Rie Langdon Editing Services

Uh-oh, I hear you thinking. It’s going to be one of those ranty ones. Well, yes, it is, but I will try to make it quick and relatively painless. This post describes one of the easiest ways to improve your writing: know your crutch words. Every writer has one or two, those mushy words we use to get us to the next part of the sentence. As an editor, the one I see most often in a fiction manuscript is ‘headed’. ‘Turned’ is a close second.

Jefferson didn't like lobster, so he headed to the car.
Victoria turned to face Clive before speaking. "I guess we should wait?" she asked.

These sentences tell us what’s happening, but they don’t show us. Now, no doubt you’ve heard the “show don’t tell” advice before, but how do you know when you’re doing it? Part of the key is to know what your crutch words are.

One way to do this is to use Microsoft Word’s Find feature. Try it on one of your manuscripts. If you check the Highlight all items found box, and select Main Document from the pull-down menu, then click Find All, this dialog box will give you a count of the number of times you’ve used the word ‘headed’ in your manuscript. If you’ve used a particular word (headed, back, just, said, turned) more than a couple-dozen times in a novel-length manuscript, my guess would be that at least a few of those instances could be revised away.

But wait, there’s more.

The highlight from this action only lasts until you close the Find dialog box. If you want to highlight these words semi-permanently, use the Replace feature.

First, choose a highlight color. Any color you like.

Then, call the Replace dialog. Fill it out like so: 

The tricky part here is that you’re finding and replacing exactly the same word, but with the cursor in the Replace with text box, you’ll choose Format→Highlight. Then click Replace All. Every instance of the word ‘headed’ will be highlighted with the color you just chose.

Now you can see ’em… all those crutch words… and you can do something about them.

Like what?

With the example of Jefferson, who doesn’t like lobster, we already know what he’s doing, and why. The thing we would like to show here is how. Does Jeff stomp off to the car? Or does he hightail it, or slink surreptitiously, so that his hostess Evelyn won’t catch him, or does he scuttle to the parking lot (thus belaboring a crustacean-themed point)?

Jefferson scurried to his Buick. He had no idea a woman like Evelyn would
serve lobster for breakfast.

The case with Victoria is slightly different. The bit of stage direction, when done well, can tell us a great deal about Victoria’s character, perceptions, attitudes (unlike the attempt I made in the example.) Here, we want to ask why. Why does Victoria turn away? Is she stalling for time, or trying to control her tears, because Clive can’t stand it when a woman cries, or is she simply revulsed by the sight of his double chins and those stupid Edwardian waistcoats he’s taken to wearing?

When we figure out why, the how usually follows. For example, if she’s trying not to cry, she might dip one shoulder lower than the other and hold her breath, or wrap her arm around her middle, or touch her manicured index fingers to the sides of her nose (especially if Clive is the one who paid for that rhinoplasty). If she’s revulsed, she might hold her body tense and her head slightly averted, and she might say the words to a point on the wall beyond Clive’s shoulder instead of looking him in the eyes.

Victoria recognized the futility of trying to converse with Clive before
he'd been served his lunch. Instead, she focused on the mantelpiece behind
him and spoke softly to herself. "I guess we'll just wait, then?"

See if you can turn your crutch words to your story’s advantage!

I went to a business meetup earlier today and had a bit of a drive to get home. Today was the quintessentially perfect California day: unusually clear, cloudless unreal-cerulean skies, temperature right around 68 degrees, and no traffic to speak of on 101, though there certainly should have been.

And I was already in a good mood before that.

So I opened the sun roof and put on the satellite radio to my favorite channel. Brace yourself for my shameful secret. Here it is.

My favorite station is the Broadway channel.

Show tunes. Yes.

I’ll give you a minute to a.) stop laughing and b.) stop shaking your head and c.) stop pitying me.

’Kay. Ready?

Most of the songs, I know them. I can name that tune in, oh, six or seven notes, usually. I also know the stories behind the songs, and who played the lead in the stage version, and why she got screwed out of the part when they made the movie, and who or what was the inspiration for the whole production in the first place. (Gypsy? Funny Girl? I’m looking at you. Real people. Fascinating characters.)

Now the ironical part of loving the Broadway channel is that I. Don’t. Sing.

Not a note. I don’t even hum. I can’t even render something easy like “Happy Birthday” (though I did dress up as Marilyn Monroe for Halloween once, complete with white halter dress and blonde wig). At the ballpark, I won’t even attempt “The Star Spangled Banner”. I just move my lips soundlessly while y’all do it justice.

I like to tell myself I don’t sing because I had so many ear infections when I was a kid that the delicate pieces-parts of my ear were tragically damaged and as a result I’m devastatingly tone-deaf, but the truth (what could the truth hurt now that you know my shameful secret?) is that I have absolutely no musical talent. It can’t even be measured using negative numbers.

So today, in the car, in between charming theater tidbits by the Amazing Seth Rudetsky, they played one of the ones I know by heart, “Roxie”, from the musical Chicago. It was the original voiced by Gwen Verdon, the one with Roxie’s long monologue up front… and when Gwen began to sing the first line, that first, vulnerable love-me-please wavering note…

So. Did. I.

I mean, this never happens. I don’t just burst into song; I’d sooner burst into flames. But there I was, singing out, Louise, horribly, appallingly, embarrassingly badly… but it was fun, and most perfect of all, absolutely no one could hear me but me.

Surely this has nothing to do with editing, I hear you muttering to yourself.

Oh yes it does too.

The act of writing is exactly like me singing in the car. You’re in your space, by yourself, fingers on the keyboard and staring at the monitor and no one can see what’s up on that screen, except for you. Nobody knows how many infinitives you split. Nobody is there to point accusing fingers at your dangling modifiers; nobody cares that your dialogue, comparatively speaking, makes Paris Hilton look like Cicero.

When I hold writing workshops, my first bit of advice is this: Give yourself permission to write crap. Let it be as bad as it needs to be to get your ideas out, or better yet, don’t judge yourself at all as you write that first version.

You’ll have plenty of time to criticize later, right? You have as many tries as you want or need to rewrite, revise, reshape, and yes, remove whatever doesn’t work, and get that manuscript to the place you think it needs to be.

But the work can’t be edited until it’s written. You’ve got to get it down on paper. So forget perfection. There’s no one’s watching; it’s just like singing in the car.