Writer’s Diarrhea – and 6 Ways to Cure It
Issue #2024
- WEALTHY: How to climb back on top (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: One exam that could be wasting your time, money, and health (Jon Herring)
- WISE: Mark Twain on being succinct
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Imodium for writers? You may need it too (Steenie Harvey)
- Put a pretentious superior in her place (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… the difference between crocodiles and alligators
- Add "midden" to your vocabulary
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- Patrick Coffey
Dealing With Losing Streaks
By Rick Pendergraft
Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski – two of the "winningest" coaches in college basketball – had losing streaks this year that were among the worst of their careers. Knight has had more wins than any other coach in history, but his Texas Tech team went through a five-game losing streak before beating Texas A&M. And Krzyzewski’s Duke team lost four straight games before beating Boston College.
Both coaches are in the Basketball Hall of Fame… which goes to show you that no one is above encountering an occasional setback. But it’s the way you deal with it – no matter what kind of business you’re in – that will determine your future success.
I may not be in the Trading Hall of Fame (at least, not yet), but I’ve had one or two losing streaks myself. How did I rise above it? The same way Knight and Krzyzewski did: by getting back to basics.
When you make a series of losing trades, you have to figure out why they happened. If you don’t understand it and try to make another trade, odds are that one won’t work out either… and you’ll be on your way to a major losing streak. That means getting back to basics.
Here’s one example of what I mean by "getting back to basics." Instead of continuing to struggle with a detailed analysis of a chart that isn’t making sense to me, I step back and look at the big picture. Literally. I step back at least 10 feet from the computer screen. If I can see a trend from that distance, I know it’s real.
[Ed. Note: Find out how Rick Pendergraft can help you make money - no matter what the market's doing - as the editor of ETR's new investment service, the ETF Options Trader.]
"Anybody can have ideas – the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."
Mark Twain
Writer’s Diarrhea – and 6 Ways to Cure It
By Steenie Harvey
Sometimes the problem is the opposite of writer’s block. When faced with a 2,500-word assignment, I’m powerless to prevent at least 5,000 words from cascading forth. If my computer were a toilet bowl, I’d undoubtedly need to call a plumber.
Writer’s diarrhea? At times, it’s more like dysentery.
Some writers spend as much time cutting as writing – and I’m one of them. To turn the torrent of words into something of acceptable length, I have to do some serious self-editing.
I suggest you do the same.
When writing a travel story, a sales letter, or a report, there’s nothing wrong with voiding your literary bowels and creating a wordsmith’s midden – at least not initially. But every writer needs to revise and rewrite.
So slash all irrelevant paragraphs. Take a scalpel to the overblown phrases and clunking sentences. Axe those useless adjectives and adverbs. When you use the writer’s equivalent of Imodium to tighten the word flow, your piece becomes much better.
Here are six lessons I’ve learned:
1. Focus on what you’re writing about, and get to the point immediately.
How do you know what’s irrelevant? Well, let’s say you’re writing a restaurant review. Your hungry readers want to know about the food and service – so don’t make them wade through endless paragraphs about anything else.
2. Fix clumsy and overlong sentences.
Take this sample: "If you want to contact the friendly folks in the Lakeland tourist office, which is to be found on Main Street, they will be able to arrange for you to hire a bike, and they are also happy to provide you with free maps of the area."
Ugh! Far better to say: "Hire a bike through the Lakeland tourist office on Main Street. They’ll also give you free maps."
3. Read it out loud.
That’s another cure for muddled sentences and excess verbosity. If it doesn’t sound like you sound when you speak, you need to write in a more natural voice, as if you’re the reader’s friend. If you gasp for breath midway through a sentence… it’s too long.
One idea per sentence is enough. Dice your thoughts into manageable morsels. Hiring a bike goes in one sentence. Picking up free maps goes in another. You don’t have to write like Hemingway, but shorter sentences often have more impact.
4. Cut cliches. They add nothing.
"Piping hot coffee," for example, is a ludicrous term. What does "piping hot" mean? And why do many writers feel obliged to couple it with coffee or soup? Does the liquid pour out of a pipe in the wall? Is it served in the bowl of a Meerschaum pipe? Are Scotsmen playing bagpipes in the distance?
Keep it simple. Never use three or four words where one will do. Which brings me to adjectives and adverbs…
5. Avoid adjective overdose.
Adjectives are fine in moderation, but too many detract from your writing.
Consider how many words you could cut from this sentence to make the description more enticing: "Bright, golden sunbeams play across the lovely, sparkling, fish-laden, sapphire-blue sea."
6. Go easy on adverbs by making use of "power verbs."
Look for where you’ve linked a verb and an adverb. Then decide if it would be better to replace those two words with a single and more descriptive verb. For instance, instead of "moved quickly," you might use a power verb like "raced," "ran," "dashed," or even "torpedoed."
Look at this example: "In order to get away from the police, the hooligans moved quickly through the market without caring about the chaos they were causing."
Now, you could simply trim the fat off this sentence by changing "were causing" to "caused," chopping out surplus words like "in order," and changing "get away from" to "escape." But it would be even better to add energy and precision to it with power verbs. Something like this: "The hooligans raced through the market, barging into shoppers and overturning fruit stalls. The slow-footed policemen made no arrests."
See what I mean?
[Ed Note: Learn how to earn extra income while you travel the world as a travel writer or photographer. Just sign up for The Right Way to Travel , a FREE e-letter from AWAI Travel.]
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Dear Michael Masterson: "My dilemma is whether I should stay in college."
"Between my 1st and 2nd semesters of college, I started working on AWAI’s copywriting program. I’m now halfway through my 2nd semester, and I’ve become more and more convinced that freelance copywriting is what I would like to do as a profession.
"I’ve always been a hard worker, but I’m in an uncomfortable situation in one of my classes. Not that my teacher is grading me unfairly, but because of the way she’s teaching the class. She is only showing one side of the issues she’s bringing up, and I feel that she’s smothering my ideas.
"I could take this and listen to her say things that I know are not true. (We’re discussing the Middle East now. I come from there and I know she’s telling outright lies.) But what really bugs me is how I’m the one who is made out to be illegitimate. If I come out and tell her she’s incorrect in class, she counters with a point that I never heard of before (and was probably a myth) and it silences my argument. I’ve done research on some of the things she says, and she either is only telling half of a story or is making up facts.
"Now my dilemma is whether I should stay in college. I’m ready to sit down full-time and sharpen my copywriting skills and start working. I don’t like feeling that some of my professors are biased in their views and will not let the other side be heard. I don’t think I should have to sit through that in order to get a degree.
"Any ideas? (And thanks for all of your great information and advice!)"
- Taylor Clark
Baltimore, MD
Dear Taylor,
First of all, don’t drop out of college. When I was in college, I worked two jobs (one full-time, one part-time) while taking an average of 18 credits per semester. And I graduated from Queens College (a pretty tough school at the time) with a 3.83 average. If I can do that, you can certainly finish college while you are making a hundred grand a year on the side as a copywriter.
As for the situation with your English teacher, I feel for you. American universities (all universities, I’m sure) are brimming with pompous, opinionated windbags who use their authority to bully their students into intellectual compliance. Instead of teaching independent thinking, universities – for the most part – teach a sort of post-communist communism mixed with every trendy, politically correct notion that comes down the academic pike.
I had an experience about 15 years ago as an adult student. My writing teacher was a balding, overweight, middle-aged writer of well-wrought but sometimes dull novels that never earned him the adulation he felt he deserved. As a consequence, he did what so many pompous windbags do: He turned his class into a one-man show about him and his ideas.
I was too old to put up with that, so I would defy him (in a gentle way). At one point, he got so frustrated that he actually asked me if I wanted to "step outside."
I must say, that was the first thing he did that I liked. He had the balls to challenge me to a fight. I was tempted to do it – to kick the crap out of him in front of his adoring students. But I simply walked up to him and whispered in his ear, "You don’t want to do that." Needless to say, he backed off.
What I recommend is that instead of stating your opinions, you express them in the form of questions. In other words, instead of standing up and saying, "I don’t agree. I believe…" say, "Mrs. Soandso, you say… and yet I have read that… . Can you explain the difference?"
Putting it this way will be better for both of you. She won’t feel like she has to shoot you down, and that may allow her to ease up a bit and give you a better answer. And you won’t feel embarrassed by her when she disagrees with you… because all you were doing was asking her a question.
Each time she asks you a question, thank her and say something like, "You are clearly an expert in this field. I am glad I am in your class."
Of course, you won’t mean it – and she will know you didn’t mean it. But if you say it in a flattering way, it will make you look good to the audience. (And, let’s be honest, this is a contest in front of an audience.) And if she is at all off base in her answer, it will make her look bad.
The more you ask such questions, the more irritated she will get. She will eventually come to an emotional crossroad: Either she’ll start treating you as an intellectual equal, or she will have to call you outside for a fight. Either way, you win.
(And, by the way, the negotiating skills you’ll learn by dealing with your teacher this way will help you deal with pain-in-the-rear copywriting clients in the future.)
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: Have a question for Michael Masterson? Write to him at AskMichael@ETRfeedback.com.]
Mammograms: All Risk, No Benefit
By Jon Herring
Breast cancer is a leading cause of death among women. And according to the medical establishment, one of the best defenses against this killer is early detection by way of mammograms. There’s just one small problem. Mammograms don’t work. What’s worse, by exposing the highly sensitive breast tissue to radiation year after year, mammograms could actually CAUSE breast cancer.
I covered this topic in ETR #1628. And a fair amount of the feedback I received from readers suggested it was irresponsible to advise women to avoid mammograms. But according to a study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, I was on the right track. After looking at more than 429,000 mammogram results, the researchers concluded that a trained doctor is better at detecting breast cancer.
The researchers found that there was a significant increase in false positives after mammography was introduced. These false positives not only cause unnecessary worry, they lead to additional scans and pointless biopsies, adding $550 million to the annual cost of breast cancer screening. The researchers went on to say that mammography is "of uncertain clinical benefit."
With that, I’ll leave you the same advice I gave a year ago:
"The National Cancer Institute has been campaigning for women to get a mammogram every year, starting at age 40. But given their questionable benefit and proven risks, I would advise against it. Instead, consider a monthly breast self-examination (BSE), and see a trained health professional every year for a clinical breast examination (CBE)."
It’s Fun to Know: the Difference Between Crocodiles and Alligators
If you spot one of these large reptiles, look at the shape of its snout. If it’s tapered and V-shaped, you’re looking at a crocodile; if it’s wide and U-shaped, you’re looking at an alligator.
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- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Midden
A "midden" (MID’n) is a heap of dung or refuse.
Example (as used by Steenie Harvey today): "When writing a travel story, a sales letter, or a report, there’s nothing wrong with voiding your literary bowels and creating a wordsmith’s midden – at least not initially. But every writer needs to revise and rewrite."
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Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
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