INSTALLMENT #5

by Deb Staples, Publisher

1)      THAT vs WHICH

Per request, I’m going to cover the dilemma most of us have of choosing between “that” and “which.”  It seems that these two words have begun to be interchangeable, when they most definitely are not supposed to be.

Basically, the word "that" is used in a restrictive clause and the word "which" is used in a non-restrictive clause.

To put it in layman’s terms, use “that” to define a specific thing being referred to.

For instance, you can say either:

the house that was hideous or that hideous house. 

When you use “which,” anything that follows is extra and not essential to the meaning of the sentence. 

For example: 

She entered that hideous house, which was not what he expected her to do.

Please note that you ALWAYS use a comma before “which” but not before “that,” since anything that follows after “that” is essential to the sentence. 

2)      RESTATING THE OBVIOUS

One pet peeve I’ve always had when I’m reading is redundancy in dialogue.  By this, I mean when the author doesn’t feel confident enough that his/her dialogue is telling us enough, so he/she tells us twice.

Example: 
“What kind was that?” Sam was curious.

The nature of the question tells us that Sam was curious.  So wipe out that last sentence entirely.  The exception would be if there was a REASON for us to told again that Sam was curious.  For instance, maybe Sam isn’t usually curious, so it’s worth telling your reader how amazing it is that Sam was finally curious about something.

Another classic example:

“I agree,” he added agreeably. 

For what should be obvious reasons, this is not really considered good writing. 

As a general rule, let your dialogue do the talking (pun intended).  Remember the repeat rules (in installment #3); but more than that, it’s important that you don’t assume that your reader can’t understand the emotion within the dialogue.  If you do it right, your dialogue can tell you everything you need to know about your characters’ emotions. 

For examples:

“Get out of my house!”  (anger)

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” (fear, surprise)

And remember, you can always use action outside of the dialogue to tell your reader even more:

Using the examples above:

“Get out of my house!” Greta slammed the door after him hard enough for the walls to shake. (anger)

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” Sheila pulled the towel tighter around her body, trying to hide her trembling hands. She couldn’t imagine how he found her.  (fear, surprise)

3)      DASHES, PARANTHESIS, COMMAS, oh my!

I can’t count how many times I’ve come to a sentence that incorporates dashes, along with parenthesis and a ton of commas to boot.   To me, if I look at a sentence – or even a group of sentences – quickly, and see that it has all of these within it, it looks haphazard and messy.  If possible, try using more than once sentence to incorporate everything you have to say.  Or at the very least, rearrange how the sentence is written so that it doesn’t look so haphazard on the page.  And try to restrict using all three of the above.

Here’s an example of a haphazard sentence:

The monk (if pushed) can make that deadline.  DAMN IT!”  He slammed his fist down on his desk, “he has spent the better half of his life devoted to the Rings!  Forty … Eight … Hours… Doctor!” 

This is how you can easily fix this:

The monk believed he could make that deadline, if he was pushed.  Damn it! He slammed his fist on his desk.  “I have spent the better half of my life devoted to the rings! Forty-eight hours, doctor!”

Try reading your work out loud exactly how it’s written.  Don’t interpret it the way you want it to sound or you won’t see that on the page what you’ve written looks awkward and is therefore hard for your reader to read as well. 

4)      I “SAID” ACTION!

A little more needs to be said regarding dialogue.  This follows with Stating the Obvious in number 2 above.  Basically, as a writer, you should always choose SHOWING over telling. 

Here’s an example of grammatically correct dialogue that just tells:

“Mom, how much longer?” Sally asked.

“Not much longer, hon?  Try resting for a bit,” her mother replied.

“But mom, I don’t want to go there!” Sally whined.

“Hush, Sally!  Not another word,” her mother said.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with this dialogue.  But it only told us what was said; it didn’t SHOW us much.

Try it again here:

“Mom, how much longer?” Sally whispered from the back seat of car, hoping not to wake her father.

“Not much longer, hon?” Sally’s mother sniffed softly and turned her head so her daughter couldn’t see the tears that threatened to fall once again.  “Try resting for a bit.”

Sally gripped her teddy bear tightly. “But mom, I don’t want to go there!”  She had never seen a dead person before.

“Hush, Sally! Not another word.”  Sally gulped when she saw her mother’s tears start to fall again.  Now she’d done it.

5)      ITALICS vs UNDERLINING

One of my personal pet peeves is when someone uses underlining instead of italics.  When I was in high school, I do remember that we used underlining a lot more often, but today it seems to be frowned upon more often than not.  Italics are used for the titles of books, manuscripts, periodicals, and titles of stories or songs.  Though it is not technically wrong to use underlining for these things, for digital books I highly recommend italics for everything except for emphasis.  Some people tend to use all caps for emphasis (more on this in another installment), but when you have to choose, underlining is much preferred.   

But no matter what, do not use BOTH underlining and italics for the same word or phrase.  It looks messy and it’s very unprofessional.

Look for installment #6 soon:

Capitalization

Passive vs Active Voice

and more