In Today’s Journal
* Chapter 6, Part 1
* Of Interest
Throw-Away Verbs and Phrases and Other Glitches
I need to preface this chapter with a reminder. In fact, this is the whole chapter compressed into a single sentence:
Your personal preferences as a reader have zero bearing on what you should or shouldn’t do as a writer.
I mention that because a “prolific” (2 novels per year) professional romance writer once commented publicly in a forum for writers that she “doesn’t mind passages” like “Her fingers flew to her cheeks” or “His eyes shot across the room” or “He gave her a smile.”
What’s more, she reasoned that since she doesn’t personally mind such constructions as a reader, she’s justified in using them in her writing.
Umm, no.
- It’s her writing, so she certainly doesn’t need “justification” for how she writes it. However,
- It’s irresponsible of her to effectively teach other writers that’s okay.
Now, if those constructions don’t bother the reader, no harm, no foul.
But if they do, you’ve just lost a reader, one you wouldn’t have lost if you’d written “She raced down the street” or “Sirens wailed in the distance” or “He smiled.”
Everything comes down to a bottom line.
If you’re a serious journeyman in the craft of fiction writing, you might be surprised at how pervasive such thoughts are in the writing community.
As a copyeditor and writing instructor with decades of experience dealing with fiction writers at every level, I wasn’t surprised at all.
I was considerably annoyed that a successful novelist who purports to teach writing through her website and has the ear of countless beginning writers would make such an irresponsible statement, but I wasn’t surprised.
So here’s that bottom line:
If you want to improve your skill as a writer, what you mind or don’t mind as a reader should have zero bearing on anything you do as a writer. Especially when you take it upon yourself to teach other writers the best practices of fiction writing, it’s incumbent on you to think like a writer:
- Realize there are readers on the other side of the keyboard. Those are the readers whose preferences should matter to you. Of course you can’t please every reader, so write for yourself, for the thrill of finding out what happens next in the story. But…
- In the meantime, don’t put anything on the page that your readers might find distracting. Like “Her legs raced down the street” or “His ears heard sirens in the distance” or “He gave her a smile.” Why risk sabotaging your own story?
- And more importantly, even if, like the woman above, you choose to slap together a soup sandwich, why would you teach others it’s all right to do the same thing? Do you really have that little sense of responsibility?
But you’ve heard all of that before in this book. Let’s get started on throw-away verbs and phrases and other glitches.
The Infamous “Gave”
Back when I was copyediting a lot of manuscripts, I often happened across the inappropriate use of the verb “gave.” Folks who misuse the verb “gave” usually misuse it a lot, so anytime that happened, I immediately conducted a global search to find and repair each instance all the way through the manuscript.
I did that and a few other global searches before I started the copyedit in earnest.
Using “gave” inappropriately creates the same kind of diversion as saying “umm” a lot during the course of a speech. After a while, audience members stop listening to the speech and start counting occurrences of “umm.”
The use of “gave” is inappropriate and distracting anytime a physical object isn’t changing hands or changing ownership. Readers will find themselves wondering when you’re going to stop having characters “give” things to each other that can’t be given.
A writer once emailed me to ask, “Which sentence is correct, or are they both correct?”
- “I gave a quick look at Nick Campbell, and he gave a subtle nod for me to continue.”
- “I gave a quick look at Nick Campbell, and he gave me a subtle nod to continue.”
I told him I didn’t care for either of them, and I told him why: “Give” is a transitive verb, meaning you actually give (or hand or grant) something to someone.
Now, allowing a character to misuse “gave” in dialogue is fine. It’s still a wrong usage, but most people misuse various words and constructions when they speak, so the characters’ misuse mimics real dialogue.
But what is written in narrative should be grammatically correct, not for the sake of correct grammar but so it doesn’t call attention to itself and away from the story. And no, most of the time it doesn’t matter whether the narrator is also a character.
In the examples the writer provided, the phrase “nod to continue” was also awkward.
To fix both problems (verb and phrase), I recommended he write it this way:
- “I glanced at Nick Campbell and he nodded, indicating I should continue.” (Notice that Nick didn’t indicate the speaker should continue. Nick’s nod indicated the speaker should continue.)
When you have a character “give” another character something, you’re indicating to the reader that the recipient has something now that she didn’t have before.
If what the character “gave” her was an intangible—a nod, a smile, a look, a glance, a wave—you don’t want “gave.” You want the verb that indicates the intangible itself: nodded, smiled, looked, glanced, waved.
If you look at the third or fourth word after “gave” in a sentence where “gave” is misused, most often that word will be a noun or present-tense verb (smile, wave, shake) that you can turn into a past-tense verb (smiled, waved, shook) and use in place of “gave.”
- So don’t write “I gave him a smile.” Write “I smiled (at him).”
- Unless you work in a hair salon, don’t write “I gave her a wave.” Write “I waved.”
- Don’t write “I gave his hand a shake.” Write “I shook his hand.”
When a tangible object is actually changing hands, “gave” is appropriate. So please do write
- “I gave him a dollar,” not “I dollared him.”
- “I gave her a ring.” Not “I ringed her.”
- Of course, if he “rang” her (called her on the phone) then write that, not “I gave her a ring.”
Yeah, I know you probably didn’t need the last three, but a little fun never hurt anyone. Probably.
Using “gave” inappropriately is only a habit.
If that’s how you talk, that’s fine. Just don’t let it carry over to your writing.
If you have the habit of using “gave” inappropriately and if you want to break that habit, you’ll have to pay attention to your writing for a little while. Maybe even consciously look for instances of “gave” during cycling or editing sessions, or do a global search after the fact.
But very soon you’ll develop a new habit: writing leaner, cleaner, more active prose.
Back tomorrow with Chapter 6, Part 2