What I’ve learned writing Broken Patterns

For those of you who don’t follow me on social media, or just missed it over the weekend full of updates, I finished Broken Patterns on Saturday night.

 

It’s been two years and four months, but let me tell you it’s worth it.  I kicked back, drank some pink catawba wine, and made an estimated timeline for the second draft of Starting Chains.

 

I always say that nothing teaches you how to like writing.  Here’s what I learned from writing Broken Patterns.

 

  • Everything takes longer than you think it’s going to.  The fourth draft was supposed to take three months, but it ended up taking seven.  Life happened, and I didn’t have a choice but to let it.
  • Breaks are important.  I set Broken Patterns aside for four months while I wrote the rough draft of Starting Chains.  The book was a lot better for the fresh eyes I had after that.
  • If you’re writing a series, keep your notebook with you at all times, because ideas for the rest of the series will come up at every stage.
  • Celebrate the small wins.  Like I said, this took me two years and four months.  That’s a long time to get to a finish line.  I celebrated at the end of every draft.
  • The work is far from over.  I have plans for thirteen more books, with some hesitant ideas for two more.  That’s at least 13 more years of work on Woven.

 

And, of course, it’s time for me to change my hat again.  I’ve worn my artist hat, working on the rough draft.  I’ve worn my editor hat for most of this year, polishing Broken Patterns until it shone.  Now, I put on my businesswoman hat and find an agent.  I’ll keep you updated.

 

What Rocked Last Week

 

  • My family went to Light Up Night in Pittsburgh.  It was awesome, as always.  We saw the trees light up, and caught a laser light show set to music from the Gorillaz.
  • I got to start re-reading Starting Chains.  It’s decent.  I mean, it needs a ton of work, but I think it’s going to be pretty good.
  • I’ve gotten almost 40 hours of editing in for NaNoEdmo.  With just ten more to go, I think I’ll actually get this done.

 

What I’m Looking Forward to This Week

 

  • Thanksgiving, of course.  There’s nothing better than a whole day devoted to food, family and football.
  • I’ll be starting on my Christmas cards on Friday.  I know this is a hated chore for a lot of people, but I love it.
  • The monsters have their Thanksgiving vacation this week.  I’m looking forward to some time with them that doesn’t include yelling at them to pay attention to class.

So what did you do this week?  Have you finished your nano goal yet, or are you still plugging away?

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Bossypants, by Tina Fey

Image result for bossypants

Welcome to another edition of the Paper Beats World book club.  Here I talk about books I love that I think you’ll love too.  Some of them are indie books I was really impressed by.  Some of them are books I think every writer should read.  This month, it’s the latter.

Now, you should know that I think Tina Fey is literally the best person on the planet.  She’s hilarious, hard working, insane.  The best thing about her is that she’s honest, brutally honest about herself and others.  She’s also a brilliant writer.

The book is autobiographical, chronicling her life from childhood until sometime about halfway through the run of 30 Rock.  Again, Fey is very honest about herself.  She recounts, without flinching at all, things about her life that she was ashamed of, embarrassed by, and really freaking stoked over.

I would have loved Bossypants just because I love Fey’s voice.  I love to hear her tell stories.  But I learned so much about being a writer from her, and this book that I want to share with you.

Don’t let your gender stop you.

Comedy hasn’t always been a friend to women.  We aren’t slapstick, or vulgar, or any of the things that are supposed to be funny.  Except we are.  I think I’m freaking hilarious, of course, but let’s also consider Carol Burnett, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Kathleen Madigan, and a ton of others.  We are funny, and shocking, and capable of all the same things men are, (including writing our names in the snow.)

Men are smart, and capable of self control.  They are nurturing, and tender, and fully capable of writing ‘chick lit,’ romantic comedy, really anything a woman can write. Don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t write something because of your gender.

Do things before you think you’re ready.

I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but it bears repeating.  Why does it bear repeating?  Most people still don’t believe it.  Start your book even if you think you’re not ready.  Write a short story, and send it off even if you think you’re not ready.  Start researching agents, start calling yourself a writer, even if you think you’re not ready.  You might create some really fantastic material, even before you think you’re ready.

Education is good, but hard work is better.

Fey went to the University of Virginia, where she studied drama.  It seemed pretty clear to me that it was her experience at Saturday Night Live that made her the person she needed to be to make 30 Rock, and Mean Girls.  I’m similar.  I took Journalism and Creative Writing.  But I learned writing by writing.  I wrote a book, then another one and another one. I finished two rough drafts before I ever wrote something I thought worth my time to edit. I’ve written 15 short stories this year.  I am a better writer today than I was before I wrote those 15.  So, yes, get an education if you can.  I’ll never tell anyone that an education is a bad idea.  But experience will always be better.

Friends that know you’re the type to work your ass off are even better.

Fey will be the first to tell you that she got some of the opportunities she did because of the work relationships she made on Saturday Night Live, like Lorne Michaels.  Do you think for one second anyone would have wanted to help her out if she’d been lazy, sloppy, hard to work with, or just an overall pain in the ass?  No, probably not.  Learn from that, people.  Be known as a hard worker, someone who’s willing to do what’s needed to get the shit done, and people will want to work with you again.  Those are the kind of relationships that open doors later in life.

  

And my personal favorite line from the whole book, by Lorne Michaels, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready.  The show goes on because it’s 11:30”

Man, this is my new motto for life. Oh, I don’t think this chapter is quiiiite right.  Who cares, it’s 11:30, time to go! I can’t get my hair to lay right.  Too bad, it’s 11:30.  Maybe if I give this manuscript just one more once over… Nope! It’s 11:30, and it’s time to go!  I’m not saying rush, or don’t take care during the editing process.  But don’t focus on perfection, because you will never think a story is perfect.  Others will call it perfect; parents, lovers and friends will praise it.  You will still see the imperfections.  Stop, it’s 11:30.

I highly recommend reading Bossypants.  I recommend even more listening to the audio version, because Fey reads it herself.  Really, there’s nothing better than hearing that woman read her own work.

Let me know what you think of Bossypants, or anything else you’re reading that’s rocking your world.

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Samaritan’s Purse

Before I had the awesome day job I have now, I had a terrible day job as the manager of a shoe store.  From that experience I got a lot of great retail horror stories, a deep appreciation for how good my current day job is, and an introduction to this really cool charity.

One day, an older gentleman came in, and asked if we had any extra shoe boxes.  We did, we always did.  I asked the man what they were for, and he said they were for the Samaritan’s Purse drive.

So, you might have heard of this charity before, but if you haven’t, let me break it down.  You get a shoe box, and you fill it with gifts.  You can do this by age or gender.

I love this charity for a lot of reasons.  The biggest one is that it gets my monsters involved.  I let them each fill a shoe box with gifts, which is a blast for them.  It also makes them think about the child in need that will get just that box of gifts for Christmas, and how blessed they are.

If you want to help out, here’s what you can do.

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Bonus Post! New 2015 Nanowrimo and Nanoedmo shopping list!

  1. Lots of red pens.
  2. Highlighters, in a rainbow of color.  I’m not surprised that the ones I bought during back to school are all gone.  The monsters took them
  3. Chocolate, again.
  4. I bought a french press!  Just another way to make a copious amount of coffee, which I’ll be needing.
  5. Some really good sharp cheese, to keep my energy up.
  6. Some VOD movie vouchers, so I can edit while the monsters watch movies.
  7. index cards, for when I have to rip my outline apart and start over.  Again.
  8. A pillow for my desk chair.  My hard, unyielding, desk chair.
  9. A playstore gift card for loud music. (It helps me think)
  10. Asprin, for headaches and wrist aches.
  11. Lots of trips to the printers, which will also mean lots of stops by the coffee shop.
  12. A large bottle of red wine, to celebrate finally (hopefully) finishing Broken Patterns!
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Why Do We Want Horror Stories?

Now, I’m going to talk about something that has been gone over at great length by Stephen King.  I learned a lot about writing and appreciating the horror genre by reading Danse Macabre, On Writing, and the intro to his short story collection, Graveyard Shift.  I would highly advise anyone who wants to write horror to read all three.  That being said, I’m going to try to say something that Mr. King hasn’t already.  Since brevity isn’t his thing, this may be hard.

I am a grown woman.  I pay taxes, have a good job, raise two kids and have a loving marriage.  All indications that I am a responsible adult who should know better than to do certain stupid things.

But I am also a stupid fourteen year old girl.  Here’s an example.

Before I go to sleep every night, I like to lay in bed and read things on Pintrest.  I don’t want to get back up after, so I do this in the dark.  This is all fine and dandy when I’m reading articles about plot, homeschooling, making pickled eggs, looking at cat pictures, reading comics or being ‘inspired’ by all the lovely quotes.

It becomes a problem when I find a post titled “The Creepiest Chat Session I’ve Ever Seen.”  Now, I was actually reading funny posts, so I thought there was a joke at the end.  Spoiler, there wasn’t.  Now, just to make matters worse, here’s some things you should know about my house.

  • I have a dark colored cat, you’ve seen pictures.
  • My new house is creaky, and I’m still adjusting to the fact that we are the only ones in the building, so if there are noises in the basement, it’s not our downstairs neighbor.
  • The closet in my bedroom has a built in crevice, that has a swinging door.  Perfect for Christmas gifts and creatures who want to rip out my guts and show them to me before I die.
  • The way my bed is positioned, my head is three feet from said scary ass closet.

And there I am, reading the creepy boards.  (If you want to read this post, btw, it’s on my Pintrest board, random.)

Why the hell did I do this to myself?  I’m aware that stuff like this keeps me up at night.  But I did it anyway.  I know I’m not the only one.  There’s a reason why “When you see it,” is all over the internet.

So why do we want to scare the hell out of ourselves?

It makes us feel young

When I talked about being scared in the night, I likened myself to a fourteen year old.  That’s not an unusual analogy.  When we’re kids, everything scares us.  There is nothing not scary about being a kid.  What’s that spider?  Will I die if it bites me?  I don’t know, so I should probably stay away.  What’s that creaking in the basement?  Who is that person walking very close to me?  Do they mean me harm?  Where’s my dad, I can’t see him in this crowd!

Being scared as a child, until you learn better how to deal with the world around you, makes perfect sense.  Scared keeps you safe, after all.

As we get older, though, we aren’t scared so easy.  We become jaded.  There is nothing that really scares us anymore, because we think we’ve seen it all.  Then something scares us, and we feel young again.

Fear goes hand in hand with curiosity

This one is pretty simple.  Things that are scary are also fascinating.  We want to know about them, because they’re new.  Humans have this need to know things we don’t know. It’s something that I, and The Doctor, love about us.  Zombies scare us, but they also sort of facinate us.  Because it’s something new.  We are curious.

Horror stories have heroes

Lots of people die in horror stories.  But usually one or two make it out okay.  I think that’s really comforting, don’t you?  If that chick can get through a whole movie with a chainsaw wielding murderer chasing after her, I can probably get through whatever is going on in my life.

More than that, though, the hero in a horror story is often doing something selfless, something brave and stupid that risks their own lives to save others.  Horror story heroes are braver, I think, than other heroes.  An adventure hero is usually a marine, or a firefighter, and they’re saving people from natural disasters and bad guys with guns.  A horror story hero is usually a regular person who happened to stumble on a nightmare situation, like a mist that spawns terrifying monsters.  But there they are, acting all heroic.  It’s inspiring.  I wouldn’t do it, by the way.  If zombies come to my town, I am getting my monsters and getting the hell out of dodge.  But it’s still inspiring.

Horror stories reinforce our moralities

A couple weeks ago we talked about the ‘rules for surviving a scary movie,’ as seen on Scream.  The later ones varied, but the first movie’s rules were pretty moralistically upstanding.  1. Don’t drink or do drugs, 2. Don’t have sex.  3. Don’t say “I’ll be right back.”

Now, the last one’s just common sense.  It’s right there with, ‘don’t ever say what a good thing it is that the weather’s nice,’ and everything else Newton has ever said.  But the first two are absolutely based on a moral standpoint that I think we would all like our teenagers to have.  It’s a moral code that a lot of people hold themselves to, avoiding ‘vices’ like casual sex and booze.  I think that anyone who is working so hard to repress a desire for such things would appreciate seeing those who indulge in them get chainsawed.  Horror stories tell us that we are right to stay on this side of the moral line.

Horror stories make us feel better about our lives

Well, maybe this one is just me.  But when I watch The Walking Dead, I have a hard time complaining about my day job.  I read Misery, and it puts my sad life into focus.

The horror story, basically, is a chance for us to see the real, honest to goodness, worst case scenario.  It is never going to be worse than zombies.  It’s never going to be worse than a demon house that wants to eat you.  It’s never going to be worse than a town full of men who are replacing their wives with machines.

And yet, as I mentioned earlier, the characters of a horror story not only survive their terrifying experiences, they often find a better, braver part of themselves that they didn’t know they had.

In short, as strange as it might sound, horror stories give us hope that in the end, everything is going to be okay.  Just so long as we’re the main character, that is.

And so long as you keep your closet door closed, and stick to cat pictures late at night.

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A Writers Horror, Depression

Writers are weird.  We all know this.  We voluntarily lock ourselves in rooms and write made up stuff.  We are weird.

Statistically speaking, we are also often depressed.

I found out recently that, in addition to being an introvert, I suffer from depression.  That puts me on the list with Stephen King, Mark Twain, JK Rowling, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath (guess everyone knew that one), and Ann Rice.  It probably also puts me on the same list as some of you.

I’m not going to go into signs and symptoms of depression.  There are lots of sites for that.  If you’re worried that you might be suffering, here is a link to a site that can help.

What I  am going to talk about, is what we can do about depression.  I also want to talk about what you should do if you’re not depressed, but you have a loved one who is.

What can you do to help yourself if you’re depressed?

  • First thing, get help.  Find a doctor, get diagnosed, and get the facts right away.  I put this off for longer than I should have, telling myself I was just tired.  The problem is, just tired turns into I’m always tired.  That turns into, maybe I’m just lazy.  Then it’s ‘what’s the matter with me?  Why can’t I just get it together and handle myself?’  Once I was able to understand that this wasn’t just me being unable to adult properly, I was able to make better, healthier decisions.
  • Understand your triggers.  For me, I can only stand talking to people face to face for so long.  It takes energy away from me.  I also can’t stand being alone for too long, or going too long without writing.  Seriously, if I go too many days in a row without writing something, it puts me in a very dark place, emotionally.  Clutter and mess also do this to me.
  • Learn what can help you when you’re already depressed.  Like a shower, or a long journal session.  I’ve found listing reasons to be happy helps, if I’m not too far gone.  I also pin animal videos on Pintrest, because they always make me smile, at least a little bit.  Stuffed animals and origami help me, too.
  • Learn what long term habits can help you.  For instance, I’ve found that if I don’t think I look nice, I’m more likely to get depressed.  So I don’t own anything I don’t like how I look in.  I am super low maintenance with my make up, but a little grey eyeliner makes me feel better about my face.  I also know that I feel light years better if I’ve accomplished something.  So I plant little goals in among my big goals, for a boost when I need it.  Healthy eating also helps me feel overall happier.
  • Do not indulge in depressants when you’re not well.  You all know I appreciate a glass of wine in the evening.  And while I don’t enjoy the ‘Colorado experience’ myself, I’ll not judge.  But I do not have a drink if I’m having a not healthy day, mentally.  Because I know it won’t help, and with my family history, can lead to a serious addiction.  And do I really need to go into the list of creatives who have died from drug overdoses?  No, I bet I don’t.
  • Build a support system.  My husband is mine, but I’ve got some loving friends that I can call up too.  You need people around you who don’t judge, but who can also help you make healthy choices.
  • Have a pet.  My cat Harper seems to know when I’m having a not good day, and she’s extra cuddly.
  • Trust yourself.  If you think you should call in sick, do it.  If you think you’re feeling overwhelmed and need to exit a situation, do it.  If you need to just be alone for awhile, make it happen.  If you listen to yourself, you’ll know what you need.

Living with depression is kind of like living with a little bracelet on each wrist, that over the course of the day gets heavier and heavier, until you can’t move your hands or arms at all.  Living with depression is like someone suddenly setting off a smoke bomb with no given warning.  Living with depression is like someone else has the power to make it a rainy day when before there was nothing but blue skies.

Living with someone who has depression is hard on a whole different level.  If you’ve got a spouse or child who suffers from it, here are some things you should keep in mind.

  • It’s emotionally hard!  Please, consider having a therapist yourself, or risk falling right down the dark hole with us.  You know that old adage about putting your own oxygen mask on first?  Remember that!  Full disclosure, I have depression, but it’s mild.  It’s incredibly mild compared to my husband.  I spent a long time ignoring my own symptoms, and my own emotional well being, because I wanted to take care of him.  That just meant I was in no fit state for anything, and failed him when he needed me the most, because I’d broken down inside mentally.
  • Being depressed is like being physically sick.  Don’t get mad at us, we can’t help this anymore than someone with the flu can.
  • Know the difference between an annoying habit related to depression, and a dangerous one.  My annoying depressing habit, spending three hours in the only bathroom in the house, soaking.  My dangerous depressing habit, spending money we don’t have on worthless junk that doesn’t even make me happy and just lowers my self worth further, thereby making me feel worse for having wasted my family’s resources.  Pick your battles, is what I’m saying.
  • Make them go to the doctor when they’re supposed to.  Make them take their medicine.
  • Don’t take behavior that makes you feel bad.  Yes, depression is hard, but there is nothing that excuses abusive behavior, either verbal or physical.  Don’t use, ‘she’s depressed,’ as a reason it’s okay for your wife to say hurtful things to you.

Listen, the point is that I want all of you to live long, happy lives creating.  I want the same thing for myself.  Take care of yourselves.  Stay clean, stay healthy.  We don’t need anymore creatives to drink themselves to death, or committing suicide.

Finally, here’s a list of writing exercises that can help fight depression.

  1. Journal every day.  It tracks your moods, and can help you see patterns in your behavior.
  2. List reasons you have to be happy.
  3. List all the reasons you’re sad, and then try to think of things you can do to fix them.
  4. Free write, about anything.  Maybe, if there’s something that’s really bothering you, it will come out.
  5. Make a list of things that can make you feel better.  Keep it near, for when depression strikes.
  6. Write about your depression, and if you can, be open about it.  You’ll never know if you’re the person to tell another writer that it’s okay to feel this way, and it doesn’t make us bad people.

And that is the lesson I’d like to leave you all with.  Depression is not a failing, it’s not a thing that makes us bad or weak.  It’s a chemical imbalance, or it’s flat out PTSD from something dark or horrendous that happened to us.  Either way, we are not to blame for our depression, and we should not feel ashamed because of it.

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Words Change Worlds, The Plight of Rottewilers

As promised, welcome to a new monthly column here on Paper Beats World, called Words Change Worlds.

This column is dedicated to charities and causes that we, as writers, can help with.  It’s based on the theory that we can make a difference in our world, as writers.

This month, I’d like to talk to you about dogs.  Pitbulls and rottweilers to be specific.

Totally vicious, that dog.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, and know something of the controversy.  Rotties and pits are thought to be vicious dogs far more likely to bite and injure people.

But it isn’t true.  The truth of the matter is much darker than that.  The truth is that this myth of the dangerous dog breed has lead to countless cases of death and abuse for these dogs.

In the past, rotties and pits were bred to be guard dogs, much like german shepherds.  The shepherd, however, has obtained a great reputation.  Recently, pitts have been used in cage fighting, banned in 13 states, and generally treated as a dangerous breed.

What these dogs need are advocats.  They need people to say a dog is a dog, and it is the owners and breeders who train them to attack who should be punished.  They need to be treated with love.

The plight of pit bulls and rottweilers is dark.  In addition to being banned in many states, owning one of those dogs can be dangerous for the owners.

  • Owning a pit or rottie can raise your homeowners insurance.
  • You are more likely to be in danger of a lawsuit when you own a pit bull.
  • You will run the risk of your dog being accused of attacks.  And if your dog does bark, or become territorial about your yard, you are very likely to lose your pet, even if no one was harmed.
  • In many cases, owning a pit or a rottie will limit the places you have to live.  It’s already to the point where owning a cat or dog can greatly restrict your rental options.  Even pet friendly places might not be keen on these breeds.

Oh, and let’s not forget the worst case scenarios for these animals.  Most shelters who still have kill policies will prioritize the breeds they kill, and remove the pits and rotties first.  Now, I have mixed feelings about kill or no kill shelters to start with.  But when you throw in killing an animal for its breed, I have no mixed feeling at all.  It’s just wrong.

Of course, being humanely put down is preferable to being tossed into a gage being forced to fight each other.  Let’s not forget that the whole image of the vicious breed is promoted by illegal fighting rings.

So what can you do, to help protect the pits and rotties?  Here’s some things you can do.

  • If you live in a state that bans pit bulls and rottweilers, write to your congressman and representatives.
  • Write your local ASPCA, encouraging them to ban the killing of pit bulls and rottweilers.
  • If you can, please post something on your own blog about the plight of pit bulls and rottweilers.  They need us.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this first issue of Words Change Worlds.  If you have any suggestions for charities or causes that you’d like to see spotlighted, let me know at nicolecluttrell86@Gmail.com

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In Defense Of Swearwords

If any of you were to meet me on the street, or in a professional setting of any kind, you would never be able to guess this, but I have a really dirty mouth.  I’m fond of saying that my monsters got their advanced vocabularies from me.  That includes some four letter words we try not to say in front of Grandma anymore.  Unless the Steelers are playing, then we are reminded that my mother in law was actually a sailor.

I cannot stand to hear someone say that swearwords show a level of ignorance in a person.  I am an intelligent, professional person with a wide vocabulary who sometimes thinks that fuck is the right word for the given situation.

I’m not here to tell you that you should start swearing in your everyday life.  I’ve found that swearing is like smoking; people who do it are offended by people who don’t, and people who don’t are grossed out by people who do.  I don’t smoke, though, that’s disgusting.

I am, however, here to make the point that maybe your characters should swear.  Here’s why.

It’s honest

It is not realistic for every one of your characters to have clean mouths all of the time, because that’s not how the world works.  It’s full of people swearing at other drivers, their spouses, their bosses, strangers on the bus.  Not everyone swears, and not everyone swears all the time.  But lots of people do, and if none of your characters do, it’s not going to feel as real.

It tells us about your character

Whether or not someone choses to swear does tell us things about that person.  But you can do so much more with it than that.  When someone chooses to swear is often far more telling.  For instance, someone who swears but has the good sense to not do it in front of the boss is a far different person than the one who doesn’t.  Likewise, the character that never swears, but then tells someone to go f*%& themselves is telling us a lot.

It can help set a scene

If you have a scene in church, or an office, or a child’s birthday party, there isn’t going to be a lot of swearing.  But there are a lot of places that can be more flexible.  Take, for instance, an ER.  If your mc is walking into the ER and she hears “Son of a bitch!” well, you know it’s an ER with a problem.  People don’t generally swear for mellow, pastel feelings.  I always say that it’s a strong word to convey a strong emotion.  Use that.

Our language is so versatile.  It’s colorful, it can be very subtle or very direct.  Don’t limit yourself by declaring certain words out of bounds.

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Book Review, Nightblade

A few months ago, I started reading indie books to review.  I really love the whole concept, you know?  Self publishing, being like an indie band, selling copies of books out of our trunks.  Still flat broke but with some die hard fans.  I mean, how cool would that be?

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to start posting reviews of books I read.  Lots of things have prevented that.  Time constraints were a big issue, of course.  I just don’t have enough time to read as much as I want.  And I read a lot that isn’t indie, of course.

Then there were the books themselves.  I really didn’t want to write a review of an indie book that I really hated.  That seemed cruel.

But then!  I just finished an indie book that I truly enjoyed.  Then I read some traditionally published stories that I wanted to share with you all, too.  So I’m going to start reviewing books on Paper Beats World.  My hope is that I’ll be able to do two a month, and I really hope a lot of them will be indie books.  But I make no promises.

Anyway, the indie book that changed my mind is called NightBlade, by Garrett Robinson.  It is the subject of Paper Beats World’s very first book review.

This was a really fast paced fantasy story about a girl named Loren.  She’s a pretty miserable young woman.  Her parents are horrible to her, seeing her only for what she can do for them.  But she’s got little more than a fantasy of being a thief to sustain her until a mage stumbles into her village, tailed by lawmen.

Now,the book isn’t without it’s flaws.  The secondary characters like the father and village boy who’s in love with Lauren are pretty one dimensional.  Other characters, like Lauren herself, aren’t though.  While I do question her desire to actually run off with some stranger, she’s interesting.

All in all, I liked Nightblade.  It was a fun read, even if it didn’t do more than that.

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Said Is Not Dead!

I’ve been seeing this phrase around the internet recently, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s pissing me off.  “Said is dead.”  Have you seen this?  I really hope that it’s just a trend, and it dies a merciless death soon.

Said is a simple word.  He said, she said, they said.  I like simple words when I’m writing, and I’m not alone.  Steven King and I might not agree on outlines or how many sex scenes a horror story needs, but we do agree on this.  At least according to his book On Writing, which should be on every indie author’s reading list.

I understand that there are a lot of reasons people want to use more complex words, especially in transition.  You might think they’re boring, or that maybe your line of dialog wasn’t clear, so it needs a little help.  Maybe you just want to show off how smart you are.  Here, though, are five reasons why you should reconsider.

You should always use the right word for the situation

For example, the word very. (This is about all simple words, not just said)  I hate the word very when used in description.  The sun was not very bright.  It was blistering, it was sparkling.  He had never seen a brighter sun.  The writer who uses very in description is being lazy.  They are half assing it.

But, your characters should be free to use very whenever they please, so long as the dialog rings true for them.  If “the sun is very bright today,” sounds like what your character would say, then let her say it.  The same goes for any simple word.

If a simple word will do, it’s probably best to just use it

Especially if it was the first word that came to mind.  That is most likely to be the most natural, and most comfortable word.  Which means that it’s less likely to jar the reader.  If I read a line with the word pejorative, for instance, that’s jarring.  I know what it means, but negative would have worked just as well.  Now I’ve got the chant from that Simpson’s episode where Homer is accused of pinching the baby sitter’s bottom because she had candy stuck to her.  Totally great episode, but now I’m not thinking about your story anymore.  Complex words, when not needed, confuse laymen and distract word nerds.

Using complex words doesn’t mean you’re talking down to your readers

The New York Times is written to a fifth grade reading level.  Let’s just start with that.  So if such a well known big name newspaper is aiming there, you shouldn’t feel bad at all about writing to a similar level.  But always remember that simple words do not equal a simple thought.  Think of Steinbeck, author of such books as Of Mice And Men and Grapes Of Wrath.  Do you consider those books condescending?  Me either, yet the language is the very simplest.

If you’re writing for kids, don’t listen to me

I have a pretty impressive vocabulary, because I watch Simpsons and read Calvin and Hobbs.  I am not making that up.  My monsters are even better than I was at their age, because they read Calvin and Hobbs and Series of Unfortunate Events.  I love children writers who use great stories to teach difficult words.

I, however, am not writing for kids, so I really do not care to expand my audience’s vocabulary.  I would settle for teaching people to use the words they already know better.

Finally, the number one reason to use simple words

Your job as a fiction writer is to tell a story.  Your job as a non fiction writer is to convey information in an entertaining way.  Whatever words you chose should help you do that, not distract from it.  Just use said, and tell the damn story.

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