Online Quizzes

What does your haircut say about your love life? Can your shoe size predict your future? Who were you in a past life – pick a celebrity photo and see! We’ve all succumbed at one time or another. In fact, I’ve been delving into them a lot recently. I’m not talking about the tests favored by Facebook and other social media sites. I’m referring to online grammar quizzes.

Did I hear a groan? Stay with me.

I just finished a wonderful book on punctuation — Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation By David Crystal. Professor Crystal’s book is humorous and filled with fascinating trivia. (Did you know bullet points were actually called dingbats?) Yet, while being entertained by David Crystal’s very British sense of humor, I became aware of how much I didn’t know that I thought I knew. I flew to the web to discover the extent of my failings.

Online quizzes have not only helped me identify weaknesses in my grammar database, they have made me more aware of these hazards while writing. They are particularly useful for those enamored with certain flirtatious punctuation marks. (Semi-colon lovers, you know who you are!) Quizzes demonstrate how and when these characters are to be used. You may “desire” to insert them as your heart dictates but test yourself before becoming overly involved. They are a fickle bunch.

Most quizzes don’t take long, usually a few minutes, and are available for all levels of expertise. I like to think of my participation in online quizzes as class time. My own little ‘Not-Quite Masters of Fine Arts’ program.

So when you see a personality quiz on your chosen social site let it remind you that there are quizzes out there that can hone your craft, not just waste your time. You can ‘share’ what you learn all you want through your writing.

Carry on.

 

 

 

BARBIE’S LAST CHRISTMAS

 

The year Mother burned up my Christmas presents, Mary Brewer’s father called the fire department. Wrapping paper stuffed into the fireplace had caught in the chimney cap shooting bluish-orange flames into the evening sky. Within minutes the firemen’s ladder truck skid to a stop on the snow banked street. By then the fire had died. Only tissue thin ashes wafted into the night like dusky moth wings. My dad stomped through the front door. The scent of cold and wood smoke perfuming his robe. Snow from the soles of his yellow bedroom slippers traced his steps, melting in patches on the Oriental rug.

“Damn nosey neighbors.” He threw an official looking scrap of paper on the coffee table. It landed beside his eggnog. “Fifty bucks.”

That’s when I noticed the three new Barbie outfits I’d gotten for Christmas were missing. I tore through boxes desperate to find the satiny-blue ball gown complete with matching heels, tennis shorts and sweater combo that included a miniature racquet, and the red velvet coat with real fake fur on the collar.  I crawled under the baby grand in case I had kicked them under the piano in my rush to look out the front windows. Not finding the anywhere I asked my mother, “Where are Barbie’s new clothes? They were right here under the tree.”

Mother stood in front of the fireplace, arms crossed. “Now, aren’t you sorry for smart-mouthing me in front of your grandma?”

Confused, I looked to my father. He was paying no attention to either of us. Citation in one hand eggnog in the other, he muttered. “Damn Brewer.”

A strip of seared blue fabric floated behind the scorched fire screen caught in a spiral of rising heat. “I heard what you said when I told you to eat your peas,” Mother said. “‘Stupid’— is that what you think I am?”

I had directed that insult at the peas, but an explanation would only make things worse. My chin quaked. Tears gathered in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

She put her hands on her hips, just below the cinched belt of her red and green print dress. “Does saying you’re sorry for a thing make the doing of it all right?”

A bleating sob escaped my throat. “No.”

“And the next time Grandma is here, how will you treat your mother?”

“With respect.” The words came out mushy.

“Okay then.” My mother came to me, arms extended, and drew me into a hug. I kept my back straight, arms at my sides.

“Go take the rest of your presents upstairs,” she told me. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the store and you can replace what you made me burn.”

I gathered my gifts dispirited, careful not to leave any behind.

The next day I picked out Barbie clothes different from the ones set aflame. The sight of the plastic wrapped ball gown, tennis shorts, and velvety coat smothered me with shame and a smoldering anger. I threw Barbie’s new outfits on the floor of the closet in my room — out of sight. Christmas was over.

 

I met my husband through an erstwhile friend.

We had been friends for less than a year prior and she faded from my life about a year afterwards. He stayed in my life, she didn’t. At the time I was simply enjoying the friendship, hanging out at her cozy Colorado cabin on the Frying Pan River. It wasn’t until much later that I realized she had been a transitional character in the story of my life propelling my life plot from one stage to another.

Novels require transitional characters in the same way life does. The main character needs both compulsion and propulsion to send him or her through the plot. But, as with my friend, the transitional characters can’t be obvious. I just finished Christina Baker Kline’s wonderful novel Orphan Train. The book itself is about fate and almost every person outside the two main characters is transitional, exiting the novel when they have satisfied their purpose. But, like my friendship, you don’t realize it until much later when the main protagonists see it for themselves.

The trick is to pull this off. I read another book that had an obvious transitional character. He moved the plot, gave rational to the action, and disappeared from the novel entirely when no longer needed. It bothered me that it was so blatant. I felt cheated and manipulated at the same time: cheated because the character was a cardboard figure with no dimension, manipulated because I readily accepted his presence and expected him to be important only to realize he was a prop.

In life we can’t always see fate at work. As writers we are fate at work. The challenge is to arrange our paper worlds with grace and subtlety.

I don’t know that I ever thanked my former friend for bringing me and my sweetheart together. None of us knew at the time what a big influence she would be.

Recently,

a writer friend of mine mentioned she avoided writing in first person for fear of over-using the pronoun “I.” Another writing buddy doesn’t like to write anything that is sad or uncomfortable. One gets hung up on perfect grammar and finds it difficult to write at all, so concerned about correctness that she stifles her own imagination.

These are all examples of writers afraid of leaving their comfort zone. They set their imaginative thermostat at 68 or 72 and never deviate. All of the friends I mentioned are wonderful writers, but each limits themselves with their own fears of venturing too far from home. This is where writing prompts can help. I am subscribed to one of the free daily writing prompt websites available, but  admit to skipping some. They seem too silly, or uninteresting, or too far-fetched. However, after thinking about the conversations I’ve had I am determined to try them all from now on. If I don’t go beyond what I am accustomed to, I won’t ever grow.

Fear is a big monster that hides under every writer’s bed. We all need to run him off by turning the light on. Or the thermostat up! Sweat the sucker out or freeze him—it’s your choice. The important thing is to get out of that safe zone and venture into the wilderness. Don’t worry. You can always come back. It will be nice and warm when you do.

SOME OF YOU
may have noticed the Steinbeck quote to the right of this blog. Those who know me may think it is a reference to the book manuscript I’m still rewriting, always rewriting. In fact, I have several pieces that I return to over and over. They never seem to be finished.

This month I participated in a seminar at the Hub City Writer’s Workshop. Writer-in-Residence Akwaeke Emezi did a wonderful job talking to us about revision. She confessed that she was mortified when rereading her early work. Fiction workshop leader Marlin Barton remarked that he never read his published novels or short stories. He would want to rewrite them all! These writers had gone far beyond were they were. They are much better writers now than then.

That’s what the Steinbeck quote means to me. As a writer I am always learning my craft, always developing voice, always practicing the art. As I learn I become a better writer; as I become a better writer, I become more aware of how much I have to learn. It’s a never ending circle, like a wedding ring. Another quote that stuck in my head when I was a teen is from the Agony and the Ecstasy: “Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.” A little melodramatic maybe but it is from Irving Stone, after all. And it makes the same point for me as Steinbeck. No matter how much natural talent you may have, dedication to craft is required. Forever.

Participating in writer’s conferences, finding the right critique group, reading writing blogs and books on writing all contribute to my continuing education and invigorate me as a writer. And so, happily, I will never be finished.

Though, hopefully, someday my manuscript will be.
Write on!

A while back

I read a book that had the annoying habit of veering off on tangents, topics that were out of place. It seemed to me the author was putting in their own favorite foods or an opinion the author felt strongly about. But it didn’t fit the character espousing these views and it interrupted the flow. It took away from the story and is, unfortunately, what I remember most about the book.

I didn’t know until recently that this bug-a-boo has a name: Author intrusion. A more fitting name could not be had. That’s exactly what I felt reading dialog about a certain grocery store. Dialog that even told me its location. Reading an author’s opinion or preferences in the middle of a novel makes me scratch my head in wonder. Didn’t the author see how misplaced this is? Didn’t the editor?

I’m not sure what impulse compels us humans to dispense our unsolicited opinions but it happens all the time. Haven’t you been in conversations where someone is always telling you what they think even though you haven’t asked? Annoying, isn’t it? It’s even more of an irritant in a novel. It puts someone else in the room, namely the author. I pick up a book to read the story, not to be lectured on which political stance I should take. This unwanted advice is, indeed, intrusive.

But not all author intrusion is bad. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles inserts himself to marvel at his male protagonist. He puts himself in the same train and ruminates on what this character is doing and what may come next. It’s wonderful stuff! In this case author intrusion is a literary device used consciously by the writer. As a literary device the writer steps out from behind the curtain to speak directly to the reader. The intrusion helps the story along, it doesn’t detract.

So, like everything else in life, the difference is in intent. If you want me to ride the train with you and your character invite me along in the pages of the book. But if you want to tell me about your favorite grocery store call me, don’t put that information in your character’s mouth.

Point of View (POV)

Are you scared yet? A lot of writers, dare I say most writers, break out in a rash when they hear the term. In my critique group we are constantly struggling with POV. The first hurdle is which POV you need to use. I say need rather than want because I firmly believe the material, not the writer, dictates the POV. But that’s for another day. In fact, any POV you use will present its own challenges.

Many writers believe that first person is the easiest to write in. I beg to differ. Staying in one character’s head is harder than it seems. How to get the reader the back-story? The physical description? It’s common to see the main character’s back story in another character’s mouth. “I remember when you were born on that April day in 1975. Your mother was blind and your father a drunk and you left home at sixteen to roam the streets of New York.” A whole paragraph of that is not only boring but unnatural.

As for physical description there is the overused mirror technique. “I gazed in the bathroom mirror at the heavy black eyeliner around my light blue eyes and tucked a strand of bleached blond hair behind my ear, glistening with three studs.” I have attended numerous workshops and conferences and have been told umpteen times not to use the mirror technique for first person POV descriptions. But come on—who hasn’t resorted to it?

Then there is omniscient or God’s POV. It solves some problems but creates others. God is all knowing, all seeing, and much better at organizing that information than mere mortal writers. How do you decide what to tell and what to leave out when presenting the past, present, and future of each character in your story? I wrote a whole novel in third person only to rewrite it in first. It needed more intimacy than the God view allowed. Or so it seemed. I am currently reading Edward P. Jones’ novel The Known World and am astonished at his use of the third person. His story is intimate and dramatic without being overloaded with information. He surprises me with details of what the character will experience in the future, without distracting me from the present plot. I am learning a lot from this book on POV while enjoying it. Critique groups help to pointing out where POV diverges; reading a writer who uses POV masterly shows you how it should, and can, be done. It is inspirational.

As for second person—you don’t want to get me started.

flow chart from https://booksbytrista.wordpress.com/category/point-of-view/

Though I have been accused of being a member

I protest that I am not. I don’t hate adverbs. I just think they are like a part-time Walmart employee—over worked. There are so many wonderful, strong words out there that can do the job for you, why hire a skinny little thing that has to bring along his big brother to do the lifting? Let’s take a simple sentence as an example: John walked slowly toward Mary’s bedroom.

What image does this sentence bring to mind? Why is John “walking slowly?” Who the hell are these people anyway? Let’s go further and pretend that this is the first sentence of your novel/short story. What have you told the reader? How have you enticed the reader with this sentence? What will happen next? If the answers to these questions are- nothing, don’t know, don’t care- you see the problem with weak verbs propped up by adverbs.

What if the sentence read, John slouched toward Mary’s bedroom? Or, John snaked toward Mary’s bedroom. In the first sentence the reader may wonder why John is reluctant to go to Mary’s bedroom. We don’t know the answer yet but at least it poses the question. In the second sentence John is more sinister. Is John there for no good? It adds to the character development of John.

Yes, you could add to the sentence in an effort to define “walked slowly.” John walked slowly toward Mary’s bedroom, unzipping his pants, intent on no good. Ok, now we know John is the villain. But with a stronger verb in the sentence we can give the reader the info in a much more succinct and interesting way. John snaked toward Mary’s bedroom, unzipping his pants. The reader knows from the verb that John is intent on no good.

The Adverb Police can be uncompromising. Their leader, Stephen King, puts it plainly in his book On Writing: Adverbs are “…like dandelions. If you have one in your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions.”

I’ve have been known to harbor weeds in my lawn, so I can’t claim to belong to the Adverb Police. At best I’m in the neighborhood watch.

and write it down.

I am in awe of them. When I read The Year of Magical Thinking, I was blown away by Joan Didion’s honesty and courage in relating the intensely personal loss of her husband. It’s unfathomably hard to face one’s own grief and put it on paper. A friend of mine is dealing with this issue. Having lost a child some years ago, she is struggling with the need to put it in writing and the inability to do so. It’s just too hard to face. Yet something compels her to want to write it down.

As writers, we feel the import of emotional events. As writers, we need to get these experiences and the accompanying emotions out for understanding, for healing. As writers, we see the universality of events and the emotions they elicit. And we want to share them to help others, to find community, and empathy. Yet as humans we shrink from the glare of our pain.

Every spring I think of my brother Tom. He died the day after Christmas, 1984, in an awful car accident. He was a “motorhead” and had ten cars. Ten! He wasn’t rich. He found good deals. Some of the cars didn’t run or ran sporadically. For a while he had a Jaguar XKE that wouldn’t shift out of first gear. The ’57 Buicks, the Porche 911, the Corvette convertible: these cars would winter in various barns and garages around eastern Wisconsin until the weather turned and the snow melted. Then they would appear with Tom behind the wheel.

“Want to take a ride,” he’d ask. I always dropped whatever I was doing. Once, he let me ride in the Porche as he tested a slalom track before a competition. Just writing about it now puts the sound of the engine in my ears, the smile on my face, and the tears in my eyes. Even after all these years. In fact, this is the first time I have written anything about him. My chest is tight and my stomach aches. I am a coward.

Yet I know now that I will return to him. Maybe not as memoir, perhaps I need the distance of fiction. Yet I feel the need…as a writer.

Be careful what you share.

A few blogs ago I mentioned writer sharing sites, such as Wattpad, and wondered if sharing work online would preclude it from submission in contests or publications that ask for “unpublished” work. The answer is yes. Anytime you put a piece of writing onto a public forum it constitutes publishing. This includes Twitter, Facebook, Wattpad, Pinterest, and all the others.

The confusion for me came from Wattpad itself. On the writers’ page it states, “Anything you post on Wattpad can be published in as many other places as you like.” It’s true but a bit misleading. It can be published in “as many places as you like,” as long as those places will consider already published work. The next sentence makes it sound as if the difference is in copyrights: “We don’t demand any rights to your work, or any control over where you share it.” Most short story and poetry venues ask for one time rights, but not asking for rights has nothing to do with whether a piece is considered published.

Several publications and writers answered my query on this topic and all were in agreement. If you post something on an open site—anything—it is published. So why would you want to do that at all? It would be a good marketing tool for self-published, soon to be published, or already published work. The piece Margaret Atwood had on Wattpad was a short story from her new collection Stone Mattress. She ran a contest based on the story’s characters. What a great idea! And a perfect use of sharing sites.

So if you have something to promote, by all means share it. But be smart. Offer free rides but don’t give away the horse.