In Today’s Journal
* Chapter 4, Part 2
* Of Interest
Chapter 4, Part 2
Human Parts Do Not Have Human Traits (continued)
Here’s one of my favorite examples of giving human traits to human parts. This one’s a little different:
- The baron’s eyes raked across everyone at the table.
No, they didn’t. Eyes can’t do that.
You can’t fix this one by simply writing, “The baron raked his eyes across everyone at the table.”
Maybe try something like this:
- The baron scanned the table, or
- The baron looked (glared, etc.) at those seated at the table, or even
- The baron raked his gaze across everyone at the table.
Note: “Gaze” is often the word writers are searching for when they write “eyes.”
Here’s one of my all-time favorites:
- Tossing my hand across the couch’s back with studied casualness, I attempted to initiate the usual subtle encircling movement but to no avail. (Arrgggh! You wanna fix this one for me?
- Maybe something like “I casually eased my hand across the back of the couch, but she shifted away.”
Note: Since I already used “eased” as the verb in my fix of the last example, I probably don’t need the adverb “casually.” How do you “ease” anything and not do so casually or carefully? I used “casually” in this case only to retain the mood of the original sentence.
Don’t Give Human Traits to Inanimate Objects Either
This is similar to endowing human parts with human parts, but if anything it’s even easier to spot:
- His comb raced through thinning hair.
- He combed his thinning hair (or He ran his comb through thinning hair).
Assigning Possession to Body Parts or Inanimate Objects
Don’t give possession to inanimate objects.
When you use an apostrophe and an S to give possession to a body part or an inanimate object, it creates an awkward construction that’s almost as unintentionally humorous as a misplaced modifier.
That said, this usually isn’t a story-killing problem.
But because these constructions are awkward in every case, they will distract the reader. And every distraction, no matter how small, is a chance for the reader to close your story and maybe not come back to it.
All of the examples below are from manuscripts I’ve edited over the years. If you read the examples aloud, you’ll hear how awkward and clunky they are.
I followed each example with one or more ways to correct it. Notice that my suggestions are not the only solutions. Pretty much any way you choose to correct the problem is fine:
- She pushed her glasses up her nose’s bridge.
- How about—She pushed her glasses up on her nose (or if we already know she’s wearing glasses, “She pushed her glasses up”).
- He leaned on the chair’s back.
- How about—He leaned back in the chair (or if he’s standing, He put one hand on the back of the chair or leaned against the back of the chair).
- She slid up to the couch’s edge.
- How about—She slid up to the edge of the couch (or She slid forward on the couch, or if we already know she’s sitting on the couch, She slid forward).
- He leaned against the ship’s rail.
- How about—He leaned against the railing (if we already know he’s on a ship) or He leaned against the rail of the ship.
- She crossed the town’s main street.
- How about—She crossed Main Street (or She crossed the main street).
If you look a little more closely at the examples, you’ll see that you can also shorten some of them to delete unnecessary information. For example,
- In 1, what other bridge would her glasses be on?
- In 5, if you’ve done your job describing the setting, we probably already know she’s seated on the couch.
- In 7, we probably already know he’s on a ship.
- In 9, we probably already know she’s in a town.
This brings to mind a close cousin of the inanimate possession problem,. Don’t write constructions like
- “She shuffled the dominoes in front of her” or
- “She sipped wine from her glass.”
You don’t need the qualifying prepositional phrases that end those sentences.
Think about it: What other dominoes would she shuffle? And from what other container is she going to sip wine?
Finaly, the ever-popular, and to be avoided in every case,
- “He nodded his head” and
- “She shrugged her shoulders.”
Again, think about it: What else is he going to nod? What else is she going to shrug?
And how about this one:
- “He nodded his head yes” or
- “She shook her head no.”
Nodding in response to dialogue always means yes, and shaking the head in response always either means no or indicates disbelief, disgust, or some other negative emotion.
As a little bonus, I decided to include the following. It isn’t a specific example of any of the problems I’ve been discussing, but it’s too good to leave out of this book. This is from an email I received the night before I was scheduled to teach a seminar a few years ago:
- “I hate to miss your class, but I’m leaving town unexpectedly tomorrow.”
That made me smile even as I shook my head.
Of Interest
Do Characters have a Nervous System? At first, I thought What a stupid Question. But she makes some points I think might help.