Break It Down

I love talking about writing. It's my craft, my profession, something I have invested a great amount of time and personal interest in. I love discussing things I've read on every level of writing. I love discussing writing in the abstract. I love getting my hands dirty with other people's writing (a.k.a. editing). But what I have only recently realized was how I talked about writing.

I keep in contact with a few of my classmates from college. We read, critique, and edit each other's writing. When I talk with these people, I end up using pretty vague words. I was reading a sentence and the word "mesh" stuck out. I told my friend, "'Mesh' is the wrong word." My friend agrees with me. I think for a bit and say, "'Match' or 'blend' are better words." My friend agrees and replaces "mesh" with "blend".

I never really thought about it before. I knew what I was talking about and so did my peers. But then I started to talk about writing with people who weren't my peers. Another friend of mine is a beginning writer. She didn't take the writing courses that I have, hasn't studied as much, and hasn't written as much as me. But she is always picking my brain, so we discuss writing a lot.

Occasionally, she'll ask me a simple question like, "how do you know what to get rid of when you edit?" I'll respond the way I would to anybody asking the question: "You cut out the useless words." And then I think to myself duh. It's not that I am trying to be rude or condescending; it is simply an issue I have dealt with so long ago that it no longer occurs to me that other people don't know it. But after that, she asks me, "How do you know when a word is useless?" Then that smug look vanishes from my face.

What do you mean? How do you not know when a word is useless? Wait a minute. How do I know when a word is useless? Now I have to actually think about the things I know. Well, a word is useless if it has no use. So what use is a word supposed to have? We use words to describe scenes and actions, convey emotions, move a story forward. Therefore, a useless word is one that either adds nothing to what is written or simply weighs more than it provides (and yes, I know that I need to explain the weight of a word, but I'll do that some other time).

I already knew how to edit and I knew which words to cut. But it wasn't until I broke it down that I understand exactly why I do these things. And that is very important. When you don't understand the principles behind a given rule, you are shooting in the dark. Eventually, you're going to find something that isn't standard or you may be challenged by somebody and need to defend yourself. If you can't explain why you're right, you run the risk of losing people's trust in you.

It isn't difficult to figure this stuff out. Just break it down. Every time you know something, ask why it's true. Ask yourself tough questions. Ask yourself stupid questions. If you can answer those, you can answer anything. It also prepares you to be a teacher. When you talk about your craft with people not at your level, you can never guess what questions you will be asked. But if you start asking yourself some of these questions, you'll build up your repertoire. You also might end up learning something yourself that will aid you in your own writing. If that alone isn't reason enough, I don't know what is.