TO SAY OR NOT TO SAY “SAID”

by Jacqueline Jules

A couple of years ago, a teacher asked my advice on a student’s writing. The conversation went something like this:

“I’m hoping you, as a published author, can work with Mary Ann and give her some pointers. Her writing is so good, I don’t know how to help her anymore. All I could do was encourage her to substitute the word, “said,” because she overused it.”

The discussion made me cringe. The teacher’s writing instruction (which I later learned was part of her county curriculum) was completely contrary to the advice I had heard from editors speaking at writing conferences.

There are much better ways to improve a story than to go through and substitute the word, “said.”

If you examine most published novels, you will see that authors use “laughed, grunted, whispered, squeaked, shouted, etc.” sparingly. Speakers need to be identified without distracting the reader, so the majority of tag lines should not stand out. 

In an August 2013 blog, Kristen Lamb posted “Six Easy Tips for Self-Editing Your Fiction,” http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/six-easy-tips-for-self-editing-your-fiction/  Her advice follows what I had heard before from editors: “Said becomes white noise. Readers don’t “see” it. It keeps them in the story and cooking along. If we want to add things like laughing, griping, complaining, then fine. It just shouldn’t be the tag.”

For a fun lesson on writing dialogue, check out Mary Quattlebaum’s post from January 2012 http://penciltipswritingworkshop.blogspot.com/2012/01/dialogues-and-two-person-poems.html  In this post, Mary challenges students to write a dialogue poem between a big animal and a small animal. ie: mouse and lion, ant and elephant, etc.

Other writing challenges for students:

Write a family conversation. ie: child and parent, two siblings

Write a conversation between two foods in a refrigerator or kitchen cabinet.

Write a conversation between two friends in an argument.

Write a conversation between a cat and a dog.

Dialogue should move a story forward and reflect the personality of the speaker. Choosing words carefully, rather than spending time with a thesaurus on tag lines, is a much more effective method for creating good dialogue in a story.

www.jacquelinejules.com

Revision Advice from My Summer Reading

by Jacqueline Jules

"Ultimately, the quality of a good piece of writing is determined by the amount of revision a writer is willing to do." —Marcia S. Freeman, Teaching the Youngest Writers: A Practical Guide.

Personally, I enjoy revision. It’s writing the first draft that feels like cutting the lawn, one blade at a time. Lots of authors agree with me on this. However, many students find revision extremely painful. How can we help?  In my last post, I shared two famous revision stories and one of my own in the hopes of encouraging young writers that revision is well worth the effort. Now, at the beginning of the school year, I’d like to share some advice about revision from my summer reading. I read three books: Reflections by Ralph Fletcher from the Richard C. Owen Author at Work series, Drop Everything and Write: An Easy Breezy Guide for Kids Who Want to Write a Story by Linda Leopold Strauss, and Teaching the Youngest Writers: A Practical Guide by Marcia S. Freeman.

Ralph Fletcher in Reflections readily admits that sometimes he gets defensive when editors suggest revisions to his work. He wants to shout like a four year old, “I’m not going to change a single comma!” But after he settles down, he tries to find a way to “own the advice” as he works on the suggested changes. Fletcher says that more often than not, “seeing my story through another person’s eyes has helped me untangle a tricky plot or story structure.” Calling his editors “co-creators” of his published work, Fletcher says that his editors have strengthened his writing and taught him many things. Page 44 of Reflections has a nice example of an edited page from Fletcher’s memoir, Marshfield Dreams, complete with crossed out lines, suggestions, and sticky note that would be great to show to students.

Drop Everything and Write by Linda Leopold Strauss has a number of exercises that can help young writers add sensory details to their writing. One activity is a “Listening Walk,” in which the writer records all the sounds heard on the street such as shoes on the sidewalk or a car driving over a manhole. Her example of her own “Listening Walk” would be a great read aloud model in the classroom. With entertaining anecdotes, Strauss warns against letting subplots or minor characters overrun a story and distracting the reader’s attention. She defines many important writer’s terms such as flashback, transitions, black moment, and voice. In a chapter entitled, “Show, Don’t Tell,” Strauss explains the advantages of including details rather than summarizing the action. She encourages young writers to spice up their writing by describing an angry character’s actions rather than simply saying he was angry or setting a scene with images from all five senses. Finally, she says that stories benefit from “drawer time” and gives a checklist for polishing a draft that teachers and students should find very useful.

Marcia Freeman’s Teaching the Youngest Writers addresses the kind of revisions done on the primary level. She provides concrete advice on what teachers can reasonably expect from kindergarteners and first graders, accepting that emergent writers are more capable of adding material than reorganizing a narrative told out of chronological order. Young students are encouraged by the opportunity to share their work. This in turns leads to a consideration of the reader and incentive to revise. “A writer’s first responsibility is to his reader,” says Freeman. Teachers can word compliments with this in mind. For example, “Your readers will like the way you told about your sister.” Reinforcing the reader’s needs can also be used in suggested revisions, such as telling young students that the repetition of a word “puts the reader to sleep.” Freeman defines the important distinction between revision and editing. Revision helps the writer make sure his message is “clear and interesting” while editing is focused on conventions like grammar and spelling.  But the reader is still important in the editing process, since punctuation helps the reader understand the text. Finally, while Freeman advises teaching the youngest writers to avoid seeing their work as something that can be finished in one sitting, she cautions against expecting perfection.

All three of these summer reading books enriched my own approach to teaching and writing. I hope they will be useful to you as well.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

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ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

by Pamela Ehrenberg

Last week I led a teen writing workshop in which participants--and the grownups who paid their registration--were promised that each writer would finish the workshop with a completed short story.  The experience of looking over their shoulders all week (literally and virtually, using the document-sharing feature of Google docs) has me thinking a lot about endings--and about the helpful piece that Jacqueline Jules wrote about endings this spring.

One writer in my group stared at her screen for long periods of time between sentences, without apparent frustration but also without adding much to her story some days.  Another writer began typing the minute she walked in the room, never stuck for ideas--but with each new character, nuance, and plot twist, I worried whether she would finish in time for the celebratory reading at the end of the workshop.

Teachers of reluctant writers face one set of challenges in helping their students complete a piece.  But teachers of dedicated, lifelong, even gifted writers face a different set of challenges.  These writers have so many ideas for their characters, and such high ideals for what they want to accomplish, that their story grows richer and more elaborate, in their mind or on the screen, without finding its way to an end. 

To help the group along, I found myself gaining inspiration not from famous writers or notable teachers, but rather from my friend Holly who recently helped me plan and implement a kitchen renovation.  We began by brainstorming from the big wide universe of possibilities, but to narrow down our ideas we had to look at what we could realistically accomplish in this particular space, on this particular budget, with this particular two-year-old living in the house.  Limitations forced us to make choices, and choices helped us to break past indecision toward a soon-to-be realized goal.

So, did those two students finish their stories?  I vote "yes," though both say they want to edit and polish more before their work appears in the workshop's online publication.  As I think of the blinds and seat cushions yet to arrive in the kitchen--but more importantly, as I think of my novels, especially the ones already published--I can identify with the urge to tinker just a little more, and a little more, off into the sunset.  But as another Holly, science fiction writer Holly Lisle , describes in her One-Pass Manuscript Revision, "Your career lies in writing a book, and writing another book, and writing a book after that. " For our students and for us, it's time to get finished so we can really get started.

http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/

PENCIL TIPS: Remember the Reader

posted by Jacqueline Jules

After years of participating in critique writing groups, I have learned to spot problem areas my critique friends would question. “That part is confusing.” “This part is too wordy.” “The story doesn’t peak my interest until the fourth paragraph.” And when I miss something, I am grateful when my critique friends point it out. As an author who hopes to impress editors, I want mistakes corrected before I submit.

But students just learning the joy of putting a story down on paper can be reluctant to make changes. Many students think editing should be limited to the correction of spelling and grammar mistakes. Asking a student to re-write a story that does not make sense can be a painful experience. How does a teacher encourage a student to fix confusing or nonsensical passages without squashing creativity?

In my work with young writers, I encourage them to think of their readers. We compare writing to playing an instrument or performing in a play or dance concert. Students readily agree that they want audiences to have a good time when they perform. Using this logic, it is easier to accept why a paragraph should be changed to make a story more enjoyable. Some details distract the reader from what an author is really trying to say. Run-on sentences can be confusing. Cryptic asides can puzzle readers. And sometimes all the little things we explain at the beginning are not needed. Ask your students if they know someone who takes too long to get to the point. For instance, a woman who talks for ten minutes about what she ate for breakfast, when she is trying to tell you how she cut her finger. Most students will smile, remembering such a person in their lives, and understand why they don’t want to keep their readers from the most interesting part of a story. Thinking about the reader helps all writers do their best work.

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/