L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 45

A Hopefully Helpful Lecture from a Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar Nazi

Writers who struggle with spelling, punctuation and grammar must get frustrated by the constant corrections from well-meaning editors who bemoan the fact that they never seem to learn. The truth is writers who struggle with these areas will never improve without some tips, tricks and suggestions more useful than an instruction to simply start “getting it right”.

As a trained editor, in many of my positions of employment I became a pit stop for fellow employees wanting clarification on how to spell, punctuate and ensure correct grammar. So here are a few tips I’ve come up with to try to ensure fewer mistakes more often.

There, They’re and Their

These three seem to be a perpetual challenge so the simple check I came up with is this:

*If you can interchange it with the word “here”, then the spelling you’re looking for is “there”.

Correct example: There it is. Here it is.

Incorrect example: There minds are made up. Here minds are made up.

*If you spell the contracted version out in full – they are – and it still makes sense, then the spelling you’re looking for is “they’re”.

Correct example: They’re a terrific family. They are a terrific family.

Incorrect example: They’re minds are made up. They are minds are made up.

*Once you’ve mastered the other two rules, there is only one homonym left: the plural possessive, which means a pronoun that demonstrates ownership. Substitute the noun or nouns to check it makes sense.

Correct example: Their minds are made up. Jack and Debbie’s minds are made up.

Incorrect example: Their is a house. Jack and Debbie’s is a house.

Once you understand the differences, my recommendation is to check at the end of the writing process to ensure you are using the correct homonym. Simply use the Find function in Word to search for “there”, “they’re” and “their” and check that each usage follows the rules laid out above.

You’re and Your

The rules for “you’re” and “your” should be easy if you can remember the rules for “there”, “they’re” and “their”.

*If you spell the contracted version out in full – you are – and it still makes sense, then the spelling you’re looking for is “you’re”.

Correct example: You’re a terrific writer. You are a terrific writer.

Incorrect example: You’re mind is made up. You are mind is made up.

*The other homonym is the possessive, which means a pronoun that demonstrates ownership. Substitute the noun to check it makes sense.

Correct example: Your mind is made up. Debbie’s mind is made up.

Incorrect example: You’re coffee is cold. You are coffee is cold. Debbie is coffee is cold.

It’s and Its

“It’s” and “its” are a little more complex but if you stick to spelling out the contraction and using the other one on all occasions where it doesn’t make sense, you should be right.

*If you spell the contracted version out in full – it is – and it still makes sense, then the spelling you’re looking for is “it’s”.

Correct example: It’s a terrific example. It is a terrific example.

Incorrect example: It’s wings are white. It is wings are white.

*The other homonym is the possessive, which means a pronoun that demonstrates ownership. Substitute the noun to check it makes sense.

Correct example: Its wings are flapping. The bird’s wings are flapping.

Incorrect example: Its hot in the tropics. The bird’s hot in the tropics. (What!?)

Definite, Definate and Defanite

Only one of these is an actual word and it’s the first spelling. So the simple rule is that the word “definite” definitely does not have an “a” anywhere in it.

The reason I’ve included it here is because a friend once texted me to confirm the correct spelling and told me he had been taught at school to use the second (incorrect) spelling. No wonder it’s so hard if children are being indoctrinated with the wrong information.

Separate and Seperate

Again, only one of these is an actual word and again, it’s the first spelling. The rule with this word is two of the letter “e” and two of the letter “a” and once you can remember that, it’s not too difficult to realise where they should go (“e” at the start and “e” at the end, “a” and another “a” in the middle – remember to separate the two “e”s with the two “a”s).

Focusing and Focussing

The word “focusing” only has one “s”. This is one of those errors that so many people make that even those who are spelling it correctly start to doubt themselves. I’ve seen this in newspapers and on billboards and it might be a losing battle, but I’m still fighting.

When thinking about these kinds of verbs, ask yourself why you are adding an extra letter to create the present participle (otherwise known as the “ing” version of the verb). We generally only do this when not adding the extra letter would create confusion about pronunciation.

Single final letter in converting from the infinitive to the present participle: focusing, talking, singing, burning, flying.

Double final letter in converting from the infinitive to the present participle: shopping, running setting, sitting, dropping, putting.

Unfortunately, there are no easy rules for this one. But if in doubt, don’t. Think about the ridiculousness of writing “singging” or “flyying” or “talkking”. And just don’t.

A General Note on Spelling Errors

All spelling errors (as opposed to incorrectly used but correctly spelled words) should be picked up when you run the Spelling & Grammar check in Microsoft Word. (Make sure you set the language to the one you want e.g. English (US), English (UK), English (Australian).

If this isn’t happening, check to make sure the “Do not check spelling and grammar” box is not selected in the Language dialogue box on the Review tab. If it is, select all your text and then uncheck this box. If you’ve applied styles and the styles have this as part of their construction, you will need to modify the style.

Why this is even an option, I have no idea but it has tripped up many a good writer.

Apostrophes

While English is a fluid language and constantly evolving, the issue of apostrophes is one where I am disappointed at people getting it wrong. But it’s worse than that. People providing advice on how to use apostrophes are now often providing incorrect advice. That doesn’t just make me disappointed. It makes me fume. So here it is from a trained editor who studied under old school teachers more pedantic than you can ever imagine.

*Contractions – an apostrophe is used in a contraction to indicate two words have been joined together and some letters have been removed.

Examples – don’t = do not, can’t = cannot = can not, it’s = it is, you’re = you are, they’re = they are and so on.

It’s reasonably straightforward (see how straightforward doesn’t have an apostrophe because even though it’s two words joined together, none of the letters have been removed) but there are some less simple examples – shan’t = shall not, won’t = will not. Give it some thought and if in doubt, consult your dictionary.

*Singular possessive – it makes absolutely no difference whether a singular word or name ends in an “s” – if you are making that singular word possessive, it should have an apostrophe and then an “s” added to the end.

Examples – Brian’s cat, Ross’s book, Tess’s football, Steven’s tutu, the river’s flow, the floss’s length, the apple’s freshness, the truss’s strength.

Exceptions – the two exceptions are pronouns (hers, yours, theirs, its) and two religious figures – Moses’ commandments and Jesus’ disciples – perhaps because adding that many of the same letter in a row would just be ridiculous to pronounce but I’m not a fan of this exception. We would have coped and we wouldn’t have had to worry about another exception. Oh well.

*Plural possessive – the plural possessive is a little more complex because some words are made plural by adding an “s” (book to books, chef to chefs, cat to cats, dog to dogs), some words are made plural by adding an “es” (ostrich to ostriches, boss to bosses, fox to foxes, witch to witches) and other words have different plural formations (man to men, woman to women, child to children, person to people, etc). But basically a plural word ending in “s” or “es” will have the apostrophe at the end of the word and a plural word with a different formation from the singular word will have an apostrophe and then an “s” added to the end.

Examples – the books’ covers, the chefs’ teacher, the cats’ mother, the dogs’ tails, the ostriches’ feathers, the bosses’ workers, the foxes’ dens, the witches’ brews, the men’s room, the women’s hats, the children’s carer, the people’s princess.

The great thing about the English language is also one of its difficulties – unpredictability. It breaks its own rules so often it’s sometimes hard to remember what the rules actually are. After all, “i before e except after c” has now become “i before e except after c and when there’s a feisty heist on weird beige foreign neighbours reinventing protein at their leisure”.

If anyone has any specific questions they would like answered, please pose them in the comments section and I’ll help you out. I’m still fighting the good fight and I believe this can still be a correctly spelled, grammatically correct, perfectly punctuated world.

P.S. I am an Australian (born, bred and trained) and while my advice relates to Australian English, most of the advice provided above applies to other forms of the English language. The best universal advice I can offer is to buy a dictionary and a grammar guide relevant to your specific version of English to ensure you are adhering to the norms that are correct for your region.

My Top Ten Albums

Last year on Twitter I tweeted my list of the top ten albums I enjoy listening to. It probably won’t come as any surprise that while there are particular types of music I prefer, it is often the lyrics that really hit home for me. So here’s the list replicated (in reverse order, as all good top ten lists are) with samples of the spectacular words that fill the songs.

10. Grace by Jeff Buckley

From “Eternal Life” written by Jeff Buckley:

There’s no time for hatred, only questions

Where is love? Where is happiness?

What is life? Where is peace?

When will I find the strength that bring me release?

9. She Will Have Her Way: The Songs of Neil and Tim Finn by various artists

From “Distant Sun” written by Neil Finn:

And I’m lying on the table

Washed out in the flood

Like a Christian fearing vengeance from above

I don’t pretend to know what you want

But I offer love

8. Trigger by Sandrine

From “Nowhere” written by Sandrine:

Now that you’ve made it

You’ve got places to be

People that you have got to see

Things to be doing

You’ve got clothes you have to wear

You’re on your way

But you’re nowhere

7. White Ladder by David Gray

From “My Oh My” written by Gray and McClune:

What on earth is going on in my heart?

Has it turned as cold as stone?

Seems these days I don’t feel anything

’Less it cuts me right down to the bone

6. Little Voice by Sara Bareilles

From “Fairytale” written by Sara Bareilles:

I don’t care for your fairytale

You’re so worried about the maiden

Though you know she’s only waiting

On the next best thing

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom

Man made up a story, said that I should believe him

Go and tell your white night that he’s handsome in hindsight

But I don’t want the next best thing

So I sing hold my head down

And I break these walls ’round me

Can’t take no more of your fairytale love

5. Under Rug Swept by Alanis Morissette

From “That Particular Time” written by Alanis Morissette:

At that particular time love encouraged me to leave

At that particular moment I knew staying with you meant deserting me

That particular month was harder than you’d believe

But I still left at that particular time

4. Harmonium by Vanessa Carlton

From “Who’s To Say” written by Vanessa Carlton and Stephan Jenkins:

Mother, don’t tell me friends are the ones that I lose

’Cause they’d bleed before you

Sometimes family are the ones you choose

3. Beneath the Velvet Sun by Shawn Mullins

From “North on 95” written by Shawn Mullins and Bill Bonk:

It’s hard to say where love turns cold

We never thought that we’d grow old

We filled up fast and went down

Slow enough to fake us out and make us fold

2. This Fire by Paula Cole

From “Throwing Stones” written by Paula Cole:

There you go again

You cut me off from talkin’

You bask in the glory

The center of the circle

All our friends think

You are a comedian

So kind and generous

But I am suffering

1. Your Body Above Me by Black Lab

From “Anything” by Paul Durham:

It could have been anyone

Could have been a woman or a man

Must have swept her away

Made her forget who I am

It could have been anyone

Could have slipped me a drug

Must have been a permanent dose

To make me forget who she was

It could have been anything

Could have been the time was spent alone

Maybe too much time together

Maybe too close to the bone

It could have been anything

Any word I might have said

Just a look I might have given

Just the angle of my head

And just because I think Paul Durham is one of the greatest songwriters out there, here’s “Tell Me What To Say” – lyrical perfection:

I take one for the heartache

One for the headache

Two for the constant tears

I take one for the blindness

One for the foolishness

Of trying to keep you here

I would stop waiting, stop crying

Stop reading into why

You stayed away so long

I would stop calling, stop writing

Stop faking, stop denying

You’re as good as gone

But I don’t know

So you just tell me what to say and I will say it to you

I will do it for you

I will burn this house down

Tell me what to say and I will say it to you

I will do what you do

I will burn us to the ground

Even on weekdays

Even on Sundays

Even in the blackest night

Even when you touch me

I know you don’t love me

And I can’t make it right

I would stop waiting, stop walking

Stop trying to start you talking

Say your own goodbyes

I would stop drinking, stop feeling

Break down and stop believing

You might change your mind

But I don’t know

So you just tell me what to say and I will say it to you

I will do it for you

I will burn this house down

Tell me what to say and I will say it to you

I will do what you do

I will burn us to the ground

Book Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

This book took me a long time to read. Not because it was difficult to read but because I would read it in patches searching for something to keep my interest and put it down again when I failed to find anything and it would be sometimes days, sometimes weeks before I would pick it up again. In its defence, this is a long book. Actually, that’s not really a defence at all. It’s a long book in which nothing much of any interest happens.

The book is populated with a succession of characters who don’t engender any empathy – the alcoholic father who all but sells his daughter to a rival to save the family business, a daughter who cheats on her husband from the word go, another daughter who is selfish and immature and kills herself when she finds out that her sister was having an affair with the object of her childish affections, a sister-in-law without a single redeeming quality, a granddaughter who throws away her life on drugs and multiple men, a great granddaughter who abandons the entire family (although who can blame her?), a judgemental servant and a bossy servant’s daughter.

The format weaves a long family history with supplementary newspaper articles and chapters of a frankly not very good novel-within-a-novel. The narrator is Iris, an old lady at the time of the story’s telling. She doles out plot points in a drip-feed fashion to make the reader think there’s going to be some sort of important reveal in the end – but there isn’t.

This is the second Margaret Atwood book I’ve read and although I think she’s an important voice (how can you deny the significance of someone who sees the world so clearly as to articulate, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”), it will probably be some time before I choose to read another.

Even with all its faults, I don’t regret having read this book but I do wonder how it won such a prestigious prize.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 3 June 2015

So You’ve Decided to Make Your Main Character a Writer

Okay, so I couldn’t talk you out of making your main character a writer. But maybe I can talk you out of making your writer character a bad stereotype. So do me a favour and avoid the following character traits seen so often in clichéd fictional versions of ourselves.

Don’t

*Don’t make your writer someone who only composes in long hand or on a typewriter (unless your story is set in pre-technology times). It’s laborious. It’s pretentious. And it’s hardly ever accurate in depicting how writers write. Almost all writing submissions these days are required in electronic format so someone handwriting on paper or typing on a clunker will just have to transcribe their work into a computer file later on, meaning twice as much work as necessary.

*Don’t make them super rich, super successful megastars. There’s a fairly common IRS statistic that gets trotted out that of all the people in America, less than two hundred list their sole source of income as writing. Most writers have second, and sometimes third, jobs to ensure their financial security.

*Don’t make them broke, desperate losers either. Like I said, most writers have second jobs to ensure their financial security. The starving artist subsisting on love and two-minute noodles is a romantic notion (to some) but it’s also a complete distortion of reality.

*Don’t make them anal retentive spelling and grammar Nazis. While I freely admit to being one myself, I am an exception rather than a rule because the truth is you don’t have to be good at spelling and grammar to come up with a cracking story and write it down. A writer can misspell every single word and still be a terrific writer (with a little – no, make that a lot of – help from an editor). In fact, I’m pretty sure the bestselling novel Trainspotting would fall into this category.

*Don’t give them a god complex. Come on, we’re not doctors or politicians or the president of FIFA. I don’t know of a single writer who actually has a superiority complex. If anything, we’re more likely to have inferiority complexes. And those are hardly specific to writers.

*Don’t make them sad/depressed/melancholy/crazy/reclusive/lonely/shy/broody/angsty – at least not as a general state of being. I will admit to experiencing all these emotions whenever anyone makes me talk about my writing but don’t we all experience these things now and then? Yes, that’s right, now and then. Not all the time.

*Don’t make them wear berets. Just don’t.

Do

*Do make them normal. Most writers are. We graduate high school (or fail), go to university (or learn a trade), get jobs (ones we love and ones we hate), travel on a budget (backpackers in Europe and 4 star in Asia), donate to charities (or blow it all on a big night out), get married (or stay single), have children (or don’t). You get the picture. Writers are people, too.

*Do make them hygienic. I think the unkempt, dirty, smelly writer is a leftover from the starving artist in a garret. And while this stereotype mostly affects male writers, I would like to stand up for all the creative men I know and protest that they are as clean as anyone else.

*Do make them multi-skilled. Just because we can write doesn’t mean we can’t do anything else. I’m quite good at maths, I can juggle, I’m an excellent painter (walls not canvases), I’m the world’s best aunt, I can speak a bit of French and I’m a terrific problem solver.

*Do make them responsible consumers of alcohol. While there are several examples of terrific writers who have struggled with alcohol addiction and sobriety, such as Steven King, there is no greater likelihood that a writer will be an alcoholic as opposed to anyone else.

*Do make them social people. Observation of and interaction with other people is a great source of inspiration for writers. It’s also a great source of respite from the solitary process of writing.

And, finally, a word on coffee. A couple of other stereotypes are the excess consumption of coffee and writing in coffee shops (I think we can blame J.K. Rowling in part for the latter one). These two stereotypes go hand in hand (makes sense – if you drink a lot of coffee, you’re going to need a coffee shop and constantly going to and from the coffee shop would really impact on the amount of time you can devote to writing, so you might as well set up shop (no pun intended) with your laptop). And while they are stereotypes, they can be forgiven. Especially if you live in Melbourne, self-proclaimed coffee capital of the world (also self-proclaimed sports capital of the world, self-proclaimed culture capital of Australia and self-proclaimed capital of Victoria). While I don’t drink coffee myself (take note, writers planning to make your main character a writer), I accept that many, many, many people do so it’s not going to be the perpetuation of a ridiculous stereotype.

So drink on (caffeinated beverages only), fictional writers, drink on (I reiterate, caffeinated beverages only).

So You Want to Make Your Main Character a Writer?

Don’t. Okay, this sounds like very definitive advice about whether or not to make your main character a writer and obviously there are going to be exceptions. But as a general rule, my first piece of advice about this is always going to be NOT to make your main character a writer unless it is absolutely crucial to the story.

Why? Because while there are plenty of examples of writers as main characters in fiction that work beautifully, there are so many more examples of writers as main characters that don’t work well at all or who have all their life problems solved by the publication of their writing. And as every published writer will tell you, publication usually solves nothing – especially not financial issues. Most writers have a second job to pay the bills.

For a change, today I’m going to use movies as examples of what I’m talking about instead of novels. Mostly because I realised I own or have seen a lot of movies with writers as main characters.

Laziness

It’s a common piece of advice to beginning writers – write what you know. Pfft! Most beginning writers don’t know writing at all. To learn it, they have to undertake the journey.

And once they’ve been on that journey, if all they know is writing, they’re going to run out of ideas quick smart. Sometimes, a great story requires a little – or a lot – of research. Sometimes that research might have to be about an alternative career. (In Enemies Closer, my main characters were a Marine, an FBI agent, a CIA agent and a weapons designer and I had to spend probably half of all my research time for the entire book just making sure these characters actually looked like they knew what they were doing at work.)

There are so many wonderful and varied careers that characters can have that if your character doesn’t absolutely have to be a writer, I can’t imagine why you’d want to torment them with that lot in life.

Convenience

People who don’t know any better imagine that writers have all the free time in the world and people who should know better (yes, writers, this means you) sometimes use that incorrect assumption to create a character who doesn’t need to be at work from nine to five.

Writers (disciplined writers, anyway) actually spend a lot of time being unavailable because of their writing. I certainly wouldn’t have time (or the skills) to solve a murder. And if that’s what you want your main character to do, why not make them a detective and save yourself and your audience a lot of time and heartache?

Lack of Imagination

Some people can’t figure out how to tell a story unless a fictional writer is telling it. It’s just so unnecessary. All stories must be narrated – first person, second person, third person, omniscient – but there’s absolutely no reason for any of these perspectives to be narrated by a writer.

Exceptions to the Rule

*Real People

Some of my favourite movies are the stories behind the greatest writers or pieces of writing. A film I can watch over and over again is RKO 281 about the journey taken by Orson Welles and Herman Mankiewicz to create what has frequently been described as the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane.

Also falling into this category are Becoming Jane about Jane Austen, Miss Potter about Beatrix Potter, Bright Star about John Keats and Finding Neverland about J.M. Barrie.

*Stories about Writing

Obviously it would be difficult to write a story about writing without writers. One of the wackiest and yet most charming is Adaptation, containing a fictionalised version of the celebrated screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his completely fictional twin brother, Donald, as he struggles to adapt The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean into a film. This became the story after he realised it would be impossible to adapt but I suspect this is a once only story idea.

*High Concept Stories

I mostly can’t watch Will Ferrell movies but the definite exception to this is Stranger Than Fiction, the story of Harold Crick, who begins to hear his life being narrated everywhere he goes and realises he is a character in a book and is going to die at the end of it unless he can convince the writer, Karen Eiffel (played by Emma Thompson), not to.

Ruby Sparks also falls into this category, about a writer who creates and controls a woman simply by writing it down on the page, and while I don’t consider it as successful as Stranger Than Fiction, it’s a good example of a high concept story about writing.

*The Fact that the Character is a Writer is Almost Secondary

Here are a few examples:

Misery – yes, the main character is a writer but this story is a commentary on fame and fans so he could have just as easily been an actor or a model or a Kardashian.

Dan in Real Life – yes, the main character is a writer but the more important fact is that he’s a widowed father caring for three daughters so he could have just as easily been a lawyer or a builder or a businessman.

So I Married an Axe Murderer – yes, the main character is a writer (a performance poet, more accurately) but it was just an opportunity for Mike Meyers to give us a few kooky moments that amount to less than a minute of actual screen time and don’t have anything to do with the overall storyline.

These sound like rather a lot of exceptions, probably because when you get it right, you get it right and you can break as many rules as you want. But before you do, I want you to think long and hard about whether it’s absolutely pivotal to the story you want to tell – like the journalists chasing the story in State of Play or the just okay novelist passing off someone else’s work as his own in The Words – or if you’re just being indulgent by essentially writing a hardly veiled version of yourself into your work.

Book Review: Dark City Blue by Luke Preston

If you like characters who never sleep and only ever pass out to get some rest, then this is the book for you.

This is a fast-paced story and the body count starts almost immediately and doesn’t let up right until the very end. It has a very gritty feel and it is set in a bleak, dystopian version of Melbourne, Australia that as someone who lives there I don’t recognise, thank goodness.

The plot is a little cliched; veteran, weary, jaded cop stumbles across police corruption bringing himself, his family and anyone on his side into harm’s way, only to discover that it’s those closest to him who are the bad guys.

But Luke Preston’s writing style is so punchy, so jagged, so minimalist, conveying only what he needs to to get the message across, that it feels like something different. I’ve certainly never read anything written this way before and it makes for a nice change. It took me out of my comfort zone and I was happy to stay there for the length of the novel.

The ending leaves it open for a sequel – or even several – but the author would have to up the ante on plot next time to beat this effort.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 15 February 2013

How to Be Your Own Editor

There are two things writers never seem to have enough of: time and feedback. I can’t help with time. But even if you don’t have a group of people willing to read your works in progress, there are ways to identify areas for improvement in your own writing without having to have it pointed out to you.

Some of these suggestions might seem hard. But your willingness to embrace them might be indicative of how determined you are to become your own editor and, in turn, a better writer.

Learn the English Language

This might come as a strange suggestion because most people writing in the English language probably think they already know the English language. However, most people never learned it properly in the first place. The quality of English education has for a long time been just so-so. My father spent a day at school with two of his grandchildren, my nephews, and after sitting in on a couple of classes, he assures me this hasn’t changed. One teacher didn’t understand the difference between quantifiable and unquantifiable measurements (number versus amount) and thus was teaching the children incorrectly.

I will be forever grateful that I spent three years learning English from Mr Cleary at Goornong Primary School. Mr Cleary was old as well as old school and taught us the parts of language, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, phrases, clauses, etc. I supplemented that learning later by studying editing for two years with Anne Calvert at Holmesglen TAFE where I learned about gerunds, misplaced and dangling modifiers, objects and subjects, verb tenses and agreement, and reinforced the basics such as the proper use of apostrophes (this is a massive problem these days).

These two reasons combined mean I am both a writer and an editor – professionally and personally. I can find grammatical, spelling and punctuation mistakes in my own work as well as any professional proofreader or copyeditor, saving myself the cost and immediately elevating my work above that of others who can’t edit their own writing.

You don’t need to spend two years studying. Everything I was taught and everything you need to know could easily be covered in an intensive one month period. Yes, it’s one month. One whole month. Out of the rest of your writing life. It’s worth the investment of time.

Have Reference Materials Within Easy Reach

And because you can’t remember it all no matter how much intensive or lengthy study you do, you should always have reference materials within easy reach when you are writing. This includes dictionaries and thesauruses (always more than one – I recommend the Reader’s Digest Reverse Dictionary, Reader’s Digest Word Finder and the Macquarie International English Dictionary), style guides and style manuals, baby name books and how-to guides.

Identify Style (and Lack of Style)

I received some feedback on a book last year that suggested I overused the words “maybe”, “perhaps”, “almost” and “sometimes”. When I went back and read the manuscript, I realised that it was absolutely true. I’d mistaken the overuse of these words as a stylistic choice to try to convey the uncertainness of the main character. I went back and took most of them out.

The ability to step back from your own work and see what it is rather than what you intended it to be is difficult. But keeping an eye out for the following may be a step in the right direction:

• Overuse throughout

• Concentrated repetition

• Awkward construction

• Unrealistic dialogue

• Clichés

• Lack of flow

• Telling and not showing

Read Aloud

If it’s good enough for children, then it’s good enough for writers. And if it’s hard to say out loud, it will be hard to read on the page, too. So a strategy I use as part of being my own editor is to read sections of my writing aloud.

When I write articles, I read them out (usually to my cats) as if I’m speaking at a conference. When I write fiction, I read it out (again usually to my cats) as if I’m amongst a room full of people at a book reading.

Sometimes it’s not enough to just read it out. If it’s fiction, act out the dialogue. Dialogue can be acted out to elicit a feeling. That feeling should be evident on the page as well as when spoken aloud, and if it isn’t there, then something’s missing. Dialogue should roll off the tongue, I think. In real life, we stutter and stammer and um and ah and it takes us time to realise the perfect comeback. It’s so much more satisfying to read and watch characters who have complete control of their speech, who can parry and thrust verbally with the best of them (unless, of course, this is not part of their personality).

Compare Dialogue

Compare the dialogue of one person from scene to scene to see if there is a consistency in their own particular voice, and then to make sure other characters don’t have the exact same voice, unless there is a very good reason for it. Different characters should have different speech patterns to reflect everything about them: the environment they grew up in, their education, their socio-economic status, their audience, their emotions, etc. So a character who likes to avoid confrontation will address their mother and a difficult customer in different ways, but at the same time will retain that part of their personality that dislikes confrontations.

Break It Down

Being able to break a piece of writing down into its elements can also be helpful sometimes. Find the big picture, find the big moments, find the act breaks, find the small moments, find the characters and isolate them all. Looking at them in isolation sometimes helps to pinpoint why they or parts of them aren’t working. And sometimes putting all these elements back together in a different way can be useful.

Print It Out

There is something about being able to turn the pages that helps me see things more easily than scrolling down a computer screen does.

Walk Away

Because novels are such long pieces of writing, it’s hard to remember them precisely, which I think is a good thing. So when I think I’m ready to move from writing to reviewing, I put it aside for a period of time (it can be as little as a couple of days or as much as several years). Then I go back to it and read it as a reader. Then I ask myself questions. Does it hold my interest? Does it flow? Do I have the same opinion of the work as I did when I wrote it? Are there moments where I wonder, “What was I thinking?”? Am I pleasantly surprised by the construction of some elements of the writing or is there nothing that excites me to think that I actually wrote this?

Ditch It

This is probably the hardest strategy of all. When I can recognise that a story isn’t working but I’m just not sure why, I will ditch the whole lot and purposely write the story again in a completely different way. The new way might not be better but going about it in a different way can help to identify what was wrong with the original. And, of course, I can incorporate elements of both the original and the rewrite and end up with a much better piece of writing. But I will admit that this is incredibly hard as well as being a lot of (sometimes redundant) work.

Read the first chapter of White Wash and the alternative first chapter of the same novel posted on this blog previously for an example of exactly what I’m talking about.

So hopefully you can use these steps to become your own editor and if that’s a step too far, hopefully you can use them to simply become a better writer.

Seeking Criticism But Wanting Praise

In 2012, I offered my second cousin a free manuscript assessment and he tweeted:

It took me a month and I did a copy edit as well as a manuscript assessment for him. This was his Twitter response:

I doubt it’s an uncommon response. It was his first novel and while it showed promise, it needed significant reworking and rewriting. I think Zac knew that when he sent it to me but he was excited to have finished the first draft. And even though he asked for my constructive criticism, what he really wanted, what all writers really want, was praise.

When I assess a piece, I always try to balance the amount of criticism with the same amount of praise and there are only two exceptions to this:

1. The piece is pretty amazing and doesn’t require much criticism.

2. The piece is pretty terrible and I struggle to find anything positive to say about it (this is extremely rare).

Tip: This is probably the most important piece of advice I can give. All writers should listen to praise and criticism and give them both equal credence. More than one writer has told me that the times I gave them praise helped to save their sanity and continue on with the writing process instead of simply giving up.

The word “criticism” (regardless of whether it is preceded by the word “constructive”) seems to contribute to some of the heart palpitations writers experience from when they think about exposing their writing to a wider reading public. The word suffers from negative connotations and although we are constantly reminded that it is critiquing the writing, not the person, it can still seem like an attack. I don’t know about anyone else but I suspect we’d all much rather undergo an appraisal (in which “praise” seems more apparent) than a critique (where “criticism” is the obvious basis).

I’ve had two of my own manuscripts assessed but I don’t offer first drafts to anyone – maybe third or fourth drafts. The first assessment I paid for and it was worth every cent. I think all I did was a Google search to find an agency and the one I eventually settled on was Driftwood Manuscripts based in South Australia. I don’t remember why because it was eight years ago now.

I was extremely happy with what I received – for approximately $500 I was provided with a seven page report covering the reviewer’s initial response, feedback on characters and plotting and ways to up the suspense level. From those seven pages, there was one significant comment, the one comment I got the most out of: “From then on, it’s joking all the way to the end. That wouldn’t be so bad if I believed in this thriller as a comedy. But I don’t. I believe in it as a thriller that delivers thrills. It was as though you stopped believing in it. Or you ran out of ideas or lost your way.”

The reviewer was absolutely right. I’d been so focused on infusing the manuscript with dry humour that I lost my way and the action adventure story with thrills and mystery I’d been intending to produce had gotten lost.

However, within the assessment, there were two pieces of advice that I really, really, really disagreed with. The assessment was for my first novel, Enemies Closer, which was written from multiple points of view. Each chapter was from the viewpoint of one character so that chapter couldn’t reveal anything more than what that one character knew or was experiencing. The next chapter would be from a different character’s viewpoint and would reveal only what that different character knew or was experiencing. All the viewpoints combined created the overall story.

What the reviewer recommended was revealing something that none of the characters who took turns telling the story could know in order to build suspense. But it didn’t make any sense. It would require writing a chapter from an omniscient perspective before returning to the format I’d been using or rewriting the whole book from an omniscient perspective, which would ultimately mean losing most of the suspense I had been able to create.

The second piece of advice was to create a graph using different colours for different characters to keep track of who was doing what, when, where they intersected and why. The reviewer felt I was confused about my own plot. I absolutely wasn’t but that’s how my execution of the plot was coming across on the page.

I happily ignored these two pieces of advice while taking on board everything else and rectified the problems with suspense and confusion by addressing the other areas the reviewer had raised.

Tip: Your work is ultimately your own and you have every right to decide that some feedback isn’t worth acting on. But you need to be honest with yourself and learn how to decipher which feedback falls into that category.

The other manuscript I’ve had assessed was Black Spot, my upcoming novel. The process of writing it – very quickly over six months – was assisted by the fact that a woman I previously worked with was my sounding board. When I finished, she was eager to read it. In fact, she was so enthusiastic that she managed to talk a friend of hers into reading it, someone I’d never met, someone who just happened to have some experience as a manuscript assessor. Bonus!

In her review, my friend, not having a fiction writing background, focused mainly on practical issues. A small part of the book is the main character not having access to mirrors, a decision made by her father to spare her the pain of having to look at her disfiguring facial scars every day. And even though she lives an extremely isolated life, she travels in a car on a frequent basis. Wouldn’t she, my friend suggested, be able to see herself in the rear and side vision mirrors of the vehicle? Bloody hell!

In retrospect, the solution was so easy that I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up on my own. (But that’s the life of a writer.) I removed the mirrors from the car. And in the chapter where the main character is pulled over by the police, where it had been a random check before, it now became a roadworthiness issue and she was cautioned to have it repaired.

The review from the friend of my friend started with this: “Thanks so much for trusting me with your manuscript. I know how nerve-wracking it can be to hand over the first draft of your manuscript (especially to a stranger) but rest assured you’ve nailed it.” Yippee! After that, I didn’t question any of her feedback; I just implemented all the changes she recommended. And I think they’ve worked.

Tip: Just do it! Understand the value of constructive criticism, but appreciate that it takes courage to ask for it and even more courage to receive it graciously. Ignore that little voice in the back of your mind that screams, “You’re not a writer! Why don’t you quit? Everything you write is crap! Do us all a favour!” Because that voice is your fear. And once you’ve received your first assessment, the voice gets quieter. And with every assessment, it gets quieter again. Until one day, that voice is all but silent (in relation to receiving this kind of feedback anyway) and feedback is just another everyday part of being a writer.

Book Review: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

I didn’t love this book but I didn’t hate it either. Pattern Recognition is not a difficult read although some of the author’s language choices were disruptive (I couldn’t figure out if the main character’s name, Cayce, was pronounced Case or Casey and I spent a bit of time being distracted by this).

The plot is ho hum. I’ve read some reviews that say the book is about people searching for meaning, which I think is probably true, but then it’s disappointing that the book failed to provide any meaning in and of itself. It could be a commentary on the meaningless lives we are living today but if that was the intention, it could have been done in a much more interesting way.

I’ve also read that this is science fiction – well, let me clear this up for everyone – it’s not science fiction! It feels more like a semi-literary whodunnit and ends up revealing no one dunnit because there was no real mystery in the first place.

If you’re one of those people who also finishes a book in case the last page reveals an amazing ending that ties everything together and has a real impact, please be aware that this isn’t one of those books. If you don’t like the first 20 pages, then you’re not going to like the book because it’s a pretty consistently thematic book throughout.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 15 September 2013

My Top Ten Books – Now

My previous post was a top ten books list I put together more than fifteen years ago and I knew that a current list would be very different, so here it is.

One thing I will say is that I feel I may be very much guided by my limited memory. So many of the books on this list now are recent reads – which is not to say I didn’t have very strong reactions to them; I did. But perhaps the very strong reactions I’ve had to other books I read a long time ago have dimmed in my memory, making this a top ten list of books I can remember rather than a genuine “best ever” list. Oh, well. Nothing’s perfect.

Again, this list is in no particular order because, as I said in my previous post, choosing one book over all others is just an impossible task for me.

1. The Fictional Woman by Tara Moss

When this book first came out, I ignored it. Because, as much as it is unfair, it bothers me that Tara Moss is beautiful and smart. I knew that it was a discussion of the portrayal and perceptions of women mixed with an autobiography and I knew it was exactly the kind of book I would be interested in. But I didn’t end up reading it until quite some time after its release. I realised afterwards that I was only punishing myself with the delay.

This is a clever weaving of one woman’s story with some extremely poignant research on how women are viewed and treated (by both men and other women) in society today – not always well. It is maddening and enlightening and, for want of a better word, perfect.

From the 5 star review I wrote (and which Tara Moss herself liked) on Goodreads: “This is one of the most powerful books I have ever read and should be required reading for everyone – women, men, teenagers, school students, people of all ages, Fox News commentators, especially Fox News commentators, everyone… This is the book Tara Moss should be remembered for and the type of book all writers should aspire to creating themselves. In a word (or two) – life changing.”

2. No Way Back by Matthew Klein

When I picked this up off the shelf in the bookstore, I was expecting it to be just another thriller. I had never heard of it or the author, never read any reviews, didn’t know anything about it except for what I read on the front and back covers before buying it. The front cover, by the way, said, “They know everything. They control everyone. Even you.” That alone was enough to reel me in.

As I read this book, it seemed banal. A guy starting a new job. It should have been boring. But it wasn’t. The writing was so controlled that I didn’t even realise how good it was, how addictive, until I couldn’t bring myself to put it down in order to eat and sleep.

From the 5 star review I wrote on Goodreads: “From the first few chapters, which are ostensibly just about a guy at work, I was completely hooked and I finished reading it in only two sittings. No Way Back is really well written, intriguing, insightful and had that one thing I always hope for in a book – an ending that I just did not see coming and was meaningful.”

I can’t emphasise enough how you will never see the end coming and for me, as a writer, I can’t emphasise how jealous I am over the perfectness of the ending on top of the perfectness of this book as a whole.

3. Tokyo (AKA The Devil of Nanking) by Mo Hayder

Mo Hayder is for the most part one of Britain’s top crime writers – they sure know how to breed crime writers in Britain – and while I’ve read most of her books centred on the characters of Jack Caffery and Flea Marley, it is the standalone Tokyo (published in some territories as The Devil of Nanking) that has stayed with me long after I finished reading it. In fact, it was published in 2004 and despite saying this might be a list of great books I can remember from the recent past, I think eleven years is long enough not to fall into that category.

The quotes on the front and back cover and on the first page are a who’s who of other authors lining up to recommend it: Michael Connelly, Minette Walters, Harlan Coben, Val McDermid, Tess Gerritsen, Colin Dexter and Karin Slaughter. I was already reading Mo Hayder when this book was published so the recommendations didn’t factor into my purchasing decision, but they powerfully reinforced what I came to feel about the book.

Tokyo is the story of Grey, an English woman who did something when she was younger that her parents, her doctors and those around her considered evil. It’s a decade later and she’s on a quest to prove that there was nothing evil in what she did. I can’t reveal any more than that without ruining the journey but it’s another of those perfect stories with a perfect ending.

Like I said, I read Tokyo eleven years ago and I have rated it, but not yet reviewed it, on Goodreads. I think I need to read it again and do it justice with a terrific review.

4. Sometimes Gladness: Collected Poems 1954-1878 by Bruce Dawe

This may (or may not) spark a debate – guess it depends on how feisty you are on the subject of who is Australia’s greatest poet – but Bruce Dawe is my nomination. In my Top Ten Books – Then list posted a couple of days ago, I mentioned that Christina Rossetti’s poem “Remember” is one of two I can recite from heart. The other is Bruce Dawe’s “Good Sport”. And I don’t even consider it one of his best because there are simply so many to choose from.

From “Katrina”: We do not know, but fear / The telephone call from a nurse whose distant sympathy / Will be the measure of our helplessness. Your twin brother’s / Two-month-old vigour hurts us…

From “Life-cycle”: And the tides of life will be the tides of the home-team’s fortunes / – the reckless proposal after the one point win, / the wedding and honeymoon after the grand final…

From “A Warning to Young Poets”: Yes, you’ll be forgiven, for your youthfulness, / Everything about you but – success…

From “Prison Alphabet”: X will read his Bible / day by holy day / Y with eyes like torches / will burn the bars away / and Z, poor Z, will think the walls / must end where they begin / and that a man, outside, will be / the same as he went in…

From “Planning a Time-capsule”: As typical of these times I would include: / a dirty needle and a rip-top can, / pebbled glass from a windscreen, some spent cartridges…

5. The Dictionary

I wrote an entire post on how it’s the one book I can’t live without so it goes without saying that it must be included on this list. This is an extract from that post after I posed the question of which book you’d want if you were stranded on a desert island:

“And, oh boy, if I had all twenty volumes of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, I would probably be set for a long, contented and frequently occupied life on that desert island. (To give an even greater perspective on how big the Oxford English Dictionary is, the third edition revisions are taking place over a thirty-seven year period (begun in 2000 and expected to be completed in 2037) at a projected cost of £34 million, according to the Oxford English Dictionary Online website.)

A guy at work, upon seeing me with my Macquarie International English Dictionary, engaged me in conversation and asked, “Is that yours? Did you bring it from home?” Within minutes, he regretted ever having started the discussion and called me a word nerd (although only after confessing to being a bit of a word nerd himself – his three contributions to our chat were conflate (the original versus the newer meaning), dendrochronologist (which he used to befuddle his son) and inculcate (which he professed a liking for), all quite nice contributions, I must admit).

But I take that description on willingly with more than a hint of pride. I am a word nerd, I love my dictionary and my desert island is calling.”

6. The Lady and the Chocolate by Edward Monkton

This is a short book – a very short book – and could, in fact, be mistaken for a children’s book because of how short it is and because it is illustrated (although with the black and white stick figures, I doubt children would make that mistake). However, this is very much a book for women. It’s the story of a bar of chocolate trying to convince a woman to eat it, which might sound strange but honestly, isn’t this a story that plays out billions of times all across the world every day?

When the lady refuses to eat the chocolate, worried about the weight it will put onto her thighs, her waist and her bottom, the chocolate begins to cry and tells her being eaten is the only reason for its existence. She is denying it its life fulfilment. The moral of the story is that it’s not ladies who need chocolate, it’s chocolate that needs ladies and in eating they are performing a very great service indeed.

It’s frothy and a little bit silly, but the writing is sensual and absolutely no longer than it needs to be to achieve its level of perfection. It’s a lesson many writers need to learn.

7. Postcards from Planet Earth containing the works of various poets

This book holds a unique place on this list: it’s the only book from the Top Ten Books – Then list to have retained its position.

From “Protest Poem” by Vernon Scannell on being unable to use the word “gay” in its original meaning anymore: A good word once, and I’m disconsolate / And angered by this simple syllable’s fate: / A small innocence gone, a little Fall. / I grieve the loss. I am not gay at all.

From “Star-Gazer” by P.K. Page: The very stars are justified. / The galaxy / italicized. / I have proof-read / and proof-read / the beautiful script. / There are no / errors.

From “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” by Craig Raine: Only the young are allowed to suffer / openly. Adults go to a punishment room / with water but nothing to eat. / They lock the door and suffer the noises / alone. No one is exempt / and everyone’s pain has a different smell. (This is a martian description of humans going to the toilet – I love it!)

This was the poetry book we studied in Year 12 and that, in and of itself, makes it a rare specimen because I think I can safely say that with the exception of Shakespeare (and we didn’t do nearly enough of that) and this book, I hate with a passion every other book we studied.

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “This is one of those rare books of poetry that just keeps getting better. Every time I read it I get something different out of it. I’m not sure exactly what I love about it but the variety is extraordinary, the viewpoints fascinating and the beauty is limitless. As soon as one poem from the collection loses it shine, another is there to take its place.”

8. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

This is one of those books that I had to read because of the hype – everyone was talking about it. As I’m sure many people will know, that’s not always a good sign. I read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and The Slap by Christos Tsolkias because of the hype and I’m sure you’ve noticed they’re not on this list.

I’ve read a couple of Lionel Shriver books now and the common themes are beautiful writing, stories that you wish would never end but when the ending comes, it is perfect and you feel kind of stupid that you didn’t see it coming because there was no other way it could have ended.

Shriver always seems to know how to tap into the big issues of the day (spree killings by teenagers in We Need to Talk About Kevin, obesity in Big Brother) and then surround them with real people, imperfect people, not people you especially love but people you want to read about because you don’t especially hate them either, people worth reading about, people who have figured it out and yet in having done so don’t have perfect lives because there’s no such thing. The realism in her fiction is breathtaking and still manages to be escapist. Nobody would want to read a book about my life (boring!) but I’m not so far removed from the characters she writes about (although I will add a disclaimer: no obesity, no spree killers to the best of my knowledge). That’s a tribute to her abilities with the English language. Read this book and then read all her other books. They could make a top ten list all by themselves.

9. The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, the Investigation and the Debate by Shirley Harrison

Who doesn’t love a good hoax diary? That’s to say, if it is a hoax. Paper and ink analysis experts say it’s conclusively a hoax and it probably is but that doesn’t make this book any less of a ripper (pun intended) yarn. It may seem a strange addition to a top ten list of books but for the same reason I added the Bible to my Top Ten Books – Then list, if it isn’t true then it’s one of the greatest stories ever created.

Creativity comes in many forms and sometimes that creativity is a little bit sneaky, a little bit underhanded, a little bit malevolent. The story of the Maybrick family was already a fantastic one – patriarch James, a cotton merchant and arsenic addict, his wife Florence, an American (which in those days in England was enough said), his brother Michael, who never liked Florence, Florence’s lover Alfred, a house full of servants and two children who were ultimately left orphans. I don’t think I’m spoiling the surprise if I tell you James died from an arsenic overdose and Florence was convicted of his murder and hanged.

And simply by combining the story of the Maybricks with the story of Jack the Ripper, you get this book, which is a terrific way to spend a week, particularly if you’re a Jack the Ripper conspiracy theory enthusiast (which I am).

10. The Great Flood Mystery by Jane Curry

I first read this book when I was ten after buying it from the Scholastic book catalogue that we used to come home from school with and I read it again in preparation for adding it to this list. Strangely, it didn’t make my Top Ten Books – Then list, perhaps because I was in my twenties and thought adding a children’s book would make me seem nerdy and uncool. I don’t know why I bothered – totally lost that battle (nerds of the world, unite!).

There are so many elements that combine to make this a great book. A mystery to be solved, the hundredth anniversary of a devastating flood, summer holidays, a house with secret entrances and secret rooms, possible treasure, a serial burglar, disguises, surveillance, board game design shenanigans, a family struggling with economic realities and a boy who cries, “Wolf!” Or does he? All of these components sound like overkill but they come together to create a terrific story with a realistic ending.

This book is thirty years old now and it’s indicative of another time when twelve-year-olds could roam the streets of their home towns having adventures on their summer holidays. This book set me on a path of loving similar (although more grown up) books with mysteries and their eventual solutions without inevitable happy endings.

I’ve had this on my shelf for twenty-five years and I intend for it to remain there for fifty more. And while it might not stand up in comparison to some of the other books on this list, it holds a special place in my heart for setting me on a varied and wonderful reading journey.