After falling out of love with Blogger and getting to know Wordpress, Lexisms has moved:
http://elizabethditzler.wordpress.com
You have the address so there's no excuse not to come. Unless, of course, you're totally lame.
You're not lame, are you?
Didn't think so.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
How-To: Economy Writing
“Omit needless words,” William Strunk, Jr. advised in The Elements of Style. “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words…for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines.”
This advice is like a writer’s hazing. How do you know which words to cut? You rip out every word that might not be needed, and suddenly your draft is a mess.
In Keys to Great Writing, Stephen Wilbers explains how to obliterate the crap sinking your sentences. There are fourteen techniques (double digits? really Steve?), but he divides them into three easy categories. It’s like winning the writer’s lottery!
1. You Already Said That
Wilbers’s first category urges eliminating redundant words. You know, things like terrible tragedy, heavy in weight, true and accurate. When isn’t a tragedy terrible, anyway?
Condense. If you’re using six words to say “because,” just say because. Do you really need that “very” there? Does extremely happy sound as good as ecstatic? No? Right.
2. Get to the Point
Is that first sentence/word/paragraph really needed? Does it change anything if you take it out? No? Get rid of it.
Be equally merciless with the ends of sentences. You want to get in a good last word, don’t you? Don’t you?
3. Shut Up
“I am of the opinion that cake is delicious.”
“Cake rocks my socks!”
These sentences say the same thing, only sentence one sucks. Use action verbs. Keep personal commentary to yourself. If someone “does not like” something, can’t they just like it instead?
Remember: If it annoys you when someone does it in person, don’t do it in writing. It’ll just annoy someone else.
[This post is taken from my "professional" blog, aewrites.wordpress.com]
This advice is like a writer’s hazing. How do you know which words to cut? You rip out every word that might not be needed, and suddenly your draft is a mess.
 |
| I don’t know, officer. They said, “omit needless words,” and I just lost it. |
In Keys to Great Writing, Stephen Wilbers explains how to obliterate the crap sinking your sentences. There are fourteen techniques (double digits? really Steve?), but he divides them into three easy categories. It’s like winning the writer’s lottery!
 |
| Never shall I write “pink in color” again! (Image courtesy of posterize/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net) |
1. You Already Said That
Wilbers’s first category urges eliminating redundant words. You know, things like terrible tragedy, heavy in weight, true and accurate. When isn’t a tragedy terrible, anyway?
Condense. If you’re using six words to say “because,” just say because. Do you really need that “very” there? Does extremely happy sound as good as ecstatic? No? Right.
2. Get to the Point
Is that first sentence/word/paragraph really needed? Does it change anything if you take it out? No? Get rid of it.
Be equally merciless with the ends of sentences. You want to get in a good last word, don’t you? Don’t you?
3. Shut Up
“I am of the opinion that cake is delicious.”
“Cake rocks my socks!”
These sentences say the same thing, only sentence one sucks. Use action verbs. Keep personal commentary to yourself. If someone “does not like” something, can’t they just like it instead?
Remember: If it annoys you when someone does it in person, don’t do it in writing. It’ll just annoy someone else.
[This post is taken from my "professional" blog, aewrites.wordpress.com]
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Importance of Prewriting
Let's face it: prewriting is important.
I was struck last week in my fiction writing course. My professor, Andrew Ervin, started the week by stressing the importance of writing before you write. We even looked at the Freytag triangle.
It seems basic, but it's useful advice. Unless a story has a plot, conflict, and crisis, it isn't really a story. If you, the writer, don't know everything going on, you can't choose the best place to start or end. You can't choose the best time to reveal things. You know nothing about your character outside the context of your story.
Personally, I like stories that leave things unresolved at the end. I like walking away with a little mystery, and trying to figure out what happened for myself. It's not effective, though, unless all the clues have been placed. I can't debate what would have happened if the groundwork isn't laid. To leave a story unresolved, there needs to be only a few options presented, and of those options, a reasonable person needs to be able to make an argument for the outcome they see most likely.
It's important, too, for establishing conflict. I love reading, but I like very few stories. They often fall short on expectations because something doesn't ring true for me. Like Harry Potter and all the romance in the sixth and seventh volumes. Were there hints that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione would end up together? Absolutely. But I felt I was told this would happen, and I never emotionally believed it.
I don't pretend to know how things were supposed to go. J.K. Rowling is famous for her extensive notes and prewriting. But just because I don't emotionally buy something, doesn't mean there aren't plenty others who do, and if you want a reader to buy anything, you need to know the expanse of your story first, even if you never use it. Especially if it's science fiction, fantasy, or some other high-concept idea.
I've done prewriting, character profiles, drawn maps, etc. for years, but I'm guilty of doing this, too. When it comes to short stories, I often dash off my prewriting instead of really focusing on it like I would for a novel. But it's important here, too. It's important any time you try to convince someone that your fiction is some kind of reality.
What really surprised me was that my teacher stressed this so emphatically, like he'd run across reluctance to prewriting in the past. I remember meeting people when I was in community college who said they never planned anything before they wrote it. It destroyed the organic quality of the writing.
Honestly, prewriting can only strengthen a story. Trust me. You don't need to keep to the outline. It's a flexible frame. You will never do so much prewriting to avoid getting to an important part of a story and realize you didn't prepare for this.
So next time you want to write a story but don't know what to write about, start with a character sketch. Draw a map. Draw a picture. Do some prewriting. It will help.
Or just screw it. It'll give me less competition.
I was struck last week in my fiction writing course. My professor, Andrew Ervin, started the week by stressing the importance of writing before you write. We even looked at the Freytag triangle.
 |
| Story by formula=Something that looks like a story |
Personally, I like stories that leave things unresolved at the end. I like walking away with a little mystery, and trying to figure out what happened for myself. It's not effective, though, unless all the clues have been placed. I can't debate what would have happened if the groundwork isn't laid. To leave a story unresolved, there needs to be only a few options presented, and of those options, a reasonable person needs to be able to make an argument for the outcome they see most likely.
It's important, too, for establishing conflict. I love reading, but I like very few stories. They often fall short on expectations because something doesn't ring true for me. Like Harry Potter and all the romance in the sixth and seventh volumes. Were there hints that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione would end up together? Absolutely. But I felt I was told this would happen, and I never emotionally believed it.
 |
| It was clearly love at first sight |
I've done prewriting, character profiles, drawn maps, etc. for years, but I'm guilty of doing this, too. When it comes to short stories, I often dash off my prewriting instead of really focusing on it like I would for a novel. But it's important here, too. It's important any time you try to convince someone that your fiction is some kind of reality.
What really surprised me was that my teacher stressed this so emphatically, like he'd run across reluctance to prewriting in the past. I remember meeting people when I was in community college who said they never planned anything before they wrote it. It destroyed the organic quality of the writing.
 |
| There were no pesticides involved in the making of these radishes |
So next time you want to write a story but don't know what to write about, start with a character sketch. Draw a map. Draw a picture. Do some prewriting. It will help.
Or just screw it. It'll give me less competition.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Spring Semester
This week I started my spring semester, which is exciting for so many reasons, and also sucks Satan's balls. No. Seriously. Because I'm totally immersed in writing, reading, and publishing this semester, but I also have one of the busiest schedules I've ever had before between my internship and classes that are going to be time vampires due to the sheer amount of reading that's required.
It probably doesn't help I've got senioritis as a junior...
I also plan on joining the twenty-first century this semester by my recent purchase of a smart phone. The plan is to be able to add photos to this blog, too, and hopefully make it more interesting/exciting. I can also update when I'm not in front of my computer, which appears to be less and less these days. I hate that this has dropped on my priority list. I also hate that my novel draft, too, needs to drop as a priority right now, but I guess I can make up for that by working on my writing for class. Between my Writers at Work and Advanced Creative Writing courses, I'm sure I'll be doing a shit-ton of it.
Shit-ton. Does that get a hyphen? Two words? Shitton as one word looks like a hot mess.
I digress.
I probably won't post everything I write here--just the stuff that feels appropriate to the purposes of this blog. I will work hard on posting more, and making those posts more visually appealing. I've dug my writing journal out of the basket on my desk and dusted it off, so maybe if I'm better about keeping that, I'll be better about updating here, too.
You also may have noticed something of a change in tone here from previous posts. Yeah. Get used to this. I don't have the brain capacity or will to try and sound a certain way anymore. This is who I am. Love me!
...Or hate me. I'm not needy.
Not much, anyway.
It probably doesn't help I've got senioritis as a junior...
I also plan on joining the twenty-first century this semester by my recent purchase of a smart phone. The plan is to be able to add photos to this blog, too, and hopefully make it more interesting/exciting. I can also update when I'm not in front of my computer, which appears to be less and less these days. I hate that this has dropped on my priority list. I also hate that my novel draft, too, needs to drop as a priority right now, but I guess I can make up for that by working on my writing for class. Between my Writers at Work and Advanced Creative Writing courses, I'm sure I'll be doing a shit-ton of it.
Shit-ton. Does that get a hyphen? Two words? Shitton as one word looks like a hot mess.
I digress.
I probably won't post everything I write here--just the stuff that feels appropriate to the purposes of this blog. I will work hard on posting more, and making those posts more visually appealing. I've dug my writing journal out of the basket on my desk and dusted it off, so maybe if I'm better about keeping that, I'll be better about updating here, too.
You also may have noticed something of a change in tone here from previous posts. Yeah. Get used to this. I don't have the brain capacity or will to try and sound a certain way anymore. This is who I am. Love me!
...Or hate me. I'm not needy.
Not much, anyway.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Editorial Internship and Other Updates
So this week I started my editorial internship at Running Press, and so far, I love publishing. It's really interesting to see inside the industry, such as looking at proposals and copyeditting. It's definitely helping my grammar and punctuation skills. I think I have found my career. It's only been one week, yeah, but I've never been so excited about something before. This is definitely a dream job, so now I'm considering graduate school to get an M.S. in publishing. NYU's program, especially, looks great.
On a bigger note, I finished the first draft of the first book of the Aureole 53 series. I'm still in shock. I plan to write the second book before I start shopping around for agents/publishers, but this is monumental. It's still in a messy, revision stage, but now I have something complete to fix up. I am so excited about 2013 right now. I think this will be an awesome year.
Classes also start soon. Break went so fast, but I'm taking one literature class and two writing classes along with my internship so I'm prepared to be tired, but looking forward to it.
Love,
Lex
On a bigger note, I finished the first draft of the first book of the Aureole 53 series. I'm still in shock. I plan to write the second book before I start shopping around for agents/publishers, but this is monumental. It's still in a messy, revision stage, but now I have something complete to fix up. I am so excited about 2013 right now. I think this will be an awesome year.
Classes also start soon. Break went so fast, but I'm taking one literature class and two writing classes along with my internship so I'm prepared to be tired, but looking forward to it.
Love,
Lex
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Fiction: Sidewalk Stories
Sidewalk Stories
The Bus Stop
Twenty minutes passed since Emily first
arrived at the bus stop. The rain,
merely a drizzle upon her arrival, now came down in a steady stream and beat on
the clear, plastic roof. She shivered,
sniffed, and stared down the road in the hopes of mentally willing the bus to
appear. Across the street, the bus for
the opposite route stopped, and Emily glared.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Book One Progress: That Part
It's been hard finding time to blog. Or to find something I feel like saying.
This week I wanted to write about writing ethnic minority characters, but I think I'll wait on that until later. It was applicable when I planned it, but now I'm working on something else. So look for that in the future, if you're interested.
Instead, I want to talk about my novel, or rather the progress of my novel. As you might know, I'm currently writing the first book of what I envision as a series of four. I'm not really sure what genre to label it--there's a blend of the paranormal, science fiction, and a little magic, but it's all very real-world based, so I guess it falls into magical realism. It is definitely teen lit. As a writer who hasn't been writing for some time, it's one of those pet projects I've had lying around for the last ten years (not exaggerating), but has changed so much it barely resembles the project it once was. I'm glad for that. I'm glad it took me so long to really work on it. I'm glad I scrapped beginning chapters, restructured the entire plot, the main character, and let it develop organically. It's at that stage now where I'm really excited about what I want to do with it, and where I see it going, and I know it's probably a big mess now, but that's what revision is for--fixing the mess. But that's all exposition and totally here just to provide some grounding for anyone reading this as to what my big project is all about.
My point is that I'm at that chapter. One of them, anyway. That chapter I've been dreaming about in my head for ages. That chapter I've been so excited to write that part of my motivation has been writing just to get here. At this moment. It's the second time I've hit this point in this book (there are three in the first book, and so many more in the entire series), but this is the really big one. The one that's going to set absolutely everything in motion for the remaining duration of the series even if it doesn't seem like it. I'm a little terrified to write it.
I have a problem with trusting my writing. I know what I want to say, and I'm pretty good at letting my characters say what they want to say, but I'm so bad about not editing my characters. I revise too soon (too often as I'm writing, which is a problem). I second-guess myself--that my writing isn't good enough. And I never feel this as strongly as when I get to these points--these important points that I'm dying to write but that I think I'll totally fuck up.
I can place blame for this one primarily in youthful arrogance. As a teenager I thought I was a pretty good writer, and now when I look back on that work, I want to gag myself with a spoon. It makes me wonder if all my writing was that bad (it wasn't--I am sometimes impressed by the work I did in my early twenties, mainly because it doesn't make me cringe, and while there are problematic areas I can recognize, I wish I could have seen my own progress at the time--maybe I wouldn't have quit). And here I jump again too far ahead of myself. Because now I'm second-guessing how my writing will come across now, and there's no way to know. Not now, anyway, and I really am of the belief it doesn't matter if I have a novel of crap because that's easier to revise than nothing. I need a complete story before I can solicit feedback. I know that, but it's hard for me to accept that.
So for a discussion topic, I find my weakness to be second-guessing myself. What are/were your writing-related weaknesses and what do you do to overcome them?
This week I wanted to write about writing ethnic minority characters, but I think I'll wait on that until later. It was applicable when I planned it, but now I'm working on something else. So look for that in the future, if you're interested.
Instead, I want to talk about my novel, or rather the progress of my novel. As you might know, I'm currently writing the first book of what I envision as a series of four. I'm not really sure what genre to label it--there's a blend of the paranormal, science fiction, and a little magic, but it's all very real-world based, so I guess it falls into magical realism. It is definitely teen lit. As a writer who hasn't been writing for some time, it's one of those pet projects I've had lying around for the last ten years (not exaggerating), but has changed so much it barely resembles the project it once was. I'm glad for that. I'm glad it took me so long to really work on it. I'm glad I scrapped beginning chapters, restructured the entire plot, the main character, and let it develop organically. It's at that stage now where I'm really excited about what I want to do with it, and where I see it going, and I know it's probably a big mess now, but that's what revision is for--fixing the mess. But that's all exposition and totally here just to provide some grounding for anyone reading this as to what my big project is all about.
My point is that I'm at that chapter. One of them, anyway. That chapter I've been dreaming about in my head for ages. That chapter I've been so excited to write that part of my motivation has been writing just to get here. At this moment. It's the second time I've hit this point in this book (there are three in the first book, and so many more in the entire series), but this is the really big one. The one that's going to set absolutely everything in motion for the remaining duration of the series even if it doesn't seem like it. I'm a little terrified to write it.
I have a problem with trusting my writing. I know what I want to say, and I'm pretty good at letting my characters say what they want to say, but I'm so bad about not editing my characters. I revise too soon (too often as I'm writing, which is a problem). I second-guess myself--that my writing isn't good enough. And I never feel this as strongly as when I get to these points--these important points that I'm dying to write but that I think I'll totally fuck up.
I can place blame for this one primarily in youthful arrogance. As a teenager I thought I was a pretty good writer, and now when I look back on that work, I want to gag myself with a spoon. It makes me wonder if all my writing was that bad (it wasn't--I am sometimes impressed by the work I did in my early twenties, mainly because it doesn't make me cringe, and while there are problematic areas I can recognize, I wish I could have seen my own progress at the time--maybe I wouldn't have quit). And here I jump again too far ahead of myself. Because now I'm second-guessing how my writing will come across now, and there's no way to know. Not now, anyway, and I really am of the belief it doesn't matter if I have a novel of crap because that's easier to revise than nothing. I need a complete story before I can solicit feedback. I know that, but it's hard for me to accept that.
So for a discussion topic, I find my weakness to be second-guessing myself. What are/were your writing-related weaknesses and what do you do to overcome them?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)