Time to Write

Write it write: everyday vs. every day/ tack vs. tact

Here are a few more terms writers have confused or misused in the material I've read recently:

Everyday vs. every day

Wrong: He does this everyday.  

Right: He does this every day.

"Everyday" means typical or ordinary, not reserved for special days. In California, enjoying the sunshine is an everyday occurrence. It's something you can enjoy every day. 

Tact vs. tack

Wrong: "I couldn't draw like a professional, so I had to take a different tact." 

Right: "I took a different tack."

"Tact" is a noun meaning the ability to say things in a way that is not offensive or hurtful.

"Tack" is a noun for changing a sailboat's course by turning the boat's head into the wind. From that it also became a noun for a course of action or policy. (It also has a few other unrelated meanings.)

 

Write it right: Lowering the bar or raising it?

Today I came across this in a financial newsletter:

The French government doesn't care about this. So they've recently LOWERED the bar for reporting obligations, requiring a businesses with top-line revenue of just 80,000 euros to submit time consuming and onerous VAT reports to the tax authorities. 

Actually, it soundsl iike they RAISED the bar. If people change the standards to make things easier, they lower the bar. If they change the standards that make things harder, they raise the bar.

Write it right: cues vs. queues

From a description of an illustration course:

"First, we'll look at old illustrations to take queues from the old masters."

Well, if we're going to borrow lines of people waiting for something, then that's right. Otherwise, we'll take cues, not queues.

From the Free Dictionary: CUE

1. A signal, such as a word or action, used to prompt another event in a performance, such as an actor's speech or entrance, a change in lighting, or a sound effect.

2.

a. A reminder or prompting.

b. A hint or suggestion.

3. Music

a. An extract from the music for another part printed, usually in smaller notes, within a performer's part as a signal to enter after a long rest.

b. A gesture by a conductor signaling the entrance of a performer or part.

4. Psychology A stimulus, either consciously or unconsciously perceived, that elicits or signals a type of behavior.

5. Archaic One's assigned role or function.

6. Archaic A mood; a disposition.

Write it right: memoirs, novels, and "fiction novels"

Here's part of a brief review of a book called Fisheye: A Memoir: "In her debut novel "Fisheye," Trish Thorpe tells of her childhood, rocked by familial discord, and of her coming-of-age, which happened all too soon...

It's not a memoir of a fictional character, it's a memoir of the author...which means it's not a novel.

I've spotted this confusion more often lately, with people referring to "a fiction novel." If it's a novel, it's fiction. If it's a memoir it's non-fiction (we'll leave aside the fact that many memoirs stray from the truth).

 

Write it right: home in vs. hone in

A headline on the USA Today website: "Wall Street Hones in on Economy's Health."

Hmm, shouldn't that be homes in on"?

I checeked the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. It states:

"Hone In: to move toward of focus attention on an objectjective. It may have arisen from "home in" by the weakening of the "m" sound to "n" or may perhaps simply be due to the influence of "hone." Though it seems to have established itself in American English (and mention in a British usage book suggests it is used in British English too), your use especially in writing is likely to be called a mistake. "Home in" or in figuative use "zero in" does nicely.

Hone: as a verb, "to sharpen or smooth with a whetstone, or to make more acute, intense, or effective as in "...helped him hone is math skills." As a noun, a whetstone.

 A LOSING BATTLE?

This feels like another losing battle, as with "hopefully" (which I admit I, like almost everybody else, now use to mean "I hope"), and, coming up fast, the loss of the distinction between literally and figuratively. But let us fight on!

EXPECT ABUSE

Having said that, I should warn you that if you ever politely  correct anybody's grammar online, expect a flood of abusive comments along the lines of "get a life!", "who made you the grammar police?" (often spelled grammer police)  and many less polite insults. I wonder whether Noah Webster got the 19th century version of the same response? Of course he could have said, "Yes, actually I am the grammar police."

 

Write it right: eke and lo

Although writing "peak" when they mean "peek" continues to be the number one mistake I see all the time, here are two more I spotted recently:

"I managed to eek out a living as a writer."

eke out:

a.to make (a living) or support (existence) laboriously: They managed 

to eke out a living by farming a small piece of land.

b.to supplement; add to; stretch: to eke out an income with odd jobs.

 

"Low and behold, the sky remained the same color."

Lo and behold: The word 'lo' as used in this phrase is a shortening of 'look'. So, lo and behold! has the meaning of look! - behold!. Lo in this and its other meaning, which is more akin to O!, has been in use since the first Millennium and appears in the epic poem Beowulf.

 

Related articles

The biggest mistake made by aspiring children's authors

Write it right: Unless you're calling your pet chicken..

This is another howler I spotted recently:

"Cry fowl"

correct: Cry foul

• protest strongly about a real or imagined wrong or injustice:deprived of the crushing victory it was confidently expecting, the party cried foul

No compliments for mis-using complements (The Grammar Grouch)

Maybe I should start a blog called The Grammar Grouch, because there are some mistakes I find irritating.

It's interesting how some of these increase until you see them everywhere. I wonder whether there's a tipping point beyond which the mis-use goes viral.

The one I'm referring to this time is compliments vs. complements.

Compliments are postiive statements or praise ("In her journal she wrote all of the compliments she received") or the act of making such statements ("He compliments every woman he meets"). The adjective form is complimentary ("Everything he said about you was complimentary").

Complimentary also can refer to something that's free ("The first drink is complimentary"). In that context sometimes people will say that the free thing is "compliments of the hotel" (or whoever is doing the giving). 

Complements is a verb, meaning that the subject in question is a good addition to or match with something else. ("That bag complements her outfit").

The adjective complementary refers to something that matches, supplements, or completes. For instance, "The bag and the dress are complementary." That's clear enough when written, but if the store clerk said that you might think they're free.

As a noun, complement means a set of something, like the full set of officers and crew on a ship, or a set of services or items ("We offer a complement of blood tests").

You'll find many examples of mixing these up. What triggered this rant was a photo caption on the Huffington Post site: "A Venetian mask compliments this stroll through the Italian city's cobbled streets."

On the Ask site, someone posed the question, "What is Complement?" and the only answer on that page is, "A complement is something someone says to you regarding your work performance or your personal appearance. Wow, your hair looks great today or great job on finisihing that project early."

Sigh.

If you find it hard to remember the difference, the phrase "I like to get compliments" is useful--the "I" reminds you to spell the word with an i.

(If you'd like friendly guidance for writing your novel, you'll find it in my book, "Your Creative Writing Masterclass." It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)

 

Quick, somebody get these writers an editor!

The site Thog's Masterclass contains a nice collection of writing that would have benefited greatly from the attentions of an editor. Here are some of the best (worst):  

"The teacup-sized tears splashed down the front of his shirt..." (The Man With Absolute Motion, Silas Water)

"His two missing teeth could be seen only when he smiled." (The Memory Cathedral, Jack Dann)

"His thin moustache was neatly placed between a peaked nose and two eyes like black marbles." (Assassins Don't Die in Bed, Michael Avallone)

"She took a few paces within, her amber eyes clambering up library steps, sliding along polished shelves housing neatly ranged books within a mellow wood gallery then down the stairs on the opposite side of the room."

"Her breath caught in her throat and her nipple burrowed into his palm like a friendly mole." (Howl-O-Ween, Gary L. Holleman)

"He swept the antechamber with the eyes of a trapped animal." (Among Thieves, Poul Anderson)

And my favorite:

"She wore large bronze earrings made in an obscure country which rattled when she laughed." (Remembrance Day, Brian Aldiss)

If you have any favorites, feel free to share in the comments.

Related articles

52 Tips for Writing Success: create your plot in five steps

How to write a plot--by H. P. Lovecraft

On his blog Jason Boog quotes writing advice from horror writer
H. P. Lovecraft. I like Lovecraft’s deceptively simple definition of plot:

“Plots may be simple or complex; but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential.

Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary.

No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce. In these masterpieces one may find that unbroken sequence and linkage of incident and result which mark the ideal tale.

Observe how, in The Fall of the House of Usher, each separate event foreshadows and leads up to the tremendous catastrophe and its hideous suggestion. Poe was an absolute master of the mechanics of his craft.

Observe also how Bierce can attain the most stirring denouements from a few simple happenings; denouements which develop purely from these preceding circumstances.”

Bierce’s best known short story is “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” but he wrote many more. I second Lovecraft’s assertion that reading the work of masters like Bierce and Poe is a great way to learn.

While you’re at it, don’t neglect to have a look at Bierce’s bitterly funny “The Devil’s Dictionary.” If it just had a few entries on topics like texting or Twitter you would believe it was written yesterday.(If he did wrote one regarding Twitter it might be something like, "A method for boring people with many short statements instead of one long one.") 

You can find the writing advice of many more famous writers in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass. It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

 

You intended to write: where did the time go?

Business author Frank Sonnenberg created a nice little poster called “Where did the time go?” that features 55 questions and tips about time use. Here are the six that resonate the most with me in terms of the writing life, with my own tips for putting them into use:

• Being busy is not the same as being productive. At the start of every day, look at your list of tasks and check how many of them relate to the things you desire most.

• Are you decisive or do you rethink and rethink and rethink decisions? For writers the rethinking often comes when a project becomes challenging. We wonder whether maybe we should have chosen to work on a different project instead (since most of us have more ideas than we have time). Usually the answer is, “No, stick with it, get it done, then move on.”

• How much time do you spend looking for things? Is there a group called Chaotic Writers Anonymous? If so, sign me up! The answer usually is to have a system. The problem is we love setting up systems but we don’t always love following them. So also create a system for making sure you stick to the system! (For me, this is a work in progress!)

• It’s important to say no to some people in order to say yes to others. I’d add the paraphrase, ‘it’s important to say not to some projects (at least for now) in order to say yes to (and finish) others.’ I’m still learning that just because I have a lot of enthusiasm for a new idea, that doesn’t mean I should start on it right away, especially when I’m already committed to several others.

If you want a comprehensive program for using your time better, you'll find it in my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." You can get it now from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

A word NOT to use in your screenplay or novel outline (and some alternatives)

I've just finished rewriting an outline I wrote for a possible TV limited series. One of the most important things I do when I rewrite a rough draft of an outline for a screenplay or novel is to remove and replace the words "realizes" or "realized".

As usual, I found a few of them in my first draft. For example, the first draft might read, "He realizes that his supposed best friend is not on his side at all."

Potentially a powerful dramatic moment, right? What's the problem?

How do you show somebody realizing something? Do they get an "aha!" look on their face? Do they speak their realization to themselves? Do they just look pained? This is a particular problem for scriptwriters, unless they work on one of those telenovelas in which a character suddenly looks up and sees a flashback of a scene shown a few days or weeks earlier, with the sound featuring a slight echo this time. Then her eyes begin to glisten with tears: Aha! Rodrigo has been having an affair with Margarita!!! Cue big sobs and general over-acting.

In a screenplay we could show what leads to this realization so that the audience will realize it at the same time the protagonist does. Maybe the protagonist sees something on his friend's computer, or he is tipped off by someone else...it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it can be shown.

In a novel it's OK to say that a character realized something because novels do give us permission to be inside the protagonist's head if we want to, but even then it's better to describe the actions that lead to the character's conclusions.  

However, we're not talking about writing the screenplay or the novel yet, just a brief outline. That doesn't give us room to go into details. Instead we just need to use words that suggest they are stand-ins for actions we'll see in the final product.

"Discovers" is a good one. Discovery is an active process. 

"Finds out" is also pretty good. Again, finding or finding out suggest a process, not just a conclusion. We could also write, "He finds proof that..." Proof is tangible.

The best choice depends on the context. Here, courtesty of thesaurus.com, are some more that might fit:

ascertain, bring to light, catch, come across, come upon, conceive, contrive, debunk, design, detect, determine,  devise, dig up, discern, disclose, distinguish, elicit, espy, explore, ferret out,  get wind of, get wise to, glimpse,  hear, identify, invent, learn, light upon, locate, lookup, nose out, notice, observe,  perceive, pick up on, pioneer, realize, recognize, reveal, see, sense spot, unearth

It may be that you are writing about something that is a sudden thought, with no apparent process of discovery involved; in that case, "realizes" or "realized" may be the best word after all. In most cases, though, it's a good idea to look for alternatives. (There are lots of useful tips on writing in my book, "Your Creative Writing Masterclass." You can buy it from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

 

Write it right: novels ARE fiction

A press release issued by Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Canada) starts this way: "Kwantlen Polytechnic University instructor Ailinn Hunter, author of Stay, a 2002 fictional novel, is having her novel made into a film."

I've seen that a lot lately: "fiction novel" or "fictional novel." A novel IS a work of fiction by definition. To say "fiction novel" is like saying "a cooking book about cooking." 

I'm sure Hunter didn't see the press release before it went out but it's ironic that the press release goes on to laud the creative writing department. Maybe the person writing the press releases needs a refresher course. 

This month's top mistakes, including that sneaky peak as well as me and I

My informal monitoring of the top spelling and punctuation mistakes online show that the number one spot hasn’t changed:

 1: “sneak peak” instead of the correct “sneak peek.” I see this one about once a week these days.

 Number two also is unchanged:

 2: confusion between “complimentary” meaning free (or saying nice things about something) and “complementary” meaning something that augments or is a good match with something else.

But there’s a new number 3, as written in the Circalit newsletter, a surprising place to find it:

3: "fiction novel" - novels are, by definition, works of fiction. There are no non-fiction novels.

Other old favorites include using "me" when it should be "I" and vice-versa. For instance, consider the statement, "Frank and me went to the party together." The easy way to test whether this is correct is to delete the other person: "Me went to the party" obviously doesn't sound right, it would be "I went to the party." "They gave the award to Lisa and I" also is incorrect. You wouldn't say "They gave the award to I" so it would be "They gave the award to Lisa and me."

Feel free to add your candidates—we’re not talking about typos, plenty of which creep into this blog as well, but wrong usage. 

 

 

The solution to writer's block may be right in front of you

When you have writer's block it's natural to focus on what's not working. 

Often the solution is to focus on what IS working.

For instance, one of the people in my online Writing Breakthrough Program said she's feeling blocked on her fiction project but is enjoying blogging.

My suggestion: create blogs written by the major characters about what they are going through. Obviously you don't have to make them public (but I'd keep them for possible "extras" later on).

It's a good way to get deep into your characters and understand how the story looks from their perspective. 

Naturally at some point you will have to decide how to fit these multiple experiences together into your short story, novel, or script, but you will have plenty of material to work with and my bet is your block will be long gone.

(Want more practical help in writing your book or script? Get my latest book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, to learn from the best writers of all time. You can order it from Amazon or your other favourite bookseller.)