Craft and Draft: The Diction Affliction

If I called a very talented but very socially awkward artist a “freak” how would you feel?

What if I called the same person “avant-garde” instead. Do you feel differently about them now?

And if I called them a “savant” or a “prodigy” or “off beat” do you change your opinion of what this person is like?

Our words carry context and power beyond their basic definitions. We’re consciously choosing word after word after word as we write, words that have long, complicated histories and cultural nuance, words that can mean so much or so little based on the context provided.

Enter diction.

The French call it “le mot juste” (translated to “the right word”) but for us unilingual English people, it’s just “word choice.” Diction helps dictate the tone of your writing, informs the reader of your intentions in the piece and your attitude towards the subject and audience. Good diction moves the narrative along naturally and adds meaning through individual words while shitty diction screws with and trips up a reader who is confused over how and why a certain word was used.

Do you see how dropping in the words “shitty,” “screws with,” and “trips up” in that last clause changed the tone of my writing? I suddenly went from relatively proper to lowly colloquial. One word can change a writer’s tone immediately, even throw an entire paragraph off its intended course.

Being a good writer is synonymous with picking the best words to serve your story. Good diction (and good writing) means the intentional and deliberate selection of the right words in the right places, choosing concrete specifics over bland abstracts.

So how can you employ correct, conscientiousness diction?

You have to embrace words, make love to them with your brain, let their timeless beauty overwhelm your emotions, merge with and tickle your soul in all the best spots. You have to find joy and energy in the way certain syllables so delicately roll from your tongue or pole-vault off the page into your eyeballs. You must adore words to the point where your immediate family finds it very, very annoying.

But that’s not weird because we’re writers, right? Right?

Diction-ary Definitions

There are two ways to define a word: denotation and connotation.

Denotation is the dictionary definition of the word. The good old fashioned, “let’s argue over what this word means after 5 glasses of pinot on Thanksgiving” definition. The denotative definition includes all official variations of a word including noun, adjective, or adverb forms, if applicable.

Connotation is any alternate meanings of the word that you won’t find in any dictionary, even the OED. Colloquialisms, cultural references, slang. These are the definitions that people try to use in Scrabble to justify their nonsense 85 point word. These definitions are loaded with meaning and can connote a time period, regional location, or societal bias when used correctly.

The word “pop” is a great example. The denotative definition means “to make a short, quick, explosive sound.” The connotative meaning could be a reference to carbonated sugary beverages in you’re from the Midwest, or a reference to popular trends in music or literature or film.

Connotation also carries with it certain ethical or moral weight, steering your reader in a certain direction based on the words used to express the ideas. Consider the word “unemployed” verses “jobless” verses “vocationally challenged.” Compare “drunken pirate” to ” nautical rum enthusiast.”  Word choices can change the ethical impact of writing by letting the reader know what the writer thinks about the topic, and probably where he’s going to take the argument.

Always make sure you know what a word means before you use it. If you’re not sure, look it up! A careful reader will immediately notice a glaring malapropism and you’ll lose valuable writing-cred-points. Make specific word choices, not pacific ones.

Be careful with connotation. Some connotative meanings may seem obvious to you, but may alienate or confuse a reader from another area/country/generation. Some might even offend a reader if you didn’t know that a certain word is used derogatorily in another culture.

High, Medium, Low

Diction can also be measured, sort of.

High diction is sophisticated and erudite, packed with Latin-based words, complicated grammatical structures, many-syllable words, and educated allusions or references. This style of writing lends itself perfectly to academic, medical, or scientific journals, but tends to alienate (and generally piss off) other audiences.

Low diction is conversational. It can be silly, simple, to-the-point, and uses smaller words. This style is good for addressing general audiences but tends to be too casual for intelligent readers who often read to learn and experience new things.

Medium diction is balanced. Zen writing. A Libra’s preferred state. A combination of high and low; enough high to entertain or teach or impress a reader but enough low to keep them comfortable and not overwhelm them with stuffy stuffiness.

It can be very difficult to strike an effective balance in your word choices, but if you can (through lots and lots of practice), it ultimately strengthens your writing in ways you may not have though possible.

A writer like David Quammen couldn’t possibly write the type of science-narrative he does without smacking his high diction over the head with a fish sometimes to bring it low. He find the perfectly smooth travel lane between the fast (of readability and enjoyment) and the slow (of of highly technical science) and takes you for a joy ride you didn’t expect, all because he balanced his diction.

Decidedly Dictative

Words are the Lego bricks of our craft (and grammar is the little colorful instruction pamphlet). It’s up to you to know what each brick looks like, sounds like, smells like, and tastes like. You can forge phenomenal creations if you place the right bricks in the right order at the right time.

Your words are the only way you can connect to your reader, so make sure you’re meaning what you’re saying when you’re saying what you mean. Get to know your favorites. Read about them, study them, discover all their meanings. Add more and more words to your arsenal until you’re overflowing with worldly wordly weapons.

And when you’ve got an impressive collection, use them, often and deliberately to great effect, to create characters and turn phrases and spout silly irreverent witticisms.

You’re going to spend a lot of time alone with words if you’re going to make this writing thing happen. Might as well be BFFs.

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least–at least I mean what I say–that’s the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!” – Lewis Carroll

Craft and Draft: Sheet Music

There are only two universal truths in life: cookies and music.

Can you think of someone who doesn’t like cookies? Someone who openly acknowledges that in the nearly infinite variety of flat, round, sugary treats available they don’t like a single type? They can dismiss, with a condescending wave of the hand, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia, shortbread, or cranberry almond? I submit that even if a person claims to not like cookies, they just haven’t met the right cookie yet.

The same principle can be applied to music. I’ve met a whole random smattering of people in my time on this floating rock, and not one of them disliked music. Sure, some people don’t like certain kinds of music, and some people only like music when they are in certain moods or in certain places or with certain people. For some, music is rich 72% cocoa dark chocolate, only to be savored on the most hallowed occasions. But, when all the cards are down, the dices thrown, and the cliches overused, every human on this planet has some connection to and appreciation for music.

It’s not just because music is fun or empowering or energizing. It’s because music is woven into the textiles of our existence. The piping patterns of song birds that wake you up on a sunny spring morning, the repetitive roar and cascading Doppler shift of passing rush hour traffic, the unrelenting pulse of your heart pushing blood through your veins with every pump. Music is the tangible manifestation of the very reverberations of the universe, the vibrations and rumblings and bouncing atoms that give us physics and math and beauty through art.

Everything has a level of musicality to it, including your writing. It can be labeled with things like “cadence” and “meter” and “flow” but it really amounts to a lyrical quality, a quality that animates your writing and makes it move across the page like an inken inchworm. If you want your writing to be really effective, it needs to come alive in the reader’s eyes and ears and mind.

Just like music, writing needs some structure to be pleasing to the ear. How can you turn your page of prose into a sheet of symphony?

I’m glad you asked.

1. Listen to music (with lyrics)

This seems so obvious that it’s kind of insulting I’d suggest it. But I’m not suggesting you just throw on some trendy-ass noise-canceling headphones and casually listen while you type. Like you’d closely read a piece of literature to see how the writer crafted his tale, listen to the music with an attentive ear. Listen for the chord changes (you’ll ear little shifts in notes at specific, timed intervals), listen when the singer transitions from verse to chorus. Listen how the notes change to create harmony and how the lyrics are used to build up to an important moment in the song, like the breakdown or the bridge.

Songwriting is poetry set to music, and is a great example of writing trimmed down to its most lyrical elements. By analyzing the music you listen to, you’ll start to absorb good timing, great meter, and amazing transitions from one section to the next.

2. Vary your sentences

There is a lot of grammar behind sentence variation (I’ve bored you guys with enough of that recently), but it has a more practical purpose than just syntactic complexity. Varying your sentence length – from quick and dirty short sentences to drawn-out and obtuse long sentences – adds fluidity and organicness to your writing. It keeps the reader moving, guessing what form you’ll use next, and makes reading your writing entertaining and engaging.

Variation can encompass length, style, diction, and doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write completely different sentences all the time. The beginning of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (arguably one of the most iconic pieces of classical music ever) repeats the same 4-note pattern, over and over again. And yet it works and we love it and it sticks in our memory because it’s different variation on the same theme. Chord changes within songs are related to each other, but are variations within the key of the song.

Apply the same to your words and sentences and paragraphs. Variation is music is titillating writing.

3. Build patterns

Beethoven used patterns to establish theme and expected rhythm, but do you know who else did (and does)?

Birds. Whales. Crickets. The ocean. Your heart. Your lungs.

Grammar defines the patterns we expect in language: subject, verb, direct object. Music defines the patterns we expect in song: verse, chorus, verse. Our brains are built to recognize and appreciate patterns. It’s what separates us from computers. Well, that and skin and organs and hair and stuff.

As you’re writing, notice the patterns you’re creating. Are you opening with short sentences followed by longer ones? Are you using generalizations then following up with specific examples or anecdotes? Are you always concluding or transitioning with some sort of fragment or quick tie-up? Are you using a lot of rhetorical questions?

Patterns may not be as obvious and repetitive as an ABAB rhyme structure. Sometimes they’re more subtle, and manifest in parallel grammatical structures or similar messages or repetitive words. But it’s important to recognize that a reader expects some sort of pattern to your writing, a rhythm or marker that lets them know where they are and where they are going.

When you explicitly use certain patterns in your writing for emphasis and effect, you start to really bring your writing voice to the front of the page.

4. Have a conversation

When a band plays, it’s not just 5 or so instruments playing their individual parts, hoping it all syncs up and sounds pleasant or right. It’s the guitar talking to the keyboard, the keyboard flirting with the drums, the drums making fun of bass. The music of each part is working together in real time – almost as if they’re having a conversation – to create a complete dialogue within a song.

When you write, imagine that you’re orating the story. Imagine that your average reader is right in front of you, staring at your expectantly, and you have to clearly enunciate each sentence, adding the proper intonation and weight to the appropriate sections. Write as if you want them to “ooh” and “ahh” when you reach the end of each paragraph because it makes their ears all giddy and blissful. Like, y’know, music.

This is not to say that you should literally write like you speak. That would be a disaster of “ums” and “likes” and “yea, so.” Good writing captures the flow and elegance of practiced speech and cuts out all of filler crap that we use when chatting about March Madness brackets with our coworkers. Your writing should read like it is being spoken, contain all the delectable nuance of a practiced speech and a Broadway play. It should flourish when read out loud, so that it is flourishes within your reader’s mind.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” -Nietzsche

Review: Flying Dog Lucky SOB Irish Red

When he had finally mustered enough courage, he looked up.

He stood in front of the ruin and took a moment to remember it. The dirty, butt-stained sidewalk that had hosted dozens of drunk denizens who smoked their cigarettes in the Boston air, the flower boxes that had sheltered and nurtured his mother’s favorite purple butterworts, the green and red sign that had proudly cast the name “Flaherty’s” over the tiny side street now burnt and crumbling and black, everything ruined by smoke and flame and the power of unattended random chance.

If he hadn’t been late that morning, if he hadn’t been so slow to rise with head fogged by one too many late night whiskeys, if he hadn’t needed drink after drink to quiet his guilty conscience, if he wasn’t a coward and an idler, James thought, maybe, just then maybe when the over due bills in piles in the unkempt backroom caught those fledgling flames from that gas oven that should have long been replaced, he might have stopped it; not had to watch his father’s dream, an Irish life reborn and infused with American pride, billow and ascend, smoke colored black by all that carbon and shame.

The claims adjuster was late. James kicked at some fallen wood near the door, careful not to venture too far inside the building, worried that it was still in the middle of its death throes, still capable of collapsing a little bit more at any minute. The morning air gusted, picked up the scent of charred memories, kegs and coat racks and day-old beer. Inside the doorway he could feel the warmth still radiating off of the remains of the tall tables and long bar, all the stored energy seeping out of the wood like it was bleeding.

James lost focus at the sound of car clumsily hopping up the curb while trying to park. A young, fat man, maybe 29, 30, struggled to lift himself out of the driver’s seat. His pants were an inch or two too short, his tie was a hideous spotted yellow, and his receding hair line was barely visible in the stubble of his closely trimmed blonde hair. James could smell his Old Spice, old school, from 50 yards away. “James? James Flaggerty?” 

“Flair-tee.” The mispronunciation of his name, his father’s name, at this moment, in this place, felt like a poorly timed punch to the gut.

“Oh, sorry.” The adjuster pulled out some papers, shuffled them trying to find a specific line on a legal-sized form, then looked up. “Oh man. You’re lucky this fire didn’t jump to these neighboring buildings. That would have been an insurance nightmare.”

James kicked another beam of wood, uncovering a half-burned coaster. A tiny shamrock, the only Irish cliche next to Guinness that his father perpetuated, was still clearly green and alive on the bottom corner of the cardboard.

“Heh. Lucky.”

It felt wrong to sit in another bar, drink, even kind of enjoy himself. But the whiskey burned nice and the ice melted slow, and the homemade Irish red ale was just as his father would have liked it: overly malty, crisp, sneaking hints of Irish moss that lingered on his tongue. It was from his father he learned to drink, so it was to his father he drank the next one.

And the next one.

And the next one.

James didn’t stumble home, his careening so practiced that it was almost just one long graceful fall from bar stool to pillow. The whiskey normally stifled his dreams, but tonight they flared and seared, father and fire and failure all whirling together in an inferno of nightmarish scenes. He woke up, head pounding, throat dry, vomit lurching in his stomach, to remember that both his father and the bar were, in the waking tangible sunlight of reality, gone.

He looked at the clock: 10:49. His phone buzzed. For a moment, he thought about letting his head slam back down onto the pillow. The number was familiar, but not one that he’d stored in his phone. He waited for the third buzz, sighed, and answered.

“Mr. Flaggerty?” 

The already horrible headache intensified. “Flair-tee. What can I do for you?”

The claims adjuster sounded even more nasal over the phone. “I just got the report from the fire marshal. I’ve got the final coverage numbers, but the inspection found something I think you should see.”

The pub looked less dejected now that the fire had completely gone out of her, the shiny black of the beams reflected the midday sun almost defiantly. Most of the debris had been cleared from the entrance and the street. She looked scarred and damaged but respectful.

“Mr. Flag…Flaherty. Thanks for showing up so last minute. Most of the worst of the mess has been cleaned up, so if you’ll just step inside for a moment, I’ll show you what I was referencing earlier.” The claims adjuster did his best to gracefully move through the rubble, trying to avoid getting his ill fitting khakis stained by any soot, leading James near the back of the pub where they’d taken keg and food deliveries. They passed the slumping, massive piece of oak that had been the bar; two tarnished tap stems, standing proud, the only things that seemed relatively undamaged by the fire.

Near a large hole in the floor was a walrus of a man, a man whose stature and uniform said authority but whose huge white mustache and kind eyes said grandpa. He looked at James then back down at the hole. “Did you know this room was here?”

Confused, only remembering the back of the bar as a place of refuge from the commotion of the patrons and the trajectory of drunkenly tossed darts, James didn’t know what this man was talking about. He inched closer, pushing past the combined girth of both inspectors, trying to look down between the broken floor boards. A few boxes, an old filing cabinet, nothing really shocking, except for the fact that this pub, a place he’d literally and figuratively grown up in, been reared and scolded and taught to drink, had a hidden secret.

“I’m going to try and climb down there.” The fire marshal huffed and recommended otherwise. Ignoring the man, who probably wouldn’t have even fit down the hole had he wanted to explore it, James threw his legs over the edge and slowly lowered himself into the room below.

The room was small, but not tiny, stinking of mildew and oldness, the kind of place you’d expect a pub manager to turn into an office if a pub even needs something as official and business-like as an office. James used his cell phone as an impromptu flash light, shining it over the boxes – no crates – that we stacked neatly along one back wall. Clear glass necks poked out the top in rows of 6, columns of 4, case after case of the stuff, hundreds of bottles of whiskey left sleeping for decades.

He grabbed a bottle and brushed away the dust and blackness. Eyes wide, he read the years on the bottles: 70, 73, 85 years old, some even more ancient. All intact. Perfect, pristine. An army of golden soldiers in glass armor.

James moved to the filing cabinet. Years of rust and dust had seized the runners, but with a little force and a lot of curiosity, he forced the middle drawer open. He thumbed through the yellowing paper, tilting the phone to get a better look at the faded writing on each page. The first folder housed records, names and bills and income for years well before James was alive. The second folder was empty, short of an old, wooden handled bottle opener. The third, packed nearly to the point of bursting, fell from his hands as he lifted it from the cabinet and spilled all over the floor.

At the sound of this, the fire marshal called to him, shining his flashlight down to see if James was OK. This beam of light caught the papers on the floor just long enough for James to read the titles: Flaherty’s Oatmeal Stout, Flaherty’s Pale Ale, Flaherty’s Irish Red Ale. Next to each recipe was a hand drawn little green shamrock, perfect mimicry of the one his father had so insistently included on anything associated with the bar.

The claims adjuster’s head appeared, upside down, from the hole above. “Are you OK? Looks pretty messy down here. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

James smiled. “Yea. Lucky.”

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
― Cormac McCarthy

Craft and Draft: Frag. Ments.

Not all sentences are privileged enough to grow up in a warm, loving home with supportive clauses and structured guidance. Some are forced to grow up on the syntax-streets, forced to figure out this crazy grammatical world with nothing but their guile and wit.

Sometimes these sentences don’t learn the rules, never understand why they should fit some mold invented by a system that abandoned them. They grow up functional, sometimes even beautiful, but ultimately incomplete, lacking in something baser, something important.

These sentences are the lost souls of the written world. They are the broken. They are the fragments.

A fragment, grammatically, is a subordinate clause turned into a full sentence. Think of it like a sandwich. A normal sentence is bread, meat, tomato, lettuce, mayo. A fragment is two slices of bread that someone is trying to pass off as a sandwich. It can contains nouns and verbs and prepositions and clauses, but is always missing a main subject (lunchmeat and veggies).

They should sound/read weird to an trained ear/eye, because they are not complete thoughts.

A fragment, practically, is something like this: “He stabbed blindly at the shadows in the alleyway, fear guiding his hand. A slash of luck, a jab of hope. He prayed to be the one who got out of this alive.”

There are no rules for fragments. No real, official, decided upon rules, at least. Some people say to use them as you see fit, wherever you see fit. Some people say to avoid them entirely. Many agree that they’re fine as interjections. Others say they shouldn’t be relied upon to convey important information. Other others say that should only be used to convey important information.

There should really be some rules.

Oliver’s Fragmentation Rules:

1. A fragment should have a direct relation to the sentence before it

A fragment is an innately odd structure to read, so it needs to have a strong relationship to whatever it is modifying for the reader to make sense of it. Trying to tie a fragment to a sentence earlier in the paragraph may confuse your reader and cause them to stop their forward progress to go back and figure out what you’re talking about. Trying to reference a sentence that comes after the fragment is equally confusing, as you’re trying to connect to an idea that hasn’t happened yet.

Like a resumptive modifier, a fragment should “resume” the thought, verb action, or direction of the sentence directly before it. Unlike a resumptive modifier, it doesn’t need to mirror the noun or adjective that ends said previous sentence.

“Oliver wrote into the night, his fingers flailing wildly over careworn keys. Wrote and wove those stories that refused to stay trapped in the prison of his mind.”

I’m referencing the main verb of the previous complete sentence, so my fragment makes sense and adds context/new information that the reader can quickly assimilate and understand.

2. A fragment should be used intentionally

A fragment is nothing but a normal old subordinate (dependent) clause, which means that it could easily be attached to and made part of a traditional sentence. Most of the time, you want your subordinate clause to be part of the main sentence, for simplicity’s sake.

But sometimes, for effect, you want that clause to stand alone. Carry its own weight. March on defiantly.

Fragment time!

Syntactically, they are quick and shattered, making them great for conveying panic, stream of consciousness, or frenetic movement. If you’ve got a character who is freaking out because he just witnessed a giant squid-crab eat a nuclear submarine whole, using fragments can syntactically support the action of the narrative. If you’re writing an essay where you are recalling some distant, fading memories of your childhood, using fragments can recreate the jarring phenomenon of trying to rebuild a scene from memory.

Fragments are great, but make sure you are using them intentionally for effect, and not just because you’re not sure how to include the information in the sentence. There is nothing worse than an unintentional fragment in the middle of an otherwise perfectly fluent sentence.

3. A fragment should not be an aside

If you haven’t noticed, I love asides. They are a great way to express an opinion (or interject something new!) without going on a rant. They tend to break the fourth wall which can be good or bad, depending on your format and genre.

Fragments however, do not make good asides. An aside tends to be non sequitur (which translates to “it does not follow”). If you turn a fragment into an aside, you run the risk of changing the focus or message of a certain section of writing.

A fragment reads as if it is part of the main-line narrative, unlike a phrase set off in parentheses or in between em dashes.  This will cause your reader to view it as part of the whole (not just added on information) which might stop them dead in their mental tracts if it takes them out of or away from whatever scene they were reading.

Leave the asides to their little parenthetical prisons. Fragments should be free.

“We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That’s what connects us–that we’re all broken, all beautifully imperfect.” -Emilio Estevez (yes, really)

Craft and Draft: Resumptives and Summatives and Appositives, oh my!

Bust out those style guides, argue over those serial commas, and question the legitimacy of those split infinitives, because it’s National Grammar Day!

After Halloween, my birthday, National Hat Day, National Homebrewing Day, National Wizard Day, and National Drink Beer and Play Video Games All Day Day, National Grammar Day is my favorite. To celebrate the wonders of this syntactically accurate 24-hours, I’ve decided to talk about three of my favorite grammatical tools:

Appositives and resumptive and summative modifiers.

I normally don’t go for such low-hanging Oz-born fruit in my post titles, but for once, comparing these three constructs to lions, tigers, and bears is actually appropriate. I mean, not directly appropriate, as they’re not technically dangerous apex megafauna, but pretty indirectly appropriate as they are powerful and should be treated with respect.

These three are some of the best spells in the grammar-wizard’s tome of arcane writing knowledge. They are also three of the most challenging to master and use correctly. They help embroider and embolden your prose with more eloquent definition of your subjects, and can add lyricism and emphasis to your writing that phrasing and branching may not.

Much like parallelism, modifiers can transform stumbling, unnatural writing into flowing, organic writing with a few flicks of the predicate and shakes of the subordinate clause.

In Apposition to

Outside of our little grammar bubble, the word “appose” (similar in definition to, but not to be confused with “oppose”) means “to place in juxtaposition or proximity.” When inside said grammar bubble, apposition is the idea of placing one noun next to another to “rename” the first noun.

In practice an appositive is like a fancy adjective, with which you describe specific qualities of your noun, using another noun. For example:

“Oliver, a guy obsessed with wizards, wrote a book about ancient magicks.”

The appositive in the sentence above provides additional, specific knowledge about the main subject and has another noun (or nominative clause) that could theoretically replace the original noun.

An appositive cannot rename a noun that is somewhere else in the sentence:

“Oliver wrote a book, a guy obsessed with wizards, about ancient magicks.”

In this case, my appositive follows the noun in the direct object position (“a book”) which makes it sound like it is renaming the book. This sentence doesn’t really make any sense (unless the book is alive and sentient and really into wizards and wizard culture and HOLY CRAP awesome short story idea).

An appositive always renames the noun that precedes it and is always another noun or noun clause.

In addition to basic renaming or specification, appositives can put on some fancy-ass pants, and rename a subject more than once to create a very rhythmic effect:

“Oliver wrote a book, a treatise on men of mystery, a tome that would bridge a gap between science and spirit, a collection of words woven with the sinew of sorcery.“

Appositives are like grammar-guitar solos in the middle of your sentence-songs. They’re in the same key, but give the main melody a little variation and a lot of vivification.

Resuming Resumptives

I think, in all the untamed wilds of the grammatical jungle, that resumptive modifiers are my favorite tool. Don’t tell the adjectival clauses though, it’d break their little nonrestrictive hearts.

The resumptive modifier is exactly what it sounds like; it “resumes” a sentence where it left off, creating an echo-like effect for the end of your original sentence. It shifts the emphasis of a sentence from the main verb of the subject, usually to whatever information is found in the object position:

“And so she wept for his soul, a soul forever doomed to read about, talk about, and be in the company of wizards.”

Where the original sentence would have been focused on her weeping, the resumptive modifier makes the sentence more about his soul. This is a great tool for opening, transitioning, or closing a section where you really want to leave the reader with a clearly defined point of focus.

You can also chain resumptive modifiers together, or repeat an idea to branch into another, tangentially similar idea:

“And so she wept for his soul, a soul turned malignant by years of abuse, abuse of dark magic that should have been left interred.” (Chained resumptive modifiers can make a sentence pretty dense, but pack an amazing syntactic wallop and carry a ton of information in not a lot of words.)

“And so she wept for his soul, a soul entwined in distant lore, a soul that wandered a shadow world of near-forgotten ideas, a soul that had little hope of ever finding the light of tangible reality ever again.” (the resumptive is repeated to add to the idea of this weird guy’s soul)

While resumptives are awesome, they still have rules. To create a resumptive modifier, your original sentence must end with a noun or an adjective, and the section that follows must include (or be) a subordinate clause. The modifier would be incomplete or not make sense otherwise:

“And so she wept quietly, quietly as to not disturb her brother.” (Resumptives with an adverb are redundant  as you could just take one out and have the exact same sentence)

“And so she wept for his soul, a tired soul.” (No subordinate clause is also redundant, as you could just include the adjectival information in the original sentence)

For effect, it is still possible to use these forms, but know that if you do you are breaking a grammatical rule and some readers may find this wording garish or silly or just plain pointless.

Summarizing Summatives

If resumptives resume, then summatives…?

Summarize. You win one million SAT/GRE vocabulary points.

Unlike a resumptive, which only modifies the previous noun, a summative modifier sums up the entire independent clause of a sentence with a single noun (or nominative clause). A summative modifier is a perfect tool to nudge your reader into believing something about your sentence without beating them over the head with, “HI THERE READER PERSON, THIS IS WHAT THIS SENTENCE MEANS AND WHAT YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THE STORY.” It’s more subtle and sneaky, and when pens are down, better writing.

For example:

“The wizard lost the battle, a defeat that would mark the beginning of his end.”

You’re very slyly giving your reader supplemental information without having to break it into a separate sentence. This improves the flow and let’s the reader draw the conclusion you want by providing literary breadcrumbs. This has the added effect of naturally “rounding out” an idea, making it a perfect way to end a chapter or section.

Just for fun…

…let’s use all three tools in one sentence:

“Hadrax, a red robed silhouette on the horizon, began to wave his hands, a signal to those below that meant incoming fury, fury that came from a wizard pushed too far for too long. 

I’ll include my usual grammatical tools disclaimer: these are great, amazing, wonderful, lovely, super effective constructions, but be judicious. They are very fun to write, and very easy to get carried away with. An entire paragraph of resumptive modifiers is going to be dense and confusing. An entire section of summative modifiers may make your reader feel like you’re spoon-feeding them too much information. Too many appositives and your reader won’t know which descriptor is most important.

Use sparingly, parental guidance recommended, caveat emptor, et cetera, et cetera.

I wasn’t kidding. The first step is admitting you have a problem and then writing about it.

Craft and Draft: Parallelogrammar

This post has nothing to do with math. It has to do with shapes. But the shapes of language, which are way cooler than, say, rhombuses. Rhombi. Bent rectangles. You get what I mean.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the term “parallel structure,” always imagining sets of parallel objects, like yellow lines on the road or meticulously laid chopsticks or some gymnastic beams. Parallel is one of those words that invokes strong mental images, probably because we are forced to memorize its definition as children during the same phase we learn shapes and spacial reasoning and how to not walk into walls all the time.

Parallel is important. It means separate but equal. Two paths that can never cross. Two dimensions that should never be mixed in case you accidentally meet your parallel-self and cause the universe to implode.

In writing it still means separate but equal, but your concepts should cross. Sort of.

While I would (and will) definitely argue that individual words can create parallelism, the real concept is based on parallel grammatical constructs. To achieve a balance in your language, establish a rhythm in your prose, you have to make sure all of your grammatical formations are in sync.

Think of a group of synchronized swimmers; if one is out of time with the others, doing some kicky move with her legs in the air while the rest of the swimmers are doing jazz-hands, the majesty and flow of the performance is ruined. Your writing functions the same way. If you throw in an off-note, an incorrect tense, a flat-out wrong verb form, your reader is going to notice. And probably not be happy.

What Parallelism Isn’t

If you’re used to reading pretty polished writing, you may not see a lot of examples of a-parallel structure. It’s something a lot of editors will catch in early drafts. Seeing the dissonance in action might help you understand (and ultimately kill) it. For example, this sentence is clearly not balanced correctly:

“Oliver loves brewing, drinking, and to pour beer on his head when he’s drunk.” (note: this may or may not be a nonfictional sentence)

That last infinitive form verb (to pour) breaks the pattern established by the two present participles (brewing, drinking). It just sounds…odd. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with that sentence, the lack of parallelism hurts the flow, and more importantly, the style.

This mistake can happen when a writer mentally builds a simple sentence (Oliver loves to pour beer on his head when he’s drunk) and then tacks on the present participles to add more context to the sentence. When you write, you want to make sure all of the grammatical parts of the same sentence are cut from the same hunk of verb:

“Oliver loves brewing, drinking, and pouring beer on his head when he’s drunk.” (And yes, I do realize this sentence implies that I enjoy brewing beer on my head)

Re-wording

While being a good manager of your grammatical employees is probably the most important part of parallelism, there are several other ways to use it to enhance your language or drop a little hardcore flair into your prose. Using duplicate words to create solidarity between two phrases is one of my favorites:

“The noises of the 56.6k modem were the heralds of my budding social life; each bleep and blarg and chzzzk-chzzzk got me closer to my friends, closer to that much coveted teenage popularity.” (This is a line from a piece I pitched to 20 Something Magazine)

By repeating closer, I’m connecting the second phrase to the first, but also building on the impact and emphasis of the first. This is a fun technique but writer beware: too much of this can annoy a reader and make your writing seem lazy and uninspired. Use this like Sriracha. A little squirt adds a lot of spice.

Chiasmus chasms

Another form comes to us from rhetoric: chiasmus. This literally translates from the Greek “khiasmos” which means simply, “cross.”

This is a form that is prevalent throughout spiritual texts (like the Bible and the Book of Mormon) as well as political speeches and public announcements. It’s a form you’re probably pretty familiar with, only because it stands out so strongly on the page (and lends itself so well to sound-bites):

“When everyone is famous, no one will be.”

Chiasmus follows traditional symbolic logic. The example above is ABAB, but it can follow almost any pattern that completes a logical loop:

ABBA: “You do not dance with the queen, the queen dances with you.”

ABCABC: “Refreshing like a lager, intoxicating like an ale.”

ABCCBA: “To relax is to be at peace, to be at peace is to be free.”

The most important thing about chiasmus is the correct balancing of the sentence. If one side is too heavy, or has an extra verb or preposition or clause, it ruins the effect. This device works well as a single line paragraph, a quick transition, or a way to really connect that baseball bat of emphasis to the knuckle ball of your theme.

Parallel application

All of this seems very artsy. That’s because it is. Parallel structure is a chance for you to play with your language, infuse it with the Frankenstenian extract that makes writing come to life. It gives your writing that je ne sais quoi, making it sound natural and effortless and, for lack of a more descriptive term, good.

There are many other ways to use parallel structure to improve your writing, like matching prepositional phrases (the boat on the beach near the house on the shore) or matching appositives (Hansel, the fearless brother, and Gretel, the benevolent sister). Using any of these comes down to intentionally building a sort of syncopation, where the pacing and structure and diction all work together to create sentences that almost sound like music.

The language is your sheet music. Your brain is the composer. Go make some literary music using parallel structure.

Railroad tracks are, pretty much be necessity, parallel.

Craft and Draft: Branching Out

Have you ever been reading a book when, without warning or reason, your brain wanders off onto some random idea (like tacos!)? Have you ever looked back over the pages you just “read” and realized that you didn’t actually read them at all, they just kind of passed by your eyes like a slow moving cloud?

The culprit, for once, may not be your underdeveloped attention span or lack of sleep.

The problem might be in the syntax of the writing.

Despite our contemporary attempts at universal equality, not all sentences are created equal. Some are stronger than others, or are innately more interesting to read. In standard prose there are three types of sentences:

• Right-branching (or “loose” sentences)
• Left-branching (or “periodic” sentences)
• Middle-branching (also called “periodic” sentences, I don’t know why)

These sentences determine how subordinate information is provided to the main clause of the sentence, and determines the syntactic variety of our writing. If you want your writing to dance on the page, put on that tutu and really nail that Tchaikovsky, you have to understand what each type of sentence does, and why.

Right Branching (aka Boring, Mr. Traditional Pants)

The right-branching sentence is a writer’s comfort sentence. It’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes. It’s that favorite pair of jeans that you refuse to wash because you know when you do, they won’t fit the same. It’s our default syntactic form, and the one you’re most likely to encounter in everyday reading.

It’s also the first kind of sentence that English speakers learn to write. A typical right-branching sentence looks like this: “He ran to get to the sword on the other side of the room, hoping to reach it before the swashbuckling goat-man.”

The basic sentence is just subject + transitive verb + direct object, “He ran to get the sword.” The other “stuff” (call it whatever you want: subordinate information, embroidery, a fancy tie for your sentence-suit) comes after – or to the right of – the subject of the sentence.

This is the journalist’s preferred style, as it gives all of the information in a clear, often chronologically appropriate order, without the reader having to figure much out.

The right-branching sentence is great for delivering information quickly and cleanly.

It’s also pretty boring (sorry journalist-type people).

Imagine reading a long-form piece that was written with all right-branching sentences: “He ran to the store to get milk his sister desperately needed. He had no money, but that wouldn’t stop him. The milk was in the back of the store, so he had to pass the clerk to get to it. The clerk watched him closely, hoping he wouldn’t steal anything. He picked up the milk and ran out the door before the clerk could even yell in protest.”

Not terrible, but it sounds pretty choppy. All of that adjectival and adverbial supplementation dangles off the end of the predicate like a poorly attached fishing lure on some thin, cheap line. One big fish (or good reader) and that tackle is lost forever, claimed by the briny depths (of your recycling bin).

Fortunately, most writers recognize that writing like a third-grader isn’t the best way to get an idea across, and use (even if they’re not aware of it) another type of sentence to vary the patterns and cadence of their writing.

Left-Branching (aka Sir Rambles-A-Lot)

If the right branching sentence is your comfort sentence, the left branching sentence is that tumultuous but exciting relationship you had in your early twenties. Mysterious and fascinating, packed with new experiences, something you couldn’t help but be attracted to, even if only for the novelty of something different. But with excitement comes risk. The left-branching sentence can leave you pretty burned and bitter when it dumps you for a guy named Steve who totally isn’t as smart or successful or as good looking as you.

To prevent predictable, chunky prose, a writer must vary sentence patterns. I just wrote a left-branching sentence to explain why you should write left-branching sentences. Such writing, unexpected, even sometimes confusing, keeps the reader engaged. I just did it again.

A left branching is exactly what it sounds like: the embroidery of your sentence comes before – or to the left of – your main subject and predicate. It is very good at building tension, or front-loading a sentence with information that you as the writer feels the reader needs before he gets to the action of the sentence.

This is a great for for dramatic moments, where you want to drag out some emotional scene, or build-up to a specific, powerful realization.

It’s also great for pissing your reader off.

There’s little worse than a sentence that just won’t get to the point, and that’s the risk you run every time you write a left branching sentence: “In the fading light, under the mossy ruins of a fallen willow, hoping against hope that she would show up dressed in that red sundress that hugged her curves, praying he wouldn’t fumble as he reached for the ring in his pocket, Jason sat.”

Shit man, Oscar Wilde called, and even he’s bored. Get on with it. Building tension is one thing. Rambling for five adverbial phrases is another.

The left-brancher can be a great cog in the steam-powered mechanization of your writing, but writer beware. It should be used sparingly and with purpose. If not, it may alienate writers and muddle up your voice, leaving you sad and alone on your birthday even though she promised to hang out and watch Spaceballs with you.

Wait, forget that last part.

Middle-branching (aka Mr. Fear of Commitment)

The middle-branching sentence is living through a perpetual identity crisis. Sometimes it wants to be left-branching, sometimes right-branching, which leaves it stuck in the middle, waffling and confusing everyone. It can’t figure out where to drop all that heavy subordinate information, so it just gives up, drops it at its feet, and stomps away in a fuss.

The middle-brancher places subordinate information between – or, um, in between – the subject and predicate. This makes for some interesting appositives or adjectival phrases that make your sentences more interesting.

Or more awkward. It depends on the style or effect you’re going for.

A middle-brancher would sound like this, “He drove, filled with shame and self-loathing, to Walmart.”

A lot of editors might immediately want to “correct” these sentences and make them left- or right-branching, but in defense of all things artistic, they can be used to vary the flow of a piece, and present important information in a way the actively engages the reader. If you’ve already introduced your subject, immediately following up with adverbial or adjectival information is a way to place emphasis without having to add a ton of supporting words that scream, “pay attention to this part right here, it’s super duper important, for real!”

The middle-branching sentence relies heavily on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. If you really need to qualify how or why your subject did something (to say, build character, establish setting, or foreshadow) the middle-branching sentence might be exactly what you need. If the clause you’re placing in the middle is non-restrictive and just adds some other sundry detail for spice, left or right branching might be more appropriate.

Syntactic exploration is the cardamom and curry powder of writing

Next time you’re writing (or editing!), pay attention to the style of sentences you’ve used. Is it heavy on the right-branchers because you were a little too comfortable with your language when you wrote the first draft? Is it packed with tedious left branchers because you drank too much and started remember all the times you and ::named redacted:: went to the movies in 2001? Is it full of weird, lurching, awkward pariahs of language that dawdle about in the middle for too long?

If so, change it up. Any type of sentence can be transformed into another type with some clever grammar Feng Shui. When you review your own work, pay attention to the syntax just as much as the content and word choice. A little variation or emphasis passed on through the proper sentence structures can take your writing from “yea, I’ll read this” to “holy shit I can’t put this down.”

“Superfluous branches we lop away that bearing boughs may live” -Shakespeare

How to Read like a Writer

Reading is like eating seven-layer dip.

At first salivating glance, you see piles of gorgeous green guacamole. A mountain range of avocado-salsa blend contained between four walls of Pyrex. It is easy to be emotionally overcome by the beauty of the guacamole, thinking that, from this angle, the dip is nothing but guacamole.

But if you maintained this perspective, and someone asked you to recreate the seven-layer dip, you’d be content to mash up 13 avocados, stick them in a bowl, and shove them proudly at your party goers with a grin that says, “I made dip.” 

To successfully make seven-layer dip, you have to understand that is has, y’know, seven layers. Beneath the obvious top-guac hides delicious cheese and olives and sour cream and beans. The dip itself is kind of complicated. The flavor comes from a combination of foods, all working together to create a single unified taste.

This is the problem with reading casually, only paying attention to the events of the plot and the overall story. You’re only noticing the top layer of the dip. Sure, you’re learning about story telling and enjoying yourself in the process, but you’re missing out of the other layers of literature that make a story robust and complete.

To recognize the layers, stare through the side of the Pyrex dish. Cross-section, not bird’s-eye. Think of it in a whole bunch of parts and techniques sandwiched together to make an engaging story. Think of it in layers.

Things you’ll need:

-A brain (I’ve found that the one inside your skull is easiest to access)
-A book (preferably something with some literary merit)
-A beer (optional, I guess, if you hate all things that are good)

Step 1: Recognize what you should be recognizing

A lot of scholars have attempted to sum up what makes something “literary” (which usually results in a list of 10/15/18/22/25 “things”). There is a lot of grey area. There is even more debate. Some aspects of literature are forehead smackingly obvious, others…not so much. I covered my take on these a few months ago.

It’s up to your inner Sherlock to decide what tools an author used in writing her book. Which means you need to be paying close attention while you’re reading. Which means you can’t just flop onto a beach chair, plow through a Robert Patterson novel while mutating your melanin, and expect to come out a better writer once you reach the satisfying, bolded, 16 pt, “THE END.”

Therein lies the jerk chicken rub. A lot of us read to relax. It’s our escape from the hellish realities of our grey, damp, corporate dungeons. The last thing we want to do while we read is analyze. I get it, I really do. I’m right there wanting to read for leisure with you.

But I’ll play messenger and deliver the bad message even if it means the king will behead me: you need to turn yourself into an analyst. There’s nothing glamorous about it. If you want to write like the authors you’re reading, you have to study the writing.

Start recognizing when an author like Jennifer Egan uses structure and odd timelines to enhance her narrative. Make notes when you see someone like Erik Larson using dueling narratives and foreshadowing to build tension even when we know how the story ends. Start recognizing that these are deliberate choices made by the authors, not just magic leprechaun luck that innately comes from being born during a significant astrological event.

Good writing is the culmination of a ton of intentional choices that are transposed into words and onto the page. Start learning what those choices are, and why they were made. When you learn them, you can emulate them, and your writing will transcend.

Step 2: Recognize what’s missing in your own writing

Talent is weird. It’s like we’re forced through the water sprinkler of talent as kids. Where the spray of talent-juice hit our brains, we’re awesome. Where it missed, we’re clueless.

Some of us are great at playing with language, turning phrases, being grammatically devastating  Others are amazing at building tension through dialogue and scenes. Others can use structure to arrange a story in such a way that it is fresh and unexpected to the point where the reader yells, “no effin’ way!” at the book in disbelief.

It’s good to know what you’re good at.

It’s even better to know what you suck at.

If your stories seem one-dimensional, notice how great authors use back story, probing dialogue, and action within scenes to enhance without being all up in your grill about it. Study the latent symbolism in a work and learn how that helps connect the reader to the story in a more universal, approachable way.

Read authors who are great where you are terrible (also admit that you are terrible at certain things). Learn how they do it. Eat it, process the calories, make that technique part of your physical being. The only way to learn what talent didn’t give you is through mindful application of a stubborn will.

Step 3: Take your time

Unless you’re involved in some sort of underground reading death challenge (and yes, I’m fully aware of what the first rule is), the stakes are pretty low. No one except maybe your book club peeps or that one annoying friend (who really only wants to talk about the book, so her intentions are good) really cares how quickly you read something.

It’s not the Daytona 500 with little paper cars with words on them. You can read at your own pace.

Actually, no. You should read at your own pace. Take as much time with the words as you need to understand them. Reread if you’re really trying to internalize a specific technique, or figure out why something was so effective.

The book or essay or whatever won’t self-destruct after five seconds. You’ve got plenty of time to read. Take it.

Step 4: Take Notes

If you can’t seem to dive deep into the creamy nutrient filled sub-layers of literature, force reading to be more active by gluing writing to it.

If you’re like me, writing in the margins of a book is painful (reading is the closest thing I have to religion, so marking up a book feels sort of like defiling a sacred relic). But sometimes, to remember certain spots, commit the best parts to memory, it is necessary. With the help of our new computer overlords, we can at least do this without taking ink to page.

Open a Word doc or keep a notepad nearby when you read. Write down the stuff you find interesting. Ask questions. Try a certain technique to see how it’s done.

By writing while you read, you’re engaging more than just your eyeballs. You’re introducing your fingers and possibly ears to the dance. The more senses you use, the harder your memory works and the more points of reference it has to build a permanent structure in your brain. It’s science, bitches.

Step 5: Read good shit

Sorry about the “bitches” thing. I got carried away.

None of this fancy advice matters if you’re not reading stuff that is well done. Not that everything you read has to be a timeless classic, but it should at least be worthy of your time.

The old saying is, “You are what you eat.”

In our world, “You write what you read.”

The books and essays and memoirs and news stories and shampoo bottles and billboards and waffle iron instruction manuals will seep into your unconscious. Each one makes up part of the synaptic web of what we understand to be “writing.” Each has it’s place and it’s purpose and teaches us something (even if that thing is what color dye is used in peach-scented Alberto V05).

If you’re going to read, read well. Read up. Spend your time with things that will make you smarter. Challenge yourself and strengthen your writing web.

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” -Sydney J. Harris

Guest Post: Join the Club

To follow up from yesterday’s post about reading, classmate and fellow blogger Melody (from Melody and Words, a seriously great and well written blog) shares her less-thought-of insights into why reading, especially as a writer, is so, so important. If you would like to write a guest post for Literature and Libation, send your ideas to literatureandlibation@gmail.com.

So you want to be a writer? Join the club.

The book club, that is.

If you are serious about writing, start reading. Whether you want to write fiction or nonfiction, articles or trilogies, you need to be aware of what else is out there.

One of the best things about writing is its simplicity. All you need is a pen and paper (and basic literacy) and you’re good to go. You don’t need the fanciest laptop or a highfalutin degree, although those may help. All you need to do is put pen to paper and start writing.

But if you really want to take your work to the next level, hit the library stacks.

Survey the Field

Would an inventor ignore all the new products being released? Would a doctor be able to diagnose a patient’s illness without keeping up to date on modern medicine? Would a scientist forget about atoms just because he didn’t discover them himself?

Writers need to keep current in their field. How else would you know what else is being done in your field? Maybe your fantastic idea about a time-traveling T-Rex who’s really just searching for true love has already been done. Reading is a writer’s market research. It’s how you discover whether an idea is fresh or whether the market for Vampire Angel Viking Sheikh Navy SEALs is oversaturated. (It is.)

If you do have a great new idea in a certain genre, reading others’ work will help you discover how fellow authors have tackled your issue or genre, what angles to take, and what is currently missing from coverage of your favorite topics.

Marketability

Surveying and learning from what has come before will not only help fine-tune your work. It will help you place your work with publishers. Reading The Atlantic will teach you to pitch big-idea pieces, not deep-sea fishing stories. Reading best-selling memoirs will help you find agents, editors, and publishers who have a proven history of representing books like the one you want to write about your childhood in that cult. Reading Seventeen will show you that no one above the age of ten would be caught dead with a magazine like that. Pitch your stories accordingly.

When you read books, magazines, and newspapers, try to put your finger on what their “signature” story or idea would be. What kind of stories are the publication’s editors on the lookout for? It will help you develop a sense of who publishes what.

Start reading with an eye on book covers and bylines. Following the work of other writers will serve as a frame of reference for yours, so that you can correctly pitch your travel memoir to outer space as “Orson Scott Card meets Elizabeth Gilbert.”

Learn Technique

Reading is also the best way to find good examples of great writing. From Cormac McCarthy’s lack of punctuation to Jack Kerouac’s lack of sleep, from Anne Tyler’s empathetic characters to George RR Martin’s fearlessness regarding philandering dwarves and murdered main characters, other writers can teach you a lot. After all, there’s a reason they’re famous, and you get to ride their coattails.

When you see something you like, imitate it in your own work. And when you see something you hate, well, lesson learned!

Find Inspiration

If you’re experiencing writer’s block, pick up a book. Sometimes, simply giving your mind a rest allows your subconscious to work through issues on its own. You may land upon a creative way to solve a problem that’s been stumping you.

Imitating—but not copying wholesale—the work of others can help you overcome an issue you face in your own story. When your character is stuck between a goblin and Gollum, try inventing some fancy jewelry. When the party runs out of booze, hand your Jesus some water. These solutions may not stick through your revisions (of which there should be many), but they may ease you through a tight spot until you figure out what the hell you want your character to do next. (Unless you’re writing nonfiction; in which case, I suggest sticking to what actually happened next.)

Network

In our graduate writing program, Oliver and I spend much of our time reading. Reading the works of great writers and identifying why they’re so good. Reading the works of less successful writers and discussing what they could have done differently. Reading the work of our classmates and helping them expand the good parts and shore up weaker sections. Reading, reading, reading, oh yeah and more reading.

You may not be in a writing program, but you can form your own writing group or join a local Meetup. Not only will critiquing others’ work make your writing stronger, you’ll also establish connections to other budding writers. These classmates, our instructors tell us, are our future editors and freelancers and the people we will talk about at cocktail parties in the future: “Oh, we knew him when…”

Or, if you’re that guy who makes it big, the possibility exists that you might bump into other writers on the bestseller lists at your own, much better, cocktail parties. You won’t want to be caught with a canapé in one hand and your dick in the other when that hot redhead realizes you haven’t read her mega-bestseller at all.

In addition to sounding erudite, maintaining relationships with other writers is important. You might get a glimpse into their writing life, and one day, you might ask them to blurb your book or help you promote that screenplay. A little networking goes a long way.

Practice Jedi Mind Tricks

Most importantly, reading gets you into the mindset of your target audience: the reader. Figure out what you like and don’t like in books, and then do/never do that. Write the stories you wish you could read, and you can’t go wrong.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Craft and Draft: The Write to Read

Quick, what are you reading right now?

Aside from this blog post, I mean.

What is in the buffer of your reading RAM? What book invades your dreams from the comfort of your nightstand? What novel takes up precious space and weight in your laptop bag? What magazines and periodicals live in a neat little pile on the top of your toilet tank? What websites sit in your navigation bar for quick and easy access?

If you expect to be a good writer, you should have answers to these questions ready to spring from your literary lips. Mine are, respectively: The Love of Hops by Stan Hieronymus, Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, Smithsonian/Nat Geo, New York Times/The New Yorker/The Atlantic (and to a lesser extent, for the social aspect, Fark.com).

To channel and butcher Jack Lalanne – “Writing is king, reading is queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.”

Reading is fundamental.

It is also mandatory.

Fortunately, most writers find the reading side of craft the “easy part.” We’re often guided into the world of writing by the gentle hand of reading, wanting to emulate our favorite authors, tell our own stories. I even know some writers who have the reverse problem to mine, they read significantly more than they write, and have a hard time making the transition from consuming to creating.

I admittedly do not read enough, even though I feel like I read a lot. It took going to grad school and interacting with other aspiring writers to realize that I was woefully under-read. Despite my years of studying literature in undergrad and reading for fun and self-edification in my free time, I discovered that I had so much more to read. I had missed out on champions of our art – Joan Didion, John McPhee, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese – and my writing was worse for it. I thought that the amount and quality of what I was reading was perfectly satisfactory until I realized how much more successful, published writers were reading.

I came to accept that if I wanted to really take my writing from rookie to veteran, maybe some day earn a coveted MVW (Most Valuable Writer) award, I needed to start reading with purpose and artistic abandon.

But if you’re like me, brain packed and racked with obligations that push reading further and further from list of things you have time to do, you’re forced to be picky. You try to only read the best of the best, but deciding what is objectively best can be challenging, especially if your tastes lie outside the spectrum of the usual New York Times bestselling fare. It takes careful research and meetings with other readers to find what is worth your time and will best improve your own writing.

Our go-round on this planet is tragically short. Even if we devoted our entire lives to turning pages, we couldn’t even put a dent in the total text available. We’re forced to make choices about what we read, or if we should read, in a world filled with infinite distractions and alternatives to reading. Some stuff will get left behind. You won’t be able to read everything you want to read. But if you’re going to be a serious writer, you’ll have to make some hard choice, and you’ll have to turn yourself into a serious reader.

To try otherwise is just silly. It’d be like a chef who doesn’t taste what he’s cooking or an athlete who never practices outside of her events.

When you read a book, you’re not just taking in another writer’s opinions and style. You’re actively digesting the culmination of the entire writing process. A published book has been written and rewritten, edited by outsiders, edited by the author, marketed and branded, labeled and decorated, hammered into a work of gradable quality. Each and every essay and article in a periodical passes the probing eyes of an editor, and has suffered the torture of countless revisions.

When you read you are learning what it means to write in a publishable way, inhaling the intoxicating ether that billows up from writing deemed strong enough for public consumption. It is this ether that you should cherish and bottle, taking little sniffs of it every time you sit down to write. You have to appreciate the magical convoluted voodoo that goes into a completed piece of writing, and be able to break it into its baser parts.

And really, you should be reading because it is the reason us crazy writers spend all this time at the keyboard in the first place. We (with a few exceptions, I’m sure) write to be read, and reciprocation is just the decent thing to do. You can’t expect other people to read your stuff if you refuse to read other people’s stuff. It’s writing community service. Most other writers are just like you, laboring diligently, sweating in their fields of text, hoping they can sell their goods in their little roadside stand on the internet.

Be a good member of the community and read. Your art (and your friends) will thank you for it.

(One of) My humble bookshelf(ves)