Monday, July 17, 2006
Cure for a hang-up
For a long time I’ve suggested that writers make a reminder sheet for grammar and usage points that give them trouble.
Most of us have some sort of language hang-up. It might be confusion between two soundalikes; it might be trouble with “who” and “whom” or “lay” and “lie.”
A simple reminder sheet—listing examples of right and wrong usage—can save you grief, and if you use it regularly you will probably whip the problem after a time.
Pam Nelson, who writes the Triangle Grammar Guide blog, improves on this idea. She made up a neat visual to show the difference between “peek” and “peak.” Take a look.
By all means, make a graphic if you have the knack, or get an artistic friend to do it.
In any case, do something. You don’t want to keep making the same error.
Be creative and make new errors.
Amateurish narrative
When it is done well, narrative writing is wonderful. A well-done narrative is one of the most compelling stories you can put in a newspaper.
Papers ought to publish more narratives, and they ought to make greater use of narrative techniques to enrich reports that aren’t narratives.
But when narrative techniques are done badly, the result is usually awful. Some writers seem to think that narrative ability is in their genes, and they don’t trouble to learn the skill. They use empty adjectives—purple prose—instead of sharp details. They write tedious leads filled with boring action. They overdo description or insert it so clumsily that the writing shouts “amateur at work.”
The other day, for example, I edited a story that had a sentence describing a woman sitting in her favorite restaurant stirring a multi-colored drink.
That is the kind of detail that interrupts a story unless it is blended in smoothly and contributes something. Even worse, the detail isn’t descriptive—it goes out of its way to avoid description. If the restaurant is pertinent, name it and characterize it in a way that puts the reader in the scene. If the drink is pertinent, name it and name its colors.
While we’re on the subject of using specific details, check out the column headed “Get the name of that bra” on Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools blog.
