Wordcraft blog by Avi

Writing with Clarity

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Dreyer's EnglishIt would be the unusual writer who has not, at some time in their career, read, or turned to a style manual, or for that matter a guide to the English language. Strunk and White’s The Element of Style is one such classic. The Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 17th edition, is another go-to guide. My attention was recently caught by Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. By Benjamin Dreyer. He is the copy chief of Random House.

For those not entirely familiar with the publishing process, a copy editor is the person who, “after a piece of writing has been … through numerous drafts, developed and revised by the writer and by … the editor … [goes over the work] and makes it better. Cleaner. Clearer. More efficient.”

Such a person is not generally known by readers, although such people are vital to book making.

It is a myth that writers work alone. Many people, from my wife, to friends, editors, copy editors, have had useful things to say about what I write during the long journey to publication. Always. The point is, every book I have written (and it’s true for most published books) has undergone scrutiny and improvement by a copy editor. My experience is that these people are generally very smart, and their conscious knowledge of the language far exceeds my own. Over the years I’ve gotten to know some of them, become friends, collaborators, so that at certain publishers I request that they copy edit my books. Their corrections and suggestions always make my books better.

Which is why Dreyer’s English is so interesting and valuable. He is not setting down rules so much as he is showing how to bring (as per his subtitle) clarity to one’s work. Instance: In one of his earlier chapters he points out a number of words which are redundant, unnecessary, that clog up sentences. In one sense they are clichés. Or writing tics. Every writer has them.

In bed last night I read the chapter about these words. The first thing I did in the morning is open up a current project. I took the list and ran through my new manuscript (computers are great for this).  Lo and behold (no surprise) there were those words—in excess—until I took them out. And, yes, it did enhance the clarity of my text. The point is, the reader won’t know what I did. But the reader will enjoy what I did. In other words Dreyer’s English is like having an early copy editor.

The essential point is that the writing can always be improved. It does not matter than I am such-and-such an age, that I have been writing for all these many years, or that I have published x number of books, and have won some recognition. I can get better. Every writer can. Why should you not want to be?

Read (and use) Dreyer’s English. You’ll be a better writer.

Clatter, clatter, clatter, DING!

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Royal typewriterMy son is a journalist and thereby meets a great variety of interesting people. Recently he met someone who is going into the business of restoring typewriters. That made me smile.

For a long time (this was years ago) I resisted purchasing a computer, listening with a bemused smile as people debated the relative merits of a PC in contrast to an Apple. I hung on to my beloved old Royal Typewriter, one of many I had. I would go to flea-markets in search of spare parts and ribbons, and find them.

There was a wonderful finger-feel to those old machines, and a musical clatter that was truly soothing. My older boys have told me that were put to sleep by the late-night clacking of my machines. And oh, yes, there was that wonderful DING! when you threw the carriage back.

(Did you know that the QWERTY system of key arrangement was designed to slow down the old manual typewriters? People typed so fast the keys kept jamming. Such is progress.)

There was an added asset to a manual typewriter: it also functioned as an editor. The point being that working on a manual typewriter was a laborious project. For me it was even harder since I never had learned to touch-type, but had (have) my own odd-ball hunt and peck system. But mind, I could (can) type fast. But oh, that carbon paper; the onion skin copy paper! Do you remember that? Nasty stuff.

Anyway, one day I needed to retype a manuscript. I had put it off, but it was due the next day. All 200 or so pages. I therefore began in the morning, say seven AM. At about two PM I was still going, if not strong, at least going.

Come five PM my hands were aching to such a degree that I knew if I stopped I’d never be able to resume.

I finished typing the book at about eight PM. I sent it in the next day (by snail mail of course). For the next three days, I couldn’t move my hands.

sore hands

But about that typewriting editing: Because, as per the above, it was so much work, I often cut my text as I worked, not to enhance the quality, but to reduce the work. But the truth is, it did enhance the quality. It never hurts to cut. Manual typewriters made it pleasurable.

Ever notice that there are more big books (as in page count) than ever? Thank the computer—the dull, click-clicking of the computer, without even a musical bell for punctuation. Yes, it’s far easier to write on a computer, as I would eventually learn. Still, it has a spell-checker to compensate for its dullness.

This past Christmas I consulted with my son as to a good Christmas gift for my fifth-grade grand-daughter. To my astonishment I was told, “She’d really like a typewriter. She finds the computer distracting.”

I found a new one for her. An electric one.

She’s using it.

But I do feel sorry for her: no clatter, clatter, clatter, DING! Pure music to my ears.

Maybe I’ll seek out that typewriter restorer.

Money

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It was Samuel Johnson, the great 18th Century English critic, writer, and dictionary creator, who famously said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

author royalties and payments

Consider then what the Authors Guild, the USA’s premier writers’ organization, recently learned in a membership survey:

“The median income of authors (from all sources related to being a writer, not just books,” went down 42% from 2009, to $6,080.”

“If you measure author’s income from just their books, that fell 21% since 2013, to $3,100.”

“For those authors who were published before 2014, median incomes from all writing-related sources are actually slight up from $6,250 to $8,170.”

For literary writers, median incomes are down by 27%.

Some self-published writers have seen a rise in income, “but they still earn somewhat less than traditionally published authors.”

It would appear there are many reasons for all of this. The general cultural support for literature and reading is far less than it was. There is a negative pressure from digital games and TV. Think how many hours kids are in front of a screen. The population of readers is diminishing. There is the converting school reading to platforms for testing, which pushes kids away from reading. The number of bookstores is declining. There is a huge adverse impact on the book market by Amazon. School book budgets are down. Library budgets are down. The marketing of books by publishers is way down. Indeed, most book marketing is by social media, which in itself discourages reading.

Still, from my experience, most people I meet in a casual way think that I, as a successful writer, must be, quite simply, “rich.”

I wish.

One of the things we don’t learn in the midst of all this is how traditional publishers contribute to the problem. What are their incomes? Talk to people in the writing community and you will quickly learn that advances are way down. Why?

And yet … and yet …

Yet, when I was very much younger than I am now, and trying to become a professional writer, I thought very little about money. I assumed I would have a day job, accepting the notion that “Real writers have day jobs,” or so we joked. Indeed, I worked at day jobs for more than twenty five years—mostly as a librarian. Contrary to: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” I did. As do many others today.

That said, living a life like that is very hard, hard on creativity, hard on life, families, on parenting, and ultimately on writing.

What might be the future of books if these trends continue? Hard to know but it doesn’t look good.

Any thoughts out there?

Slowly, Step by Step

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turtleI am currently at work on a new novel—doesn’t matter what it is. Though essentially done, it has been sitting on the editor’s desk for a relatively long time, while I wait for final revision notes. I don’t know why it has taken so long, and I suppose it doesn’t matter. The point is the book is in a kind of Limbo.

But not quite. From time to time, to keep my mental connection to the text, I yank the whole manuscript onto my screen. Then I choose a number, any number. It might be my wife’s birthday; say the thirtieth. It might be the page number of the book I had been reading the night before—page 191. I go to that page of my manuscript. The point, is my choice is random.

Then I review that page, and lo and behold, I see changes to make. A better word. A comma in or out. A small cut. Different phrasing. Whatever….

I choose another number, another page.

Now and again I’m appalled by what I discover: something totally out of character; confusing syntax; a plot contradiction.

Other times I’m delighted by what I find: a much better way for the character to express herself. A way to turn a dull line into a funny one.

Why is this happening? Because when I work on the text as a whole, I’m sometimes not seeing the parts.

Do it by bits and parts and I’m not, if you will, rushing along with the flow. I’m focused on every line. A good thing.

Of course, the sum total of small parts makes up the whole, and the book is much better for this kind of attention. That said, having done this before—for the same reasons—I have yet to have an editor come back to me and say, “I noticed that on page 67, line 6, you made a change for the better.” The little alterations become absorbed in the whole. Is the book better for these kinds of changes? Absolutely.

Why don’t I do this for every book?

Most often I don’t have the time. Consider the particular book I mentioned in the beginning here. When that editor does get back to me with notes—I bet it will happen—I’ll be given a short deadline. “Please get this back to me in three weeks.” (Or less!)

So I’m glad for the delay.

But sometimes—for a variety of reasons—a book is rushed from start to finish. It is not necessarily a poorer work, but can well be.

I once wrote a book in such a quick fashion. Everyone worked hard on it. Too hard. Too quickly. Then, when the published book came into my hands, I looked it over. Nice cover. Blurbs read well. Printing format fine. I opened the book and read the first paragraph. That instant, I realized I had left out a line which would have made a big difference to the book.

One line!

But there it was in my hands, the published book.

Today’s moral: Slow can get you to quality faster.

Struggling

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[Photo credit: Adobe Stock]

I am working on a new book—and I am struggling. Given the fact that I’ve published some eighty books, it may surprise some that I am struggling. Let me suggest why.

  1. Every book is a new book, and the success of one, though presumably it gives confidence to write another, that is not necessarily so. A writer’s confidence is, at best, fragile. A nasty remark on Goodreads can kill a day’s work.
  2. One of the pitfalls of a new book is my contract—if I have one. A contract will specify the total word count—say sixty thousand words. But there on my screen, the PC is counting and it reads “2,465 words.” The psychological tendency, then, is to write more words than I need. That clogs up my writing, and makes it verbose. It feels as if I am writing badly. I am.
  3. I agreed to write such and such a book, with such and such a plot, and I made a good pitch. But a pitch is not a book. There is many a slip between pitch and book.
  4. Reminder: talk as little about my book as possible. It boxes me in. Silence is freedom.
  5. Sometimes as I write, I see a possibility for a shift in the story. But I promised something else. Reminder to self: go with the shift, with what feels right. The one person I should talk to is my editor.
  6. Reminder: Beware the book that is focused on place, rather than characters. Travel books are about places. Fiction is about characters.
  7. Reminder: Professional writers get paid for their work, and I depend on that income to live. Get it done! reverberates in my head. The rent is due. That creates another kind of pressure, one that may be real but that doesn’t help my writing.
  8. Reminder: Good writing is re-writing, endless re-writing. Patience is a key component of writing.
  9. Reminder: Never deny your deepest instincts about your own work.
  10. Reminder: Read good writing by others. Other writers will show the way.
  11. Reminder: Slowly (if not surely) it will get done.

Goodbye Christopher Robin

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Goodbye Christopher Robin

I recently watched (on TV) Goodbye Christopher Robin, which tells the life story of the boy so key to Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne. According to the movie, Pooh is the “most loved children’s book of all time.”

The depicted story of the boy’s life is a painful one. A.A. Milne, (Christopher’s father) played by Domhnall Gleeso, was a veteran of World War One, and suffered from PTSD syndrome, which caused him—a very successful West End playwright—to suffer debilitating war-induced flashbacks—to have a repressed emotional life—and a hard time being an engaged father.

Christopher’s mother (played by Margot Robbie) is depicted as selfish, exploitative of her son’s fame, and a snobbish upper-class lady.

The most consistent love in Christopher’s life comes from his Irish nanny (played by Kelly Macdonald)—who is dismissed when she objects to the way Christopher is mistreated.

The very young Christopher Robin is played, charmingly, by Will Tilston.

The movie suggests that the Pooh stories came to life when Christopher and his father enjoy a rare time alone together in rural England. Mother has left for London to enjoy the high life, while the nanny has gone away to take care of her dying mother. In other words, get rid of the women, and creativity happens.

But the essential story revealed here is the deep resentment Christopher felt as to how he was exploited, and cheated of parental love. As depicted, he spent much of his young adult life trying to get away from his literary persona.

What does the film tell us about Winnie-the-Pooh? Very little except to suggest how some of the book’s charming points came from some of the rare moments when father and son enjoyed time together.

a scene from Goodbye Christopher Robin

Scene from Goodbye Christopher Robin [Fox Searchlight]

What does the film tell us about children’s literature, or the writing life? Nothing.

What does the film tell us about early 20th Century British parenting? That it was pretty pathetic.

At the end of the movie we are told (via subtitles) that Christopher refused to take a penny of the massive money engendered by Pooh, that he always remained in contact with his former nanny, and that he created and ran a bookstore.

I liked that part.

But it also suggests that a book—however dependent on the realities of an author’s life—that life has little to do with how readers enjoy it. It is fascinating to think how little a writer has to do with the published book once it is the hands of readers.

Indeed, when it comes to books, it’s the readers who matter most.

Fug

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Readers have asked me about my use of language in my historical novels, particularly words that themselves are part of the historical moment. Let it be said that, to begin with, I have a great fondness for words, and happily, the English language has an immense vocabulary. Also, I have access on my computer to the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary which has an historical thesaurus. I also own such books as Medieval Wordbook (Cosman) and Colonial American English (Lederer)

Medieval Wordbook; Colonial American EnglishHow can one resist such words as this 1774 word, mazy—winding—as in “Where the clear rivers pour their mazy tide.” Or, laverer, the medieval court servant “in charge of ceremonial hand washing with fragrant, spiced water.” One of my favorite words is the late 19th century word for sulk: pout-mouthed. That appears in my book, City of Orphans, set in that time.

Similarly, if you are writing a medieval historical novel, you won’t include a steel sword, because the metal didn’t really come into use until the 16th century.

A page from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Click for a larger, more readable version.

When I wrote my Newbery book, Crispin, I had another problem. The novel takes place at the end of the 14th century, when the English that was spoken was Middle English. You can get a taste of it by looking at Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as he wrote it. When you hear it read aloud you can hear our modern English, but it is hard to recite. Need I say: I can’t write it, nor can I read it.

What did I do?

In preparation for the book I read the major English poets of the day, Chaucer, Gower, Langland. I realized they wrote their verse in iambic pentameter, “A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable, for example Two households, both alike in dignity” which can be very close (but different) to today’s spoken English. So when I wrote Crispin I tried to write it in that verse pattern. How successful was I? I’m not even sure. But if you read the book aloud, you will (I hope) catch that rhythm, and it was, I think, enough to create, if you will, an “antique” sense of language.

Recently I was reading an historical novel (told in the first person) set in Tudor England. The author used the word “fug,” (“A thick, close, stuffy atmosphere, esp. that of a room overcrowded and with little or no ventilation.”) Liking the word’s sound, and guessing its meaning by context, but not knowing what it meant exactly, I looked it up in the OUD. I learned that the word fug wasn’t introduced into the English language until 1888.

Was it wrong to use Fug in a novel set in the 16th Century? I suppose from a purest point of view it is. But it sounded old, and it worked for me. Besides, I do think a writer is free to use any English word. You can even make them up. Shakespeare, it is claimed, invented some 1700 words, many of which we still use.

Or you could engage in Kenning: “The Anglo-Saxon and Old Germanic poetic technique of describing something without naming it, achieved by joining two or more of its major qualities; the ocean as “the whales’ road”, a high prowed sailing ship as “a foamy-necked floater”; a well-wrought sword as “Hammer leavings.”

As long as the word’s meaning is clear—not fug—I think any word you want is just fine.

Story Behind the Story #69:
The End of the World and Beyond

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From a writers’ point of view, I have been blessed insofar as I’ve never really been at a loss for ideas for my novels. That said, it has gotten me into trouble because, in truth, they are good but sometimes half-baked ideas. In my enthusiasm I pitch these ideas to publishers, who grab hold. Then I have to give good literary life to those ill-formed notions. So far, so good.

When I first suggested my idea for the story of Oliver Cromwell Pitts (at that point unnamed) to my editor at Algonquin, to the best of my recollection the basic idea was to tell the tale of a kid in early 18th Century England who gets caught up in Britain’s horrendous legal system and is transported (by way of punishment) to the American colonies. This was accepted, with the proposal that I write a TWO-book story. You may learn of the evolution of the book in the blog I posted here on February 27, 2018.

What I did not relate in that posting was a vital fact. Somewhere in the course of writing “Pitts 1,” as we came to call it, I got it into my head that this was to be a THREE book series. So, I sent in the first book, which ended (in that iteration) when Oliver discovers his beloved sister is a common pickpocket.

In turn, the editor kindly referred me to my contract, which I surely had read and signed, that stated quite clearly that this was to be a TWO-book project.

Did it matter? Well yes. Speaking for myself, having written for many years, I have developed an inner sense of how long a book needs to be, and thereby pace the text accordingly. I was brought up short that this book was, well, short. I needed it to be a fair bit longer. Moreover, at that point I had not fully thought out how this book should end.

Back to work.

To put it metaphorically, it was as if I had decided to climb a mountain, only to discover (as I hiked) that the mountain had two summits, the second one the real summit, and much higher. You get to the first summit, breathe a sigh of relief and relax. Then you notice you haven’t truly gotten to the top. That’s common enough here in the Rocky Mountains where I live, but not in my literary life, where I work.

The End of the World and BeyondI got back to the book. It proved to have one big advantage. I now needed to think firmly how the second book’s plot would evolve. In this fashion book one and two were effectively blended. I think one might read the two books back-to-back, and not miss a beat. In fact, if a writer’s view is to be considered, the full story of Oliver Cromwell Pitt’s life (The Unexpected life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts, and The End of the World and Beyond), is much more entertaining to read, if you read them one right after the other.

And I should read my publishing contracts—carefully.

Writing about the history
that hasn’t been written

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History, you’ve no doubt heard it said a million times, is written by the winners. But what if you could find out what happened to the losers?

If one is going to write historical fiction, it seems fair to assume one needs to read history. And if one does reads history—as I do—you wonder about the stories of the so-called underdogs, those small, and sometime very large tales which are shoved into the darkness by the bright light of triumphant torches.

Those stories are what interest me and what I’ve come to write about.

The Fighting Ground, Sophia's War, The Player King

Thus, The Fighting Ground, a momentary (but true) tale of the American Revolution, of little importance save to the people who lived and died in that small skirmish in New Jersey.

Thus, Sophia’s War, which in large part is about the plight of the huge numbers of American soldiers who, taken prisoner by the British, were most cruelly held and, in the main, forgotten. (Though there is a monument to the many who died, a monument championed into creation by Walt Whitman).

The Player King is about a 15th Century boy—about whom very little is known—who claimed the kingship of England against an oppressive monarchy and was actually crowned as such in Ireland, only to have his cause fall to pieces in The Battle of Trent. Another true tale.

a modern day tobacco field

a tobacco field

Then there are the 18th century colonies of Virginia and Maryland. This area, around Chesapeake Bay came to be known as the Tobacco Coast. It was where the American economy first became both successful and international. The point is, most of the labor who worked this tobacco economy were not free.

That was because in the early 17th century it was England’s transported felons and indentured servants who made up much of the labor force there. It continued into the 18th century and has come to be called white slavery. We are referencing about fifty thousand people, men, women, and children.

It soon shifted to Black slavery. Either way, it was slavery.

That is the essential narrative subject of The End of the World and Beyond. A white boy, Oliver Cromwell Pitts, is caught up by the British legal system, transported to America—to the Tobacco Coast—as a felon. How does he get there? He is bought, but by whom? How does he live? How does he interact with Black slavery? Does he, can he, will he escape, when the local community is well organized to track down any escaped slave, white or black?

Where do Oliver and his fellow African slave Bara flee? More about that anon, in another post. Do I have to tell you, there’s not a great deal written about that.

I’ve chosen to in The End of the World and Beyond.

The Second Book

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The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell PittsIt’s wonderful to receive a review (The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts) that reads: “Riveting…This first in a new series will capture the hearts and minds of readers and history buffs alike … Avi’s examination of the plight of the desperately poor is worthy of Dickens. Impossible to put down.”

But then, please note, I am already committed to writing a sequel! How am I ever going to match this?? Frankly, it’s daunting.

There are all kinds of things the writer must do to begin such a project. First, you have to create a veritable catalog of the facts about your characters (particularly your main characters), aspects with which you must now live (and use) as you go forward. Age. Height. Gender. Mannerisms. Clothing. Patterns of thinking. Culture. To cite a few. Then there are speech configurations. Perhaps certain speech quirks. Even particular words. Does your character say “Sure,” or “Okay,” or “Why not?” Or perhaps just shrugs. Then there are attitudes: does he like this person but not that one? Also, does do your characters evolve in the course of the book?

Now mind, I wasn’t particularly fussy how I laid these things down in the first book. Get it right, I’m mostly thinking. But as I go forward into the next book, I MUST make use of what I have done. Like it or not, you have created a template. And—let it be noted—that one of the reasons readers like sequels (and series) is because the character(s) is familiar.

The End of the World and BeyondI believe it was John D. MacDonald—of mystery writing fame—who suggested that if you are going to write a series—write the first three before you publish anything. Sometimes, if your timing is right—and it was here for me—you are working on the second book before the first book is set in stone. That is to say, it was only during the final phase of publishing the first Pitts book that I considered what would happen in the second Pitts book. I had a general sense, but hardly precise. I could, and did, make some adjustments

And oh, yes, having a good memory is vital. Let it also be said that a good editor and copy editor is crucial. You will get notes: “In book one, chapter seven, line twelve, you wrote….”

But now that the sequel—At the End of the World and Beyond—has been written and is about to be published, early reviews have come in:

“Told in appropriately 18th-century diction, Oliver’s picaresque is a harrowing page-turner that takes an unflinching look at what life was like for those living in servitude in the American Colonies. Oliver is quietly heroic but also realistic as he endures his fate. African Bara, though seen through white Oliver’s eyes, is given trope-defying agency, his intelligence and superior knowledge of the territory and customs putting him in the lead but never at Oliver’s service. Brief back matter gives historical context to this sequel. Action-packed and inspirational—another stunner.” (Kirkus)

Whew.

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