jbcheaney

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robot writing

Should We Be Worried about Chat GPT?

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Last winter the chattering classes were all chattering about this: the online language model that can churn out coherent essays in a matter of seconds. In November Chat GPT was made available for free on the Open AI website, so anyone could try it out for themselves. I did so, and wrote about the experience for WORLD magazine (PDF here). The results were impressive, but since then some flaws of this brainy tool have come to light—more about that below.

Like it or not, artificially-intelligent writing will be part of our future, and will undoubtedly replace entire swaths of the writing profession, such as journalism. Why pay for a reporter when you can feed the facts into a machine and watch it churn out a readable story for free? Especially when few reporters these days seem to wear out any shoe leather tracking down a story, but depend on stringers in the field to get it for them. Opinion writers, likewise, echo each other so frequently and tiresomely, why not just program a progressive language bot and let it stir up words to fit the issue?

Especially since ChatGPT is programmed progressive already. A reporter for WORLD asked it to write an essay in praise of President Biden and it obliged at once. An essay in praise of President Trump was beyond its pay grade, however. That, I would say from a neutral stance, is hogwash. And a flaw. The model has all the information on the web at its disposal and could easily find more rightwing opinions to draw from. Could ChatGPT be just another tool of the left to shut down alternate views?

But its handling of obvious facts isn’t completely reliable either. After my column appeared in WORLD, a reader wrote in with a correction. The first assignment I gave the machine was,  “Explain the controversy Athanasius and Pelagius.” ChatGPT dived into early church history with aplomb and spun out a grammatical and historically accurate reply—except for one thing. The debate was between Augustine and Pelagius. Athanasius is best known for an earlier controversy with Arius over the divinity of Christ. I was chagrined by the reader’s comment; I knew that. I was just being sloppy. But so was the machine. I looked it the original interaction and yes, ChatGPT had assumed my mistake and run with it. It gets “smarter” in time as factual errors are corrected, but I’m puzzled how it could explain the controversy accurately without gently reminding me that Augustine, not Athanasius,  was one half of it.

The program is entirely imitative; it learned to “talk” the way any child learns, by listening and responding. In time, little as I’d like to admit it, it will probably be able to imitate human genius. Its current attempts at poetry and drama are lame, but who’s to say it can’t learn from the best? Will enough Emily Dickinson input produce Dickinsonian output? Or a musical comparable to The Phantom of the Opera that won’t require royalties paid to Andrew Lloyd Webber? (The bottom line is the bottom line.)

Some doomsayers see all the professions taken over by machines, including the trades and crafts. Could happen, but only if we let it. My pain problem with ChatGPT is that it short-circuits thinking skills. Though many high schools and colleges have already outlawed it, clever nerds will continue to find their way around such restrictions. And why not? Why not outsource hours of brain work (if one follows the essay-writing protocols in Wordsmith Craftsman) to a machine that can churn out a B+ essay in minutes? That’s efficiency!

But it isn’t thinking, and there are no shortcuts to thinking. A machine “thinks” in linear fashion; a human in ever-widening circles that lead to surprising juxtapositions and unforeseen conclusions. Besides straightforward academic questions, I asked ChatGPT to compose a college entrance essay, a marriage-proposal letter, an approach to my parents about my transitioning from female to male, and advice on how to talk to a spouse with dementia. All the answers were acceptable and reasonable—and spooky.

Literate societies create; nonliterate ones sustain; trivial ones fritter away hard-won gains until they’re sitting on the packed-earth floor. Let’s not outsource thinking. Let’s just not.

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Three Ways to Say “I Love You”

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Here’s your problem: love is such a huge subject that’s hard to get a grip on.

The solution is, start with small things and everyday details.  Here are three ways you might do it, with “poem starters” included.  (Thanks to Jack Prelutsky, whose book Read a Rhyme, Write a Rhyme furnished the idea of poem starters.)

 1. Focus on the object of your love, using details.

Don’t think of qualities, like loyalty or punctuality (often the qualities that draw us to our spouse is the very thing that irritates us later!).  Think little things, small kindnesses, helpful words.  Here’s a simple poem start for kids, called “Because.”

Because you stay up with me when I’m sick;

Because you set limits and make them stick;

Because you make little sacrifices, day by day

   to provide what I need and teach me God’s way . . .

End the poem with a short couplet (two rhyming lines) that sum it up, such as

Because you’re you

I’m stuck like glue!

(Couplets, incidentally, are the easiest rhyme scheme for beginning poets.)

 

  1. Focus on how your love affects you.

Here’s one for those people who don’t like to go all mushy.  Imagine the object of your poem as an inanimate object (several objects, actually), and then say what you would do in response.  For instance:

If you were a basketball I’d dribble you;

If you were a cookie, I’d nibble you.

If you were a pizza, I’d savor you;

If you were a sore foot, I’d favor you . . .

And so on, for as long as your imagination holds out.  End with a summing-up couplet beginning

Since you’re none of those things, then here’s what I’ll do . . .

(And surely you can think of a final line, maybe with “you” at the end?  Or blue, few, dew, grew, new, slew, too, true, view, or hullabaloo?)

 

  1. Say it with flowers.

But not the kind you order from FTD.  Write a poem titled “My Bouquet,” or something a little less sappy, in which every line is built on a flower.  The two previous poems depended on rhyme for their effect, but this one uses alliteration–that is, using the same first letter or sound for significant words in the poem.  For example:

Here’s a daisy for that day

   you dropped everything to help with my science project.

Here’s an iris for the eyes

   that smile when they see me score a goal.

Here’s wisteria for the way

  you stayed up late to finish my Halloween costume.

Here’s a pansy for the praise

  that helps me keep going when I want to quit . . .

 

You get the idea.  In case you’re not up on botany, here are some other flowers for alliteration inspiration: violet, dahlia, lily, rose, hibiscus, sweet pea, honeysuckle, gladiola, peony, primrose, columbine, orchid, and phlox.  Just kidding about the last one, though: if ever a flower does NOT belong in poem, “phlox” is it.  You may “tie up” the bouquet with a rhyming couplet, or a line about how these flowers will never fade.  And chances are they won’t.  Your poem may never make it to a poetry anthology, but it’s very unlikely that the recipient will throw it away.

 

That doesn’t seem so hard, does it?  Now, go make someone happy.

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Sweatin’ the Small Stuff

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Or, Details: How to Find ’em, How to Use ’em

Use details! is an exhortation every fifth-grader knows–that is, if his teacher knows anything about how to teach writing. It’s practically a mantra with me. Details put a reader into the  setting, smelling the popcorn or feeling the sultry air or hearing the sizzle! of sparklers on a warm July evening.

Sometimes the details are easy to find just by closing your eyes and casting back to a memory. But for the quirky and unexpected, you just have to be there. Some writers carry a small notebook to tuck in a pocket or purse and whip out when a sensory impression smacks them: the laugh of a passer-by or a unique body-build. I have sometimes carried notecards for the same purpose, so I can arrange and classify them later.

Anyone can train herself to notice and note details. The test of a good writer, though, is how to use them. You may have read novels that read like inventory lists. Just because you have pages of fascinating notes about  life on the prairie doesn’t mean you have to use them all. I sometimes compare it to making oatmeal-raisin cookies: you don’t spoon out the dough and then poke in the raisins. You stir in the raisins, so they’re integrated with the dough. When it comes to details, you don’t stud your narrative with them to prove how much research you did. You fold them into the action, so they add the scene without distracting from it.

I like to show rather than tell, so here are some examples of how I used random research facts  to enhance a story.

Fact: A “swazzle” is a reed used by renaissance puppet masters to affect the puppets’ voices.

            His lips twitched, but the light was too dim to show it for a smile.  He reached under his cloak and took out a small object, a reed of some kind.  When he tucked it into his mouth, I knew it for a “swazzle,” used by puppet masters to produce a high, shrill voice.  But never used to better effect than that night.  “Easily,” he said, in an eerie tone that made me shiver.                                                                                            The True Prince

Fact: In Elizabethan court garments, sleeves were often made and attached separately.

“Look, lads!” Gregory called.  I looked, and a little cry escaped me.  He had slipped on a pair of beaded yellow sleeves and struck a pose, singing, “In yellow sleeves to honor his maid, he rides far afield with the beauteous lady–“

            “Where did you find those?” I asked, a shade too quickly.

            “Why, here at the bottom of the court pile.”

            From the other end of the table, Master Stewart frowned.  “I’ve been searching for ’em of late.  They don’t belong there, nor on thy twiggy arms.  Put ’em on the pile to be steamed and stuffed.”                                                                                             The True Prince

 

Fact: London Bridge once sported a central tower, where the heads of traitors were displayed.

West of the Bridge, where the exuberant current piled up against the piers on its way seaward, the watermen ply their trade–hundreds of boats, all sizes and sorts, busily ferrying people from London to Southwark and back again, their oars blurring like dragonfly wings.  Little one-seater wherries dart here and there, cleaving a path among the covered barks and cargo vessels, while jeweled barges of the nobility glide on the rise and dip of long oars.

            The sight was so lively, so merry, I almost laughed out loud–until the swoop of a raven’s wing drew my eye to the memorial tower nearby.  Spiked to the wall, about fifteen feet up, the heads of three traitors stared a grim warning to boats and foot travelers alike.  Traffic passed unheeding below their eyeless gaze.                           The Playmaker

 

Fact: Yaito was a bizarre form of Japanese therapy for aches and pains.

Sogoji was beside one of the beds, where Mrs. Lanski lay facedown.  Her dress was unbuttoned, and he was setting fire to her bare back.

            “What are you doing?” I yelled.  He jumped and quickly raked a pile of smoking grass off the lady’s back. 

            “Hazel.  You early?”

            “Not much.  What’s going on?”

            His hands fluttered like startled sparrows.  “When Lula-san has aches and pains, she ask for yaito–“

            The missus herself slowly turned her head.  “Why, Hazel.  Sogoji said you might be over today.  Good to see you, honey.”

            Sometimes you feel like the whole world has flipped over without you–or that you’ve flipped, all by yourself.  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: Intense periods of history breed their own slang terms, and World War II was no exception.  However, no one was likely to use this much slang unless he was showing off:

The next morning Frank asked for cackleberries and gaskets, meaning eggs and pancakes, knowing we never got both.  But Mom just laughed and said he’d learned a new language while he was away.  After breakfast he told her she was the best egg buster in the business and he was off to visit the feather merchants but would be back in time for blanket detail and chow that night.                                                           My Friend the Enemy

 

Fact: Remember vaporizers stuffed with Vicks?  How many kids do, these days?

Sunday was miserable, for a lot of reasons.  We all stayed home from church: I was sneezing and coughing, Estelle was still crying, and Mom just ran out of steam.  As though to make up for it, she kept the vaporizer on all day, filling the house with the nose-biting smell of Vicks as we slept off and on like soldiers with battle fatigue.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: During late-May through early-June, cottonwood trees release their seeds, which are carried on the wind by white fibers.

  The wind was picking up, blowing fluffy white cottonwood seeds off the trees.  A gusty ghost-shape swirled by.

            “I’ve changed my mind,” Gee announced.  “I want to sleep inside after all.”

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Up until a couple of years ago, tourists visiting Big Brutus (a huge electric shovel used for mining coal in SE Kansas) were allowed to climb the steps leading up to the top of the boom.

Finally, Pop returned to take charge of Gee, and when I got my chance to climb to the top of those 150 steps, it was worth the wait.  I could see all the way to Missouri, or it sure seemed like it.  Kent Clark talks about stepping back to look at the big picture, and if that wasn’t a big picture I don’t know what is . . . .

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Early movie cameras were temperamental and subject to static-dust.

I sighed; even Sylvie sighed.  Sam straightened up from his camera-crouch and opened the lens, then squirted a puff of air inside with a rubber syringe: his habit after every take, to blow dust off the film.  “It looked o.k. to me.  We don’t have that much film stock to waste.”

                                                                                    I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

Fact: Before the invention of the “Moviola” film-editing machine, silent films were painstakingly cut by hand.

“Here, you need to take this knife and scrape that end of the film–Careful, not too hard.  Just enough to get to emulsion off.”  After scraping, I brushed the frame lightly with glue and lined up the ends exactly on the splicing block.

The whole episode went together like that, a bit here and a piece there, much of it in silence except for the scritch of the knife and the pulse of the overhead fan. . . .  

            Glancing at the Seth Thomas clock on the wall behind me, I gasped.  “It’s been over an hour!”

“Some fun, huh?”

            “I was just thinking–it’s like rearranging time!  Suppose your life was on a film, and you could cut any part you wanted, or move the pieces around to tell a different story?”

                                                                                               I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

As with any skill, practice makes perfect. But finding and using details to enhance your fiction writing is also fun.

 

 

perspective

Point of View, Part Two: Perspective

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In our previous post, we talked about empathy and “feeling with” another person’s point of view. But POV is not just an individual’s emotional response to a given situation, but the angle from which they see it. We call this perspective. Think about point of view from these two perspectives:

It goes deeper: perspective involves the age, life experiences, and thoughts an individual brings to every circumstance in life. Parents and children who have lived together in the same household for a number of years already know some of each other’s thoughts and experiences. But how well do your children or students know you?

Here’s one way to find out, and stretch their young perspectives at the same time.

 

EXERCISE

Imagine how the significant grownups in your life would respond to the following statements. Try to think beyond “No” or “Yes,” “Good idea” or “Are you nuts?!?!” What reasons might they give for their answer?

You: I don’t want to go to church today.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I flunked the algebra test.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I’ve started saving up my yard-mowing (or baby-sitting) money for a motorcycle.

They: ____________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

You: I’d like to get a summer job.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I find a lot to admire in our President.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I think going to college after I graduate high school would be a waste of time.

They: ____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Now, choose two of the scenarios above and imagine a disagreement ensuing (it might not take much imagination!). In your notebook, write an entire page of dialogue for each, showing how the discussion would develop.

Before you start, try to be fair to the other party’s point of view. What would their perspective be? Assuming they’re at least 30 years older than you, would age give them wisdom, or simply show how out of date they are? In your notebook, list at least three reasons they might give for their point of view.

Next, evaluate your own reasons: are you trying to understand where they’re coming from, or do you simply want what you want? List three legitimate reasons for your point of view, then write the dialogue.

Is it possible you could change someone’s mind? Or might it just be that you find your own mind being changed, just a little?

 

 

 

 

 

empathy babies

Point of View, Part One: Empathy

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Your point of view (or POV, for those in the writing game) is simply how you see things. It’s not about right or wrong; it’s about information combined with experience. People judge a situation based on what they know about it and how their upbringing, prior assumptions, and personality have taught them to process that knowledge. The conclusions people come to may indeed be wrong if they don’t fit the facts or a proper moral standard, but it’s very difficult to persuade them otherwise if we don’t understand their point of view.

Empathy–even babies can do it!

Emotions are a good place to start, since we share similar emotions with just about everyone else on the planet. To “feel with” another person is to empathize.*

Ask your students to stretch their empathy muscles with this simple exercise.

The three paragraphs below describe a scene or circumstance from one person’s POV. In your notebook, write a paragraph describing the same scene from the other participant’s POV. Use your imagination to get into the other character’s frame of mind, even it you don’t have much sympathy for their actions.

  1. At 10:50 I was getting ready to close up for the night. The convenience store was empty except for one customer, a young, scruffy-looking guy who didn’t seem to be in a hurry. I turned off the lights in the back half of the store to give him a hint, and heard a cough and a sniffle in reply. Returning to the counter, I was relieved to see him shuffle forward with a six-pack of beer and a box of diapers, size 2. He plunked a twenty on the counter as I rang him up, and when the cash register opened, I noticed the barrel of a handgun pointed at me. Was my vision blurring, or was it trembling? “Give me all you’ve got,” the man demanded hoarsely.
  2. The snow had stopped but temps were well below freezing when Dad put a snow shovel in my hand and pointed to the driveway. Sighing, I wrapped up in coat, scarf, and mittens. As I stepped out the front door, my boots sank six inches into snow. I hadn’t even reached the driveway when a ball of fur charged and nearly knocked me over. “Down, Ranger!” I commanded. But my sheepdog was as “up” as I’d ever seen him. Barely out of puppyhood, he’d never seen snow and it drove him mad with joy. Worse, he seemed to think snow shoveling was a game of keep-away. He jumped at the shovel with every dig and it’s a wonder he didn’t get his nose whacked.
  3. I was on my way out the door when Suzanne stopped me. “You’re leaving already?” she squealed. “We haven’t half finished decorating yet.” “I have plans,” I told her. “You only said we’d be needed for an hour after school.” “I miscalculated, all right?” She was actually red in the face, and I could feel the pressure building up in her like steam in a teakettle. “Three people I was counting on didn’t show up at all, and Arthur has a dentist appointment he can’t get out of, and Amber had to rush out to get the streamers that were missing from the supplies we ordered. I’m really shorthanded here, and the dance is starting in less than two hours. I really need your help!”

In each of these scenarios, verbal and visual clues should let you in on what the other character might be feeling (even if it’s a dog!). You might even be able to guess where those feelings are coming from.

Emotions are often easy to detect, and sometimes even easy to feel. But what about another person’s thoughts? That’s a subject for my next post.

* What’s the difference between empathy and sympathy? We can put it very simply this way: To empathize is to “feel with” another person; to sympathize is to “feel for.” In my opinion, empathy is a useful mental exercise (and writing exercise), but not much use when it comes to helping the other person. You can be hindered, or even blindsided, by their emotions. Sympathy is more helpful, because you can understand the feelings but still reason your way to helpful solutions.

Transitive or “In-“?

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Why do you need to know the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb? This:

An action verb shows what the subject does, as in

Under the fairy’s enchantment, Percival slept.

Even if the subject, Percival, is not doing anything but sleeping, sleep is still an action verb.

But if the enchantment is broken and Percival wakes up, he’ll probably get busy doing something, such as

Percival explored the castle.

Percival found the tower room.

Percival kissed the Princess.

“Explored,” “found,” and “kissed” indicate that something should be explored, found, and kissed. “Castle,” “room,” and “Princess” receive the exploring, finding, and kissing, so they are the objects of those three action verbs.

Not all action verbs require or even make sense with an object. It’s hard to find an object for “sleep.” I sleep in a bed sounds okay, but I sleep bed does not. The snail creeps along the garden wall is fine, but The snail creeps garden wall is weird. Not to mention creepy.

In the same way, action verbs that almost always take objects sound oddly unfinished without them: “Tyler hit,” “Leslie stabbed,” and “I grabbed” leave us wondering what was hit, stabbed, or grabbed. Depending on the objects of those verbs, the scene described could be bloody or bland. For example,

Tyler hit the intruder with a baseball bat, Leslie stabbed him in the leg, and I grabbed his gun as he went down.

 Or, Tyler hit the books, Leslie stabbed the air with a pencil, and I grabbed my lecture notes. It was going to be a serious study session, for a change.

 

Verbs that generally take an object are called transitive verbs, because they transfer the action to a person or thing. Verbs that generally don’t take an object are called, logically enough, intransitive verbs.

But many verbs can be one or the other; you rely on the context to make the call. Our chilly cook above, for example, is understanding the verb “chill” as intransitive. Maybe because that is his inclination already. More likely, the recipe assumed an object, namely the dish under construction, as in “(You) Chill [whatever it is you’re making] in the fridge for an hour.”

Or how about this:

I tripped

(intransitive) indicates I’m a bit clumsy, or wasn’t watching where I was going. But

I tripped Jared

(transitive) indicates I’m a bully, or possibly that I want to stop a bully.

If you’re not sure whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, ask it a question. That is, ask “what” after the verb:

Percival slept what? (Nah–must be intransitive)

Percival kissed what? (Now, that’s a real question! A princess, or a toad?

I hope that clears up the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Just don’t be tripping anyone.

 

So, I have to write this report . . .

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or, How Not to Bore Your Teacher to Death–or Yourself

Report-writing may not be as common as it used to be in the old days (that is, when I was in school), but once in a while your teacher may ask you to unplug the PowerPoint and write a one-to-two-page book report, biographical sketch, or science-fair exposition.  This is not an overwhelming challenge if you take time to organize your material and put it together in clear paragraphs.  If you have trouble with that, check out Wordsmith Craftsman; organization and clarity are big subjects beyond the scope of this one little tip.

But let’s say you understand the basic principles of sentence and paragraph construction, and know how to make an outline and follow it.  There’s still the possibility that your report will be less than stimulating (in a word, boring), both to write and to read.  Frankly, teachers are accustomed to boring reports and are pleased if they just make sense.  But they’ll sit up and take notice if you add a spark of imagination to your reports–as long as the spark isn’t just fireworks to cover the fact that you don’t know what you’re writing about.

Some teachers like to give “creative” report assignments.  Others leave the choice up to you, and still others may not appreciate your flights of fancy at all.  Use your judgment, but a dash of creativity will make your report not only more interesting to read, but also more fun to write (really!).

You could begin a biographical sketch with, “Martin Luther King was born . . .” etc.  Or you could study a portrait or two contrasting news photos and describe the character you see in that face.  Back up your analysis by the three pivotal events of his life that shaped that character, and include the portrait or photos with your report.

You could open a report on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 with this sentence, “The first governing document of the United States was called the Articles of Confederation . . .”  Or you could take the point of view of a delegate summoned to Philadelphia and shut up in a stuffy room with the other sweating delegates to draft a new governing document.  A entire report written that way would amount to a novel, but a longish opening paragraph describing the room, the smells, the sounds, and a few of the famous delegates would set the scene and interest your reader enough to keep reading.

In my seventh-grade Texas history class I wrote a paper titled “Sam Houston and I,” whereby I took a time-machine trip back to 1840 and interviewed the President of Texas.  Is this an approach that might work for your next history project?

Here are some other ideas to keep in mind for those mid-semester papers:

BOOK REPORTS (fiction)

  • Describe the climax of the story from the antagonist’s, or villain’s, point of view.
  • Interview the main character.
  • Imagine a date with one of the main characters–where would you go?  What would you talk about?  How would he/she behave toward you?
  • Insert yourself into the climax of the story as an additional character, and describe how you change the action.

SOCIAL STUDIES REPORTS

  • Write a dialogue or debate between two historical characters who held opposing views.
  • Write the history of an object seen in a museum.
  • Write a newspaper “editorial” presenting one side of an historical issue.
  • Take pictures or buy postcards at an historic site.  Use them to illustrate your own brochure, with captions, quotes, and interesting facts (you can make up the captions and the quotes, but not the facts!)

SCIENCE REPORTS

  • Interview a scientist who is famous but now dead.
  • Write a radio play describing activities of the body, or any other scientific process.
  • Using the brochure example above, make and illustrate a brochure promoting travel on Jupiter, or “Black Hole Theme Park,” or a thrill ride through the circulatory system.

It really doesn’t take much to shake up the average school report. What further ideas do you get from these ideas?

professor-and-the-madman-1

The Professor and the Madman: A Review

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The Oxford English Dictionary (OED, for those in the know) is a treasure unparalleled. I don’t know if any other language has anything like it: not just a depository of definitions, but also a history (as much as can be determined) of each word. That is, the word’s root, whether Latin, Greek, Germanic. or other; the approximate date of its first appearance, and the earliest examples known, in context. I have a 1971 “Compact Edition,” meaning two volumes of 2000+ pages each, with four 3-column sections of miniscule print per page. The slipcover set came with a magnifying glass.

How does such a work come to be? I’ll admit never giving it much thought, except that it must have taken generations of cumulative effort. It never occurred to me that there was a story behind the OED, that impressive but impassive work, staid as a black-robed Oxford don.

But there’s a story behind almost everything. The Professor and the Madman is the movie version of how the Oxford English Dictionary became more than a dictionary—but also how God’s grace can lurk even in the depths of despair.

It begins with a crime: Dr. William Minor, a veteran of the American Civil War now residing in London, is possessed by the notion that a man he wronged during the War is after him. It’s kill or be killed, but the man he tracks down and shoots, on the victim’s own doorstep, is a total stranger. Dr. Minor is sentenced to an asylum and to the dubious benefits of 19th-century psychology.

Meanwhile, in Oxford, the Scottish linguist James Murray applies for the job of directing the languishing dictionary project. Murray is fluent in several languages and can cite any number of roots and terms, but he has no university degree. Nevertheless a few adventurous souls see his unorthodox approach as the recipe for success, and he gets the job. Murray opens the project to the entire English-speaking world, as it were: all are invited to submit their knowledge of the earliest provenance of any English word. Murray’s office is flooded with slips of paper, but the work is maddeningly slow, with even the most commonplace words difficult to trace.

Until Dr. Minor, deep in his asylum, gets wind of the project. Like a proper schizophrenic, he latches onto it and becomes a veritable etymology machine, submitting hundreds of word origins at a time. He and Murray begin a correspondence, which is so erudite and genteel that Murray has no idea Minor is an inmate of the asylum until he pays the man a visit. Murray’s generous heart immediately makes room for the madman, and the two become friends over their shared love of words.

That much is factual, but I’m not sure how the subplots line up with history. Dr. Minor forms a relationship with the widow of the man he killed, who not only forgives him but appears to be falling in love with him. This disturbs him so much (it’s a double betrayal, to steal a man’s wife after stealing his life) that the doctor emasculates himself. This is more suggested than shown, but might be too disturbing for kids. Otherwise, there’s almost no bad language, no nudity, no suggestiveness. Not everyone will love the movie; in fact, to judge by Rotten Tomatoes (not my go-to for sound judgment), few did. But I was fascinated by subject matter and the spiritual underpinnings: language as a gift of God, kindness as everyday grace, forgiveness as an eternal mystery.

 

Thank you letter

How to Write a Thank-You Letter

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Kids today . . .

Or to be fair, it’s not just kids. Thank-you notes (as well as sympathy notes all other kinds of mailed correspondence) may be a dying art. A quick “thanks” over the phone or email is certainly better than nothing, but there’s no replacement for a hand-written note. The very act of selecting a card, writing a few lines, addressing the envelope, hunting down a stamp and putting it in the mailbox is an investment of time. That in itself is an expression of gratitude.

It’s never too early to start; even preschoolers can dictate their thanks and draw a picture (which is sure to end up on someone’s refrigerator, especially if their name starts with “Grand”).  Once a child can write sentences, it’s time to write notes. In Wordsmith Apprentice, I offer a simple formula for the kid who got everything for Christmas. Start with a simple chart of three columns with one line for each gift.

In the first column of each line, write the giver’s name.  In the second, write the name of the gift—and be specific!  Don’t just write “game,” write “Monopoly” or “Mario Kart.”  In the third space, note how you plan to use it or list one particular thing you like about it.

Once you’ve completed your list, you’ll have an outline of what to say in the Thank-you note.  Just put the thoughts in sentence form.  To make your letter more interesting, include one exclamatory or interrogative sentence. For example:

Dear Aunt Louise,

Thank you for the Jenga Blocks.  Carl, David, and I have already played many games.  I think it’s really exciting when we get near the end and everybody is so afraid that their block is the one that will make the whole tower fall down!  Thank you again for remembering my birthday.

Love, Jenny

Get a little artistic: use cardstock and add stickers or drawings or both. Fold it, envelop it, and don’t forget to mail it.

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In Wordsmith Craftsman, I went into a little more detail, but even though the kids are older, the formula is basically the same:

  • After your salutation (“Dear____”), begin with “Thank you for (the specific gift you received).”  If you just write, “Many thanks for the Christmas present,” the gift-giver may wonder if you remember what it was!
  • The second sentence or two should tell how you plan to use the gift.  This may call for some ingenuity, but don’t shy away from being specific.
  • Close with another expression of thanks or appreciation, such as, “You always know what I need.”  This last statement may be formal or casual, depending on how well you know the recipient of your thank-you note.

Examples:

Dear Gus,

Thanks so much for the book on World War II Aircraft you sent for my birthday.  I’ve already looked at all the pictures (at least twice!) and they’re fascinating.  I’ll get into the text this weekend.  I do appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Your friend, Alex

 

Dear Aunt Mary,

I was so happy to get the gloves!  The weatherman says a cold front is moving this way, so they’ll certainly be appreciated when we go cross-country skiing this weekend.  You always seem to know just what I need.  Thanks so much.

Love, Sarah

 

That’s not so hard, is it? The only hard part is taking the time, or making sure a busy kid takes the time.

 

serious writer

Encouraging a Serious Beginner

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Question: How would you encourage a student or adult who’s serious and wants to get better?

Answer: I love this kind of question! Motivation is the greatest challenge for a writing teacher, so if a student is motivated, you’re already halfway up the hill. Also, if a student realizes there’s plenty of room for improvement, you’re almost there. Here are my suggestions:

  1. Teach yourself to observe. When I was a kid, I had no intention of becoming a writer because I thought I had no imagination. That’s what writers did, didn’t they? They made up stuff and wrote it down. Didn’t they?

Au contraire. The best writers are excellent observers, because their material comes from the world around them, not their interior lives. Otherwise, who would be interested in anything they had to write? Writers communicate through experience, and that’s a commodity everyone has. So learn to observe and take notes. See my blog post, 5 Steps to Improving Observation Skills, for some practical tips.

  1. Practice your craft. College-level writing instructors tell me it’s astonishing how many students think they can succeed without practice—as if a killer idea or a volcanic imagination will propel them to the top of the best-seller lists.. All they have to do, someday, is vomit it all on paper. This in itself is an example of volcanic imagination.

Better to think of writing as an accomplishment on the order of wood carving or dressmaking. Learning to do it well enough for yourself is a skill. Learning to do it well enough for a paying customer is a craft. And achieving a level that makes critics and consumers gasp with admiration is an art. Writing at the craft level does not come naturally, any more than carving a decorative wall sconce to order. It takes practice. You can practice under a teacher’s guidance or on your own. I took only one writing class, but it wasn’t as helpful to me as writing my first, second, third, and fourth novels—all unpublished! The rejection letters for each weren’t fun, but the experience taught me a lot and didn’t cost me a thing but my pride.

  1. Learn from the best. No one is truly self-taught. We learn from examples, exhortations, and experience. I’m convinced writers learn most from reading, and half-consciously copying the styles and themes that appeal to them. But there are plenty of “how-tos” out there, both instructive and inspirational. Wordsmith, of course, is more on the instructional side. Others go deep into the heart: how language works and what a writer should strive for. No given book is going to be helpful to everyone, but my Redeemed Reader colleague Betsy has a nice roundup of books for teen writers here.

Observe, practice, learn. No shortcuts, but anyone who’s serious about it will be rewarded.

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