Posts Tagged ‘punctuation’

Finding My Mistakes a Little Too Late

Posted: January 26, 2022 in Reflections, Writing
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Well, this is embarrassing to admit.

I’ve been reading a lot more slowly lately, so I only just started reading an anthology I was published in last year. Last night, I finally got to my own story, which I consider some of my best work. And I found some editing errors I missed.

It wasn’t anything too bad. A couple of words missing here, a couple of phrases that should have been cut there, and one time I used the word “skeleton” instead of “scream.” Not like a horrible run-on sentence, a ton of spelling mistakes, and punctuation and grammar to make a lover of literature cry.

Still, it was disheartening to see how many mistakes were missed. And while part of that was also on the publisher, I should have been more cognizant of my own work. I should have shown more diligence in finding errors. Maybe even using that feature on Word where the story is read aloud, annoying as that is.

You know, my high school English teacher, Mr. G, used to say that a story is never “perfect,” but “done.” You can only do so much work to a story on it, but you’ll never get it perfect. You can just do enough work on it that you can’t fix it anymore. It’s done. I was aware that that applied to cleaning it up as much as it did to story, but this made me more aware of that.

And my American history professor in college, Dr. S, made an analogy about editing. He said he always got students who got annoyed when they were marked down on grammar and spelling when it was a History class. Why should a few spelling mistakes or whatever make a difference, these students wonder. He said, and this is pretty close to quoting:

Well, if this were an engineering class, would it be okay to have a little bad math? Or if this were a physics class, would it be okay to have a few incorrect equations? If the answer is yes, then let me know what bridges you’ve constructed or what planes you’ve built, so I can know to avoid them! Good grammar is important in History, even if it’s not an English class. And I expect good grammar in your papers.”

Dr. S, American History from 1920-1963, 2014

You can apply that right back to storytelling. No matter how good the story is, if the story has a bunch of grammar/spelling/punctuation errors, the story will suffer. And my story, while still good, suffered a bit with these issues.

I’ll remember reading this story and finding these issues from here on out. I’ll use it so that when any future stories come out, they’ll be as error-free as possible. I can’t stand a story of mine being brought low by my own laziness and missing some errors. I’ll work harder to make sure this is the last time I find a story with such glaring problems (or glaring to me, anyway).

Please stop by if you can. I’ll be selling books and doing Tarot readings.

And if this story gets published again, like in a collection someday, I’ll make sure to fix those errors. God knows I only want to give you all my best work.

Anyway, that all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a lot of writing to do tonight, so I better get to work on everything else that needs taking care of before then (like dinner and laundry). I’ll hit you guys up after the Hidden Marietta Paranormal Expo (especially if I get any paranormal activity on camera). Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

Things I Want to Improve On

Posted: January 16, 2018 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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I’m far from perfect. And there are lots of areas I can be better (especially my impulse control when it comes to sweets). However, this post will be focused on the writing aspects I can improve upon.

There are a couple of reasons why I want to talk about that here. One is that for personal things I want to improve upon (damn you, sweet tooth! Damn you to hell!), I only talk about those sort of things here when it’s really important. Like if I’m really struggling with my choices in life, or if I want to talk about being on the spectrum. And at the moment, there’s nothing in my life I feel like talking about here at the moment. Second, this is a blog for a writer, so it makes sense that if I’m going to talk about improving stuff, it’ll be about improving my writing. And finally, while a lot of people I know in real life and even a few people online treat me as THE writing expert, especially when it comes to fiction writing, I’m far from an expert. If I were an expert, I’m pretty sure I’d have several bestsellers out by now, a few of them would have been made into movies already, and I’d be writing full-time in a nice three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house (I have goals that I aim for).

Point is, as a writer there are areas I’d like to improve in, so I thought I’d list some of those and ask for your feedback. Many of you who follow this blog are writers, and have much more experience than I do. Perhaps you’ve dealt with some of the issues I’ve dealt with, and have some tips on how to deal with them. Anything’s possible, right?

1. I’m addicted to adverbs and gerunds. Now if you don’t remember most of the fancy terms from grammar class, adverbs are words that end in “ly” (wildly, musically, horribly) and gerunds are words ending in “ing” (ending, writing, killing). And I overuse them in my writing (see? Did it right there). One of the biggest criticisms I got from Rose, truth be told, is that I overuse them. In fact, I almost used “actually” instead of “truth be told” in that last sentence. And in the one before this, I started writing “nearly” before I switched to “almost.” And in that last one, “I switched” started as “switching.” And before that–oh, you get the idea!

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about how I had a similar problem with semicolons. I overused them, especially when they weren’t needed. Once I recognized the problem, I was able to correct it. But I have a feeling correcting these issues won’t come so naturally (see?). For one thing, while the semicolon issue was about fixing incorrect uses of punctuation, what I’m doing here isn’t technically wrong. These are speech patterns used everyday, you just don’t see them in a lot of fiction to the extent I use them. At least, not really good fiction. So one thing I’d like to do is know when to use adverbs and gerunds, and when not to use them.

2. Passive vs. active voice. I have a lot of trouble telling those two apart. Which is bad, because editors and publishers tend to prefer active voices in fiction, and I somehow always end up writing in passive voice. What’s the difference? Is there a video I need to watch or something that explains this? Help!

3. Writing snappier action. This is something I’ve taken steps to improve, but it’s still a work in progress. I tend to write these long sentences that illustrate a character taking a certain action. Example: “She stood, walked to the kitchen, and placed the glass in the dishwasher.” It’s a good sentence, but for fiction, this is better: “She put the glass in the dishwasher.” Boom! And if I’ve already established that the character is on the couch, it works even better. It shows the same amount of action with less words.

I’m trying to implement this sort of snappy action into my stories. Editors and publishers seem to like it, and when there are limits to how many words a submitted story can have, it’s helpful in reducing the word count. Still, it’s going to take some work. This, like the adverbs and gerunds and possibly the passive voice thing, are deeply ingrained habits.

No reason to add this photo. I just want to show you my new author profile pic.

4. Short story writing. I’ve written novels or works meant to be novels for most of my life. That’s what I mostly read, so that’s what I mostly wrote. I’ve learned how to write short stories and read plenty of them since high school and college, but I’m still not as good at them as I am at novels. Which is sad, because I’ve had many, many ideas for short stories and novelettes over the years. And since I’ve spent most of my time on novels, I’ve written only a few short stories, and not many of those have been published.

What I want to do is write more short stories and novelettes, get better at writing them, and get a few of those published. Is it necessary, especially since I prefer novels? No, but a lot of authors I like do great short fiction, so I’d like to do great short fiction too. Good news is, I’ve been reading a lot of anthologies lately, and I should have a bit of time after I finish the fourth draft of Rose. That should give me time to practice.

5. Not listening to my anxieties. All writers deal with anxieties, especially with how their work will be received. Sometimes I let them have too much control of my mind, and I start freaking out Just yesterday, I got panicky over whether certain characters in Rose might be called tacky stereotypes. After a lot of discussion online with friends and colleagues, I don’t believe they are, but the worry ate at me for a while.

The important thing for me is just to be a bit more confident in myself, and the stories I write. And I should work on techniques to combat those anxieties when they try to tear at me. Because at the end of the day, I’ve still written some decent fiction. And I won’t let doubt or fear keep me from improving it and making it into possibly publishable fiction.

 

Well, those are the things I want to improve on with my writing. What are your suggestions on fixing those issues? Let me know in the comments below.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve only six chapters of Rose left to edit, so I’ll hopefully get started on the next one tonight. Until next time, pleasant nightmares!