Resistance is Futile
Claire Kehrwald Cook’s LINE BY LINE:A supportive yet intimidating book.
I need to immediately go on the offensive here and state that this book made me want to pack it in and forget about any attempts to write a novel that will be published. Half the time I was reading LINE BY LINE, I’d need to look up the definitions of concepts such as ‘prepositional phrase’ or ‘participles’. I felt like an utter moron.
In relief, I would then remember the words of Karen Williams at the January residence at SHU. Williams spoke to our critique group about grammatical issues SHU is seeing amongst the program’s participants. She even concurred that her (and my) generation was not taught proper grammar in grade school. Certainly not with as much reinforcement my 14 year old has experienced throughout her years of schooling (i.e. elementary, middle and now high school).
So somehow my generation got left behind and LINE BY LINE has become the torture I must endure in order to improve the technical aspects of my writing.
I suspect I’ll be reading through Line by Line at least a few more times in the next 18 months. And that’s ok – especially when I read a section that tells me something I already knew instinctually – such as commas, parallels and cadence and using active verbs versus passive ones. The trick is knowing what I don’t know – and that is definitely going to take multiple reads AND paying attention to my mentor and critique partners when I fall on my ass.
In this first pass of LINE BY LINE, I found out the following on the topic of what I do and do know:
COMMAS:
Instinct confirmed on:
1. Think of it as the spoken word. Say it aloud and the obvious pauses will show you where to put the commas.
2. Semi-colons are your friend. A complex sentence can be a great thing for painting emotional pictures and showing connections between two complex thoughts but without the semi-colon, readers just go “Huh?”
New info thanks to LINE BY LINE:
1. Commas aid in the elimination of ambiguity in complex sentences.
2. Commas are subtle breaks, dashes less subtle and parentheses are an almost literal shout. (Useful fact as I have a bad penchant for putting asides into my writing.
3. Commas should be used before conjunctions (and, but, etc). This last one was a surprise for me as my memory recalls being taught (as a tadpole) that "apples, oranges and grapefruit" was acceptable. Now I find out it’s not – go figure.
VERBS: ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE
Instinct confirmed on:
1. Weak verbs are boring and simply do not engage the reader.
2. Rambling sentences don’t work online and shouldn’t on the fiction page either.
When I teach web journalism at the local university, I repeatedly emphasize the need to utilize tight, engaging vocabulary to capture readers immediately. I had never thought to compare non-fiction reporting to fiction writing. Having this in my head will help my rewriting greatly (Note: As long as I remember to balance tight passages with some slightly slower paced material if appropriate, e.g. establishing settings or moods).
New info thanks to LINE BY LINE:
1. Nouns can be as passive as verbs. And knowing my own first drafts, I’m guilty as charged. Sometimes one word really can do the work of three, or four, or even five!
2. Prepositional Phrase Hell: Using one is good but stringing a group of them together is nasty and lazy. Again, it’s going to take quite some effort on my part to break this bad habit. Thank gods for rewrites!
ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS
This section resonated the most clearly, giving terms and expressions to what I believe is most important in good writing: balanced cadence. One of my goals as a writer is to master this technique as I believe it does more to pull the reader into the world one is painting with words than any other trick under the sun.
Cook pushes all the right buttons for me here in regards to:
1. Balancing phrases that are joined in a sentence.
2. Mix and matching sentences components to create a rhythm in the writing that provides stylization.
3. Using categories to create sentences that provide similes and metaphors.
As a side note, I have been using the last two sections of the book, PARTS OF A SENTENCE and GLOSSARY OF QUESTIONABLE USAGE, since I bought it back in January. They’ve made for valuable reference material whenever I am stumped on proper usage of a word, e.g. affect vs. effect. No doubt this book will now find its home next to my 25 year old copy of Roget’s as a constant companion. I may hate that I need it but I’m not stupid.
There are, of course, other issues within the book I need to imprint in my pitiful brain. My hope is that by using critiques of my work in tangent with the information from LINE BY LINE that I will be able to ‘clean up my mess’ as it were. I’ll go kicking and screaming but I suspect I’ll learn a great deal along the way.
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