Things Happen When It’s Time

Things happen when it’s time. The longer I live, the more strongly I believe that. I know this sounds like a cop-out to lots of people, and I don’t mean it in the sense that we shouldn’t set goals and target dates and all that good stuff. But sometimes life intervenes with the best-laid plans, and sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know until … suddenly we do.

My latest example is my car keys. I take them with me when I leave the house, even when I know my husband will be driving. Such was the case last Monday. Tuesday I reached for them to head for a meeting, and they were nowhere to be found. We both turned my purse inside out and searched every nook and cranny in the car. I checked pockets. I folded laundry and reorganized our closet. I cleaned my desk and the catch-all drawer. I retraced our steps the previous day. Those keys had disappeared.

I was stuck! I had nowhere else to look. I lived in limbo for days, dreading the cost of a replacement key.

Six days later, some spirit moved me to look in my purse again. Happy Dance time! The keys were in a side pocket I never use and we’d both overlooked. I found them when they were ready to be found. (Go ahead and laugh — or scoff. I'm not offended.)

In my last post, "Getting Traction," I wrote about being stuck. I was stuck because I was working with the wrong concept and didn’t know it yet. I was, as Ruth Pennebaker puts in her recent book title, a "woman on the edge of a nervous breakthrough." Last week, reading a guest post written by Janet Givens’ dog and riffing with Ian Mathie in the comments pushed me over the edge and that breakthrough occurred. A totally new concept struck me like a bolt of lightning. I’d been writing the wrong book! I was writing more of the same, and it’s time for a radical new approach. Of course!

This was not a fuzzy concept I had to wrestle to the ground. It was delivered complete in all detail. All I have to do is write. Which is what I’ve been doing for several days now. I’m out of the sand and have traction again.  It’s going well.

But it won’t be finished right away. Life is still intervening. As I knew it would, a large editing and manuscript preparation assignment arrived in my inbox today. That job has top priority. Even without the interruption, my project would take a few months. But that’s okay. It will be done when it’s time. If I try to hurry the writing, on this book or any project, I’m likely to miss something crucial, like finding out I’m on the wrong path.

I’m not the only one who’s been stuck on a wrong writing path. I know several others whose projects floundered until they realize they had some hidden issues about content that were unresolved. Once they realized this, things snapped into focus and their stories took a much better shape.They weren't ready to understand the needed shift in focus until it happened. It wasn't time.

By the way, I’m more than a little convinced that the playfulness of Janet’s post, combined with the banter with Ian, was a magic key that unlocked the new concept. We’re never too old to laugh and play.

I’m adding three new items to my checklist for things to do when I’m stuck.

• Go back and read the map again to make sure I’m on the right path.
• Take time out to play. Have fun. Get wild and crazy and laugh a lot.
• Keep sight of the goal and have faith that I will get there. When it’s time.

Points to ponder: What do you do when you feel stuck? What is your favorite, most powerful form of play?

Accentuate the Positive

Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-inate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mr. Inbetween.

Who doesn't recognize the value of this sage advice from the 1945 hit sung by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters? But you may not realize the power of this advice for your writing when applied at the micro-level of sentences. I'm not talking here about avoiding negative topics. I'm talking about the value of rephrasing sentences from negative statements to positive.

One of the most compelling examples of this is found in an online article, Kurdish Female Warriors On the Front Lines Fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The lead paragraph states:

A notoriously fierce segment of the Kurdish security forces are striking terror into the hearts of ISIS terrorists – female fighters. The Jihadists have no problem slaughtering defenseless women but they don't like facing armed female warriors in battle – because they don't believe they'll go to heaven if they're killed by one of them.

In actual fact, those Jihadists DO believe they WON’T go to heaven if…

These tips will help you avoid false negatives.

Tell what IS rather than what ISN'T

Instead of writing "It wasn't raining that day," tell the reader, "The rain finally stopped" or "Dry weather that day allowed us to ..." or "My heart soared when I looked out the window that morning and saw patches of blue in the sky."

Do you see what's happening here? That negative statement implies a lot of things, but swinging it around to a positive, affirmative statement avoids a slightly onerous or whiney tone and creates space for discussing advantages and opportunities. Let's look at a few more examples of reversal:

Edward was not tall.	Edward was of average height, able to disappear in a crowd.
The meeting was not marred by any discord.	Discord was averted and the meeting ran smoothly.
Every time I worked overtime it didn’t show up in my paycheck.	None of the times I worked overtime showed up in my paycheck.

Use precision wording

The paragraph about Jihadists is a prime example of imprecise wording. So is “all men are not tall” as cited in an earlier post, Brain Thorns. Examine each negative statement to be sure that is exactly what you intend to say.

View negative statements as opportunities to enhance the message

Rewording the description of Edward gives a better sense of his appearance, and the paycheck statement is awkwardly stated in several regards. The revision shifts the negative aspect to the subject, using a positive verb. The revised sentence flows smoothly, and the meaning is more clear.

Use negative statements sparingly for emphasis

Strongly worded negative statements have tremendous impact. George Washington’s purported statement, “I cannot tell a lie,” would not made history books if he’d said, “I must tell the truth.” How else could you state “The eyes don’t lie” without changing the meaning?

The paycheck statement is inherently negative and must be so for precise meaning. The obvious intent is to emphasize the inequitable situation. Revising yet again to state “Not a single one of the times I worked overtime ever showed up in my paycheck” adds additional emphasis and impact.

So, you see, by paying to detail, you can convey an upbeat, finely tuned, high impact message without sounding like Pollyanna. Consider every sentence and explore ways to ensure precise meaning and smooth flow. Trust me, smoothing sentences gets easier with practice.

Write now: Search several old stories in your collection and look for negative statements that would benefit from flipping or rewording.

Drill Down, Sentence by Sentence

If you want your story to shine its brightest, you’ve got to drill down to the core. That means going through it, sentence by sentence. The good news is that most sentences are simple enough and will pass without further ado. A few need further attention. Use these examples to find and fix those few.

We continued our trip on to Koufonisia, a lightly populated fishing island for a very late lunch.

At a glance, after adding the missing comma between island and for, most people would be satisfied with that sentence. It’s clear and grammatically correct. But let’s try a few things. Commas slow the eye down, so let’s move the qualifying phrase to a spot before the noun:

We continued our trip on to the lightly populated fishing island of Koufonisia for a very late lunch.

That’s better, but let’s try something else.

Our trip continued to the lightly populated fishing island of Koufonisia, where we enjoyed a very late lunch.

Better? I think so, but wait – when I was a high school freshman, my teacher refused to accept a paper with the word “very” included. “Use a stronger word,” she said. Whether stronger or different, let’s keep working:

Our trip continued to the lightly populated fishing island of Koufonisia, where we enjoyed a long-delayed lunch.

That long delayed lunch is even stronger with one more tweak.

Our trip continued to the lightly populated fishing island of Koufonisia, where a long-delayed lunch staved off impending starvation.

The first changes streamline the initial thought. Reference to the intense hunger adds a layer of sensory involvement that conveys immediacy and draws the reader in a bit more deeply.

These are the tweaks that turn stories from boring to brilliant. Precious few flow forth perfectly formed. This is craft, pure and simple. You make the transition one step at a time, as demonstrated above.

Here’s another sentence that needs work:

We would routinely see large families at the restaurants where we ate with one child, a boy, who was pampered like he was a king.

This one is confusing. Did the author eat with at restaurants with one child and pamper him? Probably not. The rest of the sentence structure doesn’t support that idea. The sentence is also bogged down with “dead would” and extra baggage. Let’s move the parts around and streamline. (You can imagine the intermediate steps.)

While eating at restaurants, we routinely saw large families pampering only sons like kings.

Actually, this sentence is a prime example of “telling”. As a reader, I have to guess exactly what is involved in pampering a young boy like a king. I’d have a much better idea what the author intended if she put this observation into a small scene and described what she saw the family doing that led her to the stated conclusion.

Finally, a writing-related example:

One of the best ways to get new story ideas is to trade stories with other people, i.e. a writing group or class.

becomes

Trading stories with friends in a writing group is guaranteed to give you at least half a dozen new memories and story ideas each time you meet. 

The best way to develop this skill is to take ordinary sentences with a moderate degree of complexity and practice moving the parts around. Then take each part and consider ways of refining with slight changes of wording. Play with it. Experiment. Delete the duds. The more you practice, the easier it gets.

Write now: look for complex sentences with several phrases and experiment with moving the phrases into different orders. Look for ways to remove extra words and streamline the message and other spots where you need to amplify with stronger words or descriptive scenes. Above all, think of this as a game and have fun with it!