Back in 8th grade English class, fusty grammarians in drab housedresses and sensible shoes hammered parts of speech into our brains. Remember diagramming sentences? Scouring the dictionary for transitive and intransitive verbs? Learning proofreading marks? With all stereotyping aside, it’s the Mrs. Carrizzos of the world that might very well have set us on the path we find ourselves today.
Oftentimes, though, we’re so caught up with publishing and marketing that we don’t take time to review craft. In this column over the next year, we’ll do just that: work on craft.
This month, we’ll review basics—and then dig deeper to see how choosing the right word is our job #1. By identifying heroes and villains in writing, incorporating robust words in our manuscripts, eliminating unnecessary words in our work, and editing productively, our manuscripts—and our readers—will thank us for it.
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PARTS OF SPEECH:
NOUN: A word that indicates a person, place, thing, or idea, i.e. girl, classroom, pencil, satisfaction
PRONOUN: A word used in place of a noun, i.e., she, he, they
VERB: A word that specifies action, i.e. run, talk, sing
ADVERB: A word that modifies a verb and tells how, when, where, why, how often, or how much, and often ends in – ly, i.e., loudly, strongly, bravely
ADJECTIVE: A word that describes a noun, i.e., experienced, powerful, new
PREPOSITION: A word or group of words that show the relation or position of the noun, i.e., before, alongside, across
CONJUNCTION: A word that connects other words, i.e., and, but, yet
INTERJECTION: A word that indicates surprise, and often ends with an exclamation mark, i.e., Yikes! Wow! Ugh!
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HEROES:
Nouns and verbs are the heroes in writing and form complete sentences in and of themselves. Writing guru Natalie Goldberg, in her iconic Writing Down the Bones, advises writers to name your nouns.
“Be specific,” Goldberg writes. “Not car, but Cadillac. Not horse, but palomino. Not fruit, but tangerine.” By using concrete nouns, you place the reader in the setting.
When selecting verbs, we can also be specific. Goldberg goes on to say, “Verbs are the action and energy of a sentence. Be aware of your verbs and the power they have and use them in fresh ways.”
Take the verb “walk” for example (there are more than 30 synonyms for “walk,” beginning with amble and ending with waddle). By using vivid verbs, you can convey your character’s mood.
Let’s consider the sentence: Anna walks toward the house.
What kind of house? The blue split-level at the end of the cul-de-sac? The stately mansion on Garden Avenue? The squat adobe squeezed between First Methodist and the Lucky Lady Saloon?
And how is Anna walking? Does she amble, hobble, or march? Stagger, shuffle, or stride? Or does she tiptoe, trot, or trudge?
With these specifics, we give our readers two important pieces of information: what is Anna’s mood (verb) and what is her destination (noun).
If we say Anna ambles toward the blue split-level at the end of the cul-de-sac, what picture/mood do you conjure when you read this sentence? By using “amble,” we could assume 1) she’s not in a hurry and/or 2) she might not be looking forward to going home for some reason. By using “blue split-level at the end of the cul-de-sac,” we could assume 1) she probably lives in suburbia and/or 2) she’s from a middle-class family.
Now use the verb “stride” in the second example to “feel” how Anna walks toward the mansion. Use the verb “trudge” in the third example to “feel” how Anna walks toward the squat adobe. See what a difference vivid verbs and specific nouns can make? It’s so much clearer than the original sentence: “Anna walks toward the house.”
VILLAINS:
Most authors agree the villains in writing are adverbs. Used sparingly, they can be effective. But if you overuse them, you fall into what author Steven King, in his classic book, On Writing, says is the “fear of not being taken seriously; it is the voice of little boys wearing shoe polish mustaches and little girls clumping around in Mommy’s high heels. With adverbs, the writer tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.” Ouch.
Another caveat about adverbs: Show the reader! Don’t tell the reader! And always use either says (present tense) or said (past tense) for dialog tags instead of using an adverb. For example, have your character slam his fist on the table instead of saying “he said loudly.” Or have your character whisper to her friend instead of saying “she said quietly.” Let your dialog and action show, not tell, how the character speaks.
The same goes for interjections. Using sparingly, they can be effective. But! If you use them, too much, they can be ineffective! Right?!
As to the other parts of speech, use as needed and be intentional in your writing.
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Now let’s turn our attention to our manuscripts and how to edit them, keeping in the forefront of our minds that every word matters.
Rule #1: Edit with dispassion and ruthlessness
Rule #2: Separate yourself from your work (note to self: your work is not your persona
Rule #3: Seek and be open to critique and advice from early readers
Rule #4: Be brutal in revisions
Gary Provost, in his The Seven Beacons of Excellent Writing, writes: “Don’t think about what you can put in. Think about what you can leave out.”
How to do this?
First, in your final edit, analyze every sentence by reading aloud. Ask yourself, “How is the flow? Is there a stronger word to use?” Then go to print or online helps—dictionary, thesaurus—and audition new words. Read the sentence aloud again with new choices and don’t stop until you’re satisfied with one sentence before going on to the next. This is a lengthy yet invaluable process. And remember that sometimes the original and simplest word is best.
Once you’re satisfied with word choice, its time to slash away. Unnecessary words bog down a manuscript. The biggest culprits are the articles, a, an, and the, followed by superfluous words, including:
That Each Other Every More Yet Very Actually Just Quite Really Rather Like Simply Best Up Pretty Down See Which
How to find them? Search document for culprit words and use online helps such as Scrivener, ProWriting Aid, Grammarly, Autocrit, Word Hippo, or My Word Count. You can often trim your manuscript by 1,000+ words by removing inessential words.
You can, as my editor always points out, “take or toss” any writing advice. In the end, the choice is yours. It’s your story in your words.
Until next time, Happy Writing!
Ashley E. Sweeney is the winner of the 2017 Nancy Pearl Book Award for her debut novel, Eliza Waite. A native New Yorker, she is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and resides in Tucson. Answer Creek, released in May 2020, is her second novel. Her third novel, Hardland, is set in the Arizona territory at the beginning of the 20th century. It is scheduled for release on September 13, 2022. More about her HERE.
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