Author: darin

Another school shooting. Our hearts hurt.

Let the latest round of political posturing begin. Left and Right—pointing fingers. Everybody is shouting solutions, which are nothing of the sort.

Let me be clear: I’m not leaning left or right here. With a situation as severe as this, I believe all of the ideas being shared are worthy of consideration. But none of them—let me say that again, louder: NONE OF THEM—will ensure school shootings never happen again.

Not tougher gun laws. Not better mental health screening. Not arming teachers. Not renewed emphasis on “see something, say something.” Not outlawing violent movies or video games. Not better parenting. Not bringing the Bible or prayer back into schools.

Truth is—neither side really wants to do what it would take to stop school shootings. Both sides want a political victory. No give.  

I will tell you what would work. It’s so simple. Do you have the stomach for this?

If you really want school shootings to end—never to happen again—treat it like 9/11.

After 9/11, the entire air-travel industry changed. Immediately. Do you remember? All airplanes were GROUNDED until the cockpit door was reinforced. I’m not sure how much the price tag was to outfit how many ever tens of thousands of airplanes … DIDN’T MATTER. It got paid.

Security at airports changed forever. I’m not sure what the price tag was for all the extra TSA screeners, armed security and screening equipment upgrades at every commercial airport … DIDN’T MATTER. It got paid.

We all experience the added inconvenience, long lines, the invasion of privacy, the rollback of traveler’s rights. DOESN’T MATTER. We deal with it. Or else we DON’T FLY.

Here’s the solution: Schools are soft targets. Make them hard targets. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Build a fence around our schools. Put armed guards at the entrance. Search everyone entering school grounds—even the principal! EVERYONE. No guns on school grounds (other than the officers manning the gate) means no shootings on school grounds.

Of course—this will be costly. Education already suffers from a lack of funding. SHOULDN’T MATTER. How serious are we about stopping this?

Of course—this will be unsightly. No one wants their cute little local elementary school to resemble a penitentiary. SHOULDN’T MATTER. How serious are we about stopping this?

Of course—it will mean an inconvenience for everyone coming onto school grounds, to be searched, screened, wanded, take off your shoes, bring lunches in see-through lunch boxes … whatever. SHOULDN’T MATTER. How serious are we about stopping this?

If I were president—especially one with a talent for pulling off construction projects “ahead of schedule and under budget” and with a particular fondness for walls …

And if I were a master at the art of the deal, with a rolodex full of wealthy and creative corporate friends …

And if I were able to move masses to contribute tubs of money with a tweet…

And if I were a Hollywood star/activist with more money and a bigger platform than most, who has lots of Hollywood star/activist friends with more money and a bigger platform than most …

Imagine how quickly—and how affordably—we could do this!

Shoot, I’m a taxpayer. There’s a few hundred million of us, right? Let’s all kick in a buck. What about this? Ask every household in America for a donation of one dollar ($1) or more. Obviously, if you can give more than a buck, awesome! Brag about it. Tell your friends, “I sent in twenty!” Whatever. With the surplus, we can buy every kid in America a clear lunchbox! Better, a ‘Made Our Schools Safe Again’ hat!

I just paid for the wall around every school in America, and STOPPED SCHOOL SHOOTINGS. See how easy it was?

But no. We’ll keep debating all these other solutions that aren’t really solutions–and we’ll be back here again. Grieving.

Sad.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. — George R. R. Martin

Earlier posts in this series I’ve tackled redundant modifiers, redundant word pairings, and hedges and intensifiers. Have you mastered those tips?

My latest entry in this Techniques to Cure Wordiness series is one a majority of writers can benefit from—this is rock-solid advice, right here: Replace wordy expressions with single words.

 Smarter guys than me have said as much—

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.   –Thomas Jefferson

You know wordy expressions. Phrases like: Due to the fact that … In the amount of … Until such a time as … On a daily basis … In this day and age … In the course of time … In the event that … In close proximity to … He is a man who … She is a woman who … Of the understanding … With the exception of … and I could go on and on.

These wordy phrases don’t add to your writing. They detract. 

Are you ready for this? Say those things much more effectively using single words: Because … for … until … daily … today … during … if … near … he … she … understand … except.

To improve your storytelling, being less wordy in simple narration will afford you the luxury of being intentionally wordy where descriptions are concerned. You know that old admonition, show don’t tell? When you are describing person, place or thing, let verbosity ride! Grab a dictionary and thesaurus! You want your reader meet the person, enter the place, and handle the thing—so the best way to do that is in showing. Use words. The more, the better.

And smarter guys have weighed in on this, too—

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. –Mark Twain

I’m sure we will visit more on show don’t tell later in this series. Until such a time as we do  Meanwhile …

In your simple narration, if you want to say because, just say because. If you want to say today, say today. Your readers will thank you.

One of the greatest perks of the writing life for me is sharing with and learning from other writers. I soak up all I can. I also love to share suggestions. Truly, when anyone writes, I get jazzed about it.

You there! Pick up a pencil! Write your story down!

A friend recently took on an adventure—writing memoir. He asked me for advice. I shot him what would be my top ten list for getting memoir from mind to media.

1) Words on page above all else at this point.

Don’t worry about editing or perfecting thoughts, sentences, or paragraphs at this juncture. It can become so time consuming and discouraging. No one is reading this yet. Worry not, there will be time to come back and fine tune later.

2) Show don’t tell.

The more you can keep this in mind from the start, the better it will serve your writing. We have such a tendency to say things like “I was nervous.” That’s horrible to read. Show your reader. Describe what you felt, thought, worried about—whatever is rolled up in the words “I was nervous.”

Same advice when describing scenes or settings. When you say “we were poor” or “our house was small” you miss a golden opportunity to paint the picture for the reader. Invite them into the small house, the poverty.

3) Kill the word that whenever and wherever you can.

Worthless word. It really is. One of the last things I try to do with every piece of writing I send to a client is execute a word search and see where I can remove or replace it. Trust me on this. You will thank me later.

4) Kill the future tense verb form to be wherever you can.

This one will come to you as you write more so than in my admonition here. It’s the difference between “It is Mike’s intention to write his memoir” and “Mike intends to write his memoir.” I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it will be on the whole. This is the second thing I search my writing for before I press send.

5) Swap passive voice for active where you can.

Active and passive voice are grammatical constructions. Active voice offers the clearest sentence structure: a character (subject) does something (verb) to a person, place or thing (noun/recipient). Example: Mom hugged me. The passive voice reverses the structure: person, place or thing (noun/recipient), had something happen to them (verb), by a character (subject). Example: I was hugged by Mom.

Using the passive voice almost always makes your writing more distant and your message less clear. Do you doubt me? Try these on for size—

(1) The passive voice almost always makes your message less clear.

(2) Your message is almost always made less clear by using the passive voice.

I rest my case.

6) Read while you write. Choose books and authors who will help your writing.

For memoir, I have three recommendations for you. Not as much for content, as for style, voice and storytelling. (1) Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie”—he chronicles his travels around the country with his dog in a pick-up truck/camper. It’s a marvelous example of all I wrote above. (2) Kerouac’s “On The Road”—he was the first beat-generation writer, which is “stream of consciousness” writing style. I LOVE IT where memoir is concerned. And (3) Anything Garrison Keillor wrote—he’s a master at show don’t tell. You read his stuff and you feel like you’re walking into every scene with him. The best thing about these three: they’re short, fast and engaging reads.

7) Let the story shift your timeline.

Don’t attempt to tell your story in linear fashion. Write it like you’d tell it, sitting with a friend or family member, over coffee … or better still, wine.

8) Let concerns like formatting, style, layout wait.

Words on page at this juncture. And more words on page. For now, go with a simple doc file, line spacing, fonts—whatever makes your reading eye most comfortable. Utilize divisions and markings that make it most convenient for you to navigate and find your way around. All else can easily be adjusted later.

9) Make it accessible wherever you are and whenever opportunity to read/write arises.

Laptop, iPad, phone, notebook (I even have a small digital voice recorder I speak into sometimes in the car as ideas arise) whatever. You might store your document in a cloud service like DropBox so you can access it from anywhere.

10) Schedule times and places to play with your writing.

Life gets in the way. Set appointed times when you can sneak an hour or so away. You might even budget a retreat—a weekend getaway so you can spend more significant time writing. I have coffee shops and even a couple of bars where I can sneak off to get away from it all. The folks there know me, what I’m doing and they even help buffer me from distractions. Where can you go? How often? Put it on your calendar. Make it a date.

Are you actively writing memoir? Some other genre? What tips might you offer? What helps you get words on page?