Category Archives: Mechanics

Oh, the intricacies of grammar and mechanics

Mechanics

Fix-It Friday Answers: Dangling & Misplaced Modifiers

A couple weeks ago, we looked at misplaced modifiers\. One of my favorite examples allegedly comes from a medical transcription (but I’ve also seen it credited to a fifpolice blotter):

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

Modifiers—adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, even participial phrases—should usually come as close to the word they’re modifying as they can. While we can (eventually) figure out the man was bitten on his thumb, that sentence says he was “walking down the street on his thumb.” (In fact, it says the bat was walking down the street on his thumb. The bat’s? The man’s? The world may never know!)

So we looked at some examples of dangling & misplaced modifiers—but sometimes it’s a heck of a lot easeire to learn with the answers, right?

There are multiple correct answers to all these.

Sensing her brother was about to pounce, he bent his knees, ready to jump at her.

The Problem: Okay, this was was a little ambiguous because we used pronouns. There are only supposed to be two people involved in this sentence, “her” and “her brother.” Here’s what I was going for:

Sensing her brother was about to pounce is supposed to be modifying “her.” What is she doing? Sensing (something). If she’s doing the sensing in the first clause, she’s supposed to be the subject of the second clause.

Instead (what I intended), the next clause is he bent his knees. Suddenly the brother is the subject of the sentence. Was he the one sensing he was about to pounce on her? Of course not.

The Fix: when we rephrase this, we need to make her the subject of the sentence, or get rid of the first clause altogether. Possibilities:

  • Sensing her brother was about to pounce, she braced herself. He bent his knees, ready to jump at her.
  • He bent his knees, ready to jump at her. (Doing away with the first clause altogether. If we’re in his POV, this version is more appropriate.)

(Now, if you thought “he” was a third party, that might be a different story.)

He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday doing the dishes on the sidewalk.

The Problem: The way this is phrased, their conversation took place yesterday (okay). The conversation might have been yesterday while she was doing dishes on the sidewalk. Or she might be standing there doing dishes on the sidewalk today. Either way, dishes on the sidewalk?

The Fix: First, we have to decide how things actually happened. Here are some possible scenarios:

  • He couldn’t believe she was standing there on the sidewalk after their conversation while doing the dishes yesterday. (The time and place of each conversation are now clear: the conversation was during doing dishes yesterday, and now she’s standing on the sidewalk.) (Yesterday could also come a little earlier in the sentence.)
  • After their conversation yesterday while doing dishes, he couldn’t believe she was standing there on the sidewalk.

Now, if she’s actually doing dishes on the sidewalk . . .

The “while” is a big helper, too! But if you stick it in the original sentence—oy! He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday while doing the dishes on the sidewalk. It clears up the ambiguity, but I don’t think that’s the meaning we want—their conversation was yesterday while they were on the sidewalk, doing dishes?

At the age of seven, his father told him the truth.

The Problem: Remember that modifiers generally come closest to what they’re modifying—and at the beginning of a sentence, this is always the case. Grammatically speaking, this construction actually says the father was seven years old when he told him (the son) the truth. A bit young for fatherhood, eh?

Yes, a reader can figure out that we mean the son was seven here, but sensitive readers and grammarians will be pulled out of the story. Plus, do you want someone to have to “figure out” your meaning?

The Fix is pretty straightforward.

  • His father told him the truth when he was seven.

Now, someone who is purposefully trying to misread your sentence might take that as ambiguous or misplaced, but it’s now closest to “him.” And honestly, if someone is purposefully trying to misread your writing, they’re probably not the best person for the job of a critique partner or editor?

Running from the scene, the horror clung to his mind.

The Problem: Again, it’s that initial first element. It modifies the subject of the sentence. The subject here is “the horror,” so this construction means the horror was running from the scene.

This story definitely has my attention . . .

The Fix: as always, is to move the elements around to get the modifier closest to what it’s modifying. This means either moving it or changing the subject of the sentence:

  • The horror clung to his mind as he ran from the scene.
  • Running from the scene, he tamped down the horror still clinging to his mind.

“As mayor of Park City, people often ask me . . . “

(I forget the rest of the sentence, but that was an actual commercial. Agh!)

The Problem: This construction, once again, makes mayor of Park City = people. And yes, humans are mayors of Park City, but usually not collectively and simultaneously.

The Fix: Move! those! modifiers!

  • People often ask me as mayor of Park City . . .
  • As mayor of Park City, I’m often asked . . .

Note that the second solution is (gasp!) passive voice. While it’s usually something to be avoided we want to avoid, passive voice does have an actual, grammatical function and a useful place in the language.

“At 26 ounces, you’ll find yourself drinking more.”

(Another actual commercial)

The Problem: At 26 ounces, you’ll have more problems than how much to drink. That’s taking the dieting a bit far, don’t you think?

The Fix:

  • With a 26 ounce capacity, this cup will help you drink more. (I’m sorry, is this the problem or the solution?)
  • You’ll find yourself drinking more with this 26-ounce cup.

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. (How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.)”

Thank you, Groucho.

The Problem: This is obviously quite intentional. If you want to set up a joke this way, go for it!

The Fix ruins the joke, but here you go:

  • One morning while still in my pajamas, I shot an elephant.

We tiptoed over the ice in our heavy boots, which had begun to crack.

The Problem: Finally we’re moving away from the initial modifiers to the final ones. These can still be tricky! Here, which had begun to crack comes closest to our heavy boots. It’s not much of a stretch to say they’re both part of the prepositional phrase—which means that the boots are the only candidates for cracking.

While that’s a problem, it’s probably not the right problem for the writer.

The Fix: Move that modifier! Here we can collapse the phrase into a single word, maybe a hyphenation:

  • We tiptoed over the cracking ice in our heavy boots.
  • We tiptoed over the now-cracking ice in our heavy boots.
  • (A most interesting option) Our heavy boots tiptoed over the ice. A sharp creak ripped through the air. A fissure zigzagged through the solid white below us.

If you’ve got a problem with the last one, I suggest studying up on metonymy. And if that doesn’t help, you’d probably enjoy Dr. Seuss’s story about haunted pants, “What Was I Afraid Of?”

“McCance was found shot to death by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: Um, not sure what the problem was, but whatever it was, her family shot her to death over it.

Possibly that’s what they meant. Probably it isn’t.

The Fix:

    McCance was found by her family Monday afternoon, shot to death at her southern Wake County home.
  • Shot to death, McCance was found by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.
  • McCance’s family found her Monday afternoon, shot to death at her southern Wake County home.

There are lots more.

“Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: The initial element, nearly six months after taking office, modifies the subject of the sentence—but the tricky thing here is that good ol’ Bev is not the subject of the sentence—her political honeymoon is.

The Fix: drop that possessive and make sure the governor is the subject of the sentence, or rephrase.

  • Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue has passed her political honeymoon.
  • Nearly six months after she took office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.

Why does the second one work? That little change from “taking” to “she took.” The “taking” is clearly dependent on the subject of the sentence (originally her political honeymoon), while “she took” has its own subject.

“As a parent, the so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: the so-called “Halo killer” is now a parent.

Also, two as’s in the same sentence?

The Fix: Do we need “as a parent” at all?

  • The so-called “Halo killer” may have parents nervously watching their kids as they jab at their joysticks. (May introduce other ambiguity problems.)
  • The so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.

“After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.”

(Same article as the previous.)

The Problem: This one is so convoluted that it may be a little hard to see the problem. (Were it not for the other dangling modifier from the same example, I’d say the reporter just got a little lost in this sentence.)

Okay. Let’s simplify this a little by taking out some of the modifiers that are getting in the way of the problem. The first clause of the sentence begins After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann. Allen Gann = grandson, so we’ll drop the appositive, and the prepositional phrases we’ll ignore for right now:

After grounding her grandson . . . , he sat down and played.

This goes back to the same problem as #1. Unless there’s some other “he” here (Grandpa?) who sat down and played after grounding the female third person POV character’s grandson, we’re all messed up.

The Fix: Make grandma the subject of the sentence, or make the grandson the subject of the initial dependent clause:

  • After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, Grandma didn’t notice when he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.
  • After being grounding (by his grandmother) from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, Allen Gann sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.
  • Realistically, the best fix is to break this unwieldy thing down! Grandma grounded her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games (because he failed to do his chores). However, the following day, Gann sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.

Much better!

Work better on paper? Download the original worksheet as a PDF and print! Can’t get enough? Lots more examples to play with!

Photo credits: tools—HomeSpot HQ, dirty dishes—Teresia;elephant—Roger; video games—w?odi

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Mechanics

Fix-It Friday! Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

Inspired by a discussion on one of my writing mailing lists, I’ve been thinking about misplaced modifiers. One of my favorite examples allegedly comes from a medical transcription (but I’ve also seen it credited to a police blotter):

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

If you don’t get the joke, it’s about to become a lot less funny. Modifiers—adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, even participial phrases—should usually come as close to the word they’re modifying as they can. While we can (eventually) figure out the man was bitten on his thumb, that sentence says he was “walking down the street on his thumb.” (In fact, it says the bat was walking down the street on his thumb. The bat’s? The man’s? The world may never know!)

Gonna fix it?A friend mentioned that in school, he had to do an entire worksheet of fixing these sentences, and ever since then, he’s been very sensitive to them. Dude, I thought, is that all it takes? That might be pretty useful!

For each of the following, look at the “modifying” elements to figure out why they are WRONG. Feel free to share your fixes or your favorite dangling modifier examples in the comments! (And feel free to laugh, too—they’re supposed to be comical. Sometimes.)

1. Sensing her brother was about to pounce, he bent his knees, ready to jump at her.

2. He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday doing the dishes on the sidewalk.

3. At the age of seven, his father told him the truth.

4. Running from the scene, the horror clung to his mind.

5. “As mayor of Park City, people often ask me, ‘[I forget the rest of the sentence, but that was an actual commercial. Agh!]'”

6. “At 26 ounces, you’ll find yourself drinking more.” (Another actual commercial)

7. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. (How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.)”

8. We tiptoed over the ice in our heavy boots, which had begun to crack.

9. “McCance was found shot to death by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.” (Actual news article.)

10. “Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.” (Actual news article.)

11. “As a parent, the so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.” (Actual news article.)

12. “After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.” (Same article as the previous.)

Work better on paper? Download the worksheet as a PDF and print! Can’t get enough? Lots more examples to play with!

Photo by Ricky Bragante

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Mechanics

Mele Kalikimaka!

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WORD NERD ALERT!

Wherein we learn I’m crazy and also Merry Christmas.

“Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way to say Merry Christmas to you,” crooned Bing Crosby. It’s the “island greeting” for Christmas—but did you know it’s just “Merry Christmas”?

“Borrowing” isn’t just something your neighbor does with your lawn tools—it’s also an important linguistic process. In linguistic borrowing, the actual loan word (or phrase) is taken from the donor language, and often its sounds, spelling and/or pronunciation are adapted into the receiving language’s system of sounds.

The Hawaiian language has a short list of consonant sounds—eight, in fact: p, h, m, n, ? (the glottal stop; the sound between the vowels of “uh oh”), l (sometimes rendered n), w (sometimes rendered v) and k (sometimes rendered t).

What are these “sometimes t or k” letters? Most languages have more than one “allophone” of a letter: American English, for example, has 6 different pronunciations of the letter [phoneme, to be exact] /t/—as in cat, top, button, water, winter, and stop (more explanation below the bulleted list here). In Hawaiian, /t/ can be pronounced /k/ and vice versa. That particular variation is very rare.

You might notice in our list of sounds that there’s no s or r, both of which are kind of important in Merry Christmas. Hawaiian conveniently “maps” those sounds into the nearest relative, usually in terms of where the sounds are produced in the mouth. So R >> L. (I’ll spare you the productive phonetic reasons, unless you’re interested.)

So that gets us to Melly Chlistmas. Uh, yeah, this doesn’t sound much closer, does it?

Melly to Mele is pretty easy, right? There’s no ‘y’ and although the ee sound we make in Merry is closer to Hawaiian ‘i’ than ‘e,’ Hawaiian tends to prefer symmetrical vowels, so ‘mele’ is good enough.

Let’s tackle “Chlistmas.” The Ch makes a ‘k’ sound already, so Klistmas isn’t too hard to come up with, right? Well, in Hawaiian, native (i.e. not borrowed from other languages like this is, but oh well) words do not have clusters of consonants at the beginnings of syllables. (English has “phonotactic” rules, too—native English words don’t start with sd or ts, etc.)

So we need to break up the “Kl.” I don’t really know why we get an ‘a’ in there, and I could make some wild conjecture about vocalic position throughout the phrase, but that’s just crazy talk. We get an ‘a.’ Okay. One gimme.

All right, we’re at Mele Kalistmas. Now, we don’t have an ‘s’ in Hawaiian, and who says the ‘t’ in Christmas? Well, it’s possible that they did take the ‘t’—which you remember can also be a /k/ in Hawaiian—but I think it’s a little more likely that the /s/ sounds in Christmas got “mapped” into /t/. Notice how /s/ and /t/ are produced in essentially the same place in your mouth (the alveolar ridge) by the same part of the tongue—the only difference is the manner (plosive/stop vs. fricative). And if /t/ = /k/ in Hawaiian, apply a little transitive property, and add in some harmony with the beginning of the word . . .

Oh, sorry, I said no wild conjecture. I changed my mind.

We need a few extra vowels now, since we’re only at Kalikmak, or by syllables: ka-lik-mak. In Hawaiian, another rule is that a syllable can’t end with a consonant. So we add more vowel, repeating the one right before: ka-li-ki-ma-ka. (More syllables is BETTER!!!! Pfft, English, with its wimpy two syllable holidays.)

And now, I think we’ve done it. Merry Christmas —> Mele Kalikimaka!

So yes, I’m crazy. But any way you say it, I hope your Christmas is merry and bright! And I’ll see you back here next year!

Photo by Consuela Yokomura

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Mechanics, Technique

Mass editing with Word Macros

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This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Gesture crutches

Freshen up your writing faster!

So I recently took a fantastic class from the inimitable Margie Lawson. I discovered that some of the editing tasks I view as drudgery are a lot easier to do when they’re assignments in a class. (I love school.)

gesture crutchesOne of these drudgerous tasks was to collect all the sentences that used a number of gesture crutches from the first 50 pages and look for repetition and trends, finding the uses you can cut (you don’t need a nod if someone says yes or just complies, etc.), and freshening up your gestures.

The most time-consuming, drudgerous (it’s a word now, okay?) part was actually finding the sentences, cutting and pasting them into a new document. It took me hours to go through my MS 50 pages at a time. HOURS. Not even a quarter of the way through, I knew I had to do something else.

I needed a macro.

A macro is a bit of code you can use with a program to automate a task. Abby Annis introduced me to macros, and Margie classmate Greg Henry provided a few useful writers’ macros in class. I know lots of great writers who use macros to catch clichés;s, throwaway words (just, really, very, etc.). I wanted to take this a little further.

Why use a macro?

I know (because more than one person has said this to me) this sounds needlessly complex. “Can I just use Find/Search?” you might ask. And more than one person has told me about Word 2010’s navigation panel, which shows your searches, excerpts where the text is found, gives you a use count (which you can do in any version of Word, but I digress), etc.

You are more than welcome to continue using Find-and-Replace. If you’re going to highlight or bold your terms, please use Find All (or Replace All + Formatting).

But here’s the advantages of using the macro:

  • This bit of code pulls the full sentences the term appears in (not just the 15 or so closest words) into a new document.
  • The new document is searchable.
  • The new document is ready to edit.
  • The new document lists the sentences side by side, instead of having to flip back and forth, wait for load times, etc.
  • The new document contains results for all of my terms, so I can find cross-term patterns, repetition and echoes more easily.
  • But most of all, it’s a lot faster & easier. The macro takes three mouse clicks to run over 40 searches, and cut and paste the results into a fresh document. It would take me 1800 mouse clicks just to go through each use of each of my terms. Plus highlighting the sentences and cutting and pasting them into a document for better comparison (instead of relying on my memory and the excerpts in the navigation pane)? Oy.

Can I just say that again? Once you spend 10-15 minutes setting up the macro, it takes less than five mouse clicks to “harvest” the results of 40+ searches (using find all word forms, too!).

If you’d rather click that Find button 1843 times, go for it. But I found that method much more time consuming. Again, it took me hours to get through a quarter of this task. It now takes seconds of effort. If that. The next manuscript? Three clicks. The one after that? Three clicks. The one from the drawer? Three clicks.

That’s the beauty of macros.

The EASY/Non-Techie Way

The immensely helpful Paul Edstein wrote a macro to do this all automatically for you. Download the Excel file he posted (you’ll see a security prompt to enable macros; do enable them). In that workbook, enter the word you want it to look for in A1 of Sheet 1, the next work in A1 of Sheet 2, etc. Put a ‘1’ in B1 if you want to search for ALL word forms (smile/smiling/smiles/smiled, etc.).

The macro runs on a folder rather than individual files, so unless your manuscript is the only Word document in the folder on your computer, you’ll need to make a new folder for it and copy or move the manuscript into that folder before you run the macro.

Again, all you have to do is put the words in the spreadsheet, and run the macro (click Developer > Macro. Named GetData, it will probably be the only one there!). Super easy, super user-friendly!

Read message #8 for a tip on how to edit the macro to include page numbers! (This does get a bit more technical, but it’s really just cut-and-paste!)

The MANUAL Way

I’m part of a family craft blog, and we reeeeally like to do things our own way: no patterns, no instructions. It’s either crafting by Braille, or, as we like to call it “being Wayward.”

I think that bled into this project. Before I saw Paul’s workbook, I spent hours configuring my own macro. To make your own macro, enable macros in Word Options. Check out Abby Annis’s detailed macro instructions for more help (except we won’t be recording this, but entering the code directly).

In the Developer ribbon, click Macros. Type a new name into the text box prompt and click “Create.”

Then cut and paste the below. (Delete the line Sub GrabbingCrutches() or you’ll break it!)

VBA:
Sub GrabbingCrutches()
     '
     ' GrabbingCrutches Macro
     ' by Jordan McCollum, http://JordanMcCollum.com
     ' With massive help from http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/135517-Macro-to-copy-from-one-document-to-another
     ' I'm not responsible if this breaks your computer!
     ' Please don't strip my name off this and redistribute it. Don't use my name for endorsing your project.
     ' Enjoy!
    Dim r As Range
    Dim myword As String
    Dim ThisDoc As Document
    Dim OtherDoc As Document
    MsgBox "Remember to open a new document for the results, and close others!"
    If Documents.Count <> 2 Then
        MsgBox "Must have two (and only two!) documents open."
        Exit Sub
    End If
    Set ThisDoc = ActiveDocument
    If ThisDoc = Documents(1) Then
        Set OtherDoc = Documents(2)
    Else
        Set OtherDoc = Documents(1)
    End If
     ' The next bit is the actual search. Cut and paste the code from here to the next green line, and change the word in quotes, to add more terms.
    myword = "nod"
    OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter mystring & vbCrLf
    ThisDoc.Activate
    Set r = ActiveDocument.Range
    With r.Find
        Do While .Execute(FindText:=myword, MatchAllWordForms:=True, Forward:=True) = True
            r.Expand Unit:=wdSentence
            r.Copy
            OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter r.Text
            OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter r.Information(wdActiveEndPageNumber) & vbCrLf
            r.Collapse 0
        Loop
    End With
OtherDoc.Activate
Selection.Collapse 0
Selection.GoTo wdGoToBookmark, , , "\EndOfDoc"
Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak
     ' End of the actual search. Paste the code again below (but before End Sub) and change the word in quotes.
End Sub
VBA tags courtesy of www.thecodenet.com

Click Save, and you’re ready to go!

Before you use this, you need to open your manuscript, and another file where you want the sentences to go. (This will probably be a new file.) In your manuscript window, click on Macros, select the name you just gave the macro, and click “Run.” In minutes, every sentence using the words you listed will appear in your new file!

The output file is a little bit messy. I use Find-and-Replace (okay, well, actually another macro) to take out the extra returns and tabs, and I have to separate the sentences by keyword. I’m also trying to find a way to get it to print the page numbers UPDATED 23 July: found the code for both of these last two wishes and updated the code above! If anybody has any more solutions there, I’m open to your help!

EVEN Easier way

Lee Korven reached out (a reeeally long time ago, sorry!!) with this code:

Sub OverusedWords()
' OverusedWords Macro
    Dim r As range
    Dim ThisDoc As Document
    Dim OtherDoc As Document
    ' Set your own word list here
    Dim badWords() As Variant
    badWords = Array("nod", "shrug", "smile", "grin", "beam", "smirk")
' You can add more words in this list, just make sure they have straight double quotes around them and are separated by a comma, and the list ends with the parenthesis
    MsgBox "Remember to open a new document for the results, and close others!"
    If Documents.Count <> 2 Then
        MsgBox "Must have two (and only two!) documents open."
        Exit Sub
    End If
    Set ThisDoc = ActiveDocument
    If ThisDoc = Documents(1) Then
        Set OtherDoc = Documents(2)
    Else
        Set OtherDoc = Documents(1)
    End If
     ' The next bit is the actual search.
     Dim badword As Variant
    For Each badword In badWords
        OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter mystring & vbCrLf
        ThisDoc.Activate
        Set r = ActiveDocument.range
        With r.Find
            Do While .Execute(FindText:=badword, MatchAllWordForms:=True, Forward:=True) = True
                r.Expand Unit:=wdSentence
                r.Copy
                OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter r.Text
                OtherDoc.range.InsertAfter r.Information(wdActiveEndPageNumber) & vbCrLf
                r.Collapse 0
            Loop
        End With
        OtherDoc.Activate
        Selection.Collapse 0
        Selection.GoTo wdGoToBookmark, , , "\EndOfDoc"
        Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak
   Next
End Sub

I haven’t tried this yet, but it’s worked for Lee!

Wait, Now What Do I Do?

To get started, follow Abby Annis’s instructions on enabling macros through Figure 4.

In the Developer tab, click the Macros button.

This will bring up a box. Type in the name for your macro at the top and click the Create button.

This opens Visual Basic. It should have a line at the top reading Sub YOURMACRONAME(), so don’t copy Sub GrabbingCrutches() from the code above (unless you want to paste over it and use my great name). Paste the rest of the text (through End Sub) below the ‘ YOURNAMEMACRO macro line. Make sure there’s only one End Sub at the end of the file.

Now, look at the lines in green. Where it says ‘ The next bit is the actual search. Cut and paste the code from here to the next green line, and change the word in quotes, to add more terms., copy the code between that line and the next green line, and paste it as many times as you want the macro to run. Change the word in the first line in double quotes to the word you want to search for.

And Save!

Now, open your manuscript and a new file, and close everything else. In your manuscript, bring up the Developer ribbon and click Macros. Select your new macro from the list and click Run. Click OK on the reminder message that comes up, and that should do it!

My Word List

Is long. It includes gesture crutches, the most common body parts used in body language and visceral responses, and words to describe how dialogue is delivered.

nod
smile
grin
beam
smirk
laugh
lip
mouth
jaw
brow
eyebrow
eye
face		 expression
look
gaze
glance
stare
glare
glower
scowl
face
head
frown
tears		 hand
fist
arm
shrug
sigh
breathe
breath
blood
pulse
vein
adrenaline
energy		 heart
stomach
gut
lung
chest
rib
ribcage
swallow
tone
voice
pitch
volume

My current manuscript is 275 pages long, and my (double spaced) output file from this macro is 100 pages long. I’m hard at work catching echoes and freshening up my body language. I use other macros to highlight words I overuse, “empty” words, and even sequencing words.

Now you’ve got all your crutches collected—now what? Check out these strategies for editing to the top 10 gesture crutches.

Photo credit: crutches on orange background—Christian Guthier

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Mechanics

How to write the stuff around the dialogue

1 Comment

Flip open any book, and you’re sure to find them: dialogue attribution using verbs other than “said.” Breathed, whispered, inveighed, called, shouted, yelled, extrapolated, interdicted, translated, interpreted—there are literally hundreds of verbs for speech.

But despite that, “said” is still the default dialogue tag. Yes, every book on the market contains speech verbs other than said—but that’s a big reason why “said” is the default dialogue tag: because other tags are so noticeable. “Said” is practically invisible; we read it without really noticing it, while other dialogue tags call attention to themselves.
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Mechanics, Technique

It was really, just so—should you cut them all out?

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Late last year, I was doing a quick/final once-over of a manuscript. I decided to see how many times I used “just.” The answer was around 300, or about once per page. I went through most of the manuscript and cut out about 90 of them.

Proud of myself for making that effort, I tweeted about it (naturally). An author friend responded that she had cut 242 justs from her manuscript the week before. (Granted, she was editing one of her early manuscripts, so I have no idea how many she started with.)

I had a momentary panic. Yes, this manuscript had been accepted for publication already, but did I need to delete the rest of my justs?

And justs are just one of this variety of word that pretty much everyone uses—and overuses—because it’s so common in speech. But in most writing, these words are pretty empty, almost like throat clearing. (I’ve committed a few of these “sins” in here. Catch them?) A few favorites:

  • just
  • really
  • very
  • pretty (as an adverb)
  • so
  • actually
  • finally
  • certainly
  • about
  • suddenly
  • almost
  • definitely
  • even
  • probably
  • slightly
  • sort of
  • kind of
  • around

But if they’re so awfully awful, why don’t we just cut all of them all out? It would certainly be even easier that way (though there would be a number of really odd gaps leftover). Or, conversely, do we argue that we want our writing to reflect how people really speak?

I think the answer is somewhere in between. As Arthur Plotnik says in Spunk & Bite,

Just because intensifiers course through informal speech, must we also use them in journalism and literature? Not necessarily—but we certainly can use them in situations where they feel natural, or communicate a particular tone. At the very least, we should not hamstring our writing styles trying to replace each intensifier with a more powerful locution. (123)

What does that mean? Don’t solve underwriting by overwriting every use. Because how is that any better?

So what should we do? Honestly, I’m not going to say you have to eliminate 50% of all your intensifiers (or de-intensifiers as the case may be). I do think we should be aware of how often we use them—so pull out the Find function and get a count. (In Word 2007 and up, if you Highlight All or use the Reading Highlight function, it gives you a count. Select Whole Words Only, though! Just != justice, justified, etc. etc.)

If the count is fairly high—let’s say one use for every two pages (or more frequently)—start at the beginning and check out how you used it. Take the word out of the sentence. It will probably may lose a shade of meaning—but is that meaning really necessary? Does it actually change the sense of the sentence or even the voice in a bad way? If not, finally cut it.

Editor Alicia Rasley gives more guidelines in an edittorrent post that has stuck with me for almost 3 years:

Of course, sometimes it works to over-modify (especially for comic effect). But this is something to watch for. “An inch below the bottom of her skirt” is a good description. “A little bit more than an inch” makes me envision some nun with a ruler measuring the space. Precision is actually distracting sometimes.

And especially watch out for redundancy. Mountains are high, but some are higher than others, so maybe we will allow “high mountains” (I did grow up in a valley below some not very high mountains, I guess– 3000-4000 feet, so I’d allow “high mountains” if you’re talking about the Rockies, say). But “toweringly high?” Come on.

But if the specific meaning is necessary, if the sense of the sentence is damaged or if the voice breaks because you took the word out, leave it in. If the modifier you’re checking is vital to most of the occurrences you find, use your judgment about whether you need to check the rest. Yep, you can stop. You have my permission.

What do you think? When do you take out intensifiers—and when do you leave them in?

Picture credits: Edit Ruthlessly by Dan Patterson; ruthless editing by Joanna Penn

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Mechanics

Kill the participles!

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More about burying clues in (non)mysteries next week!

Okay, so participial phrases at the beginning of sentences have become one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind them when they’re well done, but unless you’re pretty handy with a clause, you might want to avoid them. This might seem like just one of those silly arbitrary rules that are just made up to help us prove we’ve read up on the latest so-called rules for writing, which will change in another ten years.

But present participial phrases are not just a magical hoop editors want us to jump through to prove that we’re familiar with industry bywords. It’s mainly an issue of grammar (and to a lesser extent, style, but that’s because they’re overused). Complaining about strictures against present participial phrases is almost like complaining about commas. There are correct places and times for using commas, and incorrect ones, and I suspect that most of the time, if we carefully look at a book, we’ll see that most of the commas are used right and perhaps not as often as we thought.

I really came to understand this by reading the posts on present participial phrases at EditTorrent, a blog by two editors. But if you don’t feel like clicking through, I’m happy to summarize the anti-present participial phrase arguments.

First, to clarify, these are not gerunds. Gerunds are typically not a problem. Gerunds are the -ing form (present participle) of the verb used as a noun:

I enjoy writing.
Writing is fun.

For the most part, this isn’t going to be a problem in a sentence, since they’re on the rare side. (I.e. beginning each sentence with a gerund would also be a problem, especially in the midst of too many present participial phrases, but the occasional correct usage of a gerund isn’t going to hurt anybody.)

What we’re talking about here are present participial phrases:

Running to the door, I called out my son’s name.
Writing out the prescription, the doctor didn’t bother looking up.

I think you can probably see how this is already becoming a problem.

Now that we’ve got that straight, on to the primary argument: Present participial phrases are, to put it mildly, evil.

The vast majority of the time in amateur usage, these phrases appear too often, are often misused, create other grammatical problems, don’t reflect how real people think—and I’m just getting started.

A: Present participial phrases are overused, especially by amateur writers.

Not to say that any of us here are amateurs, but too many present participial phrases are a mark of an amateur. Frankly, more than one per page (YES, per page) jumps out at me. Three on a page don’t just jump; they scream. People who aren’t really aware of this grammatical construct can inadvertently begin almost every other sentence with a present participial phrase. Seriously. I’ve critiqued *good* writers who still almost made my eyes bleed. This happens exceedingly rarely in the published books I read.

Important note: this standard seems to be very different for UK & Canadian publishers. Whatevs. TMMV.

B: Present participial phrases are frequently misused.

The grammatical construct of a present participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence ALWAYS means that the action in that phrase and the action in the main part of the sentence are simultaneous. Always. (There’s sometimes a bit more leeway when the present participial phrase appears after the main part of the sentence, though technically speaking there shouldn’t be.)

So, these would be not only grammatically incorrect, but physically impossible:

Chomping down on her food, she stuck her tongue out. (Ouch.)
Sneezing, he sang an aria.

However, there are lots of things you can do simultaneously:

Smiling, she walked down the aisle.

An important note here is that reading is a very linear activity—we read one word and then the next—and these phrases can make it easy to misunderstand or just slow us down as we try to figure out the order of the actions and picture them. This is so important it could warrant its own letter, but I don’t think I really need to explain this more.

C: Present participial phrases frequently cause misplaced modifiers.

The action or state described in a present participial phrase must ALWAYS describe/be done by the subject of the sentence. If not, you get a misplaced/dangling modifier:

Running to the car, the cat darted between his ankles.

The only grammatically correct way to understand this sentence is that the CAT was running to the car. At best, this sentence is ambiguous—we really can’t assume that it means the man was running. If I want to say the man was running to the car and the cat darted between his ankles, I’d be much safer to say THAT.

Walking down the street, a bat bit the man on the thumb.

Grammatically speaking, this sentence says a bat was walking down the street and bit a man on the thumb. Paraphrased from a famously bad police report.

D: If we’re supposed to be writing in our character’s thoughts and minds, present participial phrases would appear sparingly at best.

People rarely think that way. Really, think about how you think. Okay, generally we think in pictures, but when you do use words, is that how your thoughts go? If we’re seeking to replicate our characters’ voices and internal thoughts, then, would they use them?

Varying sentence structure isn’t a good enough reason for these either. As editor/author Alicia Rasley points out, varying sentences isn’t an end to itself: it’s an intermediate goal to create a smooth read.

Since these constructions do stick out if used incorrectly or awkwardly or too frequently, and so many first drafts contain so many present participial phrases that you can’t construe their usage as actually varying the default sentence structure anyway. Again, important enough to get its own letter, but I don’t want to beat you over the head with this.

To conclude:

Okay, maybe present participial phrases aren’t exactly evil, but just like commas, but we have to be VERY careful about how we use them (or we’ll end up with something ungrammatical or bizarre) and very judicious about when we use them.

In my opinion (formed by the careful tutelage of the editors I mentioned above), the best use of a participial phrase is for something that describes the state of the subject of the sentence, NOT an action:

Hoping she wasn’t too late, she dashed into the room.

Her emotional state in this sentence is one of hoping.

Yes, sometimes published and unpublished authors use present participial phrases. I invite you to find a book published in your target market or by your target publisher, flip to any page and count the number of sentences that begin with present participial phrases. I was amazed when I did this: books that were decades old or only a few months both yielded very few.

What do you think? How often do you really use present participial phrases? What did you find when you opened a book in your target market?

Photo by Bird Eye

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