The writer Chris Castellani once gave me a great piece of advice: During your first draft, you don’t even have the right to edit yourself. At first I was startled, but within days I found this insight profoundly liberating. As an undergraduate, I wrote only poetry (I didn’t try my hand at fiction until I was 25), and while poetry was certainly a joy in itself, it was also excellent training for my prose. I spent hours laboring over just the right word, agonizing over whether a comma or a semi-colon would be most effective, puzzling over exactly where to break a line. While I’ve lightened up somewhat (i.e. got my literary OCD under control), I still bring a rigorous level of scrutiny to the manuscripts I edit, and I edit my own fiction with even more stringency.

As I said in the last issue of Between the Lines, however, there’s a time and place for everything. While I know a handful of writers who like to perfect one paragraph before they proceed to the next one (and you should by all means pursue the approach that works best for you), I find that getting everything out there, no matter how terrible, is the first order of business. I’d never thought about self-editing in Chris Castellani’s terms—that I didn’t even have the right to put my grabby hands on my writing in its embryonic stages—and for me, it was a breakthrough. From then on, I pursued what I think of as the “vomit forth” technique. Three months ago, I switched from composing longhand to composing at the computer, and the VF technique works even better there: I type really, really fast, and don’t look back. I generate an enormous quantity of material, getting to know my characters and letting them reveal the plot to me as I go, and only much later do I venture back into the word soup I’ve created. It’s mostly terrible stuff, but by then I’m so pleased that I’ve written a hundred pages, so high from the flush of creation, that I’m more than ready to revise. And it’s only when I’ve taken a story through several revisions that I’m prepared to start the intricate work of polishing and fine-tuning.

So when I tell an author that I’d like to work on the language, it’s a great compliment. More often than not, it means that the author has already done the very difficult work of hammering out the big stuff: plot, structure, characterization, timing, and so on. When it’s time to thump each word to make sure it carries the best possible connotation or ferret out those slips in logic you weren’t even aware of, when it’s time to compress your language or massage individual sentences for the sake of clarity, you’ve arrived at an enviable place.

But while you may not want to check and re-check your word choice, sentence structure, or punctuation until well into the writing process, this doesn’t mean that language takes a back seat to elements such as plot or characterization. Though the impulse to tell a good story is a terrific reason to write, I worry about writers whose sole concern is to get the story on the page, without regard for the way the story is told. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I may worry even more about writers who are so carried away by their own prose, so concerned with linguistic gymnastics or flowery metaphors, that they lose sight of the basic requirement to tell a good story. No matter how brilliant the language, I’ll put down a book that doesn’t give me reason to turn the page. Somewhere between these poles lies the golden mean: to tell a captivating, entertaining story in captivating language.

There are as many styles as there are writers, but every serious writer committed to producing good art, whether it be a detective novel or literary fiction, should pay close attention to language. Words, after all, are the author’s medium. The painter, knowing that the wrong shade of blue could ruin the effect of an entire painting, takes meticulous care in mixing her paint. The writer should be no less concerned with words. “Full,” “sated,” “gorged,” and “replete” all have different connotations—which one best conveys the meaning you need? Does your simile really say what you intended it to? Would a metaphor work better? Have you avoided clichés? Sentimentality? Abstract or imprecise language that doesn’t evoke an image in the reader’s mind? And last but certainly not least, is your writing grammatical? Experienced writers do sometimes violate traditional rules of grammar, but a careless error will catapult the reader right out of the fictional world you’ve labored to create. Weak language in any form calls attention to itself and pulls your reader out of the story.

Editors, teachers, and critics have long noticed that there are common problems that plague inexperienced writers, or even experienced writers who grow careless. Over the years I’ve collected a substantial (and often comical) compilation. A look at some of these examples of faulty or careless language should convince you that even the smallest detail—yes, even a misplaced comma—can have a profound impact on meaning.

• Steve set the puppy on the ground and he ran straight for me and promptly began to lick my face.

This is a classic example of a pronoun-antecedent problem. It’s unclear to whom “he” refers: is it Steve or the puppy who began licking the narrator’s face?

• Her silhouette was seen by me through the sheer curtains. Her presence was felt, palpably.

There are rare occasions when the passive voice is called for, but in general, it’s best to avoid it. (The great creative writing teacher and author John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, went so far as to say that it’s “virtually useless in fiction.”) The passive voice is often a sign of weak or timid writing. Instead of granting authority to the subject of the sentence—in this case, the narrator—the timid or inexperienced writer focuses on the object. The remedy is simple: “I saw her silhouette through the sheer curtains.” The second sentence suffers from the passive voice as well as that most common of problems, telling instead of showing. If you’re going to go as far as saying that her presence was palpably felt (a redundant phrase), then surely you can show us, through concrete details that appeal to the senses, what that presence was like. Let that presence be as palpable to the reader as it was to the narrator.

• Looking left over my shoulder, I switched to the passing lane. Glancing first at Marla, in the passenger seat, and then at the baby, behind me in the car seat, I remarked on how odd the weather seemed today. Needing to know Marla’s opinion, I asked her what she thought. She agreed. Knowing that her instincts are usually right, I shivered when I heard she thought the clouds looked ominous. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I pursed my lips and barreled down the highway.

Admittedly, this is an extreme example of beginning every sentence with a participial phrase (and to be fair, it came from a student in an introductory creative writing course), but this construction, much favored by hack writers, can quickly become annoying to the reader. It can also get you into trouble with logic, as in this example from Renni Browne and Dave King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: “Disappearing into my tent, I changed into fresh jeans.’” The participial phrase forces “simultaneity on two actions that can’t be simultaneous.” In other words, it’s physically impossible for the speaker to disappear into the tent and change into fresh jeans simultaneously.

• They talked for a time about Amy’s weeding dress, and the bride’s maids.

This writer no doubt made a couple of honest spelling errors, but look at how profoundly the errors change the meaning. If we read the text exactly as the author has presented it, we can assume that Amy has a special dress for gardening, and that there is one bride who owns a few maids. As such, the sentence makes little sense, and moreover, its parts have nothing to do with each other. Without the errors, it’s clear that “they” talked about Amy’s dress and about her bridesmaids. Not a great sentence, but at least it’s clear.

• “You goin’ tuh take ‘at young’un away from ‘ere?”

“Yassah.”

“Well mind yeh do it direckly.”

“Sho, suh, sho.”

I know there will be defenders of dialect out there—you’ll point out Twain and Faulkner or even Dickens, and you’re right, their work wouldn’t be what it is without dialect—but generally speaking, try and avoid phonetically rendered language. (Especially if you do it as poorly as this writer has.) Beyond the irritation any reader will experience in trying to puzzle out the bizarre spellings, the writer isn’t even consistent. Note that the first speaker picks up a new accent in his second line: “you” changes to “yeh.” In the end, if you insist on dialect, make sure you’re really, really good at it. A skillful writer can convey background, ethnicity, and class with vocabulary, word order, and cadence.

• “Ash, what time is it?” Jenny quietly whispers.

This is an issue of simple redundancy—a whisper by its very nature is quiet, so there’s no need to point out the obvious—but it’s a good opportunity to reiterate a writing rule of thumb you’ve probably heard. That is, use adverbs sparingly. If your writing is clear and grounded in the concrete and specific, there probably won’t be any need for an adverb. And just look at what happens when your prose is overrun with them (I promise I did not make this up):

• “Listen closely,” Mandy said coquettishly.

“I only have ears for you,” Mark said affably.

Quietly, Mandy gently pulled Mark’s shoulder. “The door to the basement is unlocked.” She grinned wickedly.

“All right!” said Mark urgently.

Most examples, of course, aren’t as blatant as the ones I’ve presented thus far. Even the best writers can fall into common language traps or errors.

• Howard was worried about Richard and Renata’s shaky marital status.

Well, there’s nothing shaky about marital status—people are either married or single. What the author intended to say was that the marriage was shaky.

• The priest invited anyone who wished to speak to the pulpit.

The priest wasn’t inviting people to have a conversation with the pulpit. The easiest fix is “The priest invited to the pulpit anyone who wished to speak,” but that sounds awkward. Possible fixes include “The priest invited anyone who wished to speak to step up to the pulpit” or “The priest invited anyone who wished to address the congregation to step up to the pulpit.”

• Beverly accepted Dana’s apologies for bagging the class with grace.

As “bagging” is a slang term for sexual intercourse, you can easily read that Dana is apologizing for gracefully having sex with the entire class. And there’s a further layer of confusion, too: even if you read “bagging” in the way the author meant it—that Dana skipped the class—you could think she cut class gracefully. What’s really graceful, of course, is Beverly’s acceptance of Dana’s apology. The easiest re-write is “Beverly gracefully accepted Dana’s apologies for bagging the class,” but if this were my sentence, I’d find a synonym for “bagging,” too.

• The muffled click of the clasp opened the bag.

What this sentence says is that the click itself opened the bag. I actually see a surprising number of similar errors, usually involving disembodied voices (His voice told me I was late) or detached eyes or hands or ears (Her eyes dropped to the floor, Her ears reached out to catch the whisper). Watch out for language like this, which removes volition from the character and gives it to an inanimate object or a part of the character that can’t act on its own.

Here’s an example in which something as small as a comma can dramatically change meaning.

• “I still don’t understand Lauren,” David said.

As written, David is making a general statement: he doesn’t understand this person named Lauren. But that’s not what the writer meant. With the simple insertion of a comma mistakenly left out, the entirely different meaning becomes clear:

“I still don’t understand, Lauren,” David said.

Now we know that David is addressing Lauren. I’ve seen plenty of similar errors, some of them more glaring than others. (“Enjoy boys” comes to mind.) Whenever you end a line of dialogue with a reference to the person being spoken to—the most common is the person’s name—a comma should precede the name: “You sure are nitpicky, Ms. Editor.”

• “There was nothing, I thought to myself as I looked at it, blacker than burned wood.”

This example comes from a very fine, very capably written novel. Grammatically, there is nothing wrong with this sentence. What hampers it from being the best possible sentence is a practice called filtering, which occurs when an author unnecessarily runs an image through the narrative consciousness. If you’ve firmly established the point of view, there’s no need to point out that the narrator is thinking, and certainly no need to point out that he’s thinking to himself. Nor do you need to point out that he’s looking at the piece of burned wood, since he tells us what it looks like. Without the filters, the sentence becomes: “There was nothing blacker than burned wood.” Now that the sentence is uncluttered, it’s all the more evocative and immediate.

Let’s close with two of my favorite misspellings, ever. Just try and tell me these typos wouldn’t divert your attention away from the story:

• Officer Bonn fell onto the hard pavement, then slipped into a comma and died.

• His feelings for her were changing, imperceptibly. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when they’d begun to shit.

Poor Officer Bonn! Would he have fared any better with a period or an apostrophe? And I’m all for taking extreme measures for romance, but this?

You’ve probably heard it said that a really good writer can get away with anything. For the most part I believe this is true. Great writers violate the “rules” of good writing all the time, and despite this cautionary article, I’d be the first to say to be suspicious of a laundry list of do’s and don’ts. Yet I believe certain things are inviolate, such as a commitment to clarity, precision, and evocative imagery, and that any writer worth the ink on the page must have a superbly tuned eye and ear for language.

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