Get Advice

Have you ever asked for advice and then completely disregarded it? If you have, don't feel bad about it. Although it is frustrating for the advice-giver to not be heeded, the fact of the matter is that advice doesn't work the way we think it should.

We think of asking for advice as the person not knowing what to do and needing somebody wiser and more-confident to defer to. But none of that is right. We don't ask for advice because we don't know what to do; we ask because we need more thoughts. It's not so much that we don't know what to do as it is we aren't sure what the best thing to do is. The people we ask advice of aren't necessarily smarter than us, but trusted people. They can understand where we come from and can give the thoughts that we don't think of.

Advice is also tricky because of error in communication. There are so many things that go into any situation, that it is impossible to describe them all, let alone all of the thoughts and feelings that go along with them. That means that the person giving advice is giving advice on partial information. However, that does not make it worthless.

Again, advice is about getting ideas and bouncing your ideas off of somebody else. Even if advice is given on partial information, the ideas that you get may still be worthwhile. They may be good ideas, or they may spark your mind to come up with a new idea you wouldn't have normally thought of.

In one of the first writing workshop classes I had, my teacher described a writing workshop like this: "Everybody reads your writing, they tell you how you should change it, then you ignore them and do whatever you want." It's funny, but it also perfectly explains how advice works.

So when you're writing, go ahead and get advice. It will always be good for you, even if you don't take it.

Respect Writing Exercises

Many books on writing will give some writing exercises. These are usually a prompt of some sort. They can be vague like, "Write a story that takes place on a train" or they can be specific like, "Write a short story about a jewel thief who publishes a book about his techniques." In a sense, any writing assignment you get in college is a writing exercise.

For a long time, I never respected writing exercises. They felt like cheating to me. Writing exercises were something you did when you couldn't come up with anything on your own. If you are feeling rusty and just need to practice the act of writing, then a writing exercise is great because when you were done, you could just throw it out. It kept your skills sharp, but it didn't count.

I do not believe those things anymore. The main reason was that I realized one important fact: prompts do not write themselves. If you gave a hundred writers the same prompt, you may get some similar results, but you will end up with a hundred different pieces of writing. Since every person has their own style, made from their own thoughts and beliefs, you will always be creating a piece of writing that is yours.

Another realization is that ideas do not come from nowhere. When you see two people arguing out in public and you start wondering what their home life might be like, and you write a little story about it, you are still being led and influenced. It may not be as direct as a writing prompt, but the fact remains that we are regularly poked and prodded by outside influences to write. Just because you didn't grab your idea from thin air doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.

There are a number of pieces I've written for my college classes. Some of them had particular requirements. And some of those pieces I am very proud of. Some of those pieces have won awards. I do not think less of them because they started as assignments.

So, do your writing exercises. But take them seriously. Put effort into them and make something good. Whatever you make will be yours (which should be reason enough to take pride in it), so make it something that deserves to have your name on it.

Awkward Silence

I always tell people, "I'm a writer because I suck at talking." I can't think of a conversation I've had that didn't have some kind of awkward silence. It might be actual silence, or it might be hemming and hawing, or it might be me saying "I was gonna say something, but I forgot what it was" or it could be me saying, "I want to say something, but I'm not sure how to say it."

That last one is the most telling to me. I want to be very precise. I don't want to say the wrong words. Not only do I want to be technically accurate, I also want to give the right impression. For example, if I said "I spent the night with my friend", it may be true, but it sounds like we had sex. So in a conversation, I may spend an awkward silence trying to figure out how to express that I hung out with my friend through the night, but didn't have sex, and also not trip over my own words while doing so.

This is exactly why I say that writing the way you speak is not always the best advice. When I'm on a roll, I sound great. Everything in between those moments is tragically painful. This led me to an interesting thought, though. Within any given body of text, there are hours, if not days or months, of awkward silence that you don't see.

Writing is a collection of speech. But writing is idealized speech. Writers can take their time, plan their thoughts, and craft their words. All that time they spend staring into nothingness is an awkward silence.

For those writers who struggle with speech, feel free to use my line. I can vouch for its effectiveness. But realize that writing isn't magical; it just sweeps all of those awkward silences under a very large rug. But hey, out of sight, out of mind. For those writers who don't have awkward silences when they talk, congratulations. Go enjoy being awesome. I hope you can write as easily as you can talk.

The Weight of Words

In my previous entry, I talked about the weight of words. This is one of those things that I know, but never took the time to understand. It always seems so intuitive to me because it is based more in feeling than science. But I think there is at least some science involved.

In general, the weight of a word can be felt in how much it weighs down a sentence. For starters, say out loud, "sure it is." Say it very quickly, the way you would say it to your friend in a conversation. This is a very light sentence. It is made of a light number of words, each of which is light by itself. You can say "sure it is" so quickly that you don't even think about it. Sentences like these are commonly known as "sliding off the tongue".

So consider the polar opposite. A heavy sentence will have a lot of words, each of which will be particularly bulky. These sentences are so unpleasant that they are a struggle to read. For an example, I point you to any history textbook or document written by a lawyer.

So when you consider the weight of a word, consider how easy it is to say and how well it blends with the sentence it's in. The word 'so' is very easy to say. It will fit in almost anywhere without being noticed. The word 'haggard' is not so easy. You can get tripped up saying it and it takes some effort; it's a heavy word. In between those words is 'mesh'. 'Mesh' is a pretty light word, and you usually wouldn't think much of it, but in the right circumstances, it is the wrong word.

Read the following sentence: "After reviewing the job description, I believe the Staff Assistant position would mesh well with many of my interests and abilities." Now say it out loud. Take your time with it and try to feel the flow of the sentence. When you say the word 'mesh', the flow of the sentence stops. 'Position' is a nice and slick word; it makes you want to keep saying things. But in order to say 'mesh', you need to stop the air flow to pronounce that 'm'. Because of that, this relatively light word ends up being too heavy for the sentence it's in. Try the same sentence, but replace 'mesh' with 'blend' and see how much smoother and lighter the sentence is.

The more I think about weight, the more I see certain factors contributing to them. The longer a word is, the heavier it is. Length, though, is measured in syllables, not letters. 'No' is just as long as 'trash'. But the letters do matter (technically, the sounds they represent). Every sound has a different weight to it. 'K', 'D', and 'G' are all heavy sounds. 'K' is probably the heaviest sound we have. Say the phrase "cuckoo clock" and compare it to "sassafras". Both of these words are three syllables, but the difference in weight is palpable.

I know there are a lot more aspects that deal with weight of words, both by themselves and within a given sentence. However, they are less tangible. They are things that I can only feel, but cannot yet explain. So to learn as much as you can, the best advice I can give is to train your ear to recognize when a sentence gets weighed down and starts to drag. Train your ear so much that you feel it in your body when a sentence is wrong. From there, you will feel all of the nuances of weight. Even if you can't describe them, you will still be able to make use of them.

Weight is always important in writing. If a sentence gets too heavy, you can't finish reading it. That's one of the reasons I advocate shorter sentences: if there aren't a lot of words, they need to be particularly heavy to be unreadable.

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.

Nature and Nurture

Writing always involves people. People are writers. People are the audience. And very often, people are the subject material. As such, a significant part of writing is understanding people. Therefore, we should weigh in on the nature versus nurture debate.

Is it our genetic code that makes us who we are or is it how we are raised? At this point in time, I'm fairly sure that everybody will say it is a combination of the two. So the more important question is what ratio of nature and nurture are we?

Personally, I believe that nurture has a lot more influence than nature. For one thing, I look at my family and my friends. My family is close and I am pretty similar in one way or another to all of the family members I know of. But the more time I spend with them, the more I notice the differences between us.

My friends, on the other hand, are completely unrelated to me, but are still very close. Although they are different, the more time I spend with them, the more I notice the similarities between us. We ended up having similar circumstances and developing in similar ways because of it. Of course, none of them have lived an identical life to me. And where our lives were different, we have grown to be different because of that.

I understand that observation is far from an exact science, but nothing involving behavior and emotions is an exact science. I still stick by the fact that a person's experiences in life will shape them far more than their DNA will. Just because your dad was a serial killer doesn't mean you will be, too. Of course, if your dad raises you to be a serial killer, well, that still supports my point (I just won't show up to your house to say so).

Writing Exercise - Unconventional Truth

Have you ever heard the phrase "It's funny because it's true"? Have you ever seen a comedian tell a joke and said, "wow, I never thought about it like that"? These are so effective because they blend two aspects of comedy that are seemingly in opposition.

People like things they can relate to. Musicians love a good music joke. Mathematicians love a good math joke. But in order to make the most amount of people laugh, you need to make a joke about something everybody knows about. The problem is that things that are familiar are boring. Nobody laughs out loud while discussing the weather.

That's way people like the unfamiliar. Something new is always going to be more powerful. Since it's new, we couldn't possibly have seen it coming. A great joke is one that sets you up for a standard punchline, then hits you with a completely different one. The one problem with the unfamiliar is that not everybody can follow you. Since they don't know it, they are less invested in it.

So how does one be both new and familiar? The trick is to take something familiar and say it in a new way. Start with something simple. Find something that is true. "Birds fly." Then say it in an unconventional way. You need to be able to break things down. What is flying? Why can't we do it? How do birds do it? With enough playing around, you can turn "birds fly" into "birds fight gravity with their arms." It's not particularly great, but at least it's different (it's also off the top of my head, so get off my back).

Although I think this technique is best used for comedy, it works for all kinds of writing. Say something that is technically true, but unconventional. I'm fairly impressed with some of the things Carl Sagan said. They were true, but poetic. "A still more glorious dawn awaits: not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise - a morning filled with four hundred billion suns: the rising of the Milky Way." "The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently, we've waded a little way out ... and the water seems inviting."

As an exercise, try writing some unconventional truth. It doesn't have to be brilliant, but it should at least be new. This is partially just finding how many ways you can say the same thing. It is also going to make you create new associations and break free from common phrases. What joyous times these will be.