Your Passport To Publication

Is Good Writing

The Writing Process

There is nothing more personal than writing. Thoughts originating in the deep recesses of the intellect are unique. When these ideas are reduced to writing, they become a direct reflection of one’s spiritual and intellectual being.

Those who choose to write professionally must do so with passion and a sense of responsibility since their words will affect the reader’s mindset. Thoughts and ideas expressed verbally flutter through the air like multi-colored butterflies and seldom are accurately recalled. A famous psychologist once stated that people don’t comprehend the substance of spoken words unless they are repeated six or seven times. Written words expressing thoughts and ideas are more likely to be recalled since readers choose quiet time to enjoy the very essence of published works. Authors have the opportunity to inspire, inform, challenge, and entertain whether they write fiction or non-fiction.

For those choosing to pursue a writing career at an early age, the battle plan is clear: keep an open mind and absorb everything life has to offer. For suggestions on how to be more creative, read Pencil Dancing, New Ways To Free Your Creative Spirit by Mari Messer.

Formal education is available through writing classes, books on writing, seminars, and college courses. Search for competent instructors with traditional publishing credits or outstanding academic skills.

To bolster the ability to write with sufficient knowledge, the aspiring writer must garner a sense of history, of what occurred to alter the course of mankind and why. Course study in psychology, philosophy, history, and classical literature provides a solid foundation.

Extensive travel is the comrade of good writers. Spanning the globe opens the door to a rich heritage. Sojourns to Greece, Egypt, Italy, England, France, and many other countries are valuable. Asked his advice for young writers, William Faulkner stated, “Travel and read.”

While visiting foreign countries, learn about the people, the history of the country, and the customs. Working in a foreign country provides a wealth of knowledge. Don’t shy away from what might be considered taboo employment. Faulkner wrote, “The best job ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel.”

Writing workshops, seminars, and writers’ conferences are meat and potatoes if writing professionally is your goal. This is the perfect environment in which to gather valuable tips and nuances from those who have achieved the goal of being published. Many such events are publicized in independent, creative arts-oriented newspapers such as The Village Voice.

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If you decide later in life that writing is a profession of choice, the alternatives differ. Workshops, seminars, and conferences are valuable tools for learning, but a crash course on writing professionally is a prerequisite if you have not exercised this skill in many years.

Having no formal training, I relied on others to assist me when I began to write Down For The Count, the book investigating the Mike Tyson trial. Colleagues with backgrounds in literature and English perused the manuscript as well. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.

Education is essential to learning the craft of writing, but those who proclaim that someone with no formal literary training cannot succeed should recall the background of no less a “scholar” than William Shakespeare. While he was schooled in Greek and Latin literature, rhetoric, and Christian ethics, there is no evidence that the Bard was ever taught the art of writing. History indicates he left school at age fifteen, never pursued further formal education, and was not considered a learned man. This did not prohibit him from writing what many experts consider to be the most extraordinary body of works in the history of literature.

Poet Walt Whitman further proves that formal training is not linked to literary success. His formal education ended at age eleven. Unlike other writers of his time who enjoyed structured, classical educations at private schools, Whitman learned about writing in the local library. He then joined a newspaper, The New York Mirror, where he wrote his first article in 1834. Less than two decades later, after dabbling in short-story fiction, Whitman wrote the classic, Leaves of Grass.

Regardless of the success enjoyed by authors such as Shakespeare and Whitman, my path toward becoming an author would have been less cumbersome had I spent more time learning the craft. At the time, my sole intent was to have book after book published to earn a living and avoid traveling far from home. This was a goal since I had become the stepfather of four young children, including triplet boys, at the ripe age of forty-four. Writing professionally was the link to spending quality time with the kids as they grew up.

If you are the “I just decided to take up writing and I want to be published” type as I was, then become an avid reader and practice writing. Best selling romance writer Nora Roberts echoes King’s sentiments. She began her career as a stay-at-home mother who wrote ideas in a notebook during a snowstorm in 1979. Pleased with her efforts, she continued to write. The result was her first published work, Irish Thoroughbred. Since then she has written several bestsellers, all because, as she says, “I don’t believe in waiting for inspiration. It’s my job to sit down . . . and write.”

Whether you are interested in writing fiction or non-fiction, you should read both. Read the classics—Hemingway, Joyce, Dickens, and Steinbeck. Poets can learn from Whitman, Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Each of these great writers admits their education about writing was influenced by the books they read. Asked what authors he enjoyed, Hemingway listed more than thirty-four before confessing that to list them all “would take a day to remember.” Among them were Mark Twain, Bach, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Kipling, Shakespeare, and Dante. Hemingway admitted he also gained education from artists and composers. “I learned as much from painters about how to write,” he stated, “as from writers . . . I should think that what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint would be obvious.”

Competent authors are superb storytellers. While reading the classics, note how the canonized authors weave a story. Whether the choice is fiction or non-fiction, the story must be clear, have a good beginning, middle, and end, and never be boring. Reading well-written books helps you realize how others have accomplished the feat. In On Writing, Stephen King states:

Good writing . . . teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth-telling. A novel like Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good, old-fashioned jealousy—I’ll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand—but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing . . . is a part of every writer’s necessary formation. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

In Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, the author presents an interesting strategy regarding fiction storytelling. Lamott quotes Alice Adams from a lecture about short story writing. The excerpt reads:

[Alice] said that sometimes she uses a formula when writing a short story which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. You begin with action that is compelling enough to draw us in, make us want to know more. Background is where you let us see and know whom these people are, how they’ve come to be together, what was going on before the opening of the story. Then you develop these people, so that we learn what they care most about. The plot – the drama, the actions, the tension – will grow out of that. You move them along until everything comes together in the climax, after which things are different for the main characters, different in some real way. And then there is the ending: what is our sense of who these people are now, what they are left with, what happened, and what did it mean.

Fiction writers can learn from Scott Turow, author of several bestsellers, including Presumed Innocent. An excerpt reads:

The atomized life of the restaurant spins on about us. At separate tables, couples talk; the late-shift workers dine alone; the waitresses pour coffee. And here sits Rusty Sabich, thirty-nine years old, full of lifelong burdens and workaday fatigue. I tell my son to drink his milk. I nibble at my burger. Three feet away is the woman whom I have said I’ve loved for nearly twenty years, making her best efforts to ignore me.

Besides being a terrific storyteller, character description was Jack Kerouac’s specialty. An excerpt of On The Road reads:

He was a gray, nondescript-looking fellow you wouldn’t notice on the street, unless you looked closer and saw his mad, bony skull with its strange youthfulness – a Kansas minister with exotic, phenomenal fires and mysteries. He had studied medicine in Vienna; had studied anthropology, read everything; and now he was settling to his life’s work, which was the study of things themselves in the streets of life and the night.

In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, author Dai Sijie sweeps the reader into his novel portraying life during China’s Cultural Revolution. An excerpt reads:

The room served as shop, workplace, and dining room all at once. The floorboards were grimy and streaked with yellow-and-black gobs of dried spittle left by clients. You could tell they were not washed down daily. There were hangers with finished garments suspended on a string across the middle of the room. The corners were piled high with bolts of material and folded clothes, which were under siege from an army of ants.

Providing a good beginning, middle, and end to a story by doing so with each paragraph provides excellent storytelling. In Down and Out In London and Paris, George Orwell presents a worthy example. The excerpt reads:

The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and promptly vanished. And meanwhile, as was not surprising after the fuss Roucolle had made, the affair had been noised all over the quarter. The very next morning the hotel was raided and searched by the police.

While Woody Allen may be better known for his comedic films, one of his books, Without Feathers, is a classic. A short stories he weaves is called The Whore Of Mensa, a great “what-if” detailing one man’s search for intellectual companionship instead of the usual sexual gratification. An excerpt reads:

One thing about being a private investigator, you’ve got to learn to go with your hunches. That’s why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

“Kaiser,” he said. “Kaiser Lupowitz?”

“That’s what it says on my license,” I owned up.

“You’ve got to help me. I’m being blackmailed. Please.”

He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desktop and a bottle of rye I keep handy for non-medicinal purposes.

“Suppose you relax and tell me all about it.”

In the non-fiction bestseller Seabiscuit, author Laura Hillenbrand captures the reader’s attention by providing visual and dramatic scenes propelling the reader into the middle of the action. An excerpt reads:

A minute later the field bent around the far turn and rushed at the grandstand. There was one horse in front and pouring it on. His silks were red. It was Seabiscuit. The crowd roared. Pollard [the jockey] and Seabiscuit glided down the lane all by themselves, reaching the wire in track-record-equaling time. Kayak was right behind them. It was Pollard’s first win since 1938.

Journals and Idea Books

Learning the craft of writing is a continuing process. One of the best means to hone the craft is by writing in a journal or diary. It promotes discipline while providing a chronology of your life.

Author John Fowles (The French Lieutenant’s Woman) stated, “I am a great believer in diaries, if only in the sense that bar exercises are good for ballet dancers; it’s often through personal diaries that the novelist discovers his true bent.” This comment is applicable for non-fiction writers as well.

One exercise to consider requires writing in a journal each day for a week. Content and length are optional, but the goal is to complete the task. Then cast aside the journal for a few days before reading it. If you’re satisfied with the text, and the process involved, then you have the potential to write professionally. If you hate what you wrote, and the discipline of having to write each day, then consider basketry, modern art, or some other means of expending creative energy.

Another useful exercise is to organize a folder containing observations about others. Good writers are people watchers. Whether you do so in a park, at sports events, or at a bus stop, chronicle your thoughts and observations. Vivid description and words evoking emotion are the earmarks of the good writer. To enhance this skill, study speech patterns, how people move, what habits they possess, and face and body features. Make lists of these characteristics; then add other elements. A fat notebook I often refer to includes pages listing names (Avon Privette, Paris Wolfe, Tootie Witmer, Audrey Wink, Holly Furfer, Bobby April, David Duck), smells (bug spray, moth balls, fresh strawberry pie, chemical fertilizer), descriptions (salty, speckled, overripe, furry), hair style (butch, raggedy, ponytail, mousy), and body parts (webbed feet, spindly toes, stubby arms, firm butt, limp face, spidery fingers, slumping posture, drooping eyes, artificial eyes, whiskey nose, parched lips, dead legs). Another list includes weather descriptions (gray drizzle, sideways rain, Oklahoma wind) and sky descriptions (primrose, veined with dry lightning, streaky blue).

In another section of my “help” book, one added to on a daily basis, I list “useful phrases.” Included is soft laughter, hushed giggle, black scuff marks, pocket change, replied indifferently, fork patrol, pigeon toed, steady gaze, shimmered in the moonlight, and crumpled pompadour.

Before beginning the writing process, consult your lists and permit words and ideas to fill your brain with creativity. Clever words and phrases spice up the text, providing the reader with the all-important asset that E. B. White emphasizes: visualization. Learned author John Cheever endorsed White’s viewpoint when he stated, “The books you really love give the sense, when you first open them, of having been there. It is a creation, almost like a chamber in the memory. Places that one has never been to, things that one has never seen or heard, but their fitness is so sound that you’ve been there somehow.”

Having gained the essential skills necessary to write well, the aspiring author is in pursuit of a realistic goal: being published. A good book idea plus an excellent strategy plus hard work permits this goal to be realized.

Word Usage

While reading, note the author word choice. There are those who love the vocabulary and appreciate hundred-dollar words that claim, “I’m a literate son-of-a-gun with a graduate degree in Webster’s.” But language must never be vague, elusive, or downright inaccessible. A story loses much of its flow and meaning if the reader spends too much time opening a dictionary. Phrases like “revelatory episodes,” “epigrammatic prose,” and “diorama of American plenty” will confuse and dismay ninety-five percent of the population.

Throughout my tenure as an author, readers have provided feedback indicating that my books are “easily read.” Little highbrow language exists in my books because I purposely exclude words preventing the flow of the language. I want to make them stop and think or enjoy the text, not be impressed with my use of big words.

Doing so is essential if you want to reach a broad readership, because writing is personal, not only for the writer, but for the reader. As the writer, you are conveying information regarding a story intended to captivate the reader. You want your words to leap off the page and infiltrate the reader’s brain to entice, excite, entertain, or make them stop and think. When readers purchase a book, it will be successful if they ask, “Who is this author or poet and what is he or she trying to show [not tell] me?”

Punctuation Usage

No matter how good the book, magazine, or article idea may be, punctuation errors diminish the chances of becoming published. No literary agent, editor at a publishing company, or editor at a magazine or newspaper has the time to wade through punctuation flaws. Noting them produces an instant feeling that the writer is unprofessional.

Glaring errors such as locating a period or comma outside quotation marks in a sentence are commonplace and embarrassing. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the period or comma will be positioned inside the final quotation mark.

A common error occurs when writers don’t realize that all numbers up to a hundred are written out. Also—no numerical number ever begins a sentence.

Proper use of hyphens, semicolons, colons, and commas is a must for aspiring authors and poets. Be aware of the rule regarding when to capitalize the first letter of a word following a colon.

Writers should italicize the names of films, books, screenplays, operas, plays, and magazines. Quotation marks are permitted for book chapters, poems, articles, songs, and short stories. Underlining any of the above is not necessary for emphasis.

Learning basic rules ensures that writing mistakes will not prevent literary agents or publishers from casting aside submitted material due to blatant errors. The author’s best friend is a competent editor, or a book complete with grammar and punctuation tips

Modern-day study guides for the aspiring writer abound. The Chicago Manual of Style is a dense book¾ not exactly vacation reading. Set aside ample time so you can focus on its contents. A better idea is to consult the book in spurts, take notes, and then refer to it again and again like a close friend who tells the truth.

Publishers prefer that authors and poets adhere to the rules presented in this publication, but Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, is ninety-five pages long, the perfect length for obtaining good, solid information about writing. Spending less than ten dollars for the book is one of the best investments an aspiring author or poet can make.

Professor Strunk published the classic for his students in 1919. It soon became known as “the little book that could.” Over the years, White, most famous for writing Charlotte’s Web, has revised it for modernization purposes, but this gem features Strunk’s brilliant mind, probing the depths of writing and what is proper and correct. Under titles such as “Elementary Rules of Usage,” “Elementary Rules of Composition,” “A Few Matters of Form,” and “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused,” the Cornell professor provides simple, clear, and brilliant guidelines. Among the jewels are warnings against overuse of adverbs and adjectives, advocacy of active voice and positive words, and rules for positioning pronouns. Elements of Style explains the whys and wherefores so even a dunderhead can understand. I recommend putting the book under your pillow while you sleep with the hope that the knowledge will seep into your brain.

While the first four sections of the book are a must-read, E. B. White added Book V titled, “An Approach To Style.” He writes, “Up to this point, the book has been concerned with what is correct, or acceptable, in the use of English. In this final chapter, we approach style in its broader meaning: style in the sense of what is distinguished and distinguishing. Here we leave solid ground. Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind?”

Regardless of the caveat, White’s suggestions are on solid ground. Sections include: “Placing yourself in the background,” “Write in a way that comes naturally,” “Work from a suitable design,” and “Write with nouns and verbs, not with adverbs and adjectives.” White discusses the need to revise and rewrite, not to overwrite, and not to overstate.

After discovering Strunk and White’s book and consulting the Chicago Manual of Style, I was pleased to note that much of what they suggested had somehow been incorporated into my writing style. This stemmed from reading what other good writers had written . . . and perhaps some bad writers’ work as well, since I learned to discern the gibberish many believed necessary to tell their stories.

Absorbing the lessons outlined in the “little book” provides a basis for developing writing skills. Each author or poet chooses a storytelling method, but proper usage of language guarantees that errors won’t signal lack of talent. Editors at publishing companies dismiss a manuscript or collection of poetry if there are misspellings and grammatical errors, but they also pay close attention to word usage.

Learning good writing skills at an early age will benefit aspiring authors and poets. Parents interested in supplemental materials to improve children’s writing skills may consider the Shurley English method. More information is available at www.shurley.com.

Clarity

In On Writing Well, author William Zinsser states, “Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it’s not a question of gimmicks to ‘personalize’ the author. It’s a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.”

Fiction writers must ask themselves several questions regarding clarity. Is the story time-oriented so the reader understands the time frame being presented? Are the characters well defined and do they act in a manner consistent with the background provided? Is there a believable backdrop for the story, one that is vivid? Have I written a clever dramatic story with a ticking clock to add suspense?

Non-fiction writers face a comparable question—will a story that is quite clear to the writer be as clear to the reader? Will the reader understand the message being conveyed by the text? This applies to poets as well.

Author John Updike provided a guidepost regarding clarity. He wrote, “When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York, but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teenaged boy finding them speak to him.” Author Zinsser suggests, “Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.”

As the writing process continues, writers must be certain they are telling the story they intend to tell, and with accuracy. Many times we read what our brain wants to read instead of what is on the page. In a final draft of this book, I credited Robert Frost with writing Leaves of Grass. I knew better, but had Frost on the brain. When an editor pointed out the mistake, I was embarrassed.

One method of determining clarity while proofreading for errors is to read the material aloud. By inspecting and hearing each word, meaning becomes clearer and mistakes are revealed that would otherwise have been overlooked.

Writing Skills

Information about how to write and writing style are referenced in many books, including Elements of Style by professors Strunk and White. White was correct when he wrote that no one understands why a certain group of words carefully joined produce magic on the sheet of paper for one author while resulting in gobbledygook for another. Each writer’s composition of words will differ according to his or her skill and experience.

In his book, On Writing, Stephen King offered a simple explanation for what he believes is important when considering writing style. He wrote, “Book buyers want a good story to take with them on the airplane, something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages.” Mystery writer Tony Hillerman (Hunting Badger) told Writer’s Digest, “I feel my first priority as a writer is to entertain the audience.”

Never forget every book is an adventure—Write it like one. This is true whether you are creating a tortoise and hare story, a book about the inner workings of the latest computer, a chronicle of the evolution of Red Lobster restaurants as an American success story, a biography of the gifted poet Etheridge Knight, or a collection of poetry about why birds fly south for the winter.

Author James Patterson espouses a unique perspective of writing. In The Writer’s Handbook, he states, “In the beginning, I really worried a lot about sentences in my books. But at some point . . . I stopped writing sentences and started writing stories. And that’s the advice I give to new writers. Sentences are really hard to write. Stories flow. If you’ve got an idea, the story will flow. Once you have the story down you can go back and polish it for the next ten years.”

No one doubts that clear, concise storytelling featuring language that shows, but does not tell, is paramount to success. Some writers sprinkle flowery language throughout their manuscripts. Others write like Hemingway and produce some sentences that are never-ending. Regardless, the finest writers, whether they are writing fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, are brief and visual, two great talents gained through experience. Being visual means to flavor your writing with the five senses—sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing—so the reader consumes and is consumed with the text.

In The Elements of Style, Professor Strunk wrote, “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the reader’s attention is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.” Strunk added, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Author Nora Roberts believes visualization means proper selection and description of characters whether the book is fiction or non-fiction. She told Writer’s Digest, “Your characters, have to jump off the page. They have to appeal to the reader in some way . . . They need to be appealing, humorous and human.”

Literary agent Julia Castiglia echoes Roberts’ words in Writer’s Digest: “What we really look for are books that are well written, with a certain zing to them that climbs off the page and wraps itself around our brains, that so entrance and seduce us that we just can’t say no.”

Word Choice

The requirement that the writer show the reader and not tell cannot be over-emphasized. Word choice is key. Mark Twain wrote, “The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and lightning bug.”

To improve a story, use active words portraying concrete images instead of abstractions: avoid crutch-words ending in “ly;” avoid “not” and “no;” use active verbs like “clawed,” “swatted,” and “pawed,” instead of linking verbs like “is” and “was;” avoid overuse of gerunds (verbs used as nouns by adding “ing”); and use stronger nouns instead of adjectives. Regarding the need for active verbs, author William Zinsser wrote, “Verbs are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give it momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully.”

Avoid words such as “a little,” “very,” “kind of,” “pretty much” or “really,” qualifying other words. They are often unnecessary and make your writing sound trite.

Concise word usage translates to paragraph length. Reader attention span may be short, so use of a few sentences separates the text and keeps the flow of the story at a steady pace. Long paragraphs are bulky and can bog down the reader. Avoid them.

Strong word usage is essential at the beginning of a chapter, or a verse. Words completing a chapter or a verse must tantalize and urge the reader onward.

Adverbs and Adjectives

Stephen King’s book, On Writing, provides several important tips. One suggests a writing mantra to be repeated again and again: “The adverb is not your friend.” He believes if the word chosen cannot stand on its own, replace it with one that does.

Word choice signals the distinctive voice writers convey in conversation with the reader. How they manipulate certain words into the story dictates the tone of that voice. William Zinsser states, “Bear in mind, when you’re choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize. Therefore such matters as rhythm and alliteration are vital to every sentence.” Zinsser adds, “Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that’s enjoyable not only in its musical line but its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.”

Never one to discount the advice of an author like Stephen King, who has sold more books than there are people in China, an “adverb hunt” was commenced during the final edit of my book Miscarriage of Justice. To this end, we scoured the manuscript and eliminated ninety-five percent of the adverbs.

The “word surgery” performed on the adverbs in the book was successful, and the patient lived. Some adverbs can be helpful, but removing the malignant language improved the book considerably.

While editing, we also concentrated on “word brevity,” eliminating words not advancing the story. Any time we saw “they were,” “they are,” “there is,” “it is,” or “it was,” we crossed them out along with dreaded clichés.

Many authors develop an affinity for one word. Mine is “that.” I love the word, but often it is not required. During editing of this book, I attempted to eliminate as many “that’s” as possible. I’m sure I could delete others, but at least I have spared readers many of my unnecessary pet words. Be careful, though: non-use of a word where it is required can be as bad as overusing it.

Brevity is essential. Without exception, less is better. When Ernest Hemingway was chided for the short length of his classic Old Man and the Sea, he answered critics by saying, “[It] could have been over a thousand pages long and had every character in the village in it . . .That is done excellently and well by other writers . . . So I have tried to do something else. First I have tried to eliminate everything unnecessary to convey experience to the reader so that after he or she has read something it will become part of his or her experience and seem actually to have happened. This is very hard to do and I worked at it very hard.”

Author Zinsser echoes Hemingway’s thoughts. He states,

[The] secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader confused as to who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.

Historians recall that brevity was a key to Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. During his Second Inaugural Address, he utilized just 701 words. Five hundred five of them were of one syllable; 122 contained two.

To realize that short books are jewels of the writing profession, recall such classics as The Great Gatsby, The Red Badge of Courage, Turn of the Screw, and A Lost Lady. Tuesdays With Morrie is another. A helpful book for those who love to use run-on sentences is The Dictionary of Concise Writing: 10,000 Alternatives to Wordy Phrases by Robert Harwell Fiske.

Run-on sentences permit readers little time to breathe. Early in my career, every paragraph seemed to feature the dreaded run-on. Only by weeding them out, splitting up thoughts, and focusing on being concise have I become a better writer.

Style of writing is an individual matter. It is important to know the standard rules for writing, but many successful authors have broken the rules. Lori Foster, a noted romance author, wrote in Writer’s Digest, “What really sells your book is your individual voice, not the rules that you obey.” Elaborating, she stated, “Just about everyone has heard the dozens and dozens of rules listed as a criteria for getting published in romance. They include: no hopping from one character to another’s head, one point of view per scene, no exotic settings, and no athletes or television personalities. In truth, there are very few definite rules.”

Truman Capote’s thoughts on rules are right on point. He said, “Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.”

Keys To The Writing Process

If you decide to write an entire manuscript before completing a Query Letter and/or Book Proposal, remember one important rule: Once you start, don’t stop. The main reason most people intending to write a book never do is because they encounter a stumbling block regarding word choice, punctuation, or grammar usage. Before they know it, the creative juices turn sour.

Author and literary writing guru Natalie Goldberg speaks to this in her book Writing Down The Bones. She believes initial thoughts “capture the oddities of your mind.” She writes, “First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind flashes on something.” Goldberg provides a list of exercises in her book to inspire writers toward creative thinking.

Author John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) spoke to the importance of completing what you begin. He stated, “Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.”

In a 1947 letter to Jack Kerouac, writer Neal Cassady, upon whom Kerouac based the character Dean Moriarty in On The Road, wrote to Kerouac:

I have always held that when one writes, one should forget all rules, literary styles, and other such pretensions as large words, lordly clauses and other phrases as such . . . Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he where the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerely putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires. . .

Actor Sean Connery, playing the part of fictional author William Forester in Finding Forrester, addressed the subject in an interesting manner. He stated, “You write the first draft with your heart. You re-write with your head.”

Instead of worrying about mistakes or lapses in the text, plow ahead. There will be time later to fill in the blanks or correct errors. To aid your efforts regarding manuscript form, a Manuscript Techniques list follows this chapter.

Writing Regimen

There is no definitive answer to how much text a writer should complete each day. Stephen King states in his book On Writing, “I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book.”

Esteemed author John Updike (The Power and the Glory) writes 1,000 words a day, six days a week. This process has resulted in more than fifty books, two of which have earned Pulitzer Prizes.

Ernest Hemingway, who never began writing unless twenty sharpened pencils were close at hand, described his daily routine by stating:

I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love.

Poet Maya Angelou’s regimen is classic. “I have a hotel room in every town I’ve ever lived in,” she stated. “ . . . I leave my home at six, and try to be at work by 6:30. To write, I lie across the bed, so that [my] elbow is absolutely encrusted at the end . . . I stay until 12:30 or 1:30 in the afternoon, and then I go home and try to breathe.”

Tom Wolfe (A Man In Full, The Right Stuff) sets page goals. He stated, “I set myself a quota—ten pages a day, triple-spaced, which means about eighteen hundred words. If I can finish that up in three hours, I’m through for the day.”

Many writers believe they deserve a magnum of champagne in celebration if they can write four to six pages a day. Others write less, some more. It all depends, but never let anything prohibit progress toward the appointed goal. This means the telephone, loved ones, pets, door-to-door salespeople, radio, television, grammar problems, spelling miscues, mosquitoes, or children. All are the writer’s enemies since they obstruct completion of the task. My black Labrador’s name is Black Sox, but I could name him “Procrastination,” since playing ball with him is a tempting diversion to writing.

Block out these enemies, begin to write, then write and write, and write some more. Be sure to “save” the material paragraph by paragraph while working; and then save it on a disk when you have completed the day’s task so computer “crashes” won’t eliminate your text. Mother Nature is another enemy of the writer, and her electrical storms are computer killers.

When words are dashing out of the brain, there is exhilaration beyond comprehension. While the juices are flowing, the fingers can’t work fast enough. The rush is better than any chemical “high.”

Every writer discovers a time and place to write, but my regimen is quite consistent. Being a morning person, I write from just after 5:00 a.m. until 7:30 or so. Breaking up the writing period is a quick break to share Rice Krispies with Black Sox.

Some days, I am tempted to read my composed material to Black Sox a la John Steinbeck. He wrote, “I’ve always tried out my material on my dogs first. You know, with Angel, he sits there and listens and I get the feeling he understands everything. But with Charley, I always felt he was just waiting to get a word in edgewise. Years ago, when my red setter chewed up the manuscript of Of Mice and Men, I said at the time that the dog must have been an excellent literary critic.”

Once breakfast is completed, I walk outside, take a few deep breaths, and then return to the writing table until eleven o’clock. By then, my brain is empty.

Afternoons are set aside for research and a wretched occupation: editing. Most weeks I write every day except for Saturday when I attempt to break par against a great group of buddies at the local golf course. Even then, I carry five-by-seven note cards in case an inspiring thought or observation leaps into my mind.

A proposed regimen is as follows: The writer decides on Sunday to complete the first fifty pages of a manuscript. He or she writes ten pages on Monday and Tuesday, and ten more each on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This night is reserved for celebration, Saturday for recovering from the Friday night hangover, and Sunday for the Sabbath. Poets can adapt a similar regimen for their work.

By not touching the manuscript, the writer will have a fresh perspective on Monday. Best-selling author Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) was a proponent of this method. After describing himself as a “horizontal author [who] can’t think unless I’m lying down,” he stated, “when the yellow draft is finished, I put the manuscript away for a while, a week, a month, sometimes longer. When I take it out again, I read it as coldly as possible, then read it to a friend or two, and decide what changes I want to make.”

Revisions

When people ask what I do, I tell them that I am a “re-writer,” not a writer. This emphasizes how much time is spent revising text.

The process of rewriting is complex. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel stated, “Writing is not like painting, where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove; you eliminate in order to make the work visible. There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages, which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you don’t see them.”

When you are in the revision stage, as opposed to when you are rushing through a first draft to complete it start to finish, speed is the enemy of quality. To be sure the work is the finest it can be, take your time. Columnist James Kilpatrick wrote, “Edit your copy, then edit it again; then edit it once more. This is the hand-rubbing process. No rough sandpapering can replace it.” William Zinsser stresses the importance of revisions. He concludes, “Rewriting is the essence of writing well; it’s where the game is won or lost.”

Author Dean Koontz might seem obsessive to some, but according to the Los Angeles Times, “The man doesn’t just write at a breakneck clip, he edits each page at least 20 to 30 times immediately after he writing it. When the chapter is finished, he prints it out and starts editing those same pages all over again.”

Every time text is revised, it improves. Many times writer’s return to words they’ve written and are amazed at the flow and clarity. Other times the material embarrasses them. How I wish I could re-write many of the first books I had published using the skills learned over the years. Nearly every published author or poet I know feels this way.

Revising material is a constant process. In On Writing Well, William Zinsser proclaims, “Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.” He adds, “Most first drafts can be cut by 50% without losing any information or the author’s voice.”

Laurie Rosen, editor of thirty-seven bestsellers, advises novelists to follow ten basic steps while considering revisions. Among the ones she listed in Writer’s Digest are: Revise toward a marketable length (Average novel length is between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Manuscripts exceeding 100,000 words are a tough sell), torque the power of your scenes (emphasize the purpose of the action), tease the reader forward into the next chapter, give your antagonist some depth, and dramatize, dramatize, dramatize.”

Some authors or poets set page counts or deadlines for completion of revised drafts. Meeting them is an excellent form of discipline. Setting reasonable deadlines is suggested. No writer should create or edit when the brain is weary.

Critique

When an acceptable draft is completed, let others review it. It doesn’t matter if your reviewer is a spouse, a relative, or a friend down the street.

Writers need a variety of people to provide objective opinions. Being removed from the material, reviewers can spot flaws and misinformation, and correct mistakes. They may even suggest an alternative means of telling a story.

The key is locating people not afraid to say what they think. Then, when criticism is leveled, swallow your ego and be receptive. While writing one book, a longtime friend that was an English major in college reviewed the manuscript. I cringed while perusing her comments since every page was saturated with red ink. On one page, she circled two paragraphs free of error and printed beside it, “Did you write this?” Her questioning my ability made my face turn red in anger, but I knew in some ways it was an off hand compliment. At least I took it that way. When the book was completed, I knew I had become a better writer because of her stern comments.

Good writing requires dedication and perseverance since words are the writer’s communication with the world. Only through hard work will the message be strong. For aspiring authors and poets attempting to impress literary agents and editors, good writing is their most important calling card.

To test the competence of your writing skills, interactive exercises targeted at excellent use of grammar and punctuation are presented in the Appendix. Take some time to see how your skills measure up.

Summary

Read the classics to understand good writing.

Keep an “idea book” of word usage.

Don’t overwhelm the reader with “highbrow” language.

Read The Elements of Style—then re-read it. Keep a list of language “Do’s” and “Don’ts.”

Read self-help books on proper use of punctuation.

Discover a writing regimen that works for you.

Remember, good writing is clear and concise.

When you start writing a manuscript or collection of poetry, don’t stop until your first draft is completed.

Re-write and edit. Every time a re-write occurs, the text is better.

Solicit objective critique of your writings.

Remember—there may not be a “right” word to use, but there is a “best” word.