Adjustments, Big and Small

Over the past few weeks, it seems everything is changing in my life - some by choice, some by the will of the world. Aside from being deprived of electricity for five days after last week's storm, other things are shifting. My old car finally drove its last mile, so now I am driving a different car. I am trying to settle into a new sleep schedule, which my middle-aged body is resisting, and I have a bunch of new people and new adventures I am taking on for various reasons. It's a lot to digest, and it can feel overwhelming. However, I constantly remind myself that I went through some very similar changes when I decided to adventure into writing, and yes, my mind resisted. I just had to keep telling myself that this was change for the better.

Here's a simple example most people experience when they dive into the writing pool. They have a story in their head, perhaps one they've told many times to others, or just mulled over in private. When they first decide to take that step into writing, they transcribe the story from brain to the page as quickly as they can. They take pride in this accomplishment (as they should), but realize all too quickly - perhaps as quickly as their first writing workshop - how the voice we think in and the way we tell a story do not satisfy the requirements of the written page. Often, we verbally tell stories in the passive voice, but this will hit the page with a thud. The written word needs to move quickly, reducing the excess baggage and offering sharp, concise verbs, adjectives, and descriptions. Telling a story and writing a story sound completely different, and one of the first things a writer must do is learn the new langauge of the written page.

Also, while writers often benefit from possessing a broad vocabulary, they need to learn how to throw out certain words - or at least restrain them. There are little words such as "that" which often have no purpose other than add to word count. I once edited an 80,000-word manuscript and did a quick check - "that" was used over 700 times, mostly with no purpose (It is allowed if it is the object in a sentence, but that's another subject). There is a whole list of words I will discuss in a later post which a good writer needs to scrub out of their vocabulary. Just for the moment, accept this as change for the better. (And yes, I still proof my own writing for unnecessary uses of "that.")

And of course, the newly-minted writer who may explore the first-person point of view will come to a striking realization of how many things don't need to be said. A sentence such as, "I thought to myself, 'That's weird,'" explains the character's mindset but forgets that we, the readers, are already in the mind of the character. We don't need to be prompted with, "I thought..." because we know the perspective we are coming from. And, of course, when a person thinks, who else do they think to but themselves? Wipe out the "to myself" part. In short, that sentence could (and should) be rewritten as, "That;s weird." with the italics used to suggest internal dialogue. Same sentence, two-thirds fewer words.

There is a whole laundry list of adjustments we make as we explore creative writing, and they are all a hassle. However, such as my change of cars and sleep schedule, it works out better when we accept these things as moves for the better. Uncomfortable, yes, but also necessary.