Keep these Ideas and Words Out!

by Sarah McCarthy

[box]Sarah McCarthy talks about some words and ideas that she feels have been overused by students while writing, more often quite unnecessarily. Read on to find out her take on this subject.[/box]

I promise: this is not one of THOSE essays. You know the kind. Someone (generally some writer you have never heard of) prattles on for pages and pages about the state of writing these days, how no one cares about good English anymore, how what we need is DISCIPLINE, gosh darn it, good, old-fashioned discipline. There are enough of THOSE essays already, and I am not nearly old enough or important enough to write one.

This is only intended to be an attack upon various words and phrases that, through some ingenious PR campaign, have convinced many writing students that they belong in fiction or essays. Some particularly clever phrases have actually convinced young writers that they are necessary for good writing. As a teacher for one year in the boroughs of New York City, and then later in Seattle, Washington, I’ve seen a lot of writing. While it’s possible that only my students are enamored with these ideas and words I somewhat doubt the possibility. Over the past three years, I have read creative writing from notably different groups: 7th graders in the Bronx, Catholic 5th graders, English language learners at a New England boarding school, college students. These words and phrases have infiltrated all these groups. They must be stopped.

CULPRIT 1

Enveloped.

There is nothing at all wrong with the noun form of this word. An envelope is a useful, unassuming object that absolutely belongs in a story, if your character happens to be one of those freaks who actually still sends letters. But characters are forever being enveloped—in mist, in each other’s arms, in fog, in blankets. This word sounds fancy and has a pleasing multi-syllabic ring, but it’s hard to account for its tragic popularity. “Enfold” is almost as bad, and the reality is, there are other – better options: have there be thick fog, have people hug one another tightly, but please kill off this goofy and pretentious non-word.

CULPRIT 2

Veins.

Most everyone I know manages to lead a full and active life without stopping constantly to think about those gross blue things under their wrists. Fiction characters have no such luck. “She felt the blood coursing through her veins.” “His voice made the blood in her veins run cold.” These phrases might have created a surprising, exciting image in the medieval times. Unfortunately, 1,000 years have passed, though, and just because people still have veins doesn’t mean that we need to talk about them constantly.

CULPRIT 3

Ominous/Ominously.

This word itself isn’t so bad to say in real life—I use it constantly in reference to the sounds that my 1985 Volvo makes. But in writing, it’s a clumsy cop-out way to do foreshadowing, and usually it’s not needed at all. Edgar Allen Poe managed to create intensely suspenseful scenes by describing them in plain language without tacking on this modifier. If the sky is dark, we might deduce that something bad is going to happen without being told that “the dark clouds were hanging ominously.” It is
deeply chilling to read about the raven “gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door”….much more chilling than to be told “I heard an ominous rapping at my chamber door.”

CULPRIT 4

“I woke up and, for a moment, had no idea where I was”/ “I woke up and wondered if it all had been a dream”/ “I angrily hit the snooze button…”

Unless your story is called something like “Bed,” your characters should probably be up and dressed before we’re forced to read about them. The whole “wake up scene” has been written about a gajillion times, and, as it turns out, isn’t all that interesting. Everyone has to wake up and get out of bed. No one likes it. Fiction characters, though, are often making the whole matter into much more of a production than it need be, always waking “with a start” and having unnecessarily intense feelings about the sun “streaming in through the windows” and their “blaring” alarm clock. Worst of all, these scenes neither advance character nor plot. You can’t tell anything about someone’s character based on how they wake up—some of the kindest people I have had the pleasure of knowing are extremely unpleasant in the morning. Who cares? If you want to show that your character is a grumpy and unpleasant person, have him poison his wife’s coffee or drop-kick his dog. The way he hits his snooze button is not a telling detail.

CULPRIT 5

“He tried to shut out the racing thoughts but it was no use” (or other “thinking about not thinking phrases”)

Like the wake up scene, this is an easy and familiar thing to write that does nothing at all for plot or character development and just takes up space. ‘Twilight’ probably has the most impressively protracted and boring one of these scenes ever put into print: “I dug through my desk until I found my old headphones, and I plugged them into my little CD player. I picked up a CD that Phil had given to me for Christmas. It was one of his favorite bands, but they used a little too much bass and shrieking for my tastes…I concentrated very carefully on the music, trying to understand the lyrics, to unravel the complicated drum patterns…And it worked. The shattering beats made it impossible for me to think—which was the whole purpose of the exercise.” That is a heavily abridged version. The real thing goes on for a page and a half and should win some kind of ‘Least Necessary Use of Paper in the Universe’ award. Even if you have more restraint than Ms. Meyer, avoid the whole charade. Just have your character think already. You know, and your reader knows, that the sentence will not end “I tried to shut out my thoughts…and it worked flawlessly!”

There are worse things than these phrases and words. At least, so I’ve heard. But they are thieves that steal the life from writing, turning interesting stories into a pretentious muddle. And they do so under the pretense of adding beauty, depth, dimension, and poetry. They do none of the above. They envelope your plot in ugly fog, they chill the blood in your reader’s veins and they ominously foretell the end of your writing career. Stop them. It is not too late.

Pic : Pink Sherbet – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/

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