C is for...Clumsy

"Practice, practice, practice writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong." --Jeffrey A. Carver

It's been awhile since I went back to the basics, and started my own version of a writer's ABC's. I started here: A is for Amateur, B for Bathtub. Now, thanks to John Gardner's classic book, The Art of Fiction, I'm back with letter C.

My choice for C? Well, C is for...clumsy. Clumsy as in clumsy writing. Thank you, Mr. Gardner, for helping me see more of my mistakes, and where I still miss the mark in my writing!

"Clumsy writing," Gardner says, "is...(a) common mistake in the work of amateurs, though it shows up even in the work of very good writers...(it) alienates the reader, or at very least makes it hard for him to concentrate on the fictional dream, and undercuts the writer's authority."

Gardner  goes on to identify forms of clumsiness:

1. inappropriate or excessive use of the passive voice
2. inappropriate use of introductory phrases containing infinite verbs ("sentences that begin with such phrases as 'Looking up slowly from her sewing, Martha said...' The introductory infinite-verb phrase chops the action into fits and starts and loses what effectiveness it might have had.")
3. shifts in diction level or the regular use of distracting diction
4. lack of sentence variety
5. lack of sentence focus
6. faulty rhythm
7. accidental rhyme
8. needless explanation
9. careless shifts in psychic distance (meaning "...the distance the reader feels between himself and the events in the story, e.g. 'It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway' When p.d. is great, we look at the scene as if from far away, remote, formal.")

Each of these categories is a study in and of itself, but on this latest read-through of my WIP, I'm concentrating on #s 4 and 6--sentence variety and rhythm.

Of course, there are any number of other "C is for..." words we could consider: character, conflict, crisis, craft, creativity, connection, clarity, criticism, courage, maybe even coffee. Just don't get careless (or clumsy) with coffee at the keyboard!

Is there a category of "clumsiness" in your writing that you've had to concentrate on more than any other?

*photo courtesy of sxc.hu/

John Gardner on Mastering the Art of Fiction

Her daddy is teaching her a new skill and she has just about mastered it. Our two-and-a-half year old granddaughter is learning how to get in and out of her car seat by herself. It's is a skill that needs mastered, and pretty soon, since she will have a new little sibling here in less than a month and her parents will need as many free hands as possible.

I remember when little Angelica mastered the skill of jumping. What a hoot to watch her try. She's learning to sing and dance, too, among other skills she's already mastered--like handling a spoon by herself, turning pages in books, and the big one that continues to amaze me, her ability to learn not just one, not two, but three languages. English and Spanish together are her "first" languages, and her mommy has introduced French as well. Without pause she will say "hi" to me and "hola" to her daddy, rattle off a stream of Spanish to him, and turn right around and talk to me in English. I wish I could switch language gears like that.

Then there's the little six-month old grandson out in California. Baby Nicholas is at the beginning stages of mastering skills. He eats bananas from a spoon that is offered to him, but has yet to master the skill of getting a cracker to his mouth by his own hand. We saw a first-hand example of that via Skype this afternoon!

John Gardner, in his The Art of Fiction, speaks of mastering the art of fiction. He says, "The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs...The writer's business is to make up convincing human beings and create for them basic situations and actions by means of which they come to know themselves and reveal themselves to the reader. For that one needs no schooling. But it's by training--by studying great books and by writing--that one learns to present one's fiction, giving them their due. Through the study of technique...one learns the best, most efficient ways of making characters come alive, learns to know the difference between emotion and sentimentality, learns to discern, in the planning stages, the difference between the better dramatic action and the worse. It is this kind of knowledge...that leads to mastery."

He clinches the thought by adding, "Mastery is not something that strikes in an instant, like a thunderbolt, but a gathering power that moves steadily through time, like weather."

Or, we might add, like a child's gathering power as she or he moves through time. Looked at that way, we might say that writing can be a hoot, too, as we continue to master it.

Any writing skills, or skills of another kind, that you feel like you've gotten a better handle on lately?