Primer Course for Aspiring Writers

Aspiring writers and editors, pay attention. Class is now in session.

The modern literary world is a tough place to live. The quality of the craft has dropped off a cliff while the quantity has proportionately spiked. Anyone who can scrawl a few sentences suddenly thinks he has what it takes to write a book. I assure you, he does not.

Learning and mastering the craft of writing takes years, if not decades. One cannot simply "decide" to write a novel one day. Just as specialized knowledge goes into, say, building a house, the same is true for writing. This means understanding mechanics, punctuation, grammar, spelling, and syntax. These are the required materials to build a book. If they're even a little crumbly, the whole thing will collapse. Essentially, being an effective writer also requires one to be an effective editor.

Some so-called editors with whom I interact have a shaky-at-best grasp on the aforementioned aspects of writing. For example, in the United States periods and commas always goes inside the quotation marks at the end of a sentence. However, I consistently see editors place it outside the quotation marks. Incorrect uses of ellipsis, dashes, and apostrophes (never add apostrophe-s to pluralize a word) abound. Also, I don't care what you learned in sixth grade Language Arts - unless you still use a typewriter, please stop using two spaces between sentences. It's archaic, a throwback to a more primitive age in literacy, and nearly no editors want to see them any longer. (For more in-depth reasoning behind this, read this and adapt accordingly.)

My question is: who do you think you are? You "writers" and "editors" who come at the craft full of passion, swagger, and good intentions (and often delusions of grandeur), but lacking elementary understanding implicit to successful writing? You don't just get to say "I'm going to be a writer (or editor)!" without paying your dues. Learning to write and edit requires education. It requires a tremendous amount of reading. Most of all, it requires years of practice, of trial and error, of harsh rejection.

Of course, with the dumbing down of modern readers, all this is probably moot. Readers are not the discerning, discriminating, lovers of fine art any longer. They don't care if someone splashes comma splices, dashes run-on sentences, or misspells every other word. This has led to a complete saturation of the industry, an embarrassment and obstacle for those who still cherish it and hold it sacred. Those who've paid our dues, in other words.

I've spent decades honing my craft and am finally beginning to see some return on it. It's only fair others do as well. If you're an aspiring writer, do yourself (and the rest of us) a service and take basic writing courses. Then take advanced courses. Then take pride in what you write. Learn from your mistakes. Share your talent with the world. After all, your work is your legacy. Do you want it littered with dangling participles and misplaced modifiers?

Make the world a better place, not more unbearable than it already is. Make it one where the real masters of the craft can make their name.

Class dismissed.

Fix Your Story: Punctuation and Quotation Marks in American Writing

Hello, folks. This is the first in a planned series on the nuance of writing. 

Learn to write effectively and you can have anything you want in life. - Sean Shesgreen, English professor, Northern Illinois University

Many of my writer friends are wonderful, capable writers. A few are true masters of the craft. A very few. As in I can count them on three fingers. Mastering any craft takes years of practice and honing. Trying and retrying. Creating, scrapping, recreating. Writing is not something a person can just "decide" to do with any measure of success. Just because one can string words together into a coherent sentence does not make one a writer. One cannot hope to write the great American novel if one has not spent years - if not decades - devoted to understanding the nuance of the craft.

To write effectively, a writer must master punctuation, mechanics, grammar, and syntax. If you do not understand these words, please take a moment to Google them before reading on. I'll wait.

Welcome back. Let's start with one aspect of punctuation today. Far too often, I see errors like this from American writers (why the country distinction? I'll explain in a moment):

I just read Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", and it was great!

Can you spot the blemish? No? I'll give you a hint: it's in the punctuation. Go ahead and Google "comma usage." I don't mind waiting; I'm patient. Incidentally, while we're waiting, patience is another thing every writer must have - you're going to learn to wait a long time for responses from publishers.

Here's another example to peruse while our Googlers are Googling:

My favorite story is Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamagua".

Same thing, only this time look up "period usage." In the U.S., at least, comma and periods defy logical placement. You'd think they would fall outside the quotation marks in these examples because they're not part of the title, but they don't. In Britain, logic dictates where to place those pesky punctuation marks, but not here. 'Merica: defying logic since 1776.

As an American writer, you need to know this. NEED. TO. KNOW. THIS. If you don't, professional editors/publishers will mark you as an amateur. And if the editor/publisher doesn't care about punctuation placement, then, as a writer, you should question their professionalism. 

The only exception to this rule is if you are enclosing a single letter or numeral in quotation marks as in these examples:

Shelly stepped through the door marked "A".

Bob's jersey bore the number "3".

On a similar note, colons and semicolons go outside the quotation marks in both America and Britain, like so:

In October our class read "The Monkey's Paw"; we also read other scary stories.

These players must report to the room marked "Athletics": pitchers, catchers, and infielders.

I've spent thirty years writing stories. I went to college to study writing because writing is what I wanted to do: I wanted to be a writer. But not just to write stories; to learn to write them effectively. And doing that begins and ends with the nuance of the craft. 

Writing is like any other job: you learn to do it effectively or you fail. Period (see what I did there? Heh.).

No one who's never built one wakes up one morning and says, "You know what, I'm going to build a robot today!" and then does it with any degree of success. Same goes for writing. You must learn how before you can do it successfully. So get busy learning. Then go write the great American novel.

(Next post: Let's Strip! Eliminating Two Utterly Unnecessary Words from Your Manuscript)

Dear Editor: Edit THIS!

As a writer who depends upon editors to buy my work, I realize this post is playing with fire. I'll take my chances.

Often while browsing the 'Net, I'll come across some small press editor or other's blog which I eagerly devour. Invariably, I can depend on finding that obligatory post in which said editor denigrates, belittles, or otherwise condemns the hopeful writers who anxiously submit their work for review only to ultimately be rejected. Hours of clattering away at a keyboard (not to mention even more hours revising draft after draft) before finally clicking SEND on that fateful email, only to wait three months (or more) for a form rejection letter really, well, sucks.

But, hey--that's the industry. I am a professional. I possess the thick skin required to await the inevitable rejection...after rejection...after rejection. I have never replied in anger to an editor who has rejected my work. I accept that not everything I write is perfect (some of it is downright despicable) and I accept that even good stories sometimes get shot down. It just makes each acceptance all the sweeter.

Further, I understand an enormous cross-section of people who think they can write well cannot and a large subset of this group may, by extension, also be classified as unprofessional. I empathize with an editor's frustration when a writer submits piles of pure slush or responds to rejection with bitterness or outright malice. As a one-time editor myself, believe me--I know.

Now let me turn the tables. What follows is an actual reply I received from an editor recently. I am including it here without an iota of retouching. Please note: I'm not picking on editors (especially those of you who currently have a story of mine under consideration. Heh.). Most of my interactions with them have been wonderful learning experiences. Obviously, I am withholding said editor's name. I just couldn't ignore posting this. Read on to see why:

i read some and scanned the rest

you have to tweak it to make it fit more of what i am looking for.

1. stop beginning words with AND. never a good thing

2. make the dialogue more standard format. way to much slang and sloppy writing (i know thats the style but i dont like it)

3. have the character, one or both, take into account what they are doing, they are killing people, its something to think about. this antho isnt about killing people, its about dealing with death. so its needs to be a little deeper.

4. when someone says, somethin. you ned to add an ' on it to replace the G same with em is 'em

if you feel like doing this stuff and sending it again, i dont see whay i cant use it.

(i didnt edit this email much, i dont bother)

thanks

Let's dissect this point by point.

1. From now on, I will stop beginning words with AND. Andalusia, Andrew, Android and several others have now been stricken from my vocabulary. Not really. Because what this person meant to say was "Stop beginning sentences with 'And'." Wait, why is it never a good thing? As long as conjunctions are used sparingly to start sentences, they are perfectly acceptable. I promise. Don't make me go all Strunk & White on you.

2. Standard dialogue format is wonderful if that's the way your character speaks. This particular character doesn't speak in standard English. In fact, I don't know many people who do. Maybe a few stauncher politicians and members of the clergy. I understand too much slang can be distracting, but let it go. Feel the character. Get inside the character's mind, man. Trippy, right?

3. Perhaps if this editor had finished reading the story, the "dealing with death" would have become clearer...since a death is the climax of the story (and actually is implied rather than described). The characters aren't "killing people." Of course, those things might be difficult to glean just from scanning. That got me thinking about how many stories are rejected by editors who don't, you know, actually do their job and read the thing top to bottom. And then I felt my blood pressure rising, so I stopped thinking about it. Must...keep...beast...at...bay.

4. Adding an apostrophe when dropping a letter or letters from a word is the writer's choice. I understand doing so is standard (something this person seems to adamantly uphold), yet it is not required. Just ask a guy named Steve King. Or Cormac McCarthy. Or Bernard Shaw. Me, I prefer a page uncluttered with throwaway punctuation. Still unconvinced? Check out this article, paying close attention to the paragraph labeled "Omission and elision."

5. The penultimate sentence tops everything. Let me get this straight: I am expected to revise my story to make it more standard, but this editor can't be bothered to employ correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, or mechanics? If you don't have the inclination to be professional, then I can see I have wasted time submitting.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, writers. Editors, feel free to weigh in as well. Am I off the mark here? Writers who submit to markets learn quickly they need editors far more than editors need them and that anything perceived as bitterness toward editors comes off as unprofessional. Well, I'm bucking that trend today. Because there are certainly some editors we writers do not need. And (uh-oh, there's that pesky coordinating conjunction starting my sentence again) I'm not bitter in the slightest. Just appalled.