Overwriting, the Death of Clarity

Since the start of 2020 I have been working as a contract editor and manuscript assessor for a memoir publisher in North Carolina. Besides loving the steady work and its associated income, I have worked on an amazing variety of memoirs: a man recalling one day on the lake fishing with his dad; a pioneer in women’s liberation and feminist psychotherapy reviewing her career; an adult victim of child abuse recounting the fear and pain he and his two brothers endured and where each is now; and the story of the only Jewish family in a small rural North Carolina town in the 1940s.

My eyes have been opened to the diversity and richness of the lives of those around us; a reminder that you never know what someone has been through simply by looking at them. And an understanding that how well or how poorly someone is doing in life is often the result of circumstances beyond their control.

I suppose I already knew this through my work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). I am reminded almost daily to not be judgmental of the behavior of a cashier in the supermarket, the saleswoman at a department store, the glum bank teller, or someone in an elevator who is distance and aloof. I don’t know them, their work situation, or what happened to them at home last night or this morning. I just know that life isn’t always a bed of roses. There are families full of love, support, and good memories. And others full of pain, heartache, and regret. Or all of the above.

So, what does any of this have to do with Strike The Write Tone? Or my blog articles that I use to offer advice for writers? Not a damn thing. It’s just what was on my mind as I sat down to blog after a long absence. Let me try to offer editing guidance. Hmm, let me see.

Well, I posted on my Facebook business page at the end of 2019 that my word for 2020 is “Simplicity. No matter your genre, keep your writing as straightforward and to-the-point as possible. Write to communicate, not to impress. Keep it simple.” I also shared this quote.

I had just done a couple of manuscript assessments for newbie writers and this was heavy on my mind. I can recall during my college days, trying to sound as sophisticated and academic as possible when writing an essay or research paper. Everyday words and straightforward sentences were for life outside the classroom. I spent a lot of precious time perusing Roget’s Thesaurus for multi-syllabic versions of commonplace words and fashioning exquisite run-on sentences. When, if read aloud, my paper sounded like something an Oxford don would say, I knew I had succeeded. Sadly, my good grades reinforced this misguided belief.

The finest manuscripts I have edited and assessed this year are those that clearly and humanly register in my brain and my heart. This is not to say that a writer shouldn’t strive to create beauty with their words. I’m not advocating zero description or flat, colorless passages. But I have read some gloriously simple sentences that brought tears to my eyes; tears of sadness and tears of joy. I would love to share one or two, but I cannot. Yet. Let’s get the writers published, then I will.

What I’m talking about is known as overwriting.

Overwriting is a wordy writing style characterized by excessive detail, needless repetition, overwrought figures of speech, and/or convoluted sentence structures. (Thank you, Richard Nordquist).

Overwriting is the hallmark of a writer who is 1) untested, 2) untalented, 3) unedited, 4) egotistical, or 5) some combination of these. If you find yourself laboring and straining to construct a sentence, you might be overwriting.

OK, I know what you’re thinking—I’m saying writing should always be easy and effortless and flow out of you like water from a garden hose. No. That is not what I’m saying.

The truth is, writing is hard.

But not the kind of hard that has you re-working a run-on sentence for an hour trying to select the three most perfect adjectives to describe a cloud. In fact, writing is at its hardest when you are trying to convey an elemental thought or image. Simple beauty in a single sentence is more difficult to achieve than pages upon pages of overwrought passages. Keep it simple. I'll leave you with this:

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

~William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.

Smart Writers Seek Smart Editors for Their Best Work

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to talk about this issue of self-editing and the necessity of hiring a professional editor. Yes, I know! I have already touched on these topics at least twice in my blog, but honest to gosh, the writers’ pages on social media are still awash with writers fretting over how they can’t afford to hire a pro editor for their manuscripts. I always give them the same polite advice: if you don’t have the money right now to pay a professional editor, wait until you do.

That’s great advice, but it is unappreciated. Some bad advice I see offered includes:

“If you’re smart enough to write a book, you’re smart enough to edit it.”

“Just use lots of beta readers and let them catch the typos and mistakes.”

“Grammarly and spell checkers are all you need.”

Let a Pro Editor Read Your Work

I’ll stop here, because my head is starting to pound. Now look, I’m not saying that self-editing, beta readers, and automated grammar and spelling programs are bad. They’re great. Writers should self-edit, find beta readers, and use the latest writing-assistance technologies. But these are not replacements for experienced human editors.

And it’s tough to be in a profession where people are often telling you that you charge too much for what you do or “Your work could be done just as well by my next-door neighbor Charlie who reads a lot and my Aunt Margaret who was a substitute school teacher for 10 years.”

Even Editors Get the Blues

Everyone who writes needs editors and proofreaders. Editors and proofreaders need editors and proofreaders. I will give you a real-life, personal example I should be ashamed to share.

I sent an email to a small business in my town last week, noting that it creates training manuals and policy and procedure handbooks for its clients. When my career started, I did that work, I tell them. I’m an experienced writer, editor, and proofreader, I tell them. I crafted a compelling case for them to consider me for freelance writing, editing, and training. I read through it three times, tweaked it a bit each time, read it one final time, and clicked SEND. Immediately after I did, I stared at it as if for the first time and saw this:

My resume is attached but here some highlights that might interest you.

Holy s**t. Are you kidding me? Do you see it? I left out the word “are” after “here.” Each time I had re-read it before sending, I swear that word was there. Well, it was there—in my mind.

And that’s what happens with self-editing. You see what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote.

I debated how to handle it and decided to acknowledge my faux pas in a follow-up email. I went for a humble, self-effacing approach and hoped I would get points for noticing the mistake and having the courage to point it out.

Face it, I’ll never hear from them. And I probably shouldn’t. I didn’t follow one of my own pieces of advice: step away from what you’ve written for a day or an hour or even a few minutes and come back to it with fresh eyes.

You Need an Editor? Hey, That's What I Am.

Like any area of business, editors have best practices and standard pricing. I can assure you, my rates are comfortably in line with other editors doing the same kind of editing and with the same amount of experience. I’m not the most expensive and I’m not the least. So it pains me when someone tells me that I get too much money for what I do, the implication being, editing and proofing are skills that can be done just as well by the average man or woman who can read and write.

Low water pressure, high water pressure, leaky pipes, clogged shower or toilet drains, and corroded pipes—these are the most common reasons people call a plumber. The cost of a plumber ranges from $175 to $450 for a typical job, with the average cost per hour ranging from $45 to $200. We have all complained about the cost of hiring plumbers. Yet we hire them anyway. Why? Because they can do something we can’t do that needs to be done.

I submit that editors are the plumbers of the written word. I might even have a bumper sticker made:

Clean the clogged pipes of your manuscript. Hire an editor.

I like it. What do you think?

Memoir Theme is As Important As Plot

A horned bull in famous cave painting in Lascaux, France. Estimated to be approximately 20,000 years old..

UPDATED 1/8/21

A memoir is about something you know after something you’ve been through. The theme of a memoir answers the question “What’s it about?” Before you start to write, sum up your memoir in one sentence that answers this question. One sentence.

This paragraph is a combination of three crucial points I make in the Introduction to Memoir PowerPoint presentation I give locally. The definition of memoir— it’s about something you know after something you’ve been through—comes as a surprise to everyone in the audience at these presentations.

Why?

First, because most people think that memoirs and autobiographies are the same. They are not. A memoir is more like a novel than an autobiography. I discuss this in greater detail in my blog post With Creative Nonfiction, Reality Meets Storytelling. Second, because most people don’t understand the difference between theme and plot.

Do you?

A sample memoir theme is,

It’s about how my mother’s death from lung cancer at a young age caused me to quit smoking and become an anti-tobacco advocate.

The plot explains what happened. What actually happened. The facts. The details. The names, the dates, the places. But that is not the theme. The theme is how the author was changed by her mother’s death from lung cancer; a change that included quitting smoking and becoming an advocate for the anti-tobacco movement. The why of the story—the death of a loved one left you saddened but ultimately wiser and stronger, determined to make a change.

If I’ve already written (a bit) about this, why am I addressing it again? Because I specialize in teaching and editing memoir. I love the genre and I’m determined to help people understand that memoir isn’t autobiography. It’s way cooler and more interesting. But, as I’ve already said, I tell folks, before you start to write, sum up your memoir in one sentence that answers the question what’s it about?

Our Brains are Hardwired for Story Lessons

What has brought me back to this subject is, I’m reading Wired For Story by Lisa Cron. The subtitle is, The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. This isn’t your average creative writing guide. The main contention of the book is that our human brains have evolved to tell stories to share information and experiences and to want to read or listen to these stories to learn about experiences we have not yet had ourselves. When an early Homo Sapien created a cave painting of a bull goring a man with his horns, it was meant to teach the next guy who moved in a life-saving lesson.

In the first two chapters, Cron works hard to make sure we understand the key concept of storytelling: our brains have evolved to want stories that teach us something. We don’t like chaos or confusion in our minds when we read. We want a problem posed and a problem solved. Even in fiction, our brains crave lessons. What problem is the protagonist facing? How will this problem be resolved? What lessons will the protagonist learn along the way? And, as Cron makes clear, this is not the plot—it is the theme.

Theme in Storytelling is Paramount

The theme, clearly defined and addressed, is more important than the minutia of the plot. Readers want a dilemma presented and triumphed over, because our brains still like to learn something from everything we read. A story that fails to do that will only leave readers frustrated and disappointed. Says Cron,

Since theme is the underlying point the narrative makes about the human experience, it’s also where the universal lies. The universal is a feeling, emotion, or truth that resonates with us all.

I have many pages to go in Wired For Story. But I’ve already learned a valuable lesson as an editor (see, Cron is right): as I do with teaching memoir, a client who is a writer of fiction must be able to answer the question “What’s it about?” with an understanding that I don’t want to hear the plot. I want to know the theme—what the protagonist will know after what the writer puts them through. If a writer can’t answer that question, they are not ready to begin writing.

[UPDATE 8/20/19: I feel the need to clarify Lisa Cron's point about theme vs. plot. She says in a later chapter that theme is not more important than plot; they are equal in importance, but not to be confused. An author should not write a story that uses the theme as the plot. Says Cron, "...your theme begets the story's tone, which begets the mood the reader feels.... Because as crucial as theme is, it is never stated outright; it always implied."]