Why Independent Journalism is Fundamental to A Democratic Society

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A Writer's Toolbox

By Louisa C. 

It’s pretty safe to say that Stephen King, renowned American author of a plethora of best-selling suspense novels, knows a thing or two about writing. That being said, I decided to read his memoir, On Writing, in the hopes of learning some of King’s tricks of the trade that I could incorporate into my own pieces. Luckily, this task was made abundantly simple for me, as King dedicates an entire section of the book to what he calls the writing “toolbox”, or his personal collection of rules that guide him on every one of his writing endeavors. 

According to King, these “tools” are extremely important for a writer to develop for their own use when crafting a literary piece, as they provide a consistent, solid base upon which one’s work can always begin. These handy mechanisms can be anything from simple grammar reminders to complex sentence structures and are unique to every author’s individual style and voice. To illustrate what this “toolbox” should look like, I’ll give you a second-hand peek at the contents inside a few drawers of King’s own. From the many examples of “tools” provided, I selected five that are especially compelling and important and elaborated on what they really mean to King when applied to his writing.

Rule #1- Do not consciously attempt to “dress up” the vocabulary featured in your writing: In my opinion, this rule is just another way of suggesting that one should throw away his or her thesaurus. What King is trying to convey is that upon a reexamining of your writing, you should never attempt to change a word you previously selected just for the sake of finding a longer or more impressive term to replace it. Though it may seem like an intelligent choice at the moment, altering your naturally chosen vocabulary will completely interrupt the flow of the work.  In doing this, the piece of writing is no longer your own craft, but also the work of a co-author known as Merriam-Webster.

Rule #2- Every time you go to write a sentence, it does not always have to be complete: Bang! Crash! Splash! These common onomatopoeia terms provide just a few examples of an instance when the creation of a complete sentence is not always necessary. In this rule, King is actually suggesting it is okay for a writer to break the age-old statute: in its true form, a sentence must consist of a noun, verb, and complete thought. In his opinion, if a specific stylistic effect can only be achieved through the use of fragments or incomplete clauses, it is acceptable to leave your sentences hanging. Boom. Stephen King has spoken.

Rule #3- Taking any noun and placing it with any verb will form a complete sentence: As stated in the explanation of the second rule, the true form of a sentence must include a noun, verb, and complete thought. That being said, no matter how abstract the thought may be, according to King and every English professor that has ever lived, adding any verb to a noun will constitute a complete sentence. Grapefruits sing. Rocks rejoice. Pigs fly. Rationally, these sentences may not make sense, but all is fair in the game of grammar.

Rule #4- You should avoid using the passive tense: In describing this personal pet peeve of his, King explains how the use of the more “safe” passive tense makes timid writers feel their work has gained some sort of authority. This, however, is not the case. In order for a writer to achieve success, they must rid their work of this weak and torturous practice. Timmy will be pelted with rocks by the children on the playground. Not only does Timmy need to gain some strength, but so does this pitiful passive sentence. Timmy throws rocks back at the children on the playground. Now that’s more like it.

Rule #5- The best form of dialogue attribution to use is “said”: This practice may actually feel wrong because of the familiar and safe feelings it evokes, much like using the passive tense, but according to King, it is the proper way to address characters who have spoken. While adding intense detail and imagery to your writing is a very positive practice, using dialogue attribution as your channel for doing so is not the best choice. Simply stated, using the word “said” should be your go-to when attributing dialogue. “If you want to see this put stringently into practice, I urge you to read or reread a novel by Larry McMurtry,” King said.

After taking a look inside Stephen King’s toolbox, I began to wonder what types of rules would be stored in mine. The following five tools I created are comprised of guidelines I have been taught in school, tips I have stumbled upon myself, and lessons that I have had to learn the hard way.

Rule #1- Use exclamation points sparingly and only when truly needed: The first time I cried in school was the fourth grade. Upon recovering an essay back from my teacher, I was horrified to have discovered a big red sixty percent circled at the top of the page. Through teary eyes, I was able to read the single note scrawled next to the unsatisfactory grade: “Too many exclamation points-- no research paper is that exciting.” Though it may seem cruel to dock a nine year old forty whole points on a paper about the history of dogs because of exclamation point overuse, Ms. Robinson’s note has surely stuck with me when crafting any piece of writing ever since.

Rule #2- Use italics, underlines, or quotes to distinguish certain words within a piece of writing, but never use more than one of these features at once: These three forms of editing have the same effect, so using any combination of them is unnecessary. Additionally, there are guidelines for the specific situations when these certain features should be utilized, such as the rule that states chapter titles should be put in quotation marks. Especially for academic works, the importance of this rule truly cannot be “stressed ” enough.

Rule #3- If writing on a computer, do so on one that is disconnected from the internet: This tip comes straight from the mouth of an amateur procrastinator. If you ever expect to make a good amount of progress on your work, I would recommend cutting yourself off from the worldwide web. Succumbing to the temptation of the Internet Explorer icon on the bottom of the computer screen is a lot easier than even the most disciplined writer believes. If you expect to get any sleep the night before an unfinished piece of writing is due, your best bet is to either stick to pen and paper or unplug your Internet router.

Rule #4- Never rely on built-in spell or grammar checks to catch all of your mistakes: This tip is another one I have had to learn the hard way. After landing the most difficult English teacher in the seventh grade, I learned the practice of rereading every work of writing at least three times before turning it in. Mr. Brown would deduct a whopping five points for every spelling or grammar mistake made, so after receiving subpar grades on my first few papers of the school year, I quickly learned that the autocorrect supplied by Microsoft Word could not be trusted. If you want to receive a grade that rewards all your hard work, one must utilize the old-fashioned grammar and spell checker known as your own two eyes.  

Rule #5- When making a list, use the Oxford comma: This rule may be one of the most controversial topics among grammar geeks. Many consider placing the additional comma before the word “and” at the end of a list an incorrect stylistic guideline. However, to a vast amount of prestigious organizations, such as the Oxford University Press, and in my own opinion, the use of this comma is the only correct way to format a list.

In summary, creating a special “toolbox” when writing can help anyone, from a budding author to a Pulitzer Prize winner, craft a compelling piece of work that presents their unique voice and stays true to their respective style. If you’re looking to take a shot at designing your own now, feel free to use the rules above as some inspiration. So, that being said, there’s only one question left to explore: what can be found in your toolbox?

Do's and Don'ts of Communication

3 Stages to Improve Your Writing

By Joshua B.

Everyone writes at a different level, and no two pieces of writing are exactly alike. Things like word choice, use of punctuation, and paragraph structure can play off each other to create a unique writing style, and hopefully get people engaged in what you’ve chosen to write. Let’s take a look at how to build a respectable style, and write not just effectively, but with confidence and even (hopefully) a degree of elegance. This article identifies three stages of writing, each one building from the one before it.

So without any further introduction, here is the first step—

1) Learn the rules.

No, seriously. I mean it- with as much emphasis as I can pack into this font: Learn the rules!

How can you properly employ any tool without understanding how it works? Writing without understanding the language is like stumbling over a chainsaw, gassing it up and wandering off to go cut a tree. How are you supposed to know what to do? You’re just as likely to hurt yourself as you are to trim something down properly . . . and in this case, what’s at stake aren’t limbs, arboreal or otherwise, but the grade on your English paper.

That said, not many people these days can be blamed for not having great grammar. Public schools, as well as plenty of private schools, are dropping basic grammar training in favor of jumping directly into writing THE FIVE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY: in other words, how to build an argument, create an outline for the argument, support the argument points, and conclude the essay.

First of all, this probably stifles creativity, but I can hardly blame the system for not wanting people to think for themselves, so it gets a pass. But there’s another huge flaw here, and it’s this. Would we teach kids advanced Calculus before they could add or subtract? Should engineers be building bridges without knowing whether or not they’re going to collapse?

If those examples seem extreme, they are, but at the same time, they aren’t. This is exactly what we’re doing to the English language. We’re ignoring the basics; teaching each other how to build bridges without first understanding how bridges work.

Dangerous? Of course! But there is an upside, and it’s that very few people who write poorly are actually at fault for it. All most people need to do is be taught, and then practice what they’ve learned.

For that, there’s one book that I can recommend (and by “I”, I mean English professors across the world, not to mention Stephen King (On Writing, p.11)): The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. It’s a slim book, but it contains just about everything you’ll ever need to know about punctuation, sentence structure, frequently confused words, and much more.

Understanding the rules of the language is the first step- the cornerstone of good writing. To build from there, we move up to step two.

2) Focus on the purpose of your writing.

“Practice makes perfect” is true with most things—but in writing, it’s more like, “Practice makes as good as how you write about a certain situation.” That’s because writing is so subjective. If I enjoy this book more than, say, this one, this one, or even this one, then who is anyone else to say that the first book isn’t just as great as the other three?

Well . . . maybe everybody else on the planet.

See, writing isn’t like other areas of study. Take math, for instance. For the most part, math is a self-contained science; numbers speak exclusively of other numbers, and one calculation leads to another—it’s all very logical and closed-off.

Writing, on the other hand, almost always has an outside purpose. A news article isn’t written just to be written; it’s written to inform. An editorial is written to persuade, and a novel or short story either to entertain or to make some general point about the state of the human condition (or some such idealistic nonsense). So if no one else liked that first book, then the majority opinion is that it’s pretty much an awful book.

The point is that writing is directed at people. So if I can’t write a persuasive essay without actually persuading anybody, then it’s not a persuasive essay—It’s worthless, it’s sad, and it’s really no better than a pile of toilet paper. And if my short story can’t entertain people (or convince them to send money to starving children in some third-world country, or whatever), then it’s not really a short story. It’s just a bunch of words on a page that doesn't mean anything on their own.

So if you want your writing to do what writing exists to do—affect people—then there are three things you should focus on.

1. Sound intelligent, in general. This goes back to the first step. Take this style of writing for example:

“If i use a semicolon; when i could use a comma, or just nothing at all—if u dont use punctuation or spel words write—no one wil lissen to us.”

Ack! Not only will this kind of writing make people doubt your credibility, but also it is physically painful to read. Spellcheck is a great invention, and there’s no reason not to take advantage of it. If you aren’t sure about a word, use a dictionary to find out if it means what you think it means, or just use a different word. The beauty of the English language is that every word has about a thousand synonyms, so there’s always something else you could use that means about the same thing. And finally, proofread. Nothing looks worse than a typo in the first sentence of an essay.

2. Sound intelligent, specifically. You should always know what you’re talking about. For a history paper, this means doing research. It means that, if you’re writing a short story, you should know your characters better than they know themselves, and convince the reader that you have some brilliant plan for where the story is going (even if you don’t). And always, always, always write with confidence. If you sound like you know what you’re talking about, you’ll be a lot more convincing—even if you don’t know anything at all. Confidence is no substitute for hard knowledge, but it’s a lot better at making people listen to you.

3. Read. Read whenever you can. Pick whichever news site fits your political biases, and read that in the morning. Find a novel that can hold your attention. It doesn’t have to be high-browed “literature”; YA fantasy novels can be just as well written and entertaining as anything else, and even Twilight can help you strengthen your grasp of language and grammar. (Wow. Okay—if my typing fingers had mouths, I would be washing them out with soap.) But reading, seeing the words on the page, and paying attention to what rules come into play and when is the best way to improve writing. Even Twilight.

3) Craft a style, and stay consistent.

An essay can be good, or it can be great. It’s mostly up to the reader, but there are ways the writer can help the reader along. The chief among these is style.

Have a voice! Don’t just be a dry, boring collection of words on a page. It doesn’t matter if you have the cure to cancer, or if you know the answer to the meaning of life—No one will bother reading it, or being moved by it, if it’s written in a boring way.

Compare these two passages. Each one starts the same short story. Think about which one sounds better, which one is more interesting, and which one would make you want to keep reading.

I went into the doctor’s office to get an MRI. I hate MRIs because I have claustrophobia because when I was a little kid something bad happened which I will talk about later. They thought I might have cancer, so I was really scared. And I knew I had to do the MRI but I still didn’t want to.

Or:

In the end, it turned out I didn’t have cancer. It was a genetic condition, easily controlled through medication, and not even that dangerous—not by cancer standards, anyway. Back then, however, we didn’t know that, so I was on thin ice mentally even before the MRI. All week was a kind of nervous high-wire walk; I was eager to get the test done and over with, yet dreading what it might spell out for my future.

I shouldn’t have worried so much. They fixed me right up.

Writing may be subjective, but I think (and hopefully you do too) that that second passage was MUCH more interesting than the first. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but it’s also not terrible.

Why is it so much better? It has a voice. It uses some metaphors, provides conflict, and is more linguistically tense than the first passage. It doesn’t use more words than it needs to, and it sounds a lot better when you read it aloud.

Ultimately, style is about how good the words sound when you read them aloud.

That’s all.

Superficial? Yes.

Necessary? Absolutely.

For the most part, style is a one-two punch, made up of sentence-and-paragraph structure and punctuation. The most basic rule of making things sound good is this: shake it up. Vary the length of sentences. Have a long sentence, with two or three commas and an em-dash—at the right place, of course, otherwise it will look strange—and then follow it up with a shorter sentence. This gives the reader a break. Then maybe experiment with punctuation; a semicolon can unite two sentences that are about the same length, and adds some flair and a dash of sophistication.

Those are the very basic points of style. There’s a lot more, most of it covered in books like The Elements of Style, but you can only go so far by reading about something. Do it for yourself—write stuff! If that’s all you walk away with from this article, then that’s fine with me—write stuff. Your grade will thank you, and you’ll sound a heck of a lot smarter on your college admittance essays. Let yourself build an understanding of the language, pay attention when you read, and pretty soon you’ll be cranking out great, compelling essays as easily as you fall asleep at night.

With coffee.

Maybe.