Books on writing: William Strunk Jr.

I did something dumb.  I sent Under Shōko’s Bed off for editing without going through it to see how well it matched all of the prescriptions and proscriptions in William Strunk Jr.’s The Elements of Style.  I’ve read it before.  Short as it is (only 50 pages), it doesn’t take long, and I thought I had learned its lessons.  I decided to reread it for this blog and only then found that I did not have a copy.  I got one posthaste (it’s free on the Internet) and oh, the problems I discovered!  I had not learned its lessons at all!

Here are two examples from Strunk’s section on “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused” that I seem to have been using incorrectly forever: 

All right.  Idiomatic in familiar speech as a detached phrase in the sense, ‘Agreed,’ or ‘Go ahead.’  In other uses better avoided.  Always written as two words.

Compare.  To compare to is to point out or imply resemblances, between objects regarded as essentially of different order; to compare with is mainly to point out differences, between objects regarded as essentially of the same order.  Thus life has been compared to a pilgrimage, to a drama, to a battle; Congress may be compared with the British Parliament.  Paris has been compared to ancient Athens; it may be compared with modern London.

At the same time, I recognize that Strunk’s work is now 100 years old.  English usage has changed in that time.  For example, Strunk states that “would” is commonly misused:

Would. A conditional statement in the first person requires should, not would.  I should not have succeeded without his help.  The equivalent of shall in indirect quotation after a verb in the past tense is should, not would.  He predicted that before long we should have a great surprise.

This is based on the old usage for showing futurity of “shall/should” for first-person pronouns and “will/would” for second- and third-person pronouns.  The problem is that Americans don’t speak that way today.  “Should” in common usage has lost its simple futurity meaning and its meaning of obligation now predominates, which changes the meaning of Strunk’s example, “I should not have succeeded without his help.”  Strunk meant, “I succeeded because I had his help,” while today the sentence means, “I ought to have failed without his help.”  The two meanings are related but they are not the same, and I worry that using the classical rule could lead to misunderstanding for today’s readers.

All of this leaves me hoping that my editor can channel Strunk, whose text still shines in both clarity and brevity, but waiting with great curiosity to see if some of the more archaic rules have been relaxed and my “mistakes” have made it through the editing process unscathed.  In the end, of course, it is up to me to decide how closely to follow Strunk.  My plan is to do what I should have done before the edit, go through Strunk page by page and search my text for each of the problems he explains.  In the process, I hope I shall internalize his relevant advice, and I hope that I can lean on my editor for help in deciding which bits of advice are no longer relevant.

Books on writing: Sol Stein

A few weeks ago I wrote about Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, which is the best book on writing that I have read.  Another that I highly recommend is Stein on Writing by Sol Stein.  The two books are completely different in their approach to writing, as are their authors.  Stein wrote his book after spending many years as an editor of fiction and nonfiction, while also writing novels and plays.  In fact, he began as a playwright.

It is Stein’s background as a playwright that inspires the chapter that had the biggest immediate impact on my writing when I read it a few years ago: “The Secrets of Good Dialogue”.  Stein says that readers enjoy dialogue.  I also enjoy writing it.  It feels alive.  It is immediate.  For the reader, adversarial dialogue can be as exciting as physical action.  It can simultaneously move the story forward and provide insights into characters and their relationships.  Stein also points out, “An often overlooked advantage of dialogue in novels and stories is this simple: it provides white space on the page that makes the reader feel that the story is moving faster because the reader’s eyes move quickly down the page.”

Let me make a few points that I think are some of Stein’s strongest.

Dialogue is not actual speech.  Real speech is boring.  It is repetitive and includes a lot of words that are not necessary.  As Stein says, “Dialogue … is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content towards climaxes.”  This is by far the most important point I took from Stein's chapter on dialogue.

Speech is direct.  Dialogue is indirect.  It is oblique.  Here is an example from Under Shōko’s Bed, part of a conversation between Kelly and her daughter Melissa, that is meant to make Kelly a more sympathetic character and which shows largely oblique responses:

Melissa: “… What’s up?”

Kelly: “I just can’t sleep.”

“The place is empty and silent and you’re climbing the walls.”

“The police have no idea what to do.  It’s like he vanished into thin air.  They’re totally lost.”

“He’ll turn up.  Like you said before, he’s decompressing.”

“But where?”  Kelly’s voice cracked.

“We just have to be patient.”

“The worst part is, I’m no help.  I don’t know a single place to look.  I know him better than anyone, and I’m useless!”

Melissa laughed.  “Mom, if there’s one thing you will never be, it’s useless.”

“Here, I am.”

The example above feels very much like real speech, and responses are in line with what the other person just said, but little of it shows direct response.

Of course, some of the questions in dialogue are direct and require an answer, but Stein suggests that even those types of questions can be reworded in a way that makes an oblique response work.

“Dialogue is lean language in which every word counts.”  I believe what Stein says, but it is still difficult.  When I am editing, I set a goal (generally 5-25 percent) for how much each section of dialogue should be shortened and I look for exchanges to delete that do not move the story forward.  One of the simplest ways to shorten speech is to eliminate echos, where one character repeats some of what the other has just said.  It will not all disappear, as echos are so common in real speech, but they can be reduced until almost none remain.  In the quest to make each person’s speech as tight as possible, though, the next major point comes into play.  Speech’s ability to serve as a marker, an indicator of background, social class, etc. is more important than making the character’s speech as succinct as possible.

Speech can serve as a marker that differentiates characters.  Characters should not all talk the same.  The character’s speech should match his or her background.  Stein says that different vocabulary, throwaway words and phrases, tight or loose wording, shorter or longer sentences, sarcasm, cynicism, poor grammar, omitted words, and inappropriate modifiers are all markers in speech that can differentiate characters.  Even jargon can serve as “a marker of stuffiness.”

“What counts is not what is said but the effect of what is meant.”  When judging the effectiveness of dialogue: “The best way to judge dialogue read aloud is to read it in a monotone without expression.  The words have to do the job.”  Stein also provides a a few questions to help in identifying dialogue that works versus dialogue that is extraneous:

• What is the purpose of this exchange?  Does it begin or heighten an existing conflict?
• Does it stimulate the reader’s curiosity?
• Does the exchange create tension?
• Does the dialogue build to a climax or a turn of events in the story or a change in relationship of the speakers?

“Dialect is annoying to the reader.”  “Spelling out pronunciations … is almost always a bad choice.”   But even without dialect, word order, rhythm, omitted words, inappropriate modifiers, etc. can be effective in marking the character.

I feel a little like I am cheating to focus only on one short chapter from a book that is full of wonderful insights, but I may return to Stein on Writing for a future blog post.

Books on writing: Stephen King

I recently reread one of the best books for authors, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.  It’s not that Stephen King is my favorite author, it’s just a marvelous book and exceptionally well written.  King not only gives great advice, but tells the story of how his writing developed, all in his own very direct style, the story being the driving force.

Those who’ve read Stephen King, and many who haven’t, have opinions of his writing ranging from genius to hack.  I think he’s a great story teller.  Others obviously agree: over seventy of his novels and other stories have been turned into films or TV shows.  Some would say that this mass appeal itself is an indicator of low quality, but I think it is stunning that King has been able to produce so much work, so consistently, for so many years, with such popularity.  If I can tell my stories half as well, I’ll be lucky.

Let me focus on just a few bits of advice from On Writing that were the strongest take-aways for me this time.

Read a lot.  Write a lot.  This one piece of advice is at the same time the most inspiring and damning thing for my writing, for I do not read enough.  Reading is hard, my mind wanders so constantly, and I have to force myself to do it.  King might say that someone like me should not even try to write, but I soldier on with both the reading and the writing.  The writing is good for me.  The reading may be even better.  And there are stories that eventually grab me and take me away.  It’s worth the work to get there. 

Be honest.  This advice is so broad and so monumental that it looms over all I write.  Part of it is making the stories as alive on paper as they are in my head.  Part of it is imagining characters and situations that are real enough that a reader can empathize with someone who is a figment of my imagination.  Both of these parts are impossible ideals.  The joy is in approaching them.

Write the first draft with the door closed, the second with the door open.  King advises against getting feedback before the first draft is complete.  I am too needy, though.  I ask my wife to read one thing or another almost every day.  But I was impressed with this dictum as I read it this time and I am trying write the first draft without immediate feedback and just get the story out.  I think there’s confidence that goes with this that makes me a better writer, that makes my writing more honest.

Adverbs are not your friends.  It’s a simple idea, but it’s hard to write without them.  Most of it happens for me like King says it happens for him, at the editing stage.  I read through the text and look for adverbs to cut.  It’s hard to do.  When it’s finished, though, I find that I’ve lost no essential meaning.  The story reads better.  It’s almost like magic.

Write every day.  King writes 2000 words a day.  With that level of output, he can write 180,000 words in three months, the maximum time he suggests for getting a first draft of a story out.  Longer than that, King says, and it can grow stale and the writer can lose motivation.  I have a job and don’t have time to produce 2000 words a day, so I shoot for 1000.  That takes two to three hours.  It’s a major commitment of time; big enough to be scary, in fact, as I wonder sometimes whether what I am writing is worth all the time.  I enjoy those hours, though.  The stories mean something to me.  I think that’s part of the honesty that King values so highly.  I do have a question, though.  How does editing fit into King’s 2000 words-a-day work schedule?  Is it extra, or is editing 2000 words just as much work as the original writing?  I suspect it’s the latter.  At least, it seems to be that way for me.

Let the first draft sit for at least six weeks before you start on a second draft.  I have done this before, and I have come back to it with new eyes and new appreciation for what works in the story and what doesn’t.  It takes time to get that kind of separation.  Besides, in those weeks of waiting, there are always more stories.

I’m sure that the next time I read On Writing—and I will read it again—different things will stand out for me.  Classics are good that way.