Proponent

I've been using the word 'proponent' recently.  I have described myself as a proponent of some idea or another.  At one point, I wondered how I would describe the word if I was asked what it meant.

"Well," I said to myself, "a pro-ponent is the opposite of an o-pponent."  Then I was silent.

I never realized that connection before.  I always thought of a proponent as a supporter, as one who agreed with some idea or action.  It wasn't until those words spilled out of my mouth that I realized that an opponent is the enemy of the proponent.

And it was not until writing this post at this very moment that I realized all of the other connections in the different word forms.

A proponent proposes.  An opponent opposes.  I always thought think of proposing as bringing up a new idea and suggesting it, and opposing is fighting against something.  But never had I thought of them as a word pair the way I think of 'up' and 'down' or 'in' and 'out'.

A proponent proposes a proposition.  An opponent opposes with an opposition. Again, this is a set of word pairs which are not often thought of as word pairs.

The reason I bring this up is that I am giving you a tool. You now have a new set of words that you can juxtapose in a way to add a poignant layering to your writing.

Ramble-On Sentences

Tonight I will be doing one of my rare talking-about-proper-grammar blog posts.  It seems that a lot of people don't quite know what a run-on sentence actually is.  A run-on sentence is an actual grammatical error where you have two independent clauses in a single sentence.  In simple terms, it means you have two sentences crammed into one (or you have two sentences worth of words, but one sentence worth of punctuation).

Most people seem to think that a run-on sentence is simply a sentence that is very long.  Sadly, that's not right.  You can string as many dependent clauses onto a sentence as you like and it will still be grammatically correct.

More often than not, writing suffers from what I call ramble-on sentences.  It's what happens when a sentence is extremely cumbersome to read and impossible to say easily, but it's not a run-on sentence.  It's not incorrect writing, but it is bad writing.

Of course,that doesn't mean you can't use an extended sentence effectively; it just means you have to really know what you're doing, and that you still can't do it very often.

Barbecue Beans And Blueberry Beer

This is kind of a weird title, so bear with me.  I had dinner with a friend tonight.  We had, among other things, barbecue wings and blueberry beer.  I said it out loud and reminisced about the tastiness (they were seriously scrumptious).  Then I decided that I liked how many B's were in it.  I decided that I needed more, so I replaced wings with beans, which are also a commonly barbecued foodstuff.  And now we're at the title.

So, what's the point of this title?  Well, there really isn't much of one.  I said the phrase, and started writing the post.  That really is the point, though: making sense of the senseless.

I could write a simple story about barbecue beans and blueberry beer - a quaint little slice of life about two friends having a quirky evening after going some time without seeing each other.  I could turn it into a song about some awesome party where that's what everybody was consuming.  I could write a poem about a psychedelic experience where everything was topsy turvy and nothing tasted like what it should be.

This phrase is an inspiration, or at least a stimulus to respond to.  Something so strange and out of the ordinary demands a response.  And something so strange and out of the ordinary with no context whatsoever needs to be figured out before it can be responded to. But since there is no actual answer, all responses are equally valid.

I am giving you barbecue beans and blueberry beer.  Now give me some writing.

Stitch Your Fragments

Writing sometimes comes as a free-flowing stream of connected thought.  I often am merely speaking through my fingertips, recording the words I would be saying if it were a spoken conversation.  And sometimes there are long pauses between thoughts.  Those breaks allow for shifts in mindset, which affects the writing.

Pronoun usage can often be lax.  When I talk about writers, for example, I can easily shift between saying "they" and "we".  In referring to a hypothetical person, I can switch between "I", "you", and "he/she/one".  If I write a few sentences, then stop to think about what I am going to say next (or if I get distracted by something else entirely), I can easily switch from one pronoun to another and not realize it.  The same mistake easily happens with tense.

Beyond technical errors, there are stylistic issues that can occur.  There is a certain rhythm and flow that goes with writing.  It's the musical aspect which makes it pleasant to the ears and easy to consume.  When your thoughts get separated and disjointed, though, the sound of your writing will be affected similarly.  This is why we need to edit.

Editing is the process by which we stitch together the separate pieces of writing that make an entire thought.  When we edit, we do the technical stuff like making sure that our pronouns and tenses agree with each other, but we also make sure that it all sounds good and feels right.  We make a whole, solid, contiguous piece of writing - not a collection of scraps.  And that's why you need to do it.

More Than Asking Questions

Writers are often seen as questioners.  Writers see the world and ask why.  They ask "what if".  They make up their own worlds and then ask questions about it.  Writers are also seen as the great motivators and changers of society.  Without asking those questions, the world would not have progressed anywhere near the way that it has.  But more is needed than that.

We do not make progress by asking questions.  We make progress by trying to answer questions.

Writers change society because they ask the questions and then try to answer them.  "What if" is merely an opening door.  The rest of the story is an answer to that question, the results being there for everyone to see.

Writing is about answering questions.  They don't always need to be the deepest, most significant questions that plague the human mind; they can be perfectly trivial.  But if you aren't answering a question of some sort, then you aren't providing anything of use.  You're creating noise.

A Victim Of Addiction

I was reading the comic Surviving The World.  I stopped on this one, which says, "It could always be worse - you could be addicted to sauteed panda."  I've heard this sentiment before, the idea of the horror that would come from being addicted to a particularly bizarre substance.

At its face, it is comedy.  You can imagine the zany antics involved in trying to procure this totally unusual thing.  In fact, Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons are based on this very premise.  One crazy trick after another, just to get one fix.

But deeper, it is deeply disturbing.  What happens when somebody does get a fix?  Are they happy?  How long does it last?  If it's something highly illegal like sauteed panda, how long can they keep at it without getting caught?  If they do get caught, what would it be like in prison, going so very, very long without it?

Addiction is a scary thing.  We tend to think of it with chemical drugs (alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, etc.), but people can be addicted to anything.  And what makes addiction so fascinating is that otherwise fine people can become trapped by it.  The desire, the compulsion to have that drug forces people to do things they would never do.  And when they are ripped away from that drug, they go through unfathomable anguish for it.

I am interested by characters who are compelled by forces outside of themselves.  Addiction is most definitely one of those forces.  What can you write, using such a character?

Take Both Sides

I watched the episode of South Park that talked about Mormonism today.  I've seen it before and enjoyed it.  The entire episode is a bashing of the beliefs of the Mormons.  They show that the story of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is the most ridiculous fraud ever and only a complete fool could believe it.

This time, though, the ending really struck me.  In it, when all of this frustration comes to a head and is released, the Mormon kid basically says that the story of Joseph Smith may be crazy, and he may have even been a fraud, but the religion teaches beneficial lessons and has made his family a good and loving one, and that is what really matters.

I thought about the creators of the show today.  It is very easy to watch the first 20 minutes of  that episode and think they are mercilessly insulting the Mormons.  But to watch the whole thing, you would think that it was the story of how great the Mormons actually are, not only for being great people, but for dealing with massive intolerance and taking it in stride.

Which side on the Mormonism issue did they take?  Both.  It's an impressive feat right there.  It's also spectacular writing.  I think the best writing does not tell you what to believe; it simply shows you a world and some people and leaves you to figure out what's good and bad, what's right and wrong, what's good and evil.

The next best thing to do in your writing is to take both sides of an issue and defend them equally.  Confuse the hell out of your audience by making an argument, then arguing against it.  Support your argument, then support its opposite.

The world is full of gray.  The truth lies between the absolutes.  Only by taking both sides will you be able to find it.