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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
I’m prepared to sound more simple-minded than I am.
Stop laughing.
Plus we’re not afraid of vacuum cleaners.
No.
I pare mine down so they’re mostly suggestive, not graphically explicit . . .
The War Between the States . . .
-1 for missing the Oxford comma . . .
I don’t like sweet tea. I always get unsweetened when available . . .
Ah, the perfect Christmas gift (when accompanied by jewelry) . . .
Sure, if you want to be neutral about it.
Note that our Gary inserted one in his reply. Good man, Gary McV.
Be careful with that ruthless efficiency, unless you’re expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
Cincinnati was the furthest south he traveled. He never went south of the Mason-Dixon line. What a poser!
No one ever expects, you know, the thing.
I never seem to expect them.
Two points. One, I suppose I should provide proper attribution, that’s a Home Simpson line. Two, speak for yourself.
The ideal with this sort of thing is that your dialogue should let the readers know who’s talking without telling you the names. The Wooster & Jeeves stories are particularly good about this.
Jeeves and Wooster as Samwise and Frodo? Love it!
I kn ew it was a Homer Simpson line.
The “We’re not afraid of vacuum cleaners” is also stolen from a standup comic., but I have no memory of which one.
I think it’s the same guy from whom I stole “I saw one of those bumperstickers that says ‘One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day’. C’mon – your WHOLE day?”
Sometimes you can subtly shift reader expectations. I’ll invent a new Rhody custom at big family meals, like Thanksgiving. The oldest one speaks first. That way, the order of speaking, as well as the general intonation, ought to spell out who’s who:
“Boys, we have always been against excess. But a good friend of mine once said that fine beer is not a sin, but a Lutheran beverage. In moderation, of course.”
“Then let us truly follow in the path of Wittenburg…”
“There are stars in heaven whose names we will never know. However, there are European actresses who have inspired the stars…mostly the male ones, to do crazy stuff…”
“Fusion at the corporal level is only the mirror-image descendant of balance within the nucleus…”
“So, who’s up for a beer?”
“I am!” “I am!” “I am!”
Author’s note: I am including Caleb as second only to Dan himself, because Caleb was briefly a Ricochet member.
I think of too many things simultaneously and then find out I’ve inserted different things into the same sentence. The result is something that makes no sense or loses the reader. I have to edit all the time and make typos. But I’m an amateur anyway.
Definitely . . .
“I’m planning to do X.”
“I intend to do Y.”
Just the observation of a Northern Left-Coaster…