just written a particularly witty and clever bit it should be deleted immediately because (a) it is likely not consonant with the rest of the piece and (b) the writer will distort the rest to accommodate it. Probably good advice. I keep meaning to try it.
The layers…. The LAYERS!!!
‘Whereby’, ‘heretofore’ … there are a bunch of them.
Do you mean the War of Northern Aggression?
In other words, don’t write like this:
So that’s where Kamala picked up her speaking style!
I like commas.
My husband hates them.
Once he is done writing a book, I serve as proof reader.
I am amazed that we have so far, comma, knock on wood, comma, not gotten divorced.
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Yeah. My wife never has anything to do with my books, despite being an editor of an academic journal. Her choice, not mine.
Never denigrate the verb “fixin’ to.”
When I was studying Russian at Indiana University, we learned the verb sobirat’sia, which means fixin’ to. I was from Oklahoma, so I understood immediately what it meant. The students from outside the South couldn’t grasp it.
I agree about the need for brevity. In my universe, the appellate courts and law schools encouraged legal writing that was both obfuscatory and flaccid.
Speaking skills were also weak. My high school debate coach, Don Keeler, scourged the verbal nulls “err” “uh” out of me by making me restart my presentation every time I used one.
I’m not denigrating it. Simply suggesting that I overuse it and its equivalents. And why would I do that? Because I’m a Southron. As a writer, one attempts to avoid bad habits. I’m fixin’ to get ready to do that.
It’s an incredibly valuable word and can’t be replaced by any other word or phrase. It describes the action taking place between the moment when the intention to do something arises and the moment when the doing begins. I don’t know how Northerners or Left-Coasters can talk without it.
We call that sloth, ya sweet-ice-tea-drinkin’, Oh-Susanna-singin’, layabouts.
There goes that Northern aggression again.
And Stephen Foster was from Pennsylvania.
In my earlier days, I’d notice that I had a habit of ending a descriptive sentence with three adjectives, e.g. “Sally was Southern, supine and stoned.” Always three.
And definitely love those parentheses…
You understand that when you see how many court “briefs” start with things like “Comes now…”
My mother grew up on a Mississippi cotton farm. My aggression is bi-directional.
Nope, there you go a Yankee trying to define fixin’ to. You could say, “I’ve worked late this evening, but I’m fixin’ to go home.” No layin’ about there.
A lot of male readers are thinking, “Sally sounds charming, comely, and compelling.”
This time, think twice before picking up the gun, Reb. Billy Yank has all the metaphor foundries, and most of the adverb factories. All you people got down there are a talent for gaudily embellished understatement. Plus a gift for spontaneous adjectives after hitting one’s fingers with a hammer.
Sweet ice tea is an abomination.
You could say that, as a theoretical proposition. I’d like evidence that it exists in practice.
A wise woman, your wife is.
I thought my sentences ran on at times. Then I recalled St. Paul and his letters. I guess we’re in good company.
Now that’s a good point I hadn’t thought of: the issue of sounding too much like oneself in dialogue.
I appreciate that making “actually” into a text meme (aKsHulLy…) has taken off in describing that person who absolutely must play devil’s advocate for the sake of playing devil’s advocate and hearing their own voice.
Run-ons and passive voice lurk about. We do need the passive voice in the right places. But writers use it far too much. My USAF historian training, if nothing else, taught me to hunt passive verbs with ruthless efficiency. “We’re looking for active, past, people!”
Very important. Some of my characters have what might almost be described as verbal tics. One mispronounces words if they are more than about three syllables. Some will never use certain common words. For instance, one will use certain or certainly and never use sure or surely.
The other half is to picture the character. How would this person talk? Maybe the character is modeled on a friend, acquaintance, or former teacher. Maybe he is taciturn, charming, loquacious? Choose it and keep with it.