Writing About Writing – Part II

I’m including homonyms and homophones in a different section from spelling because they’re a different problem, and one that spellcheck won’t catch. If you’ve been asked to edit a story or essay and you spot a lot of their/there/they’re issues, flag or correct them all. If the writer could have spotted those errors, they wouldn’t have made them in the first place, so don’t berate them or expect that they can fix it themselves if you just say “You have homonym errors here.” Instead, say something like “A lot of people struggle with which witch is which. I’ve marked the homonym/homophone errors I see, but for your future reference here’s one of my favorite websites on this issue, because you’ll want to keep an eye out for it in your work.” And then send them a link like this one.

Run-ons, also called comma splices, are sentences that go on when they should stop, the author adds a comma to just keep making the sentence continue, they can make reading a story feel difficult or monotonous, one example is this sentence.

You can often spot the difference between a long, complicated sentence and a comma-spliced one by the lack of transitional phrases at the comma, and by the lack of semicolons. Semicolons can link sentences without creating run-ons; for example, this sentence isn’t a run-on. See the transitional “for example” and the semicolon, which creates a more significant pause than a comma?

When you see comma splices, if you’re copyediting, just fix them. If you’re beta-ing and you don’t have a lot of time, or the problem seems to be systemic in the writer’s work and you’re recommending that they rewrite a substantial portion, say something like “I saw quite a few comma splices in this story. Try varying the pace of your work with briefer sentences, and making sure that each sentence contains one complete idea (plus any digressions or explanations necessary to make that work). Here’s a resource I use.” And then try this link, as well as this one.

Be careful with fragments! Not every sentence has to contain a subject, a predicate, and a complete idea the way your English teachers insisted in grammar school. See what I did there? Grammar school? get it? Oh, hey, those last two sentences were fragments. They felt perfectly all right in context because fragments can be used for emphasis, or to add voice to a story or essay. We speak in fragments, we think in fragments, and as long as we’re doing it on purpose, we can write in fragments. But it’s important. You have to watch out for fragments like the last sentence, where the sentence break subtracts from rather than adding to your understanding of what the writer is telling you.

If you stumble, and have to go back and re-read, and you find a fragment at the place you stumbled, that’s a fragment that doesn’t contain a complete enough idea either on its own or in context. Context is what saves fragments grammatically; without context, the reader may not be able to figure out what idea the sentence was attempting to move forward.

Point out these fragments specifically: “‘But it’s important’ stuck out to me in the first paragraph, because it’s a fragment and “it” isn’t linked to anything in particular. Adding what is important would save this sentence.” If you want, you can make a couple suggestions: “But context is important” or “But it’s important to read fragments in context” would both work. And, yes, if you see a lot of fragments, please give the writer a resource link so they can try to avoid overuse or misuse.

There’s a school of writing that says you should cut all adjectives and adverbs out of your writing whenever possible. I don’t subscribe to that school. Sometimes it’s important that there’s a purple flower and you don’t know what it is, so you shouldn’t use the word clematis or pansy or violet – and not all violets are purple, anyway. Adjectives and adverbs let us say what we mean precisely, descriptively, and accurately. But there’s such a thing as overuse, too, and that’s what you’re looking for as a critical reader.

• Does every verb have an adverb? “he said quietly” “she walked carefully” “I read accurately” If you’re seeing this, suggest that the writer use a wider vocabulary of verbs. You don’t have to be too gentle here, just say something like “there are a lot of adverbs modifying your verbs; consider replacing some of them with more precise verbs like “he murmured” for “he said quietly.”
• Does every noun have an adjective? “the purple flower” “the blue sky” “the cloudless moor” “the damp puppy” If you’re seeing this pattern, remind the author that their adjectives will have more punch if they’re used in sparse, lyrical passages. To draw attention to an object, describe it thoroughly. If every object is described thoroughly, the reader doesn’t know where to “look.” Say something like “every noun seems to have one or more adjectives paired with it, and while the images are pretty, they end up distracting the reader from the point of your story.” (In extreme circumstances, you may have to tell the author that the lush writing covers up the fact that there’s no plot at all.)
• If the writer has swung the other way and is using all active verbs instead of modifying verbs with adverbs, do all those words mean what the author is trying to make them mean? If you’re seeing a lot of screaming instead of shouting (and yes, those are two VERY different things), consider saying something like “I see that you’re using a lot of powerful, active verbs in your writing. Before grabbing the thesaurus and just going to town, remember that once you find a word you like, you should look it up in the dictionary to make sure it has the nuances that you want. After all, “shout” and “whisper” are both synonyms for “speak.”

“Hello,” I said.
“Hello yourself,” she said.
“Let’s talk about talking,” I said.
“Do you mean dialog?” she asked.
“Yes, but I spell it dialogue, which is a perfectly valid way to spell that,” I said.

Are you bored? Dialogue shouldn’t be boring. Dialogue is a great way to get into a character’s head without having to explain a lot, just by using speech patterns and topics to demonstrate who they are, where they come from, and what they think is important. But how it’s signaled to the reader, structurally, can make or break a story. Here are a few things to look out for as you read stories with dialogue. We’ll talk about the content of the dialogue next month; right now we’re just concentrating on form.

• Can you tell who’s talking? If you can’t, that’s a big problem. Not every piece of dialogue has to have a tag or signal for who’s saying the thing, but it should happen frequently enough that you don’t get lost. Remember our advice to bear the burden of misunderstandings when you give concrit? Say something like “I struggled a little in the long dialogue passage. A few more dialogue tags would have helped me remember who was saying what, especially since there are three people involved.” And then mark those spots, or give concrete examples.
• Does every single piece of dialogue contain a tag with “said” and an adverb? Refer to the adverbs section above, and recommend more active verbs.
• Does every single piece of dialogue have a tag, but using active verbs? That can get exhausting to read. Say something like “Once we’re well into the conversation, not every piece of dialogue needs to be flagged with who said it. In fact, you can skip the he said entirely and just describe actions if you want, or let the dialogue stand alone.”

“Hello,” I said.
“Hello yourself.” Christine looked up from her computer.
“Let’s talk about talking,” I suggested.
“Do you mean dialog?” I could hear the foreshortening of the word in her voice.
“Yes, but I spell it dialogue, which is a perfectly valid way to spell that,” I sniffed, and sat down to write this month’s Technique Toolbox.

I love my thesaurus. I love it so much. I go down word rabbit holes all the time, looking for the perfect flavor or word to use in a story, essay, or poem. But I always keep one thing in mind: There is no transitive property of synonyms. As you read, be on the lookout for words that seem a little out of the author’s everyday vocabulary or voice. For example, if someone who’s ordinarily very prosaic starts dropping in words like bucolic or petrichor, make sure they’re used correctly for their ordinary meanings.

Need an example? Let’s describe a flower.

Here are some red-orange poppies. I might say “The red poppies nodded in the breeze.” But I’m tired of using the word red, or I need it in the next sentence, so I want a different word. I hit the ol’ thesaurus and I find:

cardinal coral crimson flaming glowing maroon rose wine bittersweet blooming blush brick burgundy carmine cerise cherry chestnut claret copper dahlia fuchsia garnet geranium infrared magenta pink puce ruby russet rust salmon sanguine scarlet titian vermilion bloodshot florid flushed healthy inflamed roseate rosy rubicund ruddy rufescent

“Sanguine” is a pretty neat-sounding word. Let’s follow that one. So I click on sanguine and I get two tabs. One is “optimistic” and the other is “flushed or reddish” – so I narrow my choices to flushed or reddish, but let’s take a moment of silence and think about authors who might have just gone with “optimistic” or thesauruses that put all possible synonyms in one place. Following this thread I get:

flush glowing red scarlet bloody florid rubicund ruddy

You can see how I’m already getting a little afield from my original meaning. Glowing and red don’t mean the same thing at all. If “glowing” weren’t a word I already knew the meaning of, I might use it in place of “red” and never know it was wrong, though. As a critical reader, it’s your job to call attention to places where the author’s word choice has inadvertently given their work an alternate meaning or imagery. If I said the glowing poppies, they might be radioactive!

Say something like “Where you said glowing, I think you mean red, or maybe sanguine? With the description the way it is, it sounded like the poppies were emitting light. If that’s the image you meant to convey, lean on it a little harder; if it’s not, consider using another word instead of glowing.”

I know this is probably not news to you, but not all languages work the same way. For example, some have the definite article (“the”) before the word. Others put it after word the. Some even incorporate it as part of Word via a declension or other restructuring. If you’re working in a language that’s not what the author’s family speaks at home, don’t be a jerk: there’s no need to tell them that they’re wrong, or stupid, for using the grammatical rules they grew up with. Just say something like “You have a lot of missing articles, and you might want to review the rules for definite and indefinite articles when you get a chance.” And then just fix the problem if you’ve got edit access to the document, so they can see what you mean.