Little Darlins

Literary agent Nathan Bransford has a blog post today about word count in novels. http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/02/novel-word-count.html

"If your novel is going to be over 150,000 words and your name is not David Foster Wallace, Leo Tolstoy, or Vikram (Chandra or Seth), there had better be a darn good reason for it, " Bransford said in his blog.

My first rough draft of "Long Road" was 198,000 words. I laugh now when I look back at that. I don't think I could even bring myself to read it. Not only do I not have the patience, I wouldn't have the time. (By the way, I want to thank all of my friends who suffered through reading that first rough draft. God bless you.)

The topic of word count reminds me of something singer-songwriter Jim Casey said to me. "You've got to know when to let go of your 'Little Darlins'." Casey said he heard it from another Nashville musician, Dickey Lee. Working with Shel Silverstein, the prolific poet and lyricist with whom Casey wrote, was a walking demonstration of the phrase, he said. Apparently, Silverstein had a knack for writing verse after verse after verse and the musicians working with him just needed to discern which "Little Darlins" to cut.

"Oh,those Little Darlin's! How we love them and how hard it is to let them go," Casey said.While a couple Little Darlins can make a song, too many can make it cluttered and unappealing to the ear.

As an amateur songwriter (that's amateur in every sense of the word), I could relate to what he was saying. My understanding of what he meant correlates to the literary world, too.

At the time, it hurt to put "Long Road" on the chopping block and start hacking away the Little Darlins. It was a multi-step process that eventually ended up with a (mostly) clean finished product that was around 98,000 words.

But here's what I did:

1. I decided what part of the story I wanted to tell. In novels there can easily be stories within a story, and there should be in order to give it depth, but if the story within your story takes away from or slows down your plot, then it's a little darlin that should probably be cut.

2. Find your bad writing habits and fix them.I have still have trouble with this because I find myself using certain phrases repeatedly or unnecessary prepositional phrases and words. Take, for instance, the line from my novel: "Her clothes were still damp from being outside in the mist."Well, of course, she was outside in the mist. If mist was falling in the apartment, Nick needs to call his landlord and get his roof fixed.The line was later changed to: "Her clothes were still damp from the mist."

3. Lastly, I took the knowledge I gained from working at a newspaper and applied it to my novel. In a newspaper, you have only between 10 and 25 inches to tell a full story. If you think cutting a novel down from 198,000 words to 98,000 words, try telling the full scope of a story in 600 words.

So, take it for what it's worth, but that's how my novel turned into half the book with twice the impact. (According to my peers who have read it anyway.)

Tips for writers

I have compiled a Top 10 list in this post of some writing tips I hope every junior high and high school teacher (and wannabe writers everywhere) will take to heart when they are teaching students the fundamentals of journalism. These tips were put together by my work colleagues and I after a brief gripe session. Take it for what it's worth. These are points I wish my high school journalism teacher would have told me when I was my daughter's age. It would have saved me from having to unlearn some really bad writing habits that formed over the years.


1. Exclamation! Points! Are! Rarely! Ever! Necessary!
If you want to see a real writer roll their eyes in utter disgust, go ahead and keep using them. Let your writing portray the emotion.

2. Never, ever, for the love of God and your own body, start a story with "The Websters definition of (enter your topic here)..."
Starting a story with this lede (or lead) is a sure way to earn a laugh in the world of journalism/writing.

3. Learn the difference between proper nouns and common nouns.
You wouldn't believe the press releases that come across my desk with words needlessly capitalized. It's fine to capitalize St. Louis Memorial Hospital, but the word hospital does not need to be capitalized when it is used on its own (even when the word is in second reference to the proper name of a hospital). I'm not picking on anyone from St. Louis, I'm just using something from the top of my head as an example.

4. Speaking of example: e.g. means for example and i.e. means therefore.

5. Use a comma when you have an dependent clause followed by an independent clause.

6. While I'm playing comma nazi, I will also add a reminder to use commas before a conjunction (and, or, but, for, yet, nor, so).

7. Avoid ending your sentence with prepositions. (A preposition is anywhere a rat can go --above, beyond, below, between -- plus the word of.)
Funny story. My coworkers gave me a birthday card with a picture of one high schooler asking, "So, where's your birthday party at?" The other friend responds by telling her not to end a sentence with a preposition. Inside the card, the question had been rephrased as: "Where's your birthday party at bitch?"
This isn't the best example of how not to end a sentence with a preposition, but it definitely makes a point.

8. Don't use general descriptions. What is old to one person may be young to another. Very is a four-letter waste of space, general does nothing to describe the public and brand doesn't describe new.

9. If you can replace the word "who" with the words him or her, you should have used the word "whom."

10. When attributing a quote to someone, the word you are looking for is "said." Unless you want to sound like a hack, quit overusing words like stated, exclaimed and replied.
My daughter was told by her English teacher she could only use the words "said" and "asked" once for attribution in her paper. English teachers of the world, this needs to stop. My daughter's paper ended up rife with, "he blamed," "she tried," and "he replied." Funny thing was he wasn't replying to anything, no blame was being cast and she wasn't trying anything. Read through your work out loud, and if something sounds out of place, try using "said," because 99 percent of the time, that's the word you mean.

I'm not saying I'm a perfect writer. I'm far from it. Every writer has made the above mistakes at least once, but my colleagues and I became a better writers after our peers pointed out these bad habits and we resolved to change them.

Happy writing!

A funny thing happened on the way to work

A funny thing happened to me on the way to work. Not this morning. As a matter of fact, it was quite some time ago, but I like sharing this story because it illustrates how God uses humor in my life to get His point across.
I love my job. Don't get me wrong.
There are times, however, when I get bored. About three years ago, I was finding myself in a career lull. I had been editing the faith section of the newspaper and doing entertainment stories for quite some time. I had the opportunity to interview some pretty big names in show biz: "Weird" Al, Larry the Cable Guy, Ron White, Dierks Bentley, Third Day, MercyMe, Susan Tedeschi, Cheap Trick. I had written some awesome faith-based stories about the end-times and faith healing.
What left was there to do?
I found myself wondering whether I had done all of the writing God wanted me to do. I was writing all of these stories about people who had given up everything in their lives to do mission work and, after reading and praying over the New Testament, I wondered if I deserved the blessings I was receiving.
Then I interviewed Todd Agnew.
Todd, for those of you who don't know, is a Christian musician. (Actually, I believe when Jesus sings, it sounds like Todd Agnew.) He's awesome.
His publicist sent me a copy of his new CD "Reflection of Something." (This was a couple years ago.) I found myself mesmerized by the music. Every morning I listened to Track 5 on the way to work. Listening to the intricate way the guitar worked with his voice kept me focused on the beautiful creation around me instead of the lack of joy I was finding in my work. Every morning -- for weeks -- I listened to this song. I never even knew what the name of it was. I could sing it though: "I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were angels with six mighty wings . . .and they sang holy holy holy is the Lord Almighty...."
Well, one day I decided to clean out the horrid mess that had somehow accumulated in my vehicle. In the process of cleaning, the CD jacket fell out and I saw the name of the song was Isaiah 6.
"Awesome," I thought to myself. "Later on, I'll have to go look this passage up and see what it's all about."
Later on that evening, as I climbed into bed and waited for my husband to finish taking the shower, I was mulling over my thoughts for the day. My husband's Bible fell off the headboard of the bed and literally conked me on the head. I suddenly remember I was going to look up that passage.
Imagine my surprise when I read the very next line of the passage -- the song stops just short of using this line -- and discovered that God was asking "Whom shall I send to be my messenger?"
Uh? Perhaps the editor of a faith section in a newspaper? Perhaps a writer who often questions why she has been blessed with passion and love of bringing His word to people?
OK, God. I get the picture. I'm supposed to be doing this job.
I recently had another opportunity to interview Todd Agnew again. I found it amusing when he talked about why he couldn't understand how God used someone as simple, someone without a formal education in Biblical teaching as himself to spread His word.
Well, Todd, I wonder the same thing about myself.

I am...

My grandparents' wedding anniversary would have been today. If my grandfather were still alive, they would be celebrating 75 years with one another.
Unfortunately, my grandfather died two weeks after celebrating his 65th wedding anniversary with my grandmother. His death changed my life, and I will never forget the event for as long as I live.
To understand where I'm going with this, you need to see where I'm coming from. My other grandmother died when I was in high school. I'll never forget that sunny September day. I was traveling with my parents to a relative's house, and when we arrived, the nursing home called to tell us my grandmother died. We immediately repeated the hour-long journey back to my hometown, where my grandmother had been living, to take care of arrangements.
I remember telling my parents they needed to drop me off at home because we would certainly have company and the house needed to be in proper order. I didn't want to go to the nursing home where the curious eyes of old strangers would constantly be upon me. My only other option would be to stand in the room with my grandmother's body and wait for my parents to finish with the mortician.
I chose to wait in the room with my grandmother's body and, at the time, it seemed like a mistake because it messed with my head. I became angry with God for taking this once 175-pound woman who had been so active and full of life and turning her into a 90-pound, bedridden shell. I internalized the feelings, refused to go to her funeral and, for the longest time, couldn't stand being in a nursing home or going to a funeral.
Then my grandfather became ill with congestive heart failure.
Ten years had passed between the two events. I had grown older, married and had a child. I had recently made peace with God because I found myself stuck in a dead-end job that made me miserable and I needed His help to get me out. I wanted to be a writer, but not having the patience or funds to finish college, I resigned myself to a life of bottom-feeder jobs that wouldn't be considered a career by any stretch of the imagination.
I was working as a librarian's assistant at a high school when my grandfather became ill. My mother called and told me I needed to come out to my grandparents' farmhouse to at least sit with my grandmother (maternal) for support.
I told her no. I couldn't do it. I preferred to remember my grandfather how he was the last time I saw him weeks before: His bald head turning red at the assertive burn of the shot of Cherry Pucker he had been goaded into taking by my cousin.
Throughout the morning, something gnawed at my soul, told me I needed to be there. So, I climbed into my old Mazda and took the 20-mile journey to the farm I grew up believing resembled what heaven really looked like.
I never imagined this experience would be the legend on my roadmap of life. My grandfather, who was in and out of consciousness throughout most of the day, awoke long enough to tell each of us that he loved us and that he couldn't wait to tell us how beautiful it was.
"Someday, I'll tell you all about it," he said.
We prayed. We cried. Later that afternoon, he began talking to his parents who have been deceased since the 1970s. My cousin, who has been a hospice nurse since the dawn of creation, said when terminally ill patients get close to death, it's not uncommon for loved ones who have died before to "come help them with the process."
I suddenly was able to accept death as natural and beautiful as birth. I have no doubt about where my grandfather is. I have no doubt he's in a good place. By that token, I had to accept that my other grandmother, who had died 10 years earlier, was also in that same good place. I just didn't see the beauty of it when she died.
I firmly believe being there that day opened my eyes to what God intended me to do: write. Write about Him and how He has a purpose and reason for everything. As believers, we need to pray for wisdom to discern what He wants.
Two months after my grandfather's death, I found out my job as a librarian's assistant would end. I ended up finding a job as an editorial assistant writing obituaries at a daily newspaper. Without experiencing that moment at my grandfather's bedside, I would have been too afraid to take the job that eventually morphed into a career as an editor for faith, business and entertainment sections at the same daily.
I have a woman who comes up to me after church every Sunday to tell me she likes (insert whatever story of the week here) that was in the paper. I don't know if I'd ever quite get her to understand that I view each story I write like my faith -- it is not of my own works, it is a gift I thank God for every day.