Run-On Sentences, Run-On Mind

Many new writers stumble on the run-on sentence at some stage of their development. As with a great deal of concepts strict grammaticians frown on, this is one of those yellow flag areas that are at least worth looking at more keenly when you spot them in editing. 

What can it say about you as a writer? It hardly means you're inexperienced or careless. What it can betray is a hurried need to connect thoughts without taking a breath, almost begging your reader not to abandon ship. Musicians will be familiar with the term breath-marks which, like commas, guide us both mentally and when reading aloud to... pause and feel the rhythm, connect the words. While I'm personally a fan of fragment chains that connect several events in synch, there are also times when I'm simply showing a reluctance to create the pause of a completed thought with a period. Examples of places I've caught renegade commas and how I correct them?

• She does something but what he does is something else; he gets a semi-colon, not another comma, especially when they have their own adjective and action fragments.
• Her action has many fragment chains, many thoughts. Her new action is different and no longer a part of that idea.
• I really want their actions to happen together so I reflect that—oh, noooo; an em-dash to continue it. Don't use an em-dash to avoid a comma that should be a period.

Use paragraphs as the indicator of what thoughts and actions run together. Use shorter paragraphs to denote a faster pace where you aren't looking too closely. Use longer ones when you want the reader to slow down and contemplate. Visually, this is often an unconscious signifier so trust your readers' instincts more. So what are some ways paragraphs subtly lead?

For one, use it to keep conversation neat and limit those he-said/she-said's. This has its own sub-examples.

• "I'm talking." She picked up the microphone before continuing. "You're listening."
• "You're talking," she commanded, but it was clear she wasn't done talking. "Let me get a drink first."
• "They're talking—" Her look dared him to interrupt. "—but I'm not listening."

Now with the em-dash interruptions come other techniques; you can start the interrupted sentence, use a new paragraph to start a verbal interruption, then yet another so the interrupted can em-dash/speak the rest of their sentence over them. Interruptions can be tricky business in novels since your words and actions are visually sequential rather than able to layer like in movies and other visual media. However, this is one of the ways you can introduce that occurrence. May I add that it's usually a good idea to really cut out any he-said/she-said tags if possible. Try to isolate the speakers to two possible culprits before you use it. 

Example:

Chisa was done with Hara's whining. She stood in front of Hara, an expression demanding Hara's full attention.

"Listen, you whining little mess, you—"

"I really don't need this..."

"—are just going to have to learn to set aside your drama and do what needs to be done!" Chisa tossed Hara the dirty bucket she'd dropped on the stool. "Start with this. These walls aren't going to clean themselves!"

Now that example includes the bonus of the paused speech-action-speech paragraph. In this way, I could avoid insisting that Chisa yelled, said or any other obvious variation, and just focused on her action before continuing. We get pretty quickly that she's irritated so you can trust the reader to pick up on that and focus on the fast pace of a tense moment.

Let me reiterate that run-on sentences are still a yellow flag, not red. Sometimes they work. They can create a cascade of words that leave you breathless. Sentences carry their own rhythms and at times, the effect of a long sentence can actual captivate the reader. Then, a short point can be more powerful.

She ran and ran but, no matter which way she took, there was another door, another wall, so her steps grew shorter and slower, then not at all. She had nowhere to go.

In that quick example, there's even a sort of poetry to the unintentional spacing between 'wall' and 'all' that creates a rhythm in the moment. For some, that subtle use might make us aware of holding our breath or even a racing heart if this is a build in a suspense scene.

You can excuse a busy mind as the initial reason for run-on sentences. Certainly, don't set out to eliminate all of them on your edits. Endeavor to limit their uses to where they might be most powerful. Be more critical of any sentence that exceeds two or three commas. Rework them if they just don't assist in the style or pace. 

Just like the use of fancier words, you sometimes want to save them where they are the exact word for the situation, not just proof you know how to use a thesaurus. While the 'very is lazy' idea is one I stand behind, I'd recommend using 'very happy' if you're writing for an audience that hasn't learned the word 'ecstatic' yet. Young readers are hard enough to snag these days, so limit where they detach from your book to look up a word.

In every case of the word 'rule' being thrown carelessly about advice for writers, there is ripe opportunity to find the exception. Even my trusting nature has learned to believe all rules have exceptions, so don't excuse a trusting nature as reason to accept it as the only good advice. Go ahead and challenge yourself to aggravate grammaticians—write a 50+ word sentence correctly using at least one em-dash, semi-colon, a comma and a period. Why? Because you can. There's a correct way to bend any rule so go ahead and challenge yourself with it. Why not risk doing it incorrectly even?

It wasn't because she hated him or even herself that she scratched his lover's name into his window; for her, it was an affirmation that she had no place in his life—as if she'd ever had a proper place at all!—and this was simply her way of moving on.

Hey, now, I couldn't just pose it to you without attempting it myself, could I? So give it a try. First, sort out how they are used, then create a sentence that can carry on the task. How about... not making much sense?

I've never been that blizzant about purple picklesnarf—my grandmagi would attest to this— but if you never get the opportunity, then disregard what I'm about to say; for the rest of you, I'd caligant to the nearest harsram before Ankersdam before you regret it for the rest of your unnatural lives.

That one sounds a bit Lewis Carrol and Tim Burton writing a sci-fi collaboration, but you get the gist. It's less about making perfect sense all the time and more about having fun with words.

So let your mind run-on from time to time, even if you're normally a very serious writer. Especially if you're a serious writer. Just like the best scientists are creative-minded, being a better writer involves abandoning some comfort zones.

Either way, don't red-flag those run-on sentences. If you want to feel them out, read them aloud using the punctuation marks as guides. Chances are, if you need to stop to take breaths because your style is leaving you winded, that is where you might benefit from a different strategy.

Hope this one serves you well. I might do more posts combining style and grammar in the future. I really enjoyed this one at least. Keep writing, peoples!

Color Obsession

I'm not starting this one with any attempt at racial integration (and really arguments involving sexualization/food corresponding with skin color are mentally fucking exhausting to me anyway). No, in this case, I want to poke at how color is used in writing. Namely, starting with a gripe-- the need to use a different color word every time someone describes the eyes, bodily fluids, etc.

Why? Because colors aren't really that interchangeable on some levels. While you CAN compare a skin color to caramel and people can easily picture that hue (whether it's favorable or not), you can't as successfully interchange turquoise, aqua, sky blue, cobalt and any damn blue you want. Whyyyyy?

Number one, and probably like you, the audience doesn't know the difference like it is displayed above. Yet, they'll probably notice that you use a different color every time. Even if you think it might be clever to attach those colors to every mood they have, the reader is probably just going to think it annoying or pretentious. Okay, don't really care about that in the long run, but I will say it irks me that writers think this somehow enriches their writing when it doesn't.

I forget who said it and I'm in free-writing mode to warm up to NaNo, but it may have been Ursula Le Guin but it could be Tolkien for all I keep track (again, please don't take my word for it). In essence, the idea is that repetition is not a thing to be strictly avoided. In an earlier post, I covered this with a sub-heading "Sometimes an apple is just an apple" although that was more focused on someone detailing a fruit to try to be creative rather than it being interesting or relevant. Yet still, it tapped on the idea I'm after here with color-- that it's okay to just use the exact word that you mean once again rather than always finding a similar word to avoid repetition. Don't say 'a round object used to make transportation easier' if you mean a wheel. Simplified words are far more indicative of your intelligence and creativity. Trying to use many similar words interchangeably runs the risk of sending even intelligent readers too far off course of vocabulary knowledge.

As for colors, yeah, you can get away with using turquoise and teal to similar effect. However, traditionally, people do picture turquoise to be a darker shade than teal. As you can see, turquoise and aqua even sit in similar shade groups (but sky blue and cobalt are nowhere close).

I'm not saying not to pull out a 'viridian' or 'canary' in your writing, just be maybe aim to be consistent and even scarce. Let lust darken their eyes or happiness lighten them, but don't always feel the need to find the word for that color or mention it at all. It can just be lighter or darker and 'a shade of green' if you must. Although in actuality, that's a bit wordy, maybe that will convince you to be simpler, vaguer, because it's just not that important to the scene. Many writers will insist it IS important but then get frustrated when their readers constantly point out that it was distracting rather than helpful.

Moving onto blood... yes, it can have meaning in the shade as well. Thin blood is brighter than thick or coagulated blood. Dried blood is brown. However, fresh, coagulated, and dried are all powerful enough words without the ruby, crimson or brown attachments. In cases where the wounded doesn't realize it's blood at all, their perception of shock accompanied by it being warm, sticky or reddish before the realization of pain or property sets in can work to invite the reader to realize it before they do. Being too coy about 'ruby droplets' can infantilize an otherwise powerful scene rather than add mystery. Yet the pulse-born steady gush of a deep wound can add the right effect. Rather than be married to the stream of colorful words, you will still find depth and purpose in the words you more carefully select.

Again, let's refer back to 'killing your darlings.' Sometimes that inspired outpouring of prose will need to be butchered down to simpler elements to consider pace, structure and plot more. There is a reason you find more blog posts concerning those things rather than creative writing. Most creatives come by the minute details naturally, but the experienced writer will cut these down on the revision. Being married to words can be a bitter relationship that muddies the story. One hard rule that is still flexible is that the story comes first. You don't need to bury your voice, but don't let it trump your story either.

In the interest of detail, one way to make repetition less cumbersome is in the presentation of the sentences supporting it. I tend to have a love for towering spires and I also love that the word is exactly the right one. Yet when I speak of their features at times, I'll play instead with the adjectives-- make them catch the sunlight or glitter from the stones they are made of. They're jutting or proud or neglected or crumbling. Even then, I try not to obsess on them in a series of paragraphs and even labor to not give them more prominence than they need. As for whether the word is used twice or more in one sentence? Learn not to let it bother you if you need to use every instance. One of the best places for variation will always lie in the adjectives and verbs. Those are expressly made for the job!

You may have noticed I have a particular obsession with color, but it's something I don't force on my writing either. Unless I'm writing a story about a character that shares this obsession, I'm assuming too much as the narrator. If I need to flex these muscles, I'll write that story, but not every story has to be the vehicle for every bit of knowledge and passion I possess. Epic fantasy especially has no shortage of richness that doesn't need any help to boost the word count. Take my latest finished draft, UnSung, as an example. It currently sits close to the 250K mark and may see a higher count still (there are a couple of short scenes needing added to boost a later plot thread). Nevertheless, I really had to plan and pick to isolate it down to the proper pace for the story. It didn't need extraneous poetic filler or info-dumps to get there. In fact, it would be a hard sell and a tedious story if I'd done so.

Summing it up, don't hesitate to flex your vocabulary, but mind how you use it. Use words that don't require people to run to a dictionary. Even when I use fancier color words, I sometimes expand the context the first time I do. "Those viridian eyes, deceptive in their resemblance to the hills behind my childhood home, were far too cold to harbor any of the warmth from my nostalgia." Save sentences like that for where they can make an impact. Be concise. Be short. Then, hit them with the power of an effective chain. Just like candy loses it sweetness when over-indulged, words can lose their power as well.

Writing is trial and error more than do's and don'ts. Even 'do's and don'ts'  is heavily debated, but it's agreed that whichever style you use, at least be consistent. Some effects are better used sparingly, others will need a stricter hand. You'll get a better feel with this as you butt heads with all those damn 'rules' out there. Go ahead and fight it a bit, but keep in mind, your average FaceBook writing group will endlessly encourage bad habits rather than risk offending you by saying your usage was tedious.

All writers are obsessed with words in some sense. Yet finding your voice will come from your inner critic more than your free-flowing creativity. First drafts are often like falling in love, where every word feels right. So many writers become dismayed by how bad the reread is, but understand that that is a passionate but worthwhile response. Never completely silence the need to do better at least. No matter how you improve, it does you good to embrace the skepticism and use it to strengthen the intent of your stories. It's not because you suck and should give up-- it's because you care enough to want it to be the best you can make it.

It's my hope that you can take away some inner strength and criticism alike. Now I need to beat some fish who keep scaring the shit out of me by knocking over rocks. I swear they do this on purpose just to get my attention, so attention they shall get (even if it's not what they were bargaining for).

Editor's Paradise

I know the two words together are causing some instinctive flinching but it doesn't have to be a nightmare. I've covered editing methods in parts in the past but realized I haven't really broken down either the types of editing you can do yourself or where you might need to bring in some interaction, professional or not. I'm going to cover the six main kinds, in a basic sort of order and explain their purpose. Some types can actually be done simultaneously but you can decide which ones are needed for yourself and know what to ask for if you're unsure.

Content Editing (aka structural/substantive)

Most first drafts start here and I'd say you want to definitely do at least one pass at this yourself. This is the method that involves basic character and scene building. Beginning, middle, end, how they connect, what builds a necessary element and which parts should be cut, added or developed.  If you're often a pantser, then this is where you start to flesh out things you've established along the way. 

How do you do this? Focusing on each specific character and scene and jotting notes works best to start. When I use a program like Scrivener, I use icons to mark where certain characters appear or where scenes start and end. You can track one character at a time or focus on specific scenes this way. It's much easier to detect and find what you need to strengthen when you can focus on this as seamlessly as possible. (I did discuss this method HERE, largely used for plotting.)

Why? Even if you're not the best editor, this is most important to making sure you have a compelling and interesting story. I list this first because it shouldn't be avoided and should be tackled as early as possible. In fact, I'd hesitate to ever query your MS if you haven't examined it carefully.

Manuscript Evaluation (also 'beta reading')

First off, if you've done nothing to your MS past the draft, you're offering an alpha-read, so this step assumes you've done a basic proofing and content check and are ready to subject someone to work you've shown consideration for. If you just want a general critique or opinion, this is what this step is-- one where you're getting an outside opinion. This one you can do at any time, any draft, any place where you're editing, but I'd recommend getting the best 'bang for your buck' and holding off on this one for professional editing until you're in a good place with your work. If you have a dedicated editor, one that will work with you throughout with assessments (especially with a flat fee and you're not demanding gobs of their time for that generosity), then even better!

How do you do this? The bare minimum for a professional evaluation usually entails a 2-5 page evaluation. Don't expect mark-ups or comments on the actual document unless agreed upon. This is basically just as assessment on what works and doesn't and if your intent is coming across. For beta readers, you can ask specific questions to guide the assessment, but don't expect the world. Free readers may not get back to you at all or just hit you with a 'nope' or 'good job'. Some editors even offer a free evaluation in lieu of other services, but check their services and don't expect this (or ask if they will when they specifically say they don't).

Why? Feedback. You might have big gaping blind spots in your perception of your own work and need to filter it through someone else. Remember, professional editors can use their free evaluations to decide whether they want to continue working with your manuscript or not. If they turn it down, you may need to give it a hard look all around or find someone who enjoys the subject matter more. Or your MS is gibberish and requires a hard-edged proofer to really clean it up. Most people have limits as to how much they're willing to make your work coherent though.

Development Editing

This is another that you can ask from beta readers, pros, or DIY it. This step also follows an evaluation in most cases. This is where you focus on developing the book as a whole or into its specific chapters. Development is where you address the content again, but also look at the structure in both a broad and narrow sense.

How do you do this? For beta style reading, you can offer them specific chapters through a platform like Google Docs or BetaBooks, one where they can mark-up and comment on specific aspects. You can also mark-ups and leave notes for yourself, either in a notepad feature in your program of choice or directly affecting the draft. Development is where you are making sure intent and storytelling align. Is your chapter meant to open or close a specific plot or develop the relationships of characters? Is there anything here that distracts from the story or isn't necessary? Dig deep and be prepared to shred and re-order!

Why? Coherency and intent. A well-developed story doesn't make people keep running for a glossary, discerning your context or having to page back to find something that only vaguely supports (or disproves) another fact.

Line/Style Editing

This one digs even deeper if things just aren't working. You're getting to the nitty-gritty of the sentences and paragraphs. This one will work most intimately with your voice and phrasing. Very often, you might be hitting roadblocks with odd turns of phrase, conflicting character traits, and lackluster development. There's a reason why Yoda is a Muppet of few words. It's fine to have that Ye Olde English character, but people don't write in Shakespearean phrase anymore for a reason-- it just doesn't flow in modern thought and requires a lot of interpretation to the uninitiated.

How do you do this? A lot of writers swear by text-to-speech options where it reads your writing aloud and you can hear those painful missed commas and odd turns of speech. Run-on sentences are busted here too. This is very much a form of grammatical editing but the focus is more on style and placement than spelling. This is editing that fits alongside content and development well, but may need specific attention if you're just slamming into too many trees.

Why? You're probably purple, but with all the delight of a bruise. Some people love purple prose, some despise it, so this is a sensitive place for some. People may very well enjoy your voice, but you may be overconfident in how well it works for your story. This isn't a hack job by any means, but it will require a very critical mind for editing.

Copy-Editing

Continuity errors. His eyes were green, now they're blue and there's no event to justify the change. The three bedroom house now has four. Your character lost a foot but they're dancing like a pro with no prosthetic in sight. Copy-editing is where you check for all of the consistency and cohesion. This is something every genre needs and is where you make sure that body covered 75% in hair isn't 30% or 65% later. Every element worth writing about and writing about again shouldn't contradict without damn good reason. Advertisers use this to avoid false advertisement. If your air-conditioner's output is 5000 BTU, more or less is bad business.

How do you do this? You can actually use the content editing strategy here and quickly refer to certain scenes, chapters and characters thoroughly. In fact, you can technically lump content/development/style in one edit over several passes. I'll always recommend several passes of editing no matter what you focus on. This is a place where a professional is super helpful and often where they charge the most because it's so important. It does involve grammar checking as well, so don't skimp there.

Why? Of all the disciplines, I'd say this one is a biggie. It balances all of the editing styles and done right, should be a confident step towards the final product (and why it's toward the end of the list-- don't escape a thorough edit!).

Proofreading

This is one you can do or you can't. It's not just for grammar or spelling alone, but also important if your first language isn't the one you're writing in. This one does deal with structure, phrasing, spelling, but strictly speaking, doesn't need to focus on content or style at all. If you don't want your MS touched in content, asking specifically for a proofread is just going to focus on making sure what you have is grammatically sound.

How do you do this? A firm background in grammar or the patience to look it up. You may not know what doesn't sound right so if you did poorly on your last writing assignment for school, there's a good chance your own eye won't cut it. You can use services like Grammarly or Hemingway but even those don't just wave a magic wand and you'll need a discerning eye to catch some mistakes. You may not speak an English dialect that grammar loves, so you do need some love of standard English to get by. (No bias here, but I'm assuming someone isn't using Google Translate to read my blog and it is in English.)

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Hopefully, this sheds light on some of the details that go into editing. I've brought up some methods I've used, but I'd keep in mind that this can be a hit-or-miss skill and I'd only recommend it if you have cultivated a talent for it. I'd still advice other eyes on it, but really weigh that one on personal factors. Plenty of people will insist on shelling out for covers and editing and, while they're not wrong, they're not you. You are able to weigh the consequences and reputation you want to build. You are here to challenge yourself and tell your story the way you think it should be.

Querying may strengthen your need for a solid manuscript. It's true enough that some people get accepted for their mediocre first draft, but just as many wade the entire pool and get no bites. It's true enough that mediocre first drafts past muster in traditional publishing and you can practically see the editor's only marks are the drool stains on their keyboard.

My only addition here is to vet editors carefully. They don't need a degree, but I'd consider if they come off as jaded, just putting in the paces or overcharging and expecting you to pay on good faith before you even see if they're right for your work. I'd advise not handing off entire unpublished manuscripts to just anyone. Throw a few chapters at them to test their interest and skill. No decent editor will balk at your polite hesitation to blindly trust them. Diplomacy is important to all professionals.

And that includes you. Yes, you. If you're working towards publishing your work, YOU are a professional. Develop humility and confidence, understanding that even when you hire someone, you are attempting to establish a relationship, a rapport, and it affects both of your reputations. Don't become blacklisted for treating them like indentured servants and getting the reputation for being hard to work with or having an undeserved ego problem. Don't smudge their record just because you're hurt that they decide not to work with you. I say time and again that I like to steer away from 'don't's but not being a dick is a good policy for success. Total dicks CAN be successful, but it's really an exception, not the rule.

For a new writer/editor, it can be disastrous. Rich people can usually afford it. However, famous YouTubers do usually disappear after one stupid comment, so don't assume success is always a blanket for a bad attitude or a careless action. (I still think James Gunn got tanked for no good reason. Like Jim Jefferies said, he's a bad comedian, not a bad guy.)

Do You Even Bracket, Bro?

One thing I provide as a public service is my ability to butcher popular slang and quotes on the regular. However, my cringe-worthy post heading has another purpose: utilizing all those little keys that aren't as worn on my silicone keyboard cover.

Not talking hot key shortcuts, function keys, the arrow keys or even the poor redundant Tab key that fell out of use when word processor formatting favored auto indents. Nope, I'm talking... *whomp whomp* brackets. I guess there's no mystery there...

It seems to be a personal mission to torment myself with making certain challenges towards communicating my ideas. UnNamed was about the concealment of names mostly (and the creative use of pronouns and descriptors in absence of names) and UnSung is no exception.

Aiden is mute. I am not. I don't pretend to know what it's like to be so this was not a book based on an issue I can relate to. However, I do know what it's like to desire to communicate or the exhaustion of that effort leading to isolation. In Aiden's case, he finds that his own efforts do not go unrewarded. He greets all of those moments of breakthrough with exuberance. He finds two unique ways to communicate with two of the women in his life, one through a language he created through music, one through a magical link.

Before I go into what this has to do with brackets, this wasn't an attempt to mask a disability with a superpower. That's not what this is, since the two people still aren't going to afford him the same sort of 'voice' that people who can speak have. Aiden still finds the limitations of these 'break-through' abilities and still endures the frustration of having to depend on someone's ability to want to understand him at all. As a point of reference, my granddad turns off his hearing aid when my grandma starts arguing with him, causing her hurt, frustration, rage and impotence with communicating-- that he can just 'turn off' when it doesn't suit him is always a one-sided solution that never benefits her. It would be like learning ASL to debate with a deaf person, then closing your eyes or looking away when you're done. It's worse than hanging up the phone on someone because you are right there still, negating someone with an advantage they can't use.

So, brackets. When Aiden uses his language, I knew I wanted to deviate from just italics. While his 'thoughts' are still italicized, italics are also easy to miss when spread out in a conversation and since he is speaking through these thoughts, it deserved something as important as a quote. Not these ( ). No, parentheses are a side note, often serving the purpose of injecting a secondary idea. Not these guys either { }. I'm never quite sure where those brackets are used but they're too busy. Quotation marks are clean and quick so I wanted Aiden's voice to have a similar simplicity. I dug these guys out from my high school days: ⎡⎦

Yes! L brackets! These remind me of the ¡! deal you get with exclamations in español. As you can tell, I know my way around the optional symbols on a keyboard. Other favorites are © ™ and … Yes, yes, you can make an ellipsis with Option + : (colon) on a Mac (because three periods are more work than two simultaneously pressed keys maybe). Here's the thing-- I also have to make sure that the choose-your-own-font capabilities of an ebook doesn't warp my precious L brackets into some OTHER bracket or worse-- the 404 equivalent of character nullification: the random wing-ding symbol. And no, I don't have that stupid rectangle's hot key combo memorized. I'm rather partial to this choice so I will conduct ridiculous amounts of research to make it happen.

I suppose it would be my designer training that makes me so enthusiastic about utilizing fonts to communicate effectively in a novel. No matter how complex my ideas are in planning, I always stand by the mission to deliver these ideas with all of those complexities combed smooth for sharing. I'm not going to be using ASCII art (although you should do yourself a favor and see how awesome this endeavor is), but I do work to be sure that my punctuation and style choices are the best choice possible.

Even if you don't use special characters outside of the basic set in the body of your writing itself, I bet that many people, from time to time still end up pulling one of these: 

--~~{@ TITLE @}~~--

You can't deny that a nice little bit of dressing for those headers isn't at least a little bit tempting. There use to be some serious excitement when you told people those look like roses. That was before the excitement of using eggplant emojis as penises. It's okay if you don't remember...

 And that's what matters most.