“Began to” and “started to”

I find sentences like the following one in most novels written by novice writers.

She started to run across the street.

Writers should avoid saying that someone “began” or “started” to do something or that something began or started to happen. People either do something or they don’t, and an event either occurs or it doesn’t. In the example sentence you should write, “She ran across the street.”

You wouldn’t say, “The bomb started to explode,” would you? I certainly hope not. You’d say, “The bomb exploded.”

Paul Thayer
My website

Finding the right word

Mark Twain said, “use the right word, not its second cousin.” He also said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

I couldn’t agree more. When I line edit a manuscript, I typically change many words to ones I think are better ones. The author can accept or reject these changes. I hope they will accept them or find one that’s even better—the quintessentially right word. After I’ve made quite a few of these changes, I suspect that the writer used the first word that came to mind. Nothing wrong with doing that in a first draft if the words flowed from a writer’s figurative pen in a rush of creativity. But the writer must, must, must slowly and carefully review and revise that first draft. One thing to look for is words that could be stronger and more precise in their meaning. Most words have a number of synonyms. Use a thesaurus and consider each of those synonyms to see which one most closely communicates what you want to say.

Tip: When you review your writing, look for only one thing at a time, not for everything that could be improved. You could look for weak and/or imprecise words in your first review.

Tip #2: Many of the words I change are anemic action verbs. For instance, instead of writing "Susan walked across the room," you could say, "Susan flounced across the room." Remember the old adage "Show, don't tell"? Weak verbs such as walked only tell what Susan did. A word like flounced shows what she did.


Read more here.


Paul Thayer
Your book editor

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

In case you don’t know already, a simile is “a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid,” usually introduced by the words as or like. A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable: “I had fallen through a trapdoor of depression,” said Mark.              

Figurative language adds depth and resonance to writing. Be careful when you think about using them, however, because you can have too much of a good thing. I caution writers against peppering their prose with similes and metaphors. In the strictest sense, you should use a comparison only when 1.) you think the reader won’t quite get the picture without it and 2.) when you aren’t able to provide an approximate description without it. If your comparisons become gratuitous, you’re pushing your luck with readers, who may find them intrusive once you’ve crossed the line.

Tip: Similes and metaphors are best when they are a natural part of a character’s environment. If you’re writing a western, for instance, you shouldn’t say, “He looked like a New York City street peddler.”

Here are some fresh and effective similes:

“Tom felt weighed and measured as neatly as a goose on market day.”

“The crew got as skittery as water on a hot griddle.”

“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”
(Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940)

“Some dance critic, who worked behind the bar in a honky-tonk, said that when Boomer danced he looked like a monkey on roller skates juggling razor blades in a hurricane.
(Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All, 1990)

“Rails suspended overhead, from which black chains hung like jungle vines that clattered through their blocks, making a tooth-rattling noise, a noise like the jabbering of a thousand jawbones in a thousand skulls.”
(John Griesemer, Signal and Noise. Hutchinson, 2004)

“Carl reached for the phone, his gut tightening. Even before he heard the voice on the other end, he suspected—no, knew—it would be him. ‘You did real well,’ the voice said, a voice like dry leaves rustling down a sidewalk.”
(J. Michael Straczynski, “We Killed Them in the Ratings.” Blowout in Little Man Flats, ed. by Billie Sue Mosiman and Martin Greenberg. Rutledge Hill, 1998)

“I took a deep breath and started to speak. I can’t remember half of what I said, but I do know that I was at least a million times more inspiring than Lyle Filbender. He sounded like a defective robot in need of a battery change and had to be reprimanded twice for calling the Mission’s clients ‘bums.’“
(Maureen Fergus, Exploits of a Reluctant (but Extremely Goodlooking) Hero. Kids Can Press, 2007)

“For all his roughness and arrogance, the boy was transformed when he was in the presence of girls. He spoke in a voice as soft as the silken filaments that float out of a cocoon.”
(Carol Field, Mangoes and Quince. Bloomsbury, 2001)

“Without warning, Lionel gave one of his tight little sneezes: it sounded like a bullet fired through a silencer.”
(Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo: State of England. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)

“The street was alive with them, hollow-eyed and faceless astride coal-black horses, their muffled hoofbeats sounding like rapid shots miles away. Only these sounds were right here and I was in the midst of them. Sabers whistled. Once I heard a noise like a cook’s cleaver striking half-boiled meat, a nauseating sound. Then there were real shots, hard and sharp, like derisive coughs, and metal-gray smoke that mingled with the white vapor exhaled by the horses.”
(Loren D. Estleman, Murdock’s Law, 1982)

“Everyone who heard it—even the people who said that Dylan sounded like a dog with his leg trapped in barbed wire—knew Bob Dylan was a phenomenon.”
(Lewis Macadams, Birth Of The Cool. The Free Press, 2001)

“When the train horns sounded and then were quiet, there were pure reverberations up and down the river that sounded like a plucked harp string or a piano note sustained by holding down a pedal.”
(Mark Knudsen, Old Man River and Me: One Man’s Journey Down the Mighty Mississippi. Thomas Nelson, 1999)

“The floorboards creaked in the room where Rain used to be, and the branches of the cherry tree in the front yard near Edgar Allan Poe’s grave swayed in the wind. They scratched against the glass with a soft tap, tap, tap. It sounded like a lizard’s paws. Then it sounded like a serpent’s tongue. Then it sounded like five weak fingers rapping on the windowpane, the same gentle fingers that used to comb and braid Alice’s hair.”
(Lisa Dierbeck, One Pill Makes You Smaller. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)

“Welshmen like Mr. Davis put great stock in Welsh singing, but to my Irish ears it sounds like men jumping off chairs into a bathtub full of frogs.”
(P.J. O’Rourke, “The Welsh National Combined Mud Wrestling and Spelling Bee Championship.” Age and Guile, Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995)

___________________________

Paul Thayer
Your Book Editor

Top 12 fiction writers' mistakes

1. Writing sentences in the passive voice—Watch out for excessive use of the passive voice of verbs. Replace was and were with verbs that show action: Burglars stole a lot of jewelry instead of A lot of jewelry was stolen by burglars.

2. Using the same words over and over—Watch out for pet words. Find good synonyms to bring variety and life to your writing.

3. Using too much punctuation—Avoid being showy or self-consciousness about punctuation. Save the semicolon for formal writing, and don’t use it in dialogue. For guidance, consult a good basic text like The Elements of Style.

4. Using too many contractions—Using many contractions in exposition (narration) signals an informal style that may not suit the target publisher or the audience. When in doubt, check the publisher’s style sheet or ask for advice.

5. Writing “purple prose”—A common affliction of new writers, who often use too many adjectives and too much description: “The rich, red tropical sun rose brilliantly over the sparkling azure blue water, spreading its glorious warmth over the dewy dandelions, sensuous snapdragons, and sleepy morning glories that opened their blue mouths wide to taste the delicious dawn.” Barf!

6. Overusing pairs of adjectives—Another way writers sometimes overdo it. Trim the fat. One good adjective usually works better than two.

7. Using clichés—Writers should avoid clichés like (ahem) the plague. Find an original way to express your thought.

8. Overusing $10 words—Too many unfamiliar, highfalutin words will turn off most readers. You don’t want to sound as if you’re showing off or talking down to the reader. Academic and technical writing, however, allows more such terms.

9. Making all sentences the same length—Varied sentence length is one characteristic of good writing. The right combination of short, medium, and long sentences actually helps hold the attention of the reader and keeps things moving.

10. Adding information that’s off the subject—Is all your text relevant to the story at hand? Do all the people mentioned add something to the story? If not, determine where you have strayed, cut out the junk, and get the narrative back on track.

11. Using too many words (overwriting)—Some writers just go on and on, with no sense of getting to the point, piling on adjectives and adverbs, making vague or irrelevant statements, and using several words when one would do. Eliminate unnecessary words.

12. Being too general—Vague and general statements take the life out of your writing. Be specific. The best writing is packed with details that engage the senses and emotions, allowing your readers to participate in the scene being described. Fiction or nonfiction, the principle is the same: Give your readers details, details, details.


Paul Thayer
Your Book Editor

The Possessed

One rule of grammar that is easily overlooked says that writers should not ascribe possession to inanimate things like buildings. Example: the hospital’s wide double doors. This example isn’t nearly as clumsy as one I caught in an unpublished short story once, where the writer used the phrase the chimney’s smoke, but it still breaks the rule that says inanimate objects cannot possess. Some phrases that form all or part of the subject or predicate are acceptable, however:

He spent a week’s salary on computer games.

Day’s end found the expedition at the river.

They discovered her body at the water’s edge.

Also, certain inanimate objects that have been personified may show possession:

The ship’s rudder was damaged when it ran aground.

The students made a model of the airplane’s fuselage.

Editors are generally more tolerant today about applying this rule, so few would cavil at innocuous expressions like the hospital’s wide double doors. Nevertheless, I would not push my luck by writing expressions like the chimney’s smoke and the house’s roof, for instance.

Paul Thayer

Your Book Editor

Use a singular noun with a plural possessive

            To avoid ambiguity you should usually use a singular noun with a plural possessive when only one of the things possessed could belong to an individual.

Example:

Four pilots crashed to their death (not deaths).

Mr. Smith knew most of them by their first name (not names).

See the plural possessive their in both sentences? That should clue you in.

Another example:

“Let’s go put something in our stomachs.”

People have only one stomach (although some look as if they have at least two), so you must use the singular word stomach. See the plural possessive our?

Paul Thayer

Your book editor

Hooking up: The comma splice

 Recognizing comma-splice errors in your writing is important. What’s a comma splice? This is linking two sentences (two independent clauses) with a comma.

Examples:

The current was swift, he could not swim to shore.

I like you, you’re nice.

Martha was a lonely woman, she didn’t have any friends.

What we have in these constructions is two separate independent (main) clauses—clauses that contain a subject and a verb—that express two separate thoughts. Example:

Martha was a lonely woman. She didn’t have any friends.

When you have two independent clauses in a sentence, you must write them in one of the following ways:

>   Separate them with a period so they’re treated as two complete sentences.

>   Connect them with a semicolon if the two thoughts are closely related (I like you; you’re nice.)

> Connect them with a conjunction, which should have a comma in front of it (The current was swift, and he could not swim to shore.)

This is such a basic rule of writing that I cringe when I see a comma-spliced sentence. Where was this writer, I wonder, when his 7^th-grade English teacher taught this lesson? In the john, perhaps, sneaking a smoke. To be honest, this error also makes me prejudiced against the writer because it raises a big red flag. If the writer doesn’t know about such a simple rule, how many other grammatical sins am I going to find in this manuscript? This does not make an editor look forward to reading the rest of the book. We would rather clean the toilet.

Paul Thayer

Your Book Editor

Expletives

No, expletive does not refer to the words deleted from the Nixon tapes. It has another meaning in the context of writing. Expletives are words used as structural fillers that have no reference and add no meaning to the sentence. That’s why I think of them as junk words. The most common expletives are there + verb and it + verb (there are, it was, for example). Other expletives are it took and it seemed.

Examples:

There is an old expression that says, “Know your enemy.”

There are more than a few males in this culture who believe that “she’s out there somewhere.”

Yeah, right.

Expletives overload text with too many state-of-being verbs, which makes the writing weak. Using expletives also leads to problems with subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement. More bad news: Using it with an indefinite reference is not acceptable in formal English (It says right here in The New York Times that . . .). Furthermore, using the expletive it and the pronoun it in the same sentence can be confusing. Readers have to pause for a moment to figure out what each it is referring to. Especially those whose native language is Swahili.

Constructions with expletives often take the form of There is . . . that, There are . . . who, and It was . . . who/that. They make a sentence wordy. Example:

It was the oldest boy who strangled the Geico gecko.

I’d sure like to do that. With malice aforethought and a perverted sense of glee.

Expletives are usually easy to eliminate. Look again at the example sentences written above. The expletive at the beginning of a sentence (or an independent clause) typically buries the noun/subject, which should be more prominently displayed up front. So you could change these sentences to read:

An old expression says, “Know your enemy.”

Many males in this culture believe that “she’s out there somewhere.”

See what I mean? Eliminating expletives makes sentences shorter, more direct, and more easily understood. Using an occasional expletive won’t trigger a midnight visit from the Grammar Gestapo, but you shouldn’t overuse them. If you have to turn a sentence into a pretzel in order to euthanize an expletive, fuggedaboutit.

Paul Thayer

Your book editor

Which hunting

The problems many writers have with the words that and which make copy editors inveterate which hunters. Remember that a nonrestrictive clause is not essential for the reader to understand the full meaning of the word or words that it modifies. It simply adds more information, describing but not limiting (“restricting”) what it modifies. On the other hand, a restrictive clause contains information that is essential for the reader to understand the full meaning of the word or words that it modifies. It limits (“restricts”) what it modifies. The relative pronoun that should be used to begin restrictive clauses, and which should be used to begin a nonrestrictive clause. Examples:

Restrictive:

He showed me the book that arrived in the mail today. [The meaning is restricted to just one book—the one that arrived in the mail today.]

Nonrestrictive:

He showed me the new Stephen King novel, which is the one I told you about yesterday. [The clause just adds more information to the sentence.]

Paul Thayer

your-book-editor.com

Going begging

You will see the expression begs the question used incorrectly in many different contexts, from student compositions to respected national magazines and newspapers to TV news programs.

The concept of “begging the question” is a fallacy that comes from the discipline of logic and the art of formal argument, where it’s known as petitio principii. In a debate, if someone begs the question, he is assuming in the premise some truth that he seeks to establish in the conclusion. For example, in Alice in Wonderland, during Alice’s wacky conversation with the Cheshire Cat, the cat uses certain assumptions (including his own madness) to conclude that everyone in Wonderland is mad. He says, “Well, I’m certainly crazy; therefore, everyone here is crazy.” This is using flawed logic.

You will see the phrase begs/begging the question used incorrectly in statements like this one:

Giving the schools billions more dollars begs the question of whether this will improve students’ grades.

Instead of writing “begs the question” in sentences like this one, write “raises the question” or “prompts the question” or “forces one to ask.”

Paul Thayer

Your book editor

Wordiness

Economy is one hallmark of good writing, so writers must learn how to cut the clutter. In order to eliminate wordy phrases and expressions from your writing, first you should add the terms redundancy, circumlocution, and tautology to your vocabulary.

A redundant expression says the same thing twice, as in raise up (rise up), swallow down, and follow behind. Other common redundancies:

(actual) facts

(advance) warning

(all-time) record

(armed) gunman

attach (together)

(basic) fundamentals

blend (together)

(brief) moment

cancel (out)

circle (around)

combine (together)

(completely) destroyed

drop (down)

enter (in)

few (in number)

green (in color)

grow (in size)

join (together)

kneel (down)

lift (up)

meet (together)

mix (together)

outside (of)

(past) experience

(past) history

penetrate (into)

(personal) friend

reason is (because)

retreat (back)

round (in shape)

(serious) danger

share (together)

shiny (in appearance)

surrounded (on all sides)

(total) destruction

(true) facts

(ultimate) goal

(unexpected) surprise

(very) pregnant

(very) unique

warn (in advance)

write (down)

A circumlocution includes a string of words that go all around the block to express one simple idea. Examples: in the event that instead of if; at the present time instead of now; and on a regular basis instead of regularly. I have seen this last circumlocution so often in all kinds of writing that I have become allergic to it. Such expressions are not ungrammatical or repetitious, but they should be avoided because they’re wordy. More examples: a large proportion of (many); am in possession of (have); caused injuries to (injured); destroyed by fire (burned); draw the attention of/to  (show, point out); during the time that (while); give rise to (cause); had occasion to be (was); in this day and age (today).

A tautology is “repetition of the same words or use of synonymous words in close succession.” Examples:

A major nuclear disaster could have been sparked by . . .

. . . who died of a fatal dose of heroin

pair of twins

weather conditions

Another example is Yogi Berra’s famous “It was déjà vu all over again.”

Other tautologies are of this type: each and every, one and the same, any and all, when and if, and separate and distinct.

It’s easy to use superfluous words inadvertently and tough to detect them in your own prose. That’s why a good copy editor can be of great help to writers.

Paul Thayer
Your book editor

Body parts

Unless you are writing a horror novel in which human or animal limbs move about on their own, avoid assigning body parts a point of view that is independent from the character who possesses them. Examples: his eyes stared; her feet walked; his arm reached. Change to: he stared; she walked; he reached.

The most common body part that writers use is the eyes, as in “His eyes never left her.” Much ickier are expressions such as “She dropped her eyes to the floor.” An obvious question to ask with this one is “Did they bounce?”

           

Note that it’s okay to say “He eyed her.” When that happens, let’s hope her eyeballs aren’t on the floor.

Paul Thayer
your-book-editor.com

Scene construction

Many of the scenes I see written by first novelists lack structure, development, and purpose. They seem to be the result of the writer’s thinking, “Oh, I guess I’ll start a scene here” and “Well, I guess I’ll end the scene now.” That’s not what you should do. Ya gotta have a plan, Stan.

To construct a fully fledged scene you have to begin with the proper scene framing (see my previous post about scene framing), and you have to include enough action to produce a well “rounded” scene. Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each one should relate a significant, self-contained episode that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, just as the novel as a whole should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This is the basic, age-old dramatic structure that Aristotle first called the “narrative arc.” Instead of using the terms beginning, middle, and end, we can describe the narrative arc of a story as the Complication, the Crisis, and the Resolution. Novelists need to think of each scene as a ministory with a similar narrative arc.

Just as important is determining the purpose of the scene. If a writer doesn’t know what purpose the scene will serve, then it will likely lack structure and the proper development. To help guide you in writing a scene, keep this list handy:

The SCENE’S PURPOSE is to:           

            • Move the main plot line ahead

           

            • Present necessary information

            • Introduce or develop characters

            • Create atmosphere or develop setting

            • Introduce or worsen a problem

            • Solve a problem

            • Set up a later scene

The scene should serve at least one of these purposes.

Also, during the planning stage of your scene, ask yourself these questions:

·      Who will be the viewpoint character?

·      What other characters will be in this scene?

·      Where will this scene take place?

·      When will it take place?

·      What is the primary action that will occur in the scene?

·      What will generate conflict?

Do all these things, and you will have an effective scene that will encourage readers to keep reading your story.

Paul Thayer

your-book-editor.com

He said/she said

Many new authors are fond of substituting more lively words for that simple, all-purpose word said when they attribute dialogue. Popular examples include laughed, chuckled, growled, gasped, moaned, hissed, and spat, all of which are impossible to do while you’re trying to say something intelligible. I especially like the word gushed: “She has made me the happiest man in the world,” he gushed. When a character does that, I think, Who is this guy, Old Faithful? Somebody who has just barfed on my shoes?

What people actually do is say a sentence, laughing, gasping, growling, etc., either before or after it. You’ll look more professional if you stick with plain words like said, asked, cried, called, whispered, and shouted and then amplify how the person delivers his dialogue: “Stop, you’re killing me!” Tom said, laughing so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks. Or you could try it this way: “Stop, you’re killing me!” Tom said. He laughed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks. If you’re writing in the first person, you could also say: “He won’t be coming back,” I told him (or “he/she told him,” if you’re writing in the third person).

Wanting to use more descriptive verbs when you’re attributing dialogue is tempting, I know, but simple words like said are functional. They’re almost invisible because they’re used so frequently. The reader flies past them, so the reading experience is not disrupted. Unusual words are intrusive, making the reader aware of the author.

Another danger of finding alternatives for said is the tendency to use transitive verbs improperly. For example, you may write, “Blah, blah, blah,” Julia interrupted. Interrupt may be used as both a transitive and an intransitive verb, but it’s transitive when its used to mean “to break in with questions or remarks while another is speaking.” Therefore, the transitive verb interrupted must have an object: Julia has to interrupt someone. So you have to write, “Julia interrupted her,” or something similar. A better solution, however, is to stick with said, using the abrupt end of the other character’s speech (shown via the em dash) to communicate the interruption. Example:

Julia whirled on him and said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you—”

“Damn right you know better,” Mark said, “so let’s just drop the subject.”

A better way to play the dialogue attribution game is simply refraining from using them. When only two people are talking, readers have no trouble determining who’s speaking if you start a new paragraph at every speaker change. To see samples of how few saids you can get away with, read a novel or two by Elmore Leonard and Robert B. Parker.

I'll bet you a million bucks that neither one of them ever used the word gushed.

Paul Thayer

your-book-editor.com