‘Isn’t it ironic, doncha think?’ Er, no actually, no it’s not.

I’ve come over all teacherly thanks to my course, so I thought I’d go into full English mode and point out a few common errors made by lots of writers. Including me. Looking at my list, these pesky little details may not seem like a big deal, but being aware of them could be the difference between an agent deciding to read your manuscript or not, so they might be worth taking note of.

1. Lay down/Lie down. When you’re talking about a person, ‘lay down’ is past tense, and ‘lie down’ is present tense. So you never ever ask someone to ‘lay down’ you ask them to ‘lie down.’ I first became aware of this when some lyrics of a song were bothering me because they were grammatically incorrect, ‘…someone to lay with’ and I mentioned it to a friend. She was confused at what I meant. That was when I realised just how common it is to use ‘lay’ for present tense regarding a person. Chickens lay eggs, people lay tables, but people don’t lay down. I don’t care if 90% of the English-speaking world is saying it, it’s still wrong. You want further proof? Word just underlined ‘lay’ with green, to show that it’s grammatically incorrect. The word it wants me to change it to? ‘Lie.’

2. All right. You don’t really hear about this much, but there’s actually no such word as ‘alright.’ It should always, always be ‘all right.’ Two words. I don’t know why. Just is.

3.Ironic. ‘It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife…’ This is not actually irony. ‘A situation is…ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended.’ Having lots of spoons is not the opposite result of wanting a knife. ‘If the speaker is rifling through a silverware drawer which is known to contain knives, then this is ironic. If she's in a spoon factory, it isn't.’ I’ll let Marco from Animorphs explain it a little better: ‘We’re going to bring on global warming because we ran too many leaky air conditioners? We used too much spray deodorant, so now we’ll be doomed to sweat forever?…That’s irony. Note to Alanis. That is irony.’   

4. Him and I/Me and Her/She and I. (Etc) So you write the sentence ‘him and I went to the cinema,’ and you’re not sure if it’s right? Break the sentence down. ‘I went to the cinema’- fine. ‘Him went to the cinema’- not so much. It becomes obvious it should be ‘he and I went to the cinema.’ Always break the bits up if you’re not certain. ‘Me and her went swimming’. ‘Me went swimming’ – no. ‘Her went swimming’. Also no. So what should it be? ‘She and I’ would work, but ‘we’ is a lot neater. If still in doubt, try and use ‘we’ or ‘us’ to avoid confusion.

5. Run/Ran Bid/Bade Grit/Gritted Spit/Spat. I am especially guilty of this one, but there are some words that always seem to end up being written in present tense, even when the writer is writing in past tense. It’s always things we know when we stop to think about it, but somehow we slip up on certain words because they just seem to work in present tense. I think part of the problem is that they rhyme with some words that are in past tense, or words that don’t have a past tense. Like ‘hit.’ You wouldn’t say ‘hitted’ or ‘hat’. You’d say ‘I hit the ball’ which could be either past or present tense. ‘Grit’ and ‘Spit both rhyme with ‘Hit’ so when I’m writing and listening to the flow of the words, rather than thinking about them individually, I find that they sneakily sound like they work. Unfortunately, this isn’t really one you can check, apart from keeping a close eye out for the blighters whilst editing.   

6. Until/til/till. We shorten the word ‘until’ a lot. What we often forget is that the shortened version of ‘until’ is ‘til’ not ‘till.’ A ‘till’ is a cash register. Careful with this one. Kate Middleton was caught using ‘till’ instead of ‘til’ in a letter and was mocked for it by the press. Which just goes to show you never what snobs out there will be judging you on your grammar rather than what you’re saying.

7. Compliment/complement. They’re two separate words. Who knew? I think most people know what a compliment is: ‘you like nice’ ‘your eyes are pretty’ ‘I love the way your greasy hair shines in the moonlight.’ Ok, that last one was backhanded, but still, you get my point. It’s to say something nice about someone/something. So you probably know what complement is too- when two things/people bring out the best in each other and work well together, they complement each other. And they’re spelt differently- even though they mean very similar things. Go figure.

8. And this last one is just because it irritates me no end, but has absolutely nothing to do with writing. A person who doesn’t eat meat but eats fish is not a vegetarian. They’re a pescetarian. No creature of any kind = vegetarian, no meat = pescetarian. As a vegetarian, I get asked a lot if I eat fish. *Headdesk.* I think people should now know the answer to that one.

Just a quick note- due to my now much, much busier schedule, I don’t know how regularly I’ll be updating my blog. I’ll try to do at least Wednesdays and Sundays- hopefully more if I can find the time! J

‘He catches raindrops from his window, it reminds him how we fall.’

‘Show don’t tell.’ Creative Writing 101. Anyone who’s ever taken a creative writing course or simply googled ‘rules’ of writing, will know that this is the NUMBER 1 most important rule there is. If you only follow one creative writing rule this year… etc, etc. Show what you’re trying to say, don’t tell it. The difference between, ‘he felt hungry’ (telling) and ‘his stomach rumbled.’ (showing.)

To anyone who has been following my blog with any sort of interest, it’s probably becoming apparent that I consider ‘writing rules’ a lot. I’ll admit that they are important to me, but not because I’m a straight laced, goody-two-shoes, never breaks the rules, doesn’t colour outside of the lines type of person. The truth is that I suffer terrible insecurity that my writing is not, and never will be, good enough, and I don’t want to give people reasons to add to the list of why this might be the case. ‘See that? She used an adverb. An adverb. Amateur!’ So I study the rules, and then, when I’m hit with another dose of ‘Godmywritingiscrapishouldjustgocurlupinahole’ I go and study them again and apply them to my writing and say ‘well, at least I’m not doing that wrong.’

But (and there’s another writing rule: starting a sentence with ‘but’ makes me look like an arse) the terrifying truth is: rules can be broken. If everyone did everything in the same way, it would be boring. If a book is full of broken rules and no one even notices because the book is AMAZING then who cares? And if a book follows every goddam rule and it’s still a pile of shit then again, who cares?? I know that there are people out there who fear a time when no one knows how to write a grammatically correct sentence anymore, and I empathise, but the beauty of writing and language is that it is always evolving. ‘OMG’ has entered the dictionary. Should we laugh or cry? And would writing actually be better if it remained the same and ended up feeling stilted and dead? (These are not rhetorical questions by the way. Feel free to answer them.)  

So maybe it’s about balance. I tend to find 70 percent sticking to the rules and 30 percent breaking them to be a good mix. A spattering of adverbs, the odd fragmented sentence.

Maybe it’s about being true to yourself. Exclamation points have been described as ‘canned laughter’ but how often does someone stop and find an exclamation point jarring? Sometimes they give a piece of writing some much-needed vigour.

I suppose my point is that I have no concrete answers. I’m always, always trying to be a better writer, but I’m often finding that I read something that breaks all of the rules and guess what? It’s still a great piece of writing. The fact is that with something creative, rules are only ever going to take you so far.

So, to come back to ‘show don’t tell.’ There are plenty of arguments against this rule and that’s fine if you agree with those, but I would say that this ‘holiest of holy commandments’ is one that I tend to observe when writing my WIP. I just find it a much stronger form of writing, and it leads to much more interesting ways of getting a point across.

I’ll end this post with the lyrics of the song ‘From The Stars’ by White Lies. Listening to it the other day, I was struck immediately by the thought that it made an interesting example of ‘showing.’

I saw a friend that I once knew at a funeral,
He took the time out to be seen.
His eyes kept glancing to the hour hand on the gold watch,

That he'd been given by a magazine.
He didn't cry when the priest gave the sermon,
Just pulled up the woolen collar on his fleece.
Crossed his arms, gave a sigh and checked the time again,
As he sat inches from the wife of the deceased.

He catches raindrops from his window, it reminds him how we fall,
From the stars back to our cities, where we've never felt so small.
Raindrops from his window making puddles in his hands,
He sees how quick the water's rising as another raindrop lands.

He took a chauffeur driven car back to his hotel,
Passing through the city streets where he was born.
He said "Driver, what's happened to these buildings?

They all look run down and so forlorn."
He took a shower in the bathroom of his penthouse,
Put the Do not Disturb on his door.
When the maid came in the morning,
She found him shivering on the bedroom floor.

Perhaps the downside of ‘showing’ is that the feelings of the person in this song aren’t completely clear. Perhaps people get different ideas about what the person feels and then argue about the meaning. To me, it is someone suffering depression or an existential crisis, or a feeling of disconnection with the world, or with his old life. The thing is though, however wrongly or rightly I interpret them, I find these lyrics beautiful and fascinating, and so much less boring than, say, ‘He was depressed.’ They make me think, they make me pay attention, and they create a world for the reader/listener to step inside. Can as strong an effect be had from ‘telling?’ Let me know what you think!

‘Hate is a strong word, but I really, really, really don’t like you.’

There’s a general writer’s rule that dialogue tags are bad, and no word other than ‘said’ should follow a character speaking. The idea is that someone’s dialogue should be strong enough to stand on its own without the need to explain how it’s pronounced. Dialogue should show characterisation and allow the reader to form an opinion of that character without the author shoving their own opinions down the reader’s throat.

One such book that is guilty of dialogue tags is Twilight. I promise this isn’t going to be an attack of Twilight but more of an exercise. I’ve always had an issue with the character Jessica, Bella’s frenemy. She’s considered a bitch, right from the start, but in the reader’s introduction to her, does she ever actually do or say anything nasty? I decided to take away all dialogue tags, all exclamation marks and all italics, to let the dialogue speak for itself. Below is the result:

http://www.movieline.com/2009/12/anna-kendrick-the-movieline-interview.php?page=5 (This photo is not mine!)

When Bella firsts sees the Cullens.

Bella: Who are they?

Jessica: That’s Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr Cullen and his wife.

Bella: They are very nice looking.

Jessica: Yes. They’re all together though – Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together.

…

Bella: That’s really kind of nice- for them to take care of all those kids, when they’re so young and everything.

Jessica: I guess so. I think that Mrs Cullen can’t have any kids though.

Bella: Have they always lived in Forks?

Jessica: No. They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska.

Bella: Which one is the boy with reddish-brown hair?

Jessica: That’s Edward. He’s gorgeous of course, but don’t waste your time. He doesn’t date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him.

 

At the front of the cafeteria line, Bella is distracted because she sees Edward for the second time:

Jessica: Hello, Bella, what do you want?

Mike: What’s wrong with Bella?

Bella: Nothing. I’ll just get a soda today.

Jessica: Aren’t you hungry?

Bella: Actually, I feel a little sick.

Jessica: Bella, what are you staring at? [a moment later] Edward Cullen is staring at you.

Bella: He doesn’t look angry, does he?

Jessica: No. Should he be?

Bella: I don’t think he likes me.

Jessica: The Cullens don’t like anybody. Well…they don’t notice anybody enough to like them. But he’s still staring at you.

Bella: Stop looking at him.

Discussing Jessica inviting Mike to a dance:

Jessica: Are you sure you don’t mind…You weren’t planning to ask him?

Bella: No, Jess, I’m not going.

Jessica: It will be really fun.

Bella: You have fun with Mike

In the cafeteria again:

Jessica: Edward Cullen is staring at you again. I wonder why he’s sitting alone today.

[Edward indicates for Bella to join him]

Jessica: Does he mean you?

Bella: Maybe he needs help with his biology homework. Um, I’d better go see what he wants.

One thing I would state is that Jessica seems there to prop Bella up- to be the admiring/jealous friend who makes Bella feel even more special by letting her know how unusual it is for Edward Cullen to take an interest in her. Which really just leads me to think poor Jessica, as every boy she’s ever fancied seems to like Bella, and that would be hard for even the saintliest of girls.

This experiment works even better with Lauren. Yeah, yeah, I know, who the f– is Lauren? (Alex reads Twilight, hilarious videos on Youtube) If you’ve read the book, or own it, or can borrow it from someone, turn to page 104 (In the British paperback version anyway) and read Lauren’s dialogue without dialogue tags. What the hell? If Lauren’s a bitch, make her a bitch; don’t just tell us that she’s acting bitchily. The result of that, (for me anyway) is that the narrator comes across as petty and unreliable and paranoid, turning every innocent sentence into something suspect.

This is definitely a post where I need people’s comments. How does Jessica come across to you? Especially if you’ve never read the book. Knowing all of the dialogue tags, it’s interesting to see if someone who hasn’t read the book will pick up on the ‘finer’ aspects of Jessica’s personality. So let me know!