Lucid Writing Advice VI by Antavius Flagg

5 ways to take your time in writing, and yet get somewhere

Beware of all of a sudden and its’ relatives
Be wary of sequence words
Watch your spelling of the word
Jargon
Clichés
Most of us have read that short story every once in a while when all the action comes at the end of few words of introduction, which have a knack for appearing quite often. This article will hopefully keep you from doing that.

BEWARE OF ALL OF A SUDDEN AND ITS’ RELATIVES

When a writer sits down to write their first work, it is always not quite their best. Yet he or she may see it as quite an accomplishment. Such things are excusable in the beginning, but as the writer starts to write more they will correct their mistakes, all because perfect practice makes perfect.

Below is a passage that a beginning writer may write.

Joe went into the house and sat down. He turned on the t.v. and flipped to his favorite show. It wasn’t on, so he went to his room. Pressing the button, he found that his radio had stopped working. In a second he was in the kitchen. All of a sudden he found that he wasn’t hungry.

This passage has not an ounce of description, and note how those four words ‘ all of a sudden’ come onto the scene to tell us that he wasn’t hungry. Was that really necessary? Those four words can get a beginning writer in trouble, but at the start they are excused for it. Read how ‘all of a sudden’ works in the passage below:

Richard couldn’t understand why the fat bird didn’t just fly away to another branch, it was really bugging him. Trying not to be seen he ducked below a rock and took out his sandwich. Just the sight of lettuce and tomato sent a quiver through his stomach. Licking his lips he hefted the ham sandwich.

All of a sudden the bird swooped down and carried the sandwich away.

Why even use those words at all? They do nothing but rush things, and is a poor excuse for a writer to not use his imaginative mind. Wouldn’t you agree that perhaps ‘ in a blurring blue streak’, or ‘ in a rush of wind’ would be better suited instead of ‘ all of a sudden’? Below are words you should try to avoid when you can:

sudden
suddenly
unexpectedly
without warning
instantly
all at once
at once
quickly

I suggest that you never use these words to start off a moment of action, after a while they become clinched, which I will talk about later.

BEWARE OF SEQUENCE WORDS

Many beginning writers fall into the trap of sequence words all the time. When they want to tell how the sorcerer cast the spell, or how the crafters made the ship, they want to lead the reader every step of the way. In all truth you shouldn’t lead your reader every step of the way, only enough to get them to picture what it is you want them to see.

Below is how a more inexperienced writer would describe a sorcerer casting a spell:

Valmir stood in the clearing, watching the advancing army galloping across the plain. In a swift motion he raised his hands. First, a ball of howling flame arose from his palms with only a trace of thought. Second, he spun his arms until the flame engulfed them. Third, he twirled as if in a dance. Then, all of a sudden the ball left him and raced across the plain.

The air hung in stillness as he watched it moving away to the army. Finally, in a multitude of agonizing shrieks, the flame landed in the midst of the army. In an upheaval of stone they were blasted into the underworld.

This is how a more experienced writer would do that same scene. Observe closely:

Valmir stood in the clearing, watching the advancing army galloping across the plain. In a swift motion he raised his hands as a ball of howling flame came to his palms. Spinning his arms around he allowed the flame to engulf his hands.

With his eyes frozen on the army, Valmir spun as if in a dance. In a heated blast the ball left him and raced across the plain. The air hung in stillness as he watched it moving away to the army.

In a multitude of agonizing shrieks, the flame landed in the midst of the army. In an upheaval of stone they were blasted into the underworld.

See what I mean? This writer simply did away with all the first, second, and thrid. I would suggest you do the same.

WATCH YOUR SPELLING OF THE WORD

It is hard to not to fall into the trap-hole of deception, yet every writer, including me if you have notice, have typed a word that isn’t exactly the one they wanted. The writer is bound to skip over such errors, yet the reader will be very picky.

Most of you probably didn’t catch the misspelling of the word third in the second to last sentence in the last topic. When any writer gets into that zone when their typing up a tempest they usually forget their spelling. It’s only the story they see and nothing else. They will ultimately, if on a computer, will go back and hit the spell check button to supposedly correct such mistakes. But look at the type of problem arises in the short passage below:

” I want three oranges please,” Mara asked calmly. The clerk shook his head.

” I’m sorry, but you can only have too.”

Spell check saw nothing wrong with the spelling, yet their is a minor problem. The clerk said ‘too’ instead of ‘two’, and such an error is bound to come up in a lot of writing. Two, not too, is used to show an amount.

Below is a list of commonly confused words.

accept-to receive
except-to exclude

access-approach
excess-overabundance

angel-spiritual being
angle-corner

hanged-executed
hung-suspended

clothes-garments
cloths-fabric

complement-addition, to add
compliment-to praise

their-possessive of they
there-in that place

to-toward
too-also
two-the number

And the list goes on forever into the mists of bad writing. A good way to check for these mistakes will be to simply read your writing closely and pay attention to the words you type. If you don’t, your readers certainly will.

JARGON

Or the way you use your words. New writers fall head first into this quicksand, and yet they believe their not falling anywhere. A person who is a farmer in a story wouldn’t ever talk like a scientist working undercover for the government. People have their own way to saying their words, and how they make a point.

Most writers think jargon helps give their story some sort of sharp edge, thinking the reader will marvel at their span of vocabulary. Yes, they will marvel, but at how you could have ever written such a story without at least letting them know what it was all about.

Perceive the following:

It took Luther a plethora of time just to reach the multitudinous garden of herbs. The sirocco around him did nothing to the make his mind become dissuaded.

Luther rubbed his hands together with a smile.

” Now,” he said perturbed, ” I will commence the sacrament.”

Okay, now, can anyone tell me what all that was about? If you can’t, well neither can I. This writer used too many fancy words to polish the passage. And note how Luther spoke, his words seem almost robot-like in that they don’t sound…human.

This is that passage without the jargon:

It took Luther a long of time just to reach the large garden of herbs. The storm around him did nothing to the make his mind become discouraged.

Luther rubbed his hands together with a smile.

” Now,” he said uneasily, ” I will start the ceremony..”

See how better it flows? I even left the word count just the same, and yet it moves faster. Below is an example of jargon, the kind where a character says something he might not ever say:

Tom and Justin wandered around to the right side of the control board. Ahead them, surrounded by towers of steel and iron, a rocket smoked as it waited to be launched. With a sigh, Tom looked to his five year-old brother.

” If we want to get to Mars, how can we if this is so confusing!”

Justin smiled. ” I have it all figured out. You see that dial there? Well, if we where to pull it that will start the side boosters, and from their the computer will determine the angle of accession to an acute degree of normality. That will leave us a window of just ten minutes to get inside the rocket, buckle down and prepare ourselves for the thrust of the XX912 plasma boosters.”

Tom scratched his head.

Seems like little Justin has the brain of a rocket scientist, and at just five years old. It’s pretty obvious that Tom was thinking the same thing when he scratched his head. If you give us no reason why Justin would suddenly talk like that, then don’t do it. Most writers will use this kind of writing to get themselves out of something they can’t find a way out of.

A good way that I would have fixed this is to introduce a character at this point in the story who knows about how to launch rocket. Like Tom, I wouldn’t put my life in the hands of my five year old brother-if I had one.

CLICHÉS

A cliché is a word or group of words that have been used so often, too often, that they lose the once powerful thrust they did have. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ is a cliché that just doesn’t amuse anyone anymore, at one time it did. Can you imagine?

Here is a clinched passage:

The storm raged out of control. Across the mountains a herd of buffalo thundered down in anger. A fire suddenly blazed before them, and burned them all alive.

Note these words: raged, thundered, anger, and blazed. Those words are sitting in that passage and it makes this writer’s appear to be doing just that…sitting. Not every storm rages unless it’s a very big one; how big was that herd of buffalo coming down the mountain; and did the fire just to that, blaze?

This writer has written words that the reader commonly associate with life, but couldn’t the writer added his own imaginative boost?

Here’s that passage rewritten without words that have been overused.

It was only a second of time before the rains started to fall without mercy. Across a mountain in the distance, a herd of two thousand buffalo clambered down the steep slopes. A blinding shaft of lighting connected ground and sky together in an inkling of time. A fire erupted into a seething, uncontrollable mass of flickering orange light.

Because of their momentum the herd could not stop, and ran into the inferno to their deaths

That’s sound better because I have tidied up the words, and have done away with ones you would have expected.

Don’t you agree?

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