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THe NeWSLeTTer oF peNNWriTerS iNc. SepTeMber/ocTober 2017 • VoL. XXV No. 5
Avoidable Mistakes by NaNcy SpriNger, area 7
During the past few months—partly because i was helping judge a contest, and partly because i made a stab at starting a critiquing business—i’ve read a blizzard of manuscripts from aspiring fiction writers. What struck me is that too many of them were making the same avoidable mistakes. Such as: “even though professionally dry-cleaned, Tammy could still see bloodstains on the sweater.” oops. it’s a wonder Tammy could still see anything after she was run through all those dry-cleaning chemicals. The clause at the beginning of a sentence refers to the subject of the sentence, which is Tammy, not the sweater. your english teacher was right about dangling participles, even though this grammatical lapse slips through the cracks a lot these days, especially in narration on TV. but fixed in print for all to see, it can become laughable. “Sitting in my chair, the light was very weak.” “plunging hundreds of feet into the gorge, we saw the waterfall.” or, as in Strunk & White’s classic example: “Having several children, my ironing board is always set up.” can you picture all the baby ironing boards running around? another mistake i’ve seen frequently is not grammatical, but can still be pretty jarring. Here’s an example: “after the fire, the house was in rack and ruin.” oops. a nautical metaphor, wrack and ruin, referring to seaweed and debris washed ashore after a stormy shipwreck, is all wrong for a house fire. Here’s another: “The cage fighter kicked his opponent with main force.” oops again. The Latin root of “main” force refers to the hands, not the feet. So, is it necessary to know the derivation of every platitude? Maybe that’s not possible, but there’s a simple fix for this sort of mistake: Don’t write in cliches. Surely a fire-gutted house deserves “show, don’t tell,” which means the deployment of exact nouns and active verbs. picture that house. it smoked and smoldered, it sagged in ash-gray pathos, it pierced
the sky with jagged beams all awry like black broken ribs —many vivid depictions are possible, depending on the mood the writer wishes to convey. Notice i said “depictions,” not “descriptions.” “Depict” means to make a picture, whereas “describe” is frequently an avoidable mistake. Writers trying to describe will often use adjective after adjective, all of them wasted if loaded onto an inadequate noun. The same goes for adverbs piled onto a flabby verb. by avoiding modifiers, writers require themselves to choose picture nouns and active verbs, and also find themselves using more similes and metaphors, an important breakthrough. Figures of speech not only convey a vivid picture to the reader, but the writer can have them work together to support the story with another layer of meaning, with atmosphere, symbolism or theme. example: early in my career, i was printing out a short story called “The boy Who plaited Manes,” ready to send it in, when something occurred to me as an afterthought. Sighing and rolling my eyes, i threw away the hard copy, went back to the computer and reworked the story so that every time i used a simile or metaphor to characterize the protagonist, the mysterious boy, i compared him to some sort of wild creature. as a result, he came to symbolize a force of nature, something more than merely human. The story was very well received, largely because, at the last minute, i avoided a mistake. That’s the thing about avoidable mistakes. The best way to learn from them is to go ahead and make them, but then fix them before an editor lays eyes on the manuscript. Mistakes, avoided, make for stronger writing. Nancy Springer, author of 56 novels in various genres, is the recipient of numerous awards, most notably the edgar allan poe award from the Mystery Writers of america. recently she has fulfilled her lifelong dream of having a short story collection. ecceNTric SyMMeTrieS: paST/preSeNT/FuTure FaNTaSy STorieS (including The Boy Who Plaited Manes), published by untreed reads, is available in digital format.