Those Pesky Extras

(This post originally ran Feb, 8, 2012)

I recently learned a new term: Pleonasm. Is it a murder suspect? A graffiti artist? A practical joker?

Turns out, it’s nothing quite so mysterious. A pleonasm is a word or phrase, which can be removed from a sentence without changing its meaning. For example, John walked to the chair and sat down. “Down” is a pleonasm and can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Although I was not familiar with the term, I did know them when I saw them. In fact, part of my editing advice revolves around deleting extraneous words. Words such as “that,” “very,” “both,” and “there was.” Others might include “began,” “started,” or “continued.”

Here’s another phrase that nearly everyone is guilty of: “The sky held a myriad of stars.” Myriad means “countless.” So the correct use is “The sky held myriad stars.” (Simply substitute the word countless for myriad.) That eliminates two extraneous words.

And then there is the word “unique.” We are inundated with varying degrees of “uniqueness” every day: “That was a rather unique movie.” “Your story is very unique.” What’s next—uniquely unique? Unique means “the only one of its kind.” Unique is unique. It doesn’t need any modifiers

I also caution to watch use of “ly” words. These words are often used to prop up weak verbs. For example: “She walked quickly” can be stronger if written “She strode” (or bounded or rushed). Likewise with the “to be” verbs (was, were, had been, etc.) especially when used with an “ing” verb. “She was walking” is better as “She walked.”

Some authors like to use taglines (he said, she said) plus an action: “…she said, taking a sip of coffee.” The simple action is sufficient: “She took a sip of coffee.”
You also don’t need to describe two actions at once: She nodded and smiled. He puffed himself up and took a swig...

A writer friend of mine is looking at every sentence in her manuscript and challenging herself to remove at least one word from each. She has cut 14,000 words from a 400-page manuscript.

I challenge you to go one step farther: see if you can delete an entire phrase from a sentence, an entire sentence from a paragraph, a paragraph from a scene.
Hunt down and exterminate those “Pesky Pleonasms.”

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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in North-central Arizona.

Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, the sequel, Follow the Dream,  won the national WILLA Award, and Dare to Dream rounds out the trilogy. In addition a non-fiction book, Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women has just been released. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of the Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing, edits, and blogs. 

Gratitude for Simple Things

The Thanksgiving holiday is a special time of year when we pause in our whirlwind lives to remember what we are grateful for. I do try to think of each day with gratitude, but sometimes we do get caught up in the hurried way we live our lives and we start to see only the negative things that happen.

Sometimes the simplest things are what give me pause, bring me to tears:

• ·         A spectacular sunset
• ·         The full moon in a clear sky
• ·         The warm sunny days and crisp cold nights
• ·         My cat sleeping in my lap

I consider myself lucky (maybe that’s the wrong word, maybe it’s the recipient of great gifts) for bigger things in my life too:

• ·         The parents who inspired me to be self-sufficient and independent
• ·         My close family, including my “in-laws” who I think of as sisters
• ·         The wonderful teachers who encouraged me to develop my interest in reading and writing
• ·         The publishers who believed in me and my work and gave my books life.     
•       My dear husband who always supported my writing dreams without question

And even though I lost my husband this year, his love and support and the memories live on, and I’m able to find solace in simple things.

May you all find gratitude this Thanksgiving.

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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in North-central Arizona. 

Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, the sequel, Follow the Dream,  won the national WILLA Award, and Dare to Dream rounds out the trilogy. In addition a non-fiction book, Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women has just been released. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of the Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing, edits, and blogs. 

How do You Know When You are 'Telling'?

Examples of Telling

• His fingers moved down Mary's neck.
• Petals fell from the blooming trees on a sunny day.
• Jimmy hit the smoke alarm, opened the door, and threw the burning pan outside.

Examples of Showing

• Mary's heart thrummed when his fingers slid down her neck.
• Pink petals fluttered from the trees like cotton-candy snow in the spring sun.
• Jimmy slapped the smoke alarm, flung open the door, and tossed the flaming pan out into the rain.
• Jesse's fingertips brushed the grass. The delicate blades, hardy from recent rains, felt like eiderdown.
  

Telling forces a reader to stand outside a candy store window, able to see, perhaps, and hear what happens inside.  But he remains outside.  Yet when a writer shows, he invites the reader into the store to taste the bite of bitter chocolate or the tang of a lemon drop.  The reader will feel the stretch in taffy, maybe even become mired in a mess of spilled molasses.

·Telling is impersonal
Showing is intimate

·Telling is aloof
Showing is up close

·Telling is an essay about a vacation trip
 Showing is going on the trip

Telling is often a simple recitation of he did, she was, I felt.  Too much of this and the reader loses interest. If you find yourself skipping long sections of a novel, chances are those passages are all tell and no show—you've not been invited in, so you pass over the text.

In your own writing, look for clues in words and phrases:  Use of is and was and were, especially there is, there was, and there were; has, had, felt, and thought; uses of always (I always ate ice cream after a good murder); use of and then.

Such words and phrases are not always inappropriate, but their use or overuse warrants a second look.

There are times when Telling is needed.  Telling is for covering the ground, when you need to, as a narrator (whether the narrator is a character, or an implied, external narrator in a third person narrative). It's supplying information: the storyteller saying "Once upon a time", or "A volunteer army was gathered together", or "The mountains were covered in fine, volcanic ash". So it's a little more removed from the immediate experience of the moment. The more I talk about Telling, the more I call it informing.

Telling/informing: The temperature had fallen overnight and the heavy frost reflected the sun's rays brightly.
Showing/evoking: The morning air was bitter ice in her nose and mouth, and dazzling frost lay on every bud and branch. 

How do you show rather than tell?

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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in North-central Arizona. Her first novel, Cowgirl

Dreams, is based on her grandmother, the sequel, Follow the Dream,  won the national WILLA Award, and Dare to Dream rounds out the trilogy. In addition a non-fiction book, Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women has just been released. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of the Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing, edits, and blogs. 

Story Ideas Are Tiny Treasures

I was 12 when my grandmother died, and when my dad and I went through her photo albums, he casually mentioned, “Your grandma rode steers in rodeos, and she competed with Marie Gibson (a world-champion bronc rider from Montana in the 1920s and ’30s).”

That was a surprise to me, although I knew she loved riding the range and preferred the back of a horse to a dustmop any day. But I thought that was pretty cool, to have a rodeo-riding grandmother.

I stored that tidbit of information away in the back of my mind for many years. I went on to a career in journalism (when I figured if I ever wrote a book it would be non-fiction), several years as a freelancer, and a non-creative 13 years as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. When I hungered for creativity in my life again, I took a class in writing for children, just to see if I still liked to write. I did.

The instructor told us that biographies were great for kids, and they didn’t need to be about famous people. My cowgirl grandmother immediately came to mind. But the idea still needed several more years to gel.

When I was ready to try my hand at writing a book, I tried writing vignettes for a straight biography. But it wasn’t working. Grandma hadn’t become a world-champion bronc or bull rider, and my characterization was coming off too flat. I was too close to the subject.

When I gave myself permission to write her story as fiction, it came alive. I was able to fill in the gaps, create emotion and conflict, and write a character that was well-rounded, likeable and active. The result has been a trilogy: Cowgirl Dreams, Follow the Dream, and Dare to Dream.

After all the research I did for my three novels, based on my grandmother’s life, I had enough information to try my hand at that non-fiction book. Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women has just been released.

From a casual conversation and one tiny bit of family history has come four published books!

You never know what treasure an idea will become. Where have some of your book ideas come from?

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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in North-central Arizona. Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, the sequel, Follow the Dream,  won the national WILLA Award, and Dare to Dream rounds out the trilogy. In addition a non-fiction book, Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women has just been released. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of the Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing, edits, and blogs.
 

Where do Characters Come From?

Where do you get your characters? They can come from many sources. Characters can be based on someone you know or a composite of people you know. You write from your experience. You might base a character on a name you’ve picked out or someone you’ve read about in the newspaper. Or you decide on a theme or a situation you want to write about and then decide what kind of characters would fit into that idea.

How do you introduce your characters?

Here’s a great four-sentence exercise:

1.      Introduce a character (age, sex).

2.      Bring character home to dwelling place

3.      Greet someone in the home, tell something about the mood of the character.

4.      Move character out of room (off camera).

You’ll be surprised how much you will learn about your character from such a short exercise! Start out each character like this to find out about him/her. Fill in the information and find the emotional connection.

Some writers like to create an entire character profile even before they start writing. I don’t necessarily recommend that, although some people need a skeleton to flesh out before they can start writing. It’s probably a good idea to at least fill one out as you write (especially if you’re writing a book) just to keep the facts straight. You don’t want your hero to have blue eyes in chapter one and turn up with brown eyes in chapter 20. And you want him to act and re-act consistent with his personality as you write. Or fill in a character sketch if you have a character that seems flat and needs fleshing out.

How do you come up with your characters?

A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in North-central Arizona where she blogs, teaches

writing, and edits. Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, and the sequel, Follow the Dream, won the national WILLA Award. The next book in the series, Dare to Dream, has just been released, and her non-fiction book Cowgirl Up: History of Women's Rodeo will be out in September. Heidi has a degree in journalism and a certificate in fiction writing.