Wordsmith

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.

valentine2

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.

 

 

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.

_________________________________________

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.

coach & Matt

How to Sound Gramatically Incorrect When You Really Aren’t

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“It’s a common mistake.”

One of my favorite TV series of all time is Friday Night Lights. Might have something to do with being from Texas because I’m not a football fan. I just appreciate that fanatical ambience. At any rate, one scene from the first season made me laugh out loud. Quarterback Matt Saracen is dating Coach Taylor’s daughter and the coach is starting to go all Dad in that brisk, steam-roller way of his.

Matt protests:

MATT. Look, Coach, this is just between Julie and I—

COACH. Julie and me.

MATT. Uh . . What?

COACH. Julie and me. It’s a common mistake. Go on.

Go Panthers!! That’s one football coach who was paying attention in English class. And he’s right—it is a very common mistake to default to “I” as a compound object. I’ve heard highly educated people make it.

By compound I mean any word or phrase joined to a corresponding word or phrase by a conjunction like “and” or “but.”

“Julie and I” is a compound joining a proper noun and a pronoun. As the subject of the sentence it would be just fine, such as

Julie and I are going to Diamond Mart to buy an engagement ring. (Whoa, Matt! You’re only 17!)
But “between Julie and I” makes the phrase the object of a preposition. In the objective case, the first-person pronoun changes form from “I” to “me.”

Suppose Julie said,

Matt and me are engaged.

First we would criticize her hasty decision, but we should get around to criticizing the grammar, too. Most of us were probably corrected early on from using object forms in the subject position: “Don’t say ‘him and me’ are friends. Say ‘he and I’ are friends.”

But some of us absorbed that lesson so well that “he and I” always sounds right, while “Don’t spread lies about him and me” sounds terrible. But it’s actually correct.

If you’re ever in doubt, try using the pronoun by itself:

“Don’t spread lies about me.”

“Don’t spread lies about him.”

“This is just between me” (even though that doesn’t make any logical sense).

Double-checking yourself when you’re about to say or write “____ and I” should help you correct at least some of that improper usage. It worked for me. In fact, now I’m absolutely insufferable about it. Go ahead—trying saying “Do you want to go paintballing with Harry and I?” and see how fast I jump down your throat!

P.S. About “thee.” A lot of confusion about this, too, but quickly: “Thou” is the subject form, “thee” is object, “ye” was originally the plural subject form, and “you” was the object plural. You’re welcome.

Slow-Children-Playing

The Unintentional Hilarity of Misplaced Modifiers

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They’re easy to misplace. Not by getting lost, but by ending up where they shouldn’t be in a sentence.

More a punctuation problem than a modifier problem, but you get the idea.

By law, English adjectives are always placed before the nouns they modify (the shy, quiet boy) unless they follow a linking verb (The boy was shy and quiet). That seems simple enough, but be careful with possessives (nouns that show possession):

Did someone lose a silver woman’s ring?

Could it be that a silver woman lost her ring? More likely that a woman’s silver ring is missing from someone’s finger.

I found a camo boy’s hunting jacket on the playground last Saturday.

A camo boy would have a great advantage while hunting but be rather conspicuous elsewhere.

There’s an easy fix for those two examples: simply swap the possessive and the adjective:

a woman’s silver ring

a boy’s camo hunting jacket

Here’s another adjective pitfall. When a noun is paired with an adjective to modify another noun (it happens) the result can be a head-scratcher:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our precious metal specialist.

Can’t wait to meet that precious Mr. Jones! Oh wait—you mean he specializes in precious metals. Why didn’t you say so? Why don’t you just hyphenate the adjective/noun combination, making it a single modifier: our precious-metal specialist.

That’s an easy fix, but hyphens are seen and not heard (in fact, this example came from an actual radio ad that had me speculating about precious specialists). Rearranging the sentence will make Mr. Jones less precious, but more special:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our specialist in precious metals.

Another example: “Rare earth” is the name given to a class of elements used in electronics. It’s also an adjective/noun combination that can leave the reader thinking, Huh?

The company made a rare earth discovery near Shantung province.

All kinds of rare discoveries could be found in the earth, but again, rare-earth (used as a modifier) could be hyphenated to clarify its status. Or rearrange the sentence:

The company discovered deposits of rare earth near Shantung Province.

I guess it’s still confusing if you don’t know what “rare earth” is in this context, but at least you could look it up in Wikipedia.

So, adjectives are usually placed before the nouns they modify. Adverbs may roam more freely:

Sarah limply raised her hand.

Limply, Sarah raised her hand.

Sarah raised her hand limply.

Your choice! (You can put your hand down now, Sarah.)

But that doesn’t mean an adverb can go just anywhere and park itself. Meaning matters. For example,

Teachers who rarely laugh in the classroom have a negative attitude.

Teachers who laugh in the classroom rarely have a negative attitude.

These two sentences come to a similar conclusion (sourpuss teachers make for unhappy classrooms), but one emphasizes the teacher while the other points to attitude. The best fix is to experiment with the adverb “rarely” (not to experiment rarely with the adverb) and settle where you and it are happiest.

Prepositional phrases and relative clauses can modify nouns and verbs. They can also raise havoc when they’re misplaced. What’s confusing about these sentences? How would you fix them?

Mom brought Kool-aid to the kids in paper cups.

(How did those kids get in paper cups? And where is the Kool-aid going to go?)

The waiter brought a steak to our table that was oozing blood.

(Somebody bring a paper towel for that poor table!)

I saw a Fourth of July Day parade on the way to the pool.

(I hope the pool is big enough for all those marching bands.)

Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969.

(After that, the moon could hardly kept itself swept with all those other men setting foot on it.)

In these examples, all you have to do is move the phrase or clause. For example,

In 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon—

thus restoring his proper place in history.

For the most part, correcting misplaced modifiers is a simple matter of thinking it through. Take time to look at those sentences you’re willy-nillyly writing. You have a logical brain that will tell you if something is off. And with a little practice, you’ll figure out how to fix it.

hedgehog

Of Hedgehogs and Semicolons

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I see you there, winking at me, you coy minx. 😉 To life’s most profound questions, I add

Why do you exist, semicolon?

You just wink and keep on existing.

Some editors can’t stand them. Victorians adored them. Certain authors, even today, overindulge them. And many, many writers don’t know how or when to use them.

That leads me to my topic today:

The dreadful comma splice.

It’s one of my literary pet peeves. True, commas are more of an art than a science. In my experience with copy editors, half of their job seems to consist of removing the commas I put in, and occasionally adding the commas I left out. I’ve learned to do a lot of the removing for myself when I do my own copy editing. (For instance, should the comma between “in” and “and” in the sentence above be in or out? In, or out? You decide!)

I converted rather late in life to the Oxford comma, which deserves its own separate post. But I feel no ambiguity, absolutely none, about comma splices. Seeing one has the effect on me of chalk-squealing or knuckle-cracking. What is a comma splice? I’ll explain.

a) This is a sentence. b) That is another sentence.

No debate there. Each of the above sentences has a subject (the demonstrative pronouns This and That) and a linking verb (is). Also, each expresses a complete thought, mundane as it is.

Suppose, for some occult reason, we wish to join these two sentences. One simple way is by using a coordinating conjunction:

This is a sentence and that is another sentence.

Oooo-kay. Seems obvious. To raise the stakes a little we could introduce a contrast:

This is a sentence, but that is another sentence.

Interesting point. But the grammatical point is that a) and b) are complete sentences, with equal standing under the laws of grammar. They may be joined only by coordinating clauses such as and, but,  and or.

Unless . . .

One uses a semicolon to join them.

This is a sentence; that is another sentence.

To the editor who despises the semicolon, I say, “Come on! This is its only job! Let the kid do its job!”* In this example, I like the semicolon form better than coordinating conjunction form, but maybe that’s just me.

One thing you must never, ever do is give that job to a comma:

This is a sentence, that is another sentence.

It doesn’t even make sense. Or rather, it makes even less sense.

Who, me?

What does any of this have to do with hedgehogs? I came across this link recently: “Our Top 13 Delightful Hedgehog Facts,” from the UK National Trust. Being a sucker for hedgehog facts, of course I clicked it. The facts are delightful, but the comma splices almost ruined it for me. Go ahead; see how many you can find. (And this from the Brits, who should know better!)

In conclusion, I admit that I’m one of those authors who overindulges the semicolon; it’s a habit I’m trying to tame. But surely there’s a time and a place for them; it just takes practice (and copyediting) to determine when and where. Just don’t try to sneak a comma in where a semicolon rightly belongs; there’s no excuse for it.

*The other use for semicolons is separating items in a list where commas have to be used, as in: “Mr. Pringle purchased pencils, paper, and paperclips; pansies, periwinkles, and petunias; and a puppy.”

Observation

Five Steps to Improving Observation Skills

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What word of advice do you have for aspiring writers?

I get this question all the time—or if not all the time, often enough. I suspect all writers do. My first word is always the same: Pay attention.

Why? You can’t improve on God. It’s his world and his personality reflected in the near-infinite variety of animal and plant life, weather, terrain, sea, sky, and especially humanity. Even if you write the most far-out fantasy, your creation can’t come close to his for depth and color. That’s great news—think of all the material you have to work with!

That story you’re plotting in the Nebula cloud will be peopled with human-like personalities, even if they don’t look human at all. Without personality, there’s no story. And personality, along with all the other wonders of creation, is fully accessible to the aspiring writer who is trained in observation skills. Some suggestions:

  1. Keep a notebook, or notecards. I favor notecards because they fit easily in a purse or pocket and can be sorted and filed later. The idea, of course, is not that you carry it (or them) around to feel like a writer, but that you actually write your observations.
  2. Watch the weather. Note sky colors, cloud formations, the feel and smell of the air. Have you noticed the outside air smells different in different seasons? Spend some time outside at a particular time of day, or during a snowfall or 100-degree afternoon, feeling and smelling and writing down your impressions. Watch out for lightning.
  3. Note unusual faces, postures, mannerisms. I’ve noticed people in passing and thought, That’s how So-and-so looks! (So-and-so being a character in a novel I’m working on). You might not have time to whip out your notebook and write a lightning description, but keep a few details in mind and jot them down later.
  4. Listen to conversations. The food court at the local mall was once an ideal spot for listening unobserved. If the nearest conversation wasn’t very interesting, you could pick up your Kung Pao Chicken and Coke and take it to another table without attracting much notice. I don’t know how crowded food courts are now, but there are other possibilities: outdoor restaurants, airports, church, hospital waiting rooms. Unobserved listening isn’t about being nosy; it’s about broadening your knowledge of how people actually talk (as opposed to the stilted expository dialogue amateur writers tend to use) and what they talk about. Sometimes even what they think.
  5. Start a conversation. Writers are often solitary, introspective individuals who prefer lurking to engaging. Fortunately for us, plenty of people out there like to talk. A simple question in the checkout line, like, “Having a picnic?” (to a cart piled high with sandwich bread) or, “What are you going to do with all those avocados?” could at least get you some good recipe ideas. Even better, it might get you some good stories. A conversation I had with a young man in a pickup truck, way out in western Kansas, ended up almost verbatim in my novel, The Middle of Somewhere. I’ll always regret not following up with a woman at the local grocery who told me she had a fatal disease. That conversation could have had far greater consequence than fictional embellishment.

Before I ever published a novel, I corresponded with an author who quoted the old saying, “All is grist to the writer’s mill.” (At least, she said it was an old saying; at the time I wasn’t old enough to have heard it.) Meaning, there’s a world of material out there, so don’t spend all your time dialoguing with yourself.

You can’t improve on God. That’s my old saying.

motivation 3

Ten Ways to Motivate Reluctant Writers, Part Two

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Motivation is the bane of the writing teacher.

Can anyone relate?

Good writing takes practice to learn, and there’s the rub. Kids who don’t like it are only going to practice under great duress, and then only as little as possible with the minimum they can get away with. But sometimes–I’ve seen it happen–an assignment or project will engage their imagination enough to give it some honest effort. All their assignments can’t be fun, but sparking up the usual grind with an imaginative exercise or two can help the medicine go down.

So, last week I started with a list of five potential motivators, but as often happens, ideas beget other ideas. So if the first five lit no fires, consider these:

  • Round Robin Stories. This is definitely a group activity, but could be fun for a family if there are enough willing participants (including parents!). Each participant starts with a story prompt, a setting, or an object (or all three). After writing the first paragraph of the story, each participant passes their paper to the next writer, who continues the story with the second paragraph, then passes it on for the third paragraph, and so on. This can be played in a random manner with no guidelines, but could be more fun (and easier on those of us with more pedestrian imaginations) if some direction was included. For example–
    • First paragraph: Place and time, up to three characters (they don’t have to be people).
    • Second paragraph: Something happens! The characters have a problem.
    • Third paragraph: They try to solve the problem; doesn’t work.
    • Fourth paragraph: They try another solution; doesn’t work.
    • Fifth paragraph: Everybody is unhappy.
    • Sixth paragraph: The last solution works and everybody is happy again—or not.
    • This could take place over a few days; no need to finish in one sitting.

At the end, of course, read them out loud. Everybody will want to know what the next person did with their particular contribution.

  • Imaginary Interviews. “Interview” your favorite sports hero, historical character, or fictional character. Write a list of questions about topics you’d really like to know, then imagine how the subject would answer.
  • POV Switch. Write 2-3 entries in the diary of a family member. Imagine an actual recent event and write it as though someone besides you—sibling, parent, possibly friend—were recording it in a their personal diary. (Talk about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes!)
  • Dream Journal. You know how dreams start disappearing almost as soon as we wake up? Try keeping a notebook handy to write as much as you remember of your most vivid dreams. (Share them only if you want to!)
  • Game on! Describe your favorite video game as if you were in it as a player. Keep a tight focus and describe only one sequence or one strategic play.

If none of these appeal to you or your students, they may provide a springboard to something else. Ideas beget other ideas, so keep thinking, and don’t be afraid to brainstorm occasionally with the kids.

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