Cutting out words that often aren't needed

When I finish an article, I put it aside and work on something else for a little while. I then go back to the just-finished piece and read it through. I'm looking, of course, for errors and omissions. But I'm also looking for words which can and should be removed. 

If you're struggling to make your writing tighter, or battling to get the wordcount down to what your editor wants, take a close look at every the and that. A good many of them can be done away with, you'll find. In the two examples below (from a writing project I finished a few days ago) the words in bold can be dropped:

Of all the festivals, my personal favorite is the Nantou City Sand Sculpture Festival.

You can be sure that every taxi driver knows how to get there.

When editors foul things up II

Once an editor altered something I'd written because, it seems, he couldn't find a particular word in his dictionary, and so he assumed it was a misspelling. As a result, one sentence became utter nonsense. 

Writing about Taiwan's tobacco farmers, I used the word “monopsony.” If you haven't studied economics, you may not know that this describes a situation where there is but a single buyer of a particular commodity; in the absence of government regulation, the buyer is in a position to control the price. The editor changed this to “monopoly” – the reverse situation, where one company or person is the sole supplier of a product. 

I learned two things from this experience, and the disaster described in the previous post. Firstly, whenever I use specialist terms or foreign words in articles, I now add a note to the text – usually in red capitals, so it can't be missed – explaining the meaning of the term, and assuring the editor that it's spelled correctly. Secondly, I remind every editor I work with that I'm more than happy to answer questions about what I've written. 

And, of course, when I'm editing someone else's work, if I see anything which is less than crystal clear, I shoot off an email to the writer.

When editors foul things up I

If you write feature articles for publication, this may well happen to you: An article you've worked hard on is published, but now it's riddled with errors. They're not your fault, but they're under your byline!

This happened to me when I wrote about Taiwan's birds and conservation issues for a government publication in 2008. The corrected Web version article is here; the print edition and the original Web version contained four serious factual inaccuracies, all of which resulted from the editor altering what I'd written.

The most serious was that, throughout the piece, the term "endemic species" had been changed to "native species." If you know anything about ecology and biogeography, you'll know why this appalled me. (Endemic means found only in that place or country; native species are indigenous but occur naturally in other places.)

In the paragraphs about the dam, the editor changed “goes ahead” to “given the green light.” At the time of writing, the authorities had given the dam project the green light, but environmental groups were trying to have the decision overturned. Therefore, whether it would go ahead or not was still in doubt.

I'm glad to end by saying that when I pointed out these errors, the editor took full responsibility, apologized and immediately corrected the Web version of the article. 

In my next post, I'll discuss another instance when an editor made a change to one of my article that likely caused some readers to think whoever wrote it is an idiot.

A golden opportunity missed

Some years ago, in a self-published book written by an American about his frustrating experiences studying martial arts in China, I came across a marvelous potential hook, buried midway through the volume. In a photo caption which bookstore browsers would almost certainly likely miss were the words: “...holding the sword I had to use on the day I left the school.”

I've no recollection of the image it referred to, but the words have stayed in my mind. As soon as I read them, I realized the author should have put them in the book's very first paragraph. Had he done so, he would've hooked a good few readers. They would've said to themselves: “What on Earth happened? Did the author have to fight his way out of the martial-arts school? Who tried to stop him leaving and why? Was blood spilled?”

And they would've continued reading until they found out.

Since then, whenever I'm close to finishing an article, I scour it for potential hooks.

A classic start to a book

The first 90 words of Redmond O'Hanlon's 1996 travel book Congo Journey are superb:

     In her hut in Poto-Poto, the poor quarter of Brazzaville, the feticheuse, smiling at us, knelt on the floor, drew out a handful of cowrie shells from the cloth bag at her waist, and cast them across the raffia mat.

     Lary Shaffer and I, despite ourselves, leaned forward on our wooden stools, studying the meaningless pattern; the shells, obviously much handled, shone like old ivory in the glow of the paraffin lamp. The feticheuse stopped smiling.

     “One of you,” she said slowly in French, “is very ill, right now.”

I'm going to list the reasons why I think this works so well.

Firstly, before even reaching the end of the first sentence, we want to read on, if only to find out what a feticheuse is. Later, the reader discovers that a feticheuse is a shamaness; the word derives from the French for “fetish,” and fetishes loom large in the second half of the book.

Secondly, when we read “The feticheuse stops smiling...,” we know something is wrong. You want to find out what it is. Who is ill, and what's wrong with him?

Thirdly, the beginning of the book is sprinkled with clues that we're not in safe, familiar Western territory. The lady lives in a hut; there's a raffia map on the floor; the tools of her trade include cowrie shells; there's no electricity, just a paraffin lamp. Readers of travel books want the exotic, and O'Hanlon delivers the goods from the get go.

The message here is that you don't need to start your story at the very beginning. Find an engaging episode (“the hook”) that'll draw the reader in, and then backtrack if explanation/elaboration/elucidation is needed.

In my next post, I'll discuss an instance where an author had the raw material for a great hook, but failed to use it where he should have.

The writer's mind-set

"The curse of being a songwriter is that you no longer listen to music, you deconstruct it. You take it apart to see why it succeeds or fails."

So says Ellis Paul, an American singer-songwriter born 1965. His thinking is exactly the same as many writers, including myself. Whatever we read, we're wondering what we can learn about the way it was written, and how we can use those tricks in our own writing.  

Three interviewing mistakes

Having posted some positive interviewing advice, I think it's time to talk about mistakes some writers make when talking to sources.

Don't ask questions that reveal your own opinions or biases.

It goes without saying that if you make your own views obvious, you could annoy the interviewee, who may react by ending the interview there and then. Alternatively, he or she may become defensive and answer your questions very guardedly. If you make it apparent you agree with the interviewee, he or she may forgo some of the elaboration you want for your article. Ideally, you want him or her to attempt to succinctly convince you.

Don't ask questions that assume a particular answer.

Even if you're certain the interviewee won't like the issue you're discussing, it's more neutral and so better to ask "How do you feel about this?" rather than, “Are you angered by this change?”

Don't ask two questions at the same time.

I once heard a fellow writer ask a person, "Do you think the building should be knocked down, and what should replace it?" That interviewee, fortunately, was able to digest both questions and answer them one at a time. However, if the person you're speaking to is tired, distracted - or not a native speaker of English - you may end up with something that doesn't properly represent his or her opinion, and isn't useful for your article. You should be especially careful of this if you know there's no opportunity to double-check the interviewee's answers.