Don’t use a pizza cutter to slice an omelet. Or pancakes for that matter.
And while we’re here, I know they say you can put anything in an omelet, but I’d advise against salami.
And don’t put slices of cheese in there unless you like the center all gross and undercooked. A grater is your friend.
I’m a Creative Writing student, and after years of school papers from numerous disciplines, and a decent amount of fiction, I can safely say I’m comfortable with both the academic and personal side of writing. When I mention that I’m a writer people often tell me that they find writing a daunting task, and this puzzles me a bit, since to be in school, or a professor, or what have you, you have to write plenty. Both the personal aspect and the academic aspect of writing are like anything else: near impossible when you don’t know what you’re doing and tricky even when you do.
So in this post, I’m going to lay out the most basic of advices, hopefully general enough to apply to all types of writing, and save the advice more exclusive to Creative Writing for subsequent ones.
Also note that, as with all advice, this is what works for me. Even these very basic things don’t hold for everyone all the time. And with that, on to the list.
*Outline - Two problems that plague everyone are the tendencies to ramble and hit dead ends (narrative or otherwise). Having an outline of your ideas, even the loosest progression, helps both of these tremendously. Sometimes it is preferable to ramble (say, to fill all those pages of a research paper), but the more redundant things are the less interesting something is to read, and if you trail off it weakens your credibility as a writer.
For instance, I have written this entire blog post with no outline; that’s why my opening stands at three paragraphs and this list has little/no semblance of order. Luckily this is the internet so no one is going to bitch about it too hard (though feel free too), but if this were an academic paper on common writing advice it’d get a lower grade.
On the other hand, I’m in the middle of a story where the protagonist has little to no idea what’s going on for a large amount of the plot. So I tried having no real outline other than character descriptions, so I could get a better feeling for the character’s situation.
So plot out what you’re going to say beforehand, in at least vague and preferably more defined terms. More detail is better, since you can always change the outline, or drop it altogether if it gets restricting. Hopefully after enough practice, you can do this in your head, or even ignore this altogether if that fits the work (or your routine) better.
*Read Things Out Loud- A very simple way to more easily notice your own mistakes, reading your own work out loud can give you a feel for how it may sound in the readers head, and is much more effective at pointing out spelling errors, typos and the like than just reading something in your head.
Even better is if you can hear someone else read aloud your work, because different people read things different ways, and their diction may not only point out typos etc. that you missed, but will also show you if anything needs to be improved for clarity, or if you need to change the emphasis in any particular sentence.
Obviously this can’t replace standard proofreading, but it can augment it. And as you will find, this particular piece of advice fits into several of the other items on this list.
*Editor(s)- Now when I say editor, I simply mean someone who looks over your work in at least a semi-professional manner. I am lucky enough to have a friend who is also a writer who I can trust to look over my stuff. And while your editing minions need not necessarily be better at writing than you, they should have an eye for detail at the very least.
Editing falls into two very broad types: copyediting (for typos, grammar, format, and other technical stuff) and content/conceptual editing, which is more about style, voice, and content. Ideally one person can do a bit of both regardless of their experience, but obviously, professional or not, different people will be better suited to one or the other. When asking people for their opinion and edits, asking them to focus on one or the other can help streamline the process.
And remember, that like all constructive criticism, most edits are purely opinion- don’t accept their advice if it makes the piece worse off, and do not take any advice personally. When editing things I always stress that what I’m saying is my opinion, precisely because people are inclined to take offense at even simple advice.
*Write like you talk- Let me explain this one a bit more. Writing (or prose at the very least) should always strive to be as much like (a) speech as possible, for several reasons. Firstly, remember that most people have an internal (or even external) monologue going as they read something. It helps keep continuity and makes things more interesting. By making your writing more like speech, you help lessen the amount of work the reader needs to follow the story. Clarity is key in most types of writing, but academia especially. Writing something with the intent of it being read aloud helps keep the focus on comprehension.
Secondly, if one wants to improve their writing, then it is far easier to take how you talk as a baseline, rather than trying to create a writing style from scratch. By starting with your speech patterns and moving upwards, your writing will be readable from the beginning. It also serves to more readily personalize your writing “voice”- something that every author should have.
Of course, there are limits to this advice. Not only should your writing be more polished than your speech (you are spending more time writing than talking) but it will often be very different in other ways. Written words can bend the rules a little more and still be understood, and also have different rules for emphasis than spoken things. In the same vein, sometimes you want to introduce layers of meaning to a work, and this is easier to do through narration than through the events of a story (though both work). But if nothing else, this is a good place to start, and anyone who can carry on a conversation can write because of this.
*Write what you want to read- This is fairly simple. If you wouldn’t want to read what you’ve written, then how can you expect anyone else to? As long as you write for yourself, then you’ll always have an audience. As long as you don’t compromise your taste, then you’ll never be disappointed in your own work (well, you might be, but at least for other reasons).
Do not, however, take this as an excuse to ignore legitimate advice.
*Read a lot- Never forget that actual writing is the best example of how to do something. When you reach the limits of your own skills, or even if you need a little prompting while working on something, don’t be afraid to study how better writers do things.
I learned how to use the semicolon from a combination of this and actual academic notes on it’s usage.
I shouldn’t have to mention this, but there is a big difference between examining someone’s style and taking cues from it, and outright copying. At the same time, writing a parody or homage of someone else’s style can actually help you get a feel for your own. Just be sure to give credit where it’s due.
So there you have it- six simple pieces of advice (Which I’ve over-explained) that can be applied at any skill level and in near any type of writing. Feel free to comment, but do remember that this is both very generalized and is based on personal experience.
Now get writing.
Today in my Anthropology class we split into groups to discuss some semi-hypothetical ethical situations. Not anything I haven’t experienced before, but the discussion started to get a bit off-topic after a bit, and that’s where the fun began.
Several interesting ideas were brought up, most of which aren’t mine to explain. But I did stumble upon an intriguing concept that I blurted out the moment it entered my head.
One of the big concepts of the class is western philosophy versus eastern philosophy. Having taken a western philosophy course, and being a westerner, I’m intimately and academically familiar with the former. But I can also say that I have experienced Culture Shock on few (if any) occasions.
Back to my original thought. Among all this discussion about ethics, Culture Clash was a key concept. And as we discussed the five situations my teacher had laid out for us the class seized upon a key difference between Western and Eastern philosophy; Eastern philosophy is more focused upon harmony, synchronicity, community – Western more upon individualism and personal control.
Now, death and dying were centerpieces of several of the situations we discussed, and in my sometimes slow brain I finally bothered to put them together. The thought of the western tendency to see death as something to be confronted, avoided, fought, coincided perfectly with the discussion.
As I presented this thought to the class, perhaps less eloquently than I might’ve, it didn’t mix with the discussion like some of the others had, though everyone did discuss it a little. That was alright, but it means I’m left to contemplate it further on my own.
Clearly this is an interesting thought to me, because it explains a lot. Foremost, it explains the Chess with Death trope that is so prevalent in western culture – the fiction-based idea that one can engage in a contest with the force of Death, can extend one’s life with sufficient effort.
One example among these situations of culture clash was a old member of a nomadic tribe being left alone to die on the trail, so that he shouldn’t slowdown the caravan. The tribesman accepted this fate with dignity, while our teacher posited that a westerner among them might’ve felt otherwise.
The differences between western and eastern philosophy are pronounced in many areas, but this particular one struck me especially. I’m still not sure exactly why.
Yes I know I’m a bit late to the party on this one. Discovering it a few months ago when it had been around for two years… It’s nothing new for me I assure you.
The Music Genome Project is a complex undertaking that involves taking a frankly ridiculous number of songs, applying attributes to each of them, and sorting the results.
And what is this scientific catalogue of musical qualities used for? An internet radio station.
It is billed as much more than that, and rightly so. “Music discovery tool” may be a little pretentious (but then, it’s their words), but being able to index songs in such a way that you can conceivably pick one song, and then hear songs which are similar to it, is theoretically a potently useful tool for us music addicts.
There are, however, two problems with Pandora.
The first is with the automated algorithms it uses for song selection. Like any automated process, there are some pitfalls to be found. For example, I created a station that was to take cues from the Gorillaz, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the White Stripes. After a fair period of decent music, it played “Creep” by Radiohead. I personally am sick of the song, and I gave it the “thumbs down” Pandora’s way of recording like and dislike. It accepted my command, and informed me that it would never play that song on that station again. A few songs later it plays “Creep (acoustic version)” from the My Iron Lung EP.
The second lies in the very subjective nature of musical taste. When you first make a “station” the songs stay fairly close to your start points. They slowly branch out until they hit a point where they’re stretching pretty far, and as you reject and favor more songs, it slowly shrinks back down to your original intent. This is not a big deal, but the problem is that musical similarity or dissimilarity to a band or song you like does not always connotate quality. On my Saliva channel, they kept throwing in Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park songs, two bands I don’t mind saying I hate, despite the (allegedly) shared genre.
Aside from these problems (and the attendant shortcomings of being a free [and legal] service), this is definitely a worthy use of your time, whether you don’t want to deal with an actual radio station (you think the commercials are bad here…), whether you just enjoy hearing new music without having to test it yourself, or even if you just don’t like searching for a new song after every youtube video, then this is worth checking out. Just give it a bit before you dismiss it.
I’m also curious as to what future uses of the MGP might be like. Despite the obvious challenges of quantifying music, this is an admirable attempt at such an insane task. An internet radio station is all well and good, but the creators must have other uses in mind…
So I purchased an ASL (American Sign Language) dictionary for a class. It’s a pretty thick volume (580-ish) pages, despite being a “compact edition”. Naturally, at my high level of college-bred maturity, the first thing I looked for is curse words. Sad to say the dictionary was sadly lacking in this regard: sure, things like “sex” redirect to “intercourse” and the other expected workarounds, but they’ve got an entry.
What really confused me was the other words/omissions I looked up or stumbled upon. They had entries for “rape”, “crack-cocaine”, “marijuana”, and “penis” – okay, I’ve gotten a chuckle – but lack “bitch”, “vagina”, “ass”, “masturbate” “shit” (or any synonym I tried), and- perhaps most important- “fuck”. I think we all know the sign for that anyway, but it’s the principle of the matter that bothers me.
A dictionary is a very important learning and reference tool. I can understand abridging some dictionaries to protect the fragile minds of our youngsters (they learn the words anyway, after all), but this dictionary touts itself as a resource for students and instructors, and those at the college level are more than mature enough to handle it.
The truly baffling part, then, becomes the words they didn’t omit. This may just be me, but I use the term “shit” far more than “cocaine”, and I use “penis” and “vagina” about equally. Censorship always carries a message, says something about the censor, but what does this selective bowdlerization say about the compiler of this dictionary? Perhaps they want to give people the ability to properly snitch on others? To embarrass their parents at a social event (but do their prissy friends even know ASL anyway)?
I checked some online dictionaries, but they too failed me. I had to resort to YouTube, where amateur tutors happily obliged.
A dictionary is a tool, and by making these arbitrary decisions of what to include and what not to, the editor is limiting it’s usefullness. I understand space is a restriction, but several of the factors I mentioned above lead me to think otherwise.
Well, here I am, part of the bloggers. I always took a dim view of the random garbled mess that was the internet blogosphere, but the internet grows on you, and I’m willing to give it a shot.
Let the random garbled mess continue.
