Writing Arena

To demolish a chunk of your work takes courage. Nevertheless, it is imperative to becoming a better writer. Others criticising your work is rather like them telling you that your baby is ugly. So, you should make it so tight they should not be able to pass criticism, and only stand and marvel at the intricate moving parts ticking away, like a medieval clock.

The function of editing is to remove needless words, and to streamline your work.

Sometimes it is best to leave work for a while and come back to it with “fresh eyes”. I do of course mean a better perspective, and not literally having eye transplants. That would just be weird.

Print out hard copy and look at it then. You will notice mistakes you missed when viewing it from the screen. Of course, if you write by hand, perhaps by quill and parchment by candle light, and then type it up, the same applies.

Get someone else to read it for you. Although this leaves you wide open and vulnerable to attack, like dangling your bits over a tank of hungry piranha, for better or worse, your work will improve. So, develop a thick skin, so to speak, and listen to what they say instead of filling up into a monumental rage and throwing abuse at them. Remember, you asked them to read it. They would probably have something much more worthwhile to be doing, like watching the telly or picking fluff out of their navel.

Read the paper aloud, and use your ears. If something stutters and you have to stop to make sense of it, that sentence could do with revision. Make a note in the margin and continue. If you get to the end and all the sentences flow wonderfully, you are either a liar, conceited, or an exceptional writer. Very few writers have the ability to create good copy from the off.

Importantly, has the work accomplished what you want it to do? If it is an essay, does it adequately answer the question? If a narrative, does the story make sense and interact with the plot/story elements well? Could anything be moved, altered or merely deleted to improve the text?

Depending on how organised you are, how dedicated, or in my case bone idle, you may want to break each paragraph down and isolate it from the rest of the work. Apart from the transition words or phrases, does it make sense standing alone?

It must be clear and accessible to others. This is the function of writing. People need to understand the work. If you have written something only you or you close friends would understand, you have failed. At the same time of course, and this is a general rule, assume that your audience is intelligent. Readers like to be flattered when reading. It makes them feel clever and important, even if they put the tops on toothpaste tubes, so leaps of logic and understanding they can make on their own makes them like you and your work.

Above all, omit needless words. Your work should be tight like a pair of Speedos.

Precision is the mark of good writing, and your editing should reflect this. Colloquialisms, purple phrases, redundant words, clichés should be removed or replaced with precise, coherent language.

Once you have read to check the ideas themselves are solid, check the nuts and bolts: grammar. Grammar and punctuation are strange creatures, and lurk around the dark recesses at the back, underneath or at the side of words. Do not fear them; they are your friends. If, for example, an editor (who more often are not your friends) was checking a piece of work they would be very angry if they had to stop every line to correct punctuation and grammar. (See Punctuation and Grammar)

A Few Tips that will serve you well.

Below are a few tips not just for editing, but overall good practice. They also include issues of clarity which all good writing should aspire to be.

Do not be afraid to clear the syntax; chop large sentences down to small ones.

Focus the effect of your clauses. Draw attention to the points you want to make by making sentences ‘bottom heavy’. Focal points should go at the end.

Use a positive, ‘active’ voice. Add words to clarify. E.g. ‘The shoes were complimented by the man’ is ambiguous and rather odd. ‘The man complimented the woman’s shoes’ is better but still not perfect. Work at it until you say exactly what it is you want to say. The active voice clearly explains what the verb is doing. There are exceptions, especially when the mode of writing calls for stricter neutrality, such as law and science.

Always present old information first, and new information second. Remember the ‘bottom heavy’ principle. Tell the reader what had changed by them reading your work.

Consider the use of parallel constructions, and other rhetorical devices, for more effective points. That is, a small rhetorical mirroring of ideas or technique that greatly elaborates or emphasises clauses. Eg. ‘When considering what colour hat to wear, I always take into account the weather conditions (1), the prevailing winds of fashion (2) and the Consider the application of ‘the rule of three’ also.

Make sure the tense is correct and stays the same throughout a sentence.

Avoid bunches of nouns. These crop up like mushrooms. Persons, places and dates should be kept separate if possible. Jargon is a particular villain when helping to cluster nouns together. Also, do not crowd verbs around nouns; ‘has the chance’ becomes ‘can,’ for example.

Make sure the pronoun is clear. E.g. ‘Each football season I have an old jersey. They might come in useful at the drop in centre, I suppose.’ Note ‘jersey’ and they were in agreement. The transition and object was clear.

Do not use two or even three negatives in the same sentence. It causes untold chaos.

Avoid repetitive sentences or clauses unless used for rhetorical effect.

Omit redundant phrases. For example, ‘the field of construction’ becomes ‘construction.’ ‘Large in size’ becomes ‘large’. And so on.

Avoid excessive detail or obvious explanations. For example, the ‘balloon full of helium rose heavenward’ is silly. It would be obvious to the reader that the balloon was full of gas both in order to both inflate and to rise.

Be succinct where possible, unless what you are saying needs to be said. Is it vital to the work? Does it lend it something? Advance the narrative, characterise someone, strengthen or elaborate your argument, serve as useful description…

Delete words such as ‘a’ or ‘the’ if you can. Do not reduce your work to poverty, but sometimes sentences can be streamlined. Similarly, delete ‘who,’ ‘which’ or ‘that’. Also consider getting rid of ‘it is’ or ‘there are’ .

All aboard for Captain Clark’s take on arguably the summit of human artistic endeavour.

Now, let me say this is not an easy task. The journey will be fraught with danger; temperamental printers, computers with selective memories, editors blind to genius. So listen closely, pilgrim.

I am no more equipped to tell you what to write than a baboon on acid can tell you about the square root of infinity. Without a calculator. But, here is my brief take on things.

Elsewhere on the internet, taking up a large amount of server memory, are a thousand titbits of advice, mostly from experts who graduated from Quacky Duck University in the Land of Narnia, all barking at you what is acceptable and what is not. One must question the probity of advice on the internet. I mean, anyone could put it up.

Equally, significant shelf space in every book store in the land is taken up with ‘How To’ books. Buy one. They will be filled with clichés about commitment, idea generation and so on. Some are better than others. Most are written by people who are not successful novelists, presumably because they are too busy writing novels or filling the Comment section in newspapers with their unwanted opinions. Here are two that I found useful: E.B. Strunk’s and White’s Elements of Style. A solid founding of grammatical accuracy and an excellent tool to help form. Secondly, Stephen King’s Pulitzer winning On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft.

Most are generalised accounts of narrative form and developing the Idea. This is fine. The nuts and bolts of the endeavour relies on an understanding of language and how stories develop and hold reader’s attention. There are contradictions in the advice. Most claim to speak with a strong narrative direction and voice, and above all with clarity. But what about James Joyce, and others, creating some of the most complex but finest literature ever produced?

Each individual will write with a unique voice. This is a given. You may have to write several hundred thousand words to find the voice, but when you do, and you will know when you find it, it is a sweet day indeed.

Some of the best novels are ones that play with structure and ‘norms’ of form and style. Unless you do this well, you work will not get published. Unless you submit manuscripts according to publishing houses’ guidelines, your work will not get published. One general rule, then, is to play the rules of the game, paying attention to proofreading and clarity.

Creativity we will deal with later. The nuts and bolts come first, a solid foundation. There is no point building a castle with laser guided cannons and eighteen turrets on a foundation of sand.

Basics

Deal with the practicalities first, and treat it seriously. Give yourself a limit each day and stick to it. It is all well and good saying, perhaps at a party, ‘I am writing a novel about a celestial badger called Dave set across the intergalactic time space matrix’ when it is all in your head. Think end product. What is actually on paper or disk? In this life only the tangibles matter.

Save, and remove on separate storage. Countless times thousands of words have been lost due to temperamental technology. If you write on a typewriter or by hand, photocopy duplicates and put them in a safe place, so save for an Act of God your darling will survive. Let me tell you, I have seen adults weep for want of taking a minute to save work properly.

Copyright it. The world is a mercenary place, and there are always those who will steal your ideas for gain. In the U.K., authors assert moral rights over the work as soon as it is written, but you have to be able to prove it, so seal it in an envelope, date it, and post it to yourself. The post stamp will also verify the date. In case of protracted legal battle, break envelope accordingly. If you are one of our U.S. or Australian cousins, get the patent.

Do your research. I hate the jargon, but the idea applies. All writers write to an audience of one, but it helps if that one is represented in a marketable group, preferably with disposable income. There is little point wasting time writing a book that has, in effect, already been written, unless you are a famous writer and can do that sort of thing because your fans want to read your uninspired junk. Editors want to make money out of your work, and so do you. It helps to focus on what people want. If the Idea is original, then good luck.

Write with a purpose. All writing serves a function. Are you writing to argue, persuade, irritate, satirise, lampoon, entertain, scare or give people a little glow in their tummies? What is the object? Identify the need, and satiate it. Most novels, fiction at least, will entertain all of the time in some manner.

Pay attention to grammar and presentation. No editor will look twice at a shabby, badly typed, badly spelt, knocked up piece of work. They are busy people. They read lots and their eyes hurt. Make your prose and presentation easy on their eyes. Use the spell checker.

Get some fool to read it before submission. A second pair of eyes helps. Even one eye, if your neighbour happens to be a pirate, and you have written a few sea shanties in your shed he can peruse. If you ask a loved one, they will say, invariably; ‘well…it’s good,’ even if it is an abomination and should be destroyed in a pit of fire for the sake on mankind. Ask someone who is willing to give the time and a fairly honest observation. Do not ask someone who hates you, because they will think you are odd and probably hate you more.

Creative

This is the tricky one. Creativity is entirely subjective. Again, it depends on your chosen genre and purpose. It helps if you are a bit of an oddball who sees things in an imaginative way. If not, then observe your fellow human beings. Of course, it depends on what you are writing that will shape what you look for in others. A humorous piece may include how people speak. What do they do when asking a difficult question or lying? Are they nice people? What do they say, and how do they interact?

My old lecturer told me to devise some method of storing ideas that come to you. It is the way of things that they (ideas, not lecturers) will arrive when you or on the toilet, or, if you hail from the U.S., the ‘bathroom’. They will (ideas, not Americans) arrive at night in bed, perhaps if you are lucky when making love (incidentally, do not start doodling on a jotter if in such a position-it kills the mood) or eating morning toast. Use the ‘notes’ function on your phone. A chef friend of mine used printer paper and brought them home covered in chocolate sauce. Write them up into a pad after and keep them, because even the most odd reflections can be useful.

How do you get ideas? Where do they come from? Is there any kind of reward scheme? The answer is Imagination strained through Experience, like a chunky soup. Consider possible events, rather than those that have happened. Imagine Kennedy was shot by a second gunman (hmm…wait a minute!) or the Germans won the war or Ringo was really a good drummer.

Pay attention to detail. The detail in stories makes them believable, like a good joke or anecdote. Do not be tedious, sprinkle the ideas lightly but effectively.

Play with language. It is flexible. Bend it a bit. Bend it a lot. Ideas are sprung from it. Language is the basis of society and a large part of human communication, and a novel is a communication of ideas.

Look at the big picture. How does your idea relate to the rest of society? Enough said. Although maybe this will not become clear until the work is finished.

Create the world. What is the setting? Generate a sense of time and place. This is important to realise character motivation and attitude, and the constraints of the story. If it is set in the Roman Empire it is unlikely the hero will nip into Burger King. For the reader, who is normally permanently 50% baffled anyway, it helps them locate and put into context what they are reading about.

Develop Characters. What do these people do? Some writers choose to write a biography of the character’s life up to the point of the novel to clarify, at least in their own minds, who they are writing about. It helps to know how your character would react if being chased down the road by a giant metallic orb. Would they laugh and see the funny side? Would they get mown down like so much grass? Would they make a pithy comment, leap to one side, blast the orb with a laser and save the world and go and make love all night long? Only you can answer that one.

The Idea. This has to be good. Some writers know what they are writing from the start. Others do not have any kind of plan, and just pit their characters against the events that unfold. Sometimes this can have productive results, and other times it does not.

Idea generation. A lot of silly advice is out there, like standing on your head to get blood to the brain. Writing a stream of consciousness on a page is effective. Another good plan is to sit and look inot the white infinity of the blank paper for a while. You will write something eventually. This is what my partner in crime, King Tom, in his own patois, calls writers block. Just write something down, anything, and I promise the ideas will come. Obviously this promise is not legally binding.

Well, there you have a very quick take on things. I don’t pretend to be any authority on it, but if it helped, then great.

Lastly though, novel writing, while being infuriating, is undoubtedly a joyous thing. Just enjoy it, and from your enthusiasm will spring all manner of little things, be they hairy and threatening or cuddly and sweet. The structure will come if you work at it. It will make sense at the end.

Coming from a cynical bastard like myself, you may shake your head. But listen. Come closer. Back up a bit. That’s better. Now forget everything I have just said and write what the fuck you want. Just remember, the voyage is long and wearisome, but seldom boring…”

If you’re a gullible fool and believe everything you read in books, persuasion is apparently ‘an art form’….sounds tricky.

Fear not though minions, the King is on hand to give you the necessary tools to craft your very own persuasive masterpiece.

It’s worth noting that for the purpose of this we’ll be using essays as the sustained example, but the theory applies to any form of persuasive writing. So whether you’re crafting your dissertation or begging to be taken back by the partner who threw you out for being such a useless bum, read on my friend….and sit up straight.

Allow me to start by breaking things down into easily digestible nuggets of wisdom. Persuasive writing works on a four stage structure:

The Introduction

The Body

The Elaboration

The Conclusion

Considering these four basic principles individually will allow you to form the skeleton for your work. With that in place the flesh of your essay will slide into place much easier. Applause perhaps for the graphic analogy?

The Introduction

Oh, where to begin?

Well, when you’re writing academically it’s important to start by outlining exactly what it is you propose to talk about and your stance on the matter. The person reading can then quickly determine these two things and then concentrate on the strength of your evidence. This sounds simple, but it’s easy to go wrong and start jabbering on with various facts and figures without explaining why exactly you’re presenting them.

Don’t believe that by following this theory you have to be boring about what you write. Remain creative and think about how you can incorporate this theory into an attention grabbing first paragraph that holds the readers attention.

For example, you could open with a bold, over the top statement or a striking quote and then go on to apply our initial theory.

Below is a plagiarised example:

Of all the problems facing the environment today, the one that bothers me the most is global warming. Some scientists say that the earth is getting warmer because of the greenhouse effect. In this paper I will describe the greenhouse effect and whether the earth’s atmosphere is actually getting warmer.

Moving swiftly on…

The Body

Consider this; nobody likes to see a malnourished body. By the same token, a gluttonous obese body is equally uneasy on the eye. These same rules apply to writing the body of any text.

Too much irrelevant information and the reader gets lost and wanders away from your point. Too little, and no matter how good you think your argument is, you’ll never succeed in bringing the reader round to your way of thinking. Come on people, it’s not rocket science…its art remember and art’s easy.

You ideally want to come up with three strong paragraphs in which you put forward a point, substantiate it with evidence (i.e. a quote or citation) and then hammer home your view once more. Following this simple structure will allow you to really place emphasis on what you’re saying. Allow me to repeat it so it remains in the old noggin.

Make your point

Present your evidence

Re-iterate your point and state how it relates to the evidence

The Elaboration

Fear not, tis not complicated. Elaboration is my own special word for ‘Other things to include’. Nevertheless, you must take note. These things could be the difference between a glorious Picasso and a pathetic Monet.

Acknowledge other views - Think about what people arguing the opposite to you might say and acknowledge this in your writing, before shredding it to pieces with a glorious retort - On Guard!!

Draw analogies - You can add another dimension to your masterpiece by noting comparisons and making analogies to make your writing more accessible to the reader. Be warned though, an irrelevant analogy will deter and distract so if you can’t find something razor sharp, leave well alone.

The Conclusion

Hurrah, the finish line is in sight…don’t make a mess of it you bum.

Do the following, no arguments please:

Summarise the most important parts of your argument and stress once more what the reader must believe.

Make sure to mention the most hard hitting pieces of evidence so the reader (and more specifically the person marking your work) remember the clout of your argument.

Instead of just tailing off why not go out with a academic bang. Try one of these spicy meatballs on for size. (I don’t even know what that means).

A prediction - What might happen if global warming isn’t taken into consideration.

A question - Can we really continue to ignore global warming based on this evidence?

A recommendation - I recommend we all start thinking seriously about global warming (Ok, that’s poor - I admit).

A Quotation - “Global warming is not very good at all really” (OK, you got me, I’m just tired. I’m sure you can find something hard hitting though).

Until next time kids.

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