Bobby was an optimist, but his resolve slipped when the GPS stopped working. Five hours into a six-hour drive, he’d turned his battered F-150 onto the Iowa backroad and into the setting sun. Now, with less than twenty miles to go, he’d lost the tower signal and hope of finding Uncle Robert and what remained of the Schroeder homestead before nightfall.
Slowing the truck to get his bearings, he noticed a tractor and a wheat field through the windshield on the passenger’s side. The tractor, no longer working the land, followed a track along the edge of the crop, and headed toward the road. Bobby was plenty close. Perhaps, the farmer knew the Schroeder homestead—and how to get there. A quarter-mile onward, he spotted the field’s access gate, pulled even with it, and stopped to wait and ask directions.
The diesel motor thundered while the farmer seated high in the rig listened to Bobby’s request. “Yep. Can’t miss it.” He spat into a plastic cup, tobacco, or phlegm. Bobby didn’t judge; he was eager for help. Then the farmer wiped his mouth with the back of a weathered hand and added, “Go up a piece past the thingamajig and turn. Thingamajig’s gonna be beyond the whatsit. Cross the crick and the tracks, and keep a-goin’, then….” He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and looked up the road and into the middle distance like he was thinking of dinner or chores or weighing Bobby’s interruption keeping him from reaching either. “You’ll find it. Just a few miles up and nigh onto the ol’ Ferguson place.”
Bobby rubbed his chin. “Would that first turn be to the right or the left?” Then, regaining his smile, amended the question. “Uhmm, turn north or south?”
The farmer reached for the gear shifter, rolled forward, and shouted down over the engine’s clamor, “Yep. You can’t miss it!”
Bobby was left with two thoughts. First, he wasn’t finding the homestead following those instructions. And second, like him, the farmer was an optimist—had to be. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be a farmer.
Some people have an uncanny knack for giving concise directions. Others can’t manage the simplest instruction without causing confusion. Poor Bobby—he is out of luck.
Like the farmer, a writer must be an optimist or give up being a writer.
Writing Tips
“If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.” —Margaret Atwood
Strive for progress not perfection. Good writers edit their work, and they sense when it's time to stop. Perfect is the opposite of done. Know when to say when. Your work will never be flawless, but unless you reach a point that you can call it okay, you will never finish. More important, you won’t move on to create more, and better pieces, because you'll spend all your time in a never-ending loop chasing perfection.
Taking a written manuscript from a messy first draft to a final crafted manuscript is tedious. Done correctly, it takes numerous passes through the full manuscript to arrive at a point where the writing is ready to release to the world. But, perhaps like me, you have already made so many attempts at perfection you can’t face reading it—one—more—time! But done, arrive at the end of the process flushed with accomplishment. Although, these are not original, I share some tips for reviewing and editing a manuscript.
“You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop—H2O. The reader will get it.” —George Singleton
1) The one thing you don’t want to do is misdirect or confuse your reader. A reader needs to know where and when the story takes place, the characters, their desires, what is at stake, and who is in the way. Too much fluff: description, rabbit holes, side plots, gum up the works. The story must always move forward. And not everything you, the author, knows belongs in the book.
2) Refrain from telling the reader something twice even if you do it in two different ways. Readers are smart. Trust them; they remember. They also recognize when you reuse the same turn of phrase, gesture, or utterance. I recently read a book in which all the characters used the same gesture, over, and over, and over again. Not only was it distracting, it was eye-rolling, sloppy writing.
3) Look for favorite words. Mine are “maneuver,” “wince,” and “of.” Yours could be verbs or adverbs, adjectives or conjunctions. Unconsciously, you allow them to make their way into your writing, and their overuse weakens the manuscript. Weasel them out with prejudice.
4) Use effective words rather than pompous ones. Strong verbs where you find weak. If you're writing for today's reader, it's important to remember that you'll be best understood without incumbering your writing with convoluted paragraphs and elongated utterances. See what I mean? I don’t suggest you “dumb-it-down,” but such a writing style is old-fashioned. And worse, often skipped over, or the reader simply stops reading.
5) Search out and eliminate qualifiers. These are words like "very," "quite," "almost," "fairly," "just," and "many." Consider the sentence: She was quite beautiful. Is she less than gorgeous? Or is she a bit better than average-looking? Or is she as beautiful as fudge frosted double Dutch chocolate cake? Say what you really mean because qualifiers dilute word meanings.
6) Gender pronouns may signal an outdated writing style. At one time it was okay to only use the male gender pronoun when discussing people. For instance: "Everyone should take his book and sing along." Today, many find the use of only he, his, and him offensive. Because writing "his or her" rather than "his" gets wordy smart writers restructure the sentences. The sentence above could be changed to: "Take the book and sing along." Or: "Taking your book, you can sing along." Like diversity in writing, it’s a slippery slope—but an element that should be reviewed.
7) Persevere. Writing a novel is a long-term commitment. And as they say, every published author is a writer who didn’t give up.
Don’t listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won’t be one of them. Don’t listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don’t have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. – Robin Hobb
Rain by Jonie McIntire
I’ve made the rain no promises.
It issues dares, gets
its big brother
Thunder to shout
but I flip on the television,
push buttons
lazy and couched.
The rain whispers
to passing cars
about my insolence.
Its cousin Lightning
flashes my windows.
They spread gossip in
scattered light across the streets
in little beads mid-air.
But the rain and I,
we’ve never
made promises.
So it will have to tap
at my window
and wait.