WORDING: SHOULD

Many years ago, working in sales, I took a call and a man placed his order and requested the items by a particular date. Me, feeling full of charm and friendliness said, “We should be able to do that for you.”

The customer’s demeanor knotted. “You ‘should’?” He snarled.

In my mistake, still rather jovially, I replied the affirmative.

He did not like that one bit. As uncomfortableness swelled, I finally realized I needed to adjust my word choice and said, “Yes, we will.”

Magically appeased, the order was place and the call was ended. But I have thought a great deal about that exchange in the years since.

Was he being a jerk? Did he just do it to assert dominance?

While, I like to assume the guy was just being a jerk, there’s a chance my upbeat (forced as it may have been) demeanor on the phone may have irked him and led him to place less faith in my turn of phrase.

But it taught me a lot about word choice and how others can perceive my usage differently.

I think the only way I could’ve made him doubt me more in that moment was had I said, “We could be able to do that for you.”

To me, the ‘could’ feels as if there is some unspoken contingent.

Where as in retrospect ‘should’ sounds less committal, though probable. But I swear if you heard my tone, it was confident like when a child already on their best behavior asks you if they can can have some ice cream and you say, “I should be able to make that happen.”

WORDING is an ongoing (but irregular) series of posts I’ll be making about words. I won’t always delve into proper use. depending on the word and what it means to me and potentially others there may be articles about words that trigger me, words I love, words that always look misspelled to me and more.

FREE SHORT STORY: THE WRAP

Dear Potential Reader,

It’s a new year, and if you’re like most people, you held off until the 1st . . .or maybe the 2nd to start your newest exercise routine or other ‘better habits.’ It’s neat that we can trick ourselves into doing something we don’t want to because it’s the start of a new year or a new month. Well, this tale is just a slight reminder of the obstacles in the way of better habits.

Join me, on another tale of the Hatchback Woman as she gifts a homeless man with a meal or two . . . or three, in a story called, THE WRAP.

CLICK HERE TO READ

When I write the Hatchback Woman stories, one thing that surrounds any idea is to make sure it’s different than the one before. Oddly, this story actually started out as a revision on an original tale of the Lady from the initial 9 stories I wrote, but was never published (though the character turned up elsewhere). I revisited the entry point of this tale (at a traffic light) hoping to go somewhere else with the tale, and it does. One might even say there’s two tales for the price of one in THE WRAP, and maybe there’s more to be told.

While you are thinking about a new and better you for the new and (hopefully) better year, I hope you will enjoy the following tale . . .

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: FIND YOUR OVERUSED WORDS

We all use the same words over and over again. Same phrases too.

But it’s often hard to notice it unless someone else points it out. But if you’re weary of repetition there’s a couple of steps you can take.

If it’s a short story, it’s rather easy. I’ll run through the steps, but afterwards I’ll include tips for preparing a larger document, say a novel . . .

I use Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

  1. Create a copy of your story (or just don’t save changes after you do the next step).
  2. In Microsoft Word, Use the ‘REPLACE’ feature
  3. In the FIND type a single space
  4. In the REPLACE type ^P. This will turn every ‘space’ into a new paragraph.
  5. Hit replace all. Now every single word you wrote is on a separate line.
  6. Select All and Copy (control-A then control-C)
  7. Open Microsoft Excel, select a cell, and paste (control-V) You will now see every single word vertically in their own cell on the spread sheet.
  8. Sort the date Alphabetically. Do this by using the Sort feature after selectin the entire column.
  9. Now scroll down, you will see long stretches of those words you repeat too dang much!

TIP #1– You can also fill the second column with the #1, to make tallying words easier, with an advanced sort. But trusting my eyes is usually enough for me.

TIP #2– For longer documents ESPECIALLY, use the find and replace to delete words you KNOW are going to be used and can’t help but be used. FOR EXAMPLE: a, the, an, of, is, are, he, she, they, I, me, you, your, not, was, were, that, ‘Character or location Names’, etc.

TIP#3- Almost forgot, oops. Punctuation should be eliminated first. So find and replace all punctation and replace it with a tap of your space bar.

TIP#4- Remember, just because you use a word a lot, doesn’t mean it is wrong. Repetition can be done right and can trigger a rhythm in the reader, but for all other words, break out that THESAURUS!

TIP#5- A small sample size is fine. Choosing one chapter or one short story is going to benefit you as much as running every story and every word of your novel through this scenario. Words that we repeat that are problematic will show up, and once you learn which words you overuse, you just have to remember to avoid them (or replace later).

TIP#6- Keep a list of those overused words to FIND and REPLACE during your next edit.

Want more writing tips? Come back every LAST WEDNESDAY of every MONTH . . .

FREE SHORT STORY: THAT WHICH ENCOMPASSES ALL

Dear Potential Reader, 

Welcome to the start of winter, here’s a tale set in a snowstorm when a pair of contractors have an accident on the side of a mountain. It’s called THAT WHICH ENCOMPASSES ALL, and get yourself somewhere warm.

CLICK HERE TO READ   

The title is one of those long unspecific things, and to be honest, I probably need a better title for this short story. But I’ve always liked titles that have ‘THAT, THOSE, THEY, and a bunch of other words around it. Too often titles like PREY or SNOWFALL get used and they don’t really separate this PREY or this SNOWFALL from any other story, film or song titled the same thing. I get that it makes marketing easier, but I also miss those old movie posters with titles like FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN or THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US.

So, I apologize for the unmarketable title, and will admit, it’s not apt. But it’s the title I saved the file under when I wrote it and I’ve referred to the story by that name enough times it would confuse the heck out of me to call it something else.

Hope you enjoy.   

All the best,   

DAN JIRE   

WRITING TIPS: LEARN TO BE CRITIQUED

One of the hardest things in life is taking advice.

There are many reasons we don’t want to take advice. The most common is:

THEY ARE WRONG.

Also commonly phrased as:

THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT

But even if you feel that way about advice given, especially if you asked for the advice from a peer or reader, you should look at why that advice is being given.

The why will help you understand whether or not that advice is worth taking.

When I first started writing scripts for short films, I’d exchange them with actors. I’ll never forget the one that was returned to me laden with curse words. Every line of dialogue had at least one. Sometimes multiple, with barely a word between them.

–-Not that curse words don’t have their proper place and time–

I threw out all that person’s changes. How could they be right about anything if their answer was to add the ‘f’-word to everything.

Later on, I learned the actor was a huge fan of Tarantino films, and it suddenly clicked. It wasn’t the f-word they wanted, it was the edge and wit. They just didn’t know how to do that because they were not a writer.

When you know where someone is coming from you can view their remarks through the proper lens.

It’s taken me a long time, but from my pool of early readers, I believe I know where everyone is coming from. And when I ask for a critique, I generally get back what I expected. I know what they’ll pick at–and when they don’t it means I did something right.

Of my 3 main early readers, I’ll sometimes send one a story first because I know they’ll help me get it to where the next reader will have less problems, or I’ll send it to the one that I think will tear it apart last–that way I don’t get entirely discouraged.

The thing with advice from others is that it can be a great tool to gauge your confidence. If you understand why they are saying something, maybe it reveals something you left out, maybe you didn’t ‘earn’ a moment in the story.

There is always some form of disconnect from what’s in your mind and what you wrote. People will react differently to lines. Trust their reaction.

Always think about who your reader is.

Interested in my thoughts on writing, well there’s more from the past months, but look for new WRITING TIPS every LAST WEDNESDAY of EVERY MONTH.