FILL: Profound Experiences?

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Experiences That Change Us Profoundly

In discussing a science fiction book recently, I pondered why one of the small scenes felt rather powerful. Basically, one of the men had killed someone deliberately as a soldier, and the scene is his first meeting with his wife after this. There is a little bit of dialogue, and they share the hurt or concern about how he has changed.

The fans discussing this felt that the experience of a soldier, of killing someone, makes a profound change which cannot be set aside or forgotten. They are right, there is a difference between learning two plus two equals four and learning that I can kill someone.

Then I got to thinking about other experiences that offer the same kind of profound change, that reach down into our souls and make us different. Of course, one of the lessons from the shootings this week has been that some people are affected while others really are not. Sometimes it's because we know someone, sometimes it's just how we look at the event, but we don't all get the same kick from the events. Anyway, I thought about:

1.  The soldier, that knowledge that we can kill someone or have killed someone.
2.  Our own mortality, where we realize that we can (and will) die.
3.  Sexuality, the realization of our own sexual urges and orientation.
4.  Love, learning that we are lovable and can love.
5.  Heartbreak, when we find out that someone else does not feel the same way we do.
6.  Catastrophe, the tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, forest fire, etc. that remind us that sometimes we aren't in control, that our human powers only extend so far.

Obviously, this isn't a complete list. But maybe something to contemplate. What are the events that cause such profound changes in our lives? And what are the changes? How can we capture or show those in a story?

Write!

FILL: You might be a writer if . . .

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Just for the fun of it

Writer's Digest, August 2004, page 16, suggests that you might be a writer if:

1. You include an SASE with all correspondence -- even letters to your mother.
2. You can't resist pointing out grammatical errors in restaurant menus.
3. Your wife says she'll kill you if you whisper, "That was the end of the first act" during a movie one more time.
4. You can recite return postage rates for London, New York, Los Angeles and Guam.
5. In a house fire, you'd save your copy of Writer's Market, then your grandmother's jewelry.
6. During church sermons, you find yourself thinking, this could be tighter.
7. You couldn't balance a checkbook if your life depended on it, but your submission log is cross-referenced three different ways and goes back to 1986.
8. You decide four sentences into any novel that the author is inept.
9. You fall in love based on proper use of syntax.
10. When your family suggests a Disney World vacation, you say, "How about stopping on the way to see the farmhouse where Walt Whitman was born?"
11. You feel sex ranks a distant second to the sensation of holding a felt-tip pen in your hand.
12. Your answering machine says, "Hi, I'm not here right now. Please leave a query and a synopsis of your proposed message, and I'll let you know whether to call back."
13. When you nail a sentence, you're pretty sure you know how Moses felt parting the Red Sea.

So what's your favorite expression of the writing life? You might be a writer if . . .

Finish that phrase. Come on, you know you want to. You might be a writer if . . .

TECH: Beware the tricksy words

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Writer's Digest, August 2004, page 15 has a short note warning about common pairs of words that we often confuse in usage. Specifically:

1. Convince and persuade. "You convince someone of an idea; you persuade someone to act." Changing their minds? That's convincing. Changing what they do? That's persuasion.
2. Ensure and insure. Insurance has to do with money. Ensuring means making sure something happens.
3. Because of or due to. When the question is why something happened, the answer is because of something else. Due to goes with nouns. What's funny is that the answer for both examples given in Writer's Digest is rain. The game was canceled because of rain. And the cancellation was due to rain. Methinks a bit more differentiation of the examples would have been helpful.
4. That and which. My own favorite mistake. Use that for essential clauses. Which, separated by commas, is used for nonessential clauses. Not that I understand it well, but the phrase, which I borrowed for the occasion, came wrapped in punctuation.
5. Anxious and eager. Anxious includes the notion of fear or worry. Eager is just plain excited. When we think we did well on a test, we might be eager to get the results. But when we really don't want to know, we might be anxious to get the results.

These may not be your favorite confusions and wordy contortions. But you might want to keep an eye out for the words that you stumble over. When you find yourself replacing which with that for the umpteenth time, you might as well make it part of your personal editing to do a search and destroy on dangling whiches. Or whatever you find tricksy.

Got it? Take these or other lists of confusing words and phrases, and keep track of where you find yourself stumbling a bit. Then make sure you check those during the polishing of your stories.

Like using fine-grit sandpaper to finish up the woodwork. Get rid of those scratches and splinters before the editors get hung up on them.