100 Ways to Improve Your Writing (Mentor Series) (3 page)

BOOK: 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing (Mentor Series)
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2. Knowing that the class or teacher is going to read your work, you will work harder at making your writing good.
3. Your own writing mistakes are often invisible to you, but they will become obvious when you see them in the work of fellow students.
6. Eavesdrop
 
Be nosy. Listen to conversations on the bus, in the elevator. Screen out the words sometimes and listen only to the music. Tune in to teenagers’ conversations, and you’ll pick up the latest slang. Pretend to be reading on the park bench, and you’ll hear how words are used to convey more than they mean. Find out what people are talking about, what they care about. All of this will help you to communicate more effectively through your writing.
 
This passage from my book
The Dorchester Gas Tank is
based on a conversation I overheard at a diner in Burlington, Vermont.
 
 
“My neighbor’s daughter has just got back from Sweden,” Bernice says. Her words are slightly muffled because she has stopped in her conversation with Dora to slice open a roll of Italian bread and stuff it with provolone cheese, several thick slices of baloney and enough tomatoes, onions, etc. to sink a ship. Now she chomps on it as if food will soon be obsolete.
 
“I didn’t know they went to Europe,” Bernice’s sister says.
 
“Well it’s not really Europe. It’s in Scandinavia. It’s a Danish country.”
 
“Oh yes,” Dora says, “the Danish country is very nice, but those people don’t like to talk to outsiders.”
 
“Well, it’s a sub-language they speak,” Bernice says. “It’s like German, not fully developed.”
 
“Very guttural,” Dora says.
 
“My neighbor’s daughter says some of them are
really awful. She went to a cathedral and one of them had stolen a crown from a statue of the Blessed
Mother.”
 
“From the Blessed Mother? That’s disgraceful.”
 
 
7. Research
 
Do your fingers sometimes freeze over the typewriter keyboard? Does the paper seem to stare back at you with an accusing eye? The problem could be that you haven’t gathered enough information. You haven’t gotten the facts.
 
Almost everything you will ever write must be built on a foundation of factual information. That includes opinion pieces and most certainly includes stories, plays, and novels.
 
Before you write, track down the bits of information you are going to need. Get the prices you must quote, the names of people you will mention. Find out when it’s going to happen, where it will be, who’s going to be speaking, and whether or not dogs are allowed. You cannot write securely on any subject unless you have gathered far more information than you will use.
 
Here are four ways to get facts.
 
1. Look it
up.
If the facts are not in the books on your shelf, try the company library or the public library. Through the library system, you have access to just about every piece of information in the world, though in some cases the information might have been printed only in Swahili.
2.
Ask somebody.
Who has the information you need? Is it the chairperson of the canvassing committee? Is it the president of the company? Is it the president’s secretary?
Ask yourself, “Who would know?” Then go directly to the most logical and best-informed people. And if anybody begins an answer with “Well, gee, Harry, I think maybe that now that you ask, let me see ...” ask somebody else.
 
3.
Observe it.
Sometimes the best way to acquire facts is to conduct an experiment. Do you need to know how many miles it is from the center of town to the church? Drive from downtown to the church and check your mileage. Will people in wheelchairs be able to attend the dinner at the Old Timer’s Café? Go to the Old Timer’s, have a drink. And while you are there, look for ramps, measure the doorways, check the rest rooms.
Of course, there’s not always time for this sort of thing. In an emergency, ask somebody. Like a waitress at the Old Timer’s, or the minister who’s got to drive downtown to put the collection in the bank.
 
4.
Speak to the reference librarian.
Most libraries offer a reference service. Use it. When you need information and you don’t know where to find it, ask the librarian. He or she will find it, or direct you to the source. Many libraries will handle reference questions over the phone, and that can spare you a good deal of frustration when your writing comes to a standstill because you don’t know where George Gershwin was born. Keep the library’s phone number handy. But remember that librarians are the servants of ignorance, not of laziness. Call the librarian if you need to know the biggest crops in Bolivia, but don’t call to ask how Bolivia is spelled.
8. Write in Your Head
 
When I was a reporter for a local newspaper, I used to leave a school committee or selectmen’s meeting around eleven P.M. in Hudson and drive eight miles to the newspaper office in Marlboro, where I would write my stories for the next day’s edition.
 
Often I arrived after other reporters. But almost invariably I would write my stories, hand them in, and drive home before the others. I was able to do this, not because I am a faster typist, but because I started writing before I got to the office. I wrote the first draft in my head during the drive to Marlboro. In my mind I planned the lead, decided what information I could ignore, and organized my material. By the time I reached the office, I knew what I wanted to write, and when I sat down at the typewriter, it was like pushing the “play” button on a tape recorder. Everything I had recorded in my brain came out.
 
So if you have a writing job, write in your head. Clear up the inconsistencies while you’re brushing your teeth. Get your thoughts organized while you’re driving to work. Think of a slant during lunch. And most important, come up with a beginning, a lead, so that you won’t end up staring at your typewriter as if it had just arrived from another galaxy. If you have spent time writing in your head, you’ll have a head start. The writing will come easier, and you’ll finish sooner.
 
9. Choose a Time and Place
 
For most writers the hardest part of any writing project is getting started. I often begin by staring at the typewriter as if it is some vile substance that has been spilled on my desk. Then, no matter how alert I was when I arrived at the typewriter, I become almost terminally drowsy. My eyes droop. My shoulders sag. Finally, I begin to think, “Well, maybe I should take a little nap first, then I’ll be well rested for writing.” Usually my puritan conscience cancels that plan. So I take on the expression of a man who has just been strapped into a dentist’s chair and begin to write. As soon as I have words on paper, agony departs. I love writing. It’s getting started that I abhor.
 
I tell you this so that you won’t feel alone. You probably go through similar hell before you write. Almost everybody does. The way to eliminate most of these traumas is to write in large blocks of time rather than try to write for ten minutes here and ten minutes there. Look at your schedule. When will you be left undisturbed for an hour or two? Can you lock the door? Unplug the phone? You will get more writing done in an undisturbed hour than you would in a dozen ten-minute spurts.
 
It is also important to find a quiet place to write. Few people can write their best when the phone is ringing and the kids are clamoring for whatever it is that makes kids clamor. A den in a noisy house would probably produce less writing than the back seat of a car in a quiet garage. So find someplace quiet. Is there a day when everybody else is out of the house? Does a friend have a cottage? Does your company have an empty office?
 
If you can’t find a quiet place to write, use earplugs.
 
CHAPTER TWO
 
Nine Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block
 
1. Copy Something
2. Keep a Journal
3. Talk About What You’re Writing
4. Touch Your Toes
5. Do Writing Exercises
6. Organize Your Material
7. Make a List
8. Picture a Reader
9. Ask Yourself Why You Are Writing
1. Copy Something
 
Yes, copy. From time to time take a few paragraphs from something that you enjoyed reading and sit down at the typewriter or with a notebook and copy them word for word. You will find yourself suddenly aware of the choices the writer made. You will look at the work from the writer’s point of view. In time you will feel like an insider, and you will say, “I know why he chose this word; I know why he made two short sentences here instead of one long one.” You will become more intimate with the writer’s words and with words in general, and your own writing will be better for it.
 
If you don’t have a favorite passage to copy, use this one from
The Great Gatsby
(Scribner’s) by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s a favorite of mine.
 
 
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
 
Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something

an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.
 
 
2. Keep a Journal
 
There is no one right way to keep a journal. But if you have some sort of notebook or diary that you return to often with your written thoughts, opinions, observations, and various bits of wit, you will have a place in which to exercise your writing muscles.
 
You will learn to describe succinctly and clearly the events of your daily life. You will learn to pluck from each event just the details needed to create a sense of the whole. If you keep a journal, you will grow as a writer, and you will find that sooner or later, no matter what you have to write professionally, your personal experiences will play a part.
 
Keep in mind, however, that a journal can be far more than just a diary. You can take notes from a conversation. You can take notes while you’re reading, or eating at a restaurant. You can even take notes while you’re watching television. I know of one woman who took notes while watching the National Cheerleading Competition on TV. She learned all the terms, and with the information she gathered, she was able to make a story about a cheerleader convincing.
 
3. Talk About What You’re Writing
 
When you’re looking for a job, you tell as many people as you can. There’s always the chance that one of your friends knows about a suitable job opening, or that someone knows a guy who knows a guy, etc. Same thing when you want to buy a house. You tell people what size house you’re looking for, how much you can spend, and what kind of neighbors you can’t stand. You do this because maybe somebody has heard about a house you’d want to buy. In effect, by telling people what you need, you plug into a huge computer loaded with all the relevant information your friends have accumulated.
 
When you have a story to write, plug into that computer. Talk about your story. Tell people your subject and your particular slant. Chances are your friend Karen read a book last week that had a chapter on your subject, your cousin Louie might send you an appropriate newspaper clipping, somebody else might remember a fitting quote from George Bernard Shaw, and your brother James might remember something significant that he heard when he was in prison.
 
4. Touch Your Toes
 
BOOK: 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing (Mentor Series)
11.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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