Horrfied to Discover Verbal Dirt Sprinkled Through My Book

Consider the following sentence from my technical book:

There will be cases where we want to exert more control than these simple calls will allow.

Ignoring the context of this sentence, I've come to realize that it contains a terrible plague that has infiltrated all my writing. I have a weird aversion to writing in the present tense. This shows up most frequently in the use of the word will.

I have will sprinkled through my book like dust. It serves no useful purpose. It just sits in sentences and makes the gears grind. Here is the fixed version of the sample sentence:

There are cases where we want to exert more control than these simple calls allow.

This is much clearer than the first sentence. The two uses of the word will served no purpose. The sentence meant the same thing either way.

I wonder if this comes from writing fiction. We rarely use the present tense in fiction.

That Charles Dickens Guy Can Write!

I've just finished reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, in what I hope will be an annual tradition for me. And, ironic as it sounds, I have to say that the guy can really write.

Of course this seems like an odd thing to say about an acknowledged master of the English literary tradition, but I find that I enjoy reading very few of these so-called masters. Most classics are pedantic, or slow, or reflect more of the author's need to talk than of actual story telling.

There are those who argue that today's story telling is different, that we, in our Sesame Street induced, short-attention span culture simply cannot sit back and enjoy the lengthy prose of our talebearers.

Baloney.

Great storytelling hasn't changed since Homer finished the Iliad, and Dickens's story captures all the essential elements of great story telling.

First, there is the opening sentence:

Marley was dead, to begin with.

That is a great opening. There is conflict built right into it along with curiosity. Who is Marley? How did he die? Why does this fact start the story? All these thoughts drag the reader right into the story.

We then learn, in the same paragraph, that we're going to get an odd point of view. The story will be told in the first person of the storyteller, but the storyteller is not in the story. Instead, the storyteller will follow Scrooge. We see this form of storytelling in the next part of the opening paragraph in once of my favorite descriptions in English literature:

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Now you know that your in for a fun ride with a storyteller who doesn't take himself too seriously.

Dickens shows a fantastic sense of pacing in the rest of the story. First, he jumps quickly into the arrival of the Ghosts. He only uses one or two scenes to establish that Scrooge is a, well, scrooge. He shows us the cold clerk Bob Cratchet, the Nephew, and the men asking for charity, and that's it. He finishes his description of Scrooge going up a dark staircase to his room. This is another one of my favorite descriptive lines:

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

After that, Marley's ghost arrives (having already been in the door knocker) and we are off to the races.

The Ghosts of Past and Present provide descriptions of parties that still inspire a sense of celebration and merriment. Though I'm of Spanish/Italian descent, these English parties bring back memories of my own Christmas Eves and parties today:

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

And again, another party description in the Ghost of Christmas Present, this one at Scrooge's nephew's house with an especially funny story about Scrooge's nephew's friend Topper making a play for a plump young woman:

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.

I have an inkling about who "another blind man" is in the last sentence. But perhaps I have a dirty mind.

By the time we get to the Ghost of Christmas Future the story is rolling and Dickens doesn't belabor the point. The Ghost is showing Scrooge the reactions to the death of an old miser and the reader obviously knows the dead guy is Scrooge (there are no other characters and its too late to add new ones.) But the conflict is in us waiting for Scrooge to wake up and see it for himself.

When Scrooge does have is final epiphany Dickens demonstrates one last bit of mastery. The end of the story is mercifully short. I've seen so many books that spend far to much time on the denouement, as if the author can't bear to stop writing. Scrooge does the following:

• Buy's Bob Cratchet a turkey
• Asks to be invited to his Nephew's party (with Topper, et all)
• Gets into work early, scares poor Bob and then gives him a raise.

That's it. Dickens doesn't waste time philosophizing. Instead he just shows us the new Scrooge and sends us on our way with a nice final paragraph:

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Give A Christmas Carol a read when you get a chance. It's published at the link at the top of this posting.

A Nice Piece of Essay Writing

Sometimes simple things can evoke the feeling that this author "really gets it."

Here's a nice piece that I saw in the Christian Science Monitor this morning. It's simply about a woman's attempt to keep warm all winter. I read it as my house made its morning struggle from a sleeptime temperature of 66 degrees up to 70. I was wearing pajama bottoms, a T-Shirt, a long underwear shirt, a beige shirt made of some waffle-like material, and my trusty Worcester Tornadoes hoodie. The hood was up and I was drinking hot coffee, warming myself on the mug. Then I read this:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1212/p09s02-coop.html

Michael Lewis: Our Best Non-Fiction Writer

Michael Lewis is my favorite non-fiction writer. I first discovered him with Liar's Poker, but then went on to enjoy The New, New Thing, Moneyball, and The Blind Side. His latest book is Panic.

Lewis has an amazing ability to take arcane financial and technical issues and break them down into stories about people. Then, in the course of telling you stories about people, he explains the arcane financial or technical issue. I think he's caught on to the fact that everything interesting in life really boils down to the people involved.

In this article The End, Lewis discusses the unraveling of Wall Street through the eyes of a trader, Steve Eisner, who got very rich by seeing the madness unfolding in front of him and betting that the market would all come tumbling down. I'm a big fan of first paragraphs. Here is the first paragraph from The End:

To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue.

Lewis tells the story with simple prose and clear descriptions that allow anyone to see how the destruction of Wall Street came about because of a mass ability for people to not only delude themselves, but to not care that they were deluding themselves.

When my brother posted this story on Facebook he wrote "Don't read on a full stomach." I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. When I read this story over breakfast I literally threw up in my mouth a little.

Now that's great writing.

The Power and Danger of the Dark Side

Recently Larry David wrote of how he cannot continue to subject others to the ravings and paranoia of his "current condition", that condition being the state of waiting for this election to be over.

I, too, have been subjecting those around me to a similar rash of ranting, emotional outbursts, and sweeping condemnations of all things Republican. I'm not fit for polite company, but the nightmare is almost over.

Some have argued that I see this election as a battle between "good" and "evil" and, in my sanctimonious state, have decided that those who vote for McCain are "evil." If it were only that simple. This election is about something much more insidious than simple evil. It is about the Dark Side.

Both liberal and conservative traditions have powerful, positive visions of America. Neither of these traditions channels the Dark Side:

Positive liberals believe in an America where we are our brother's keeper. Liberals see the great wealth of this country as an opportunity to do good and to help others. They see the United States as a force for positive change in the world. They see us as a country that could stop the genocide in Darfur and they consider our intervention in Bosnia to be a success. They see America as an inclusive place where people of all persuasions can find a home.

Positive conservatives see America as a bastion of personal liberty. Conservatives celebrate our freedom to create wealth. They know that money is not created by "society" but by entrepreneurs. Conservatives believe that America's best times will always be ahead of it because America's people have been guaranteed the freedom to succeed. They see America as a place of powerful traditions that bind us together in mutual success. Internationally, they see see America as a force for good that will not back down from a bully.

These two positive visions of America often do battle. They spar over tax rates and regulations. They debate over foreign policy. They fight over the deficit. But in both cases, Liberals and Conservatives are trying to promote what they see as what is best in America.

But, then there is the Dark Side. The Dark Side is neither Liberal or Conservative, though both sides can easily carry its banner. The Dark Side is powerful and dangerous. History has shown that it can quickly channel the population towards its evil ends.

The Dark side tells us that there are people who are the others. It tells us to fear the others if they are powerful and hate the others if they are weak. The Dark Side tells us to say, "I've got mine, you get yours." It says that there is a limited pie and that life is nothing but a scramble to get as much of that pie into our mouth as possible.

The Dark Side tells us that the world is dangerous, that people hate us, and that the liberty we hold dear is hanging by a thread. It tells us that the others among us will connive with our enemies to bring us down.

The Dark Side drove the Nazi revolution in Germany when the others became the Jews. More recently it has lived in Serbia and Croatia, Rwanda, and, naturally, the Middle East.

For the past seven years, the Bush administration has embraced the Dark Side. After September 11, Bush took advantage of our pain to bind us together in fear. He used the Dark Side to justify torture. He used it again to invade Iraq. He used it to destroy lives curtail liberties -- all in the name of defending democracy against the others. You were for him or against him, and woe be to those who were not for him.

Then he lost control of the Dark Side.

Soon immigrants (illegal or not) found themselves targeted as the others. Those would would take our jobs and eat our resources. Those who would take our piece of the ever shrinking pie. And when Bush tried to say, "No. We need to help these people." it was too late for him and the Dark Side pushed him aside.

Economically, the Dark Side perverted entrepreneurship. It convinced Wall Street bankers that deregulation was not a license to create wealth, but a license to hide bad investments. It said, "Screw em all and get your bonus!" The others became foreign investors and customers. The others became the saps who would refinance the bad mortgages. Bush had taught us all to marginalize the others and his folly destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth.

But then Barack Obama came on the scene with a message of hope and unity. John McCain promoted honor and integrity. And, at the beginning of the general election, I was happy because I thought that both candidates represented what was good about their tradition. John McCain had spoken out against torture, and Barack Obama had said that we are not Red States or Blue States but United States.

But then, seeing that he was losing, John McCain, was seduced by the Dark Side.

McCain worked tirelessly to link Barack Obama to William Ayers, a domestic terrorist. He laid out the dots where a black man with a Muslim name was associate with terrorism and left it to his surrogates to connect them, to say that Barack Obama was one of the others.

McCain allowed his campaign to release mailers that had the word "Terrorists" as the headline and then opened up to a picture of Obama. He argued that people "didn't really know" Barack Obama and implied that we should be afraid of him. He allowed supporters to suggest that Obama wasn't a citizen. And again he invoked the other.

At that point, John McCain lost me completely. I believe he is unfit to be President, because I believe that you cannot dabble in the Dark Side. The Dark Side is not an aerosol can of power that you can spray into the air for temporary effect. The evils unleashed don't dissipate like perfume. They fester like anthrax.

Instead, as George Bush learned, the Dark Side is a disease that cannot be put back into its bottle. John McCain almost learned this lesson. When his supporters called out "Terrorist!" and "Kill Him!" at campaign stops he looked surprised. Then he spoke out to defuse what he had created. But, when he looked the Dark Side in the eye, he blinked.

When confronted by a supporter who said she feared Obama because, "He is an Arab." McCain responded, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man..." because the Dark Side had taken hold of John McCain and, without thinking about it, he had said that an "Arab" cannot be a family man. Then he was booed at his own rally for defending Obama. The anthrax was out of the bottle.

What would it mean if McCain won on Tuesday? It would mean that America's unique place in history would be tarnished. It would say that Americans are just like everyone else in history in embracing the fearful notion of the other. It would mean the Dark Side has won.

And so I'll continue to be emotional when it comes to calling Obama a Terrorist, or labeling parts of the US as pro-American. I'll continue to be horrified when a member of the House of Representatives says, "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America." I'll continue to speak out when someone claims that Barack Obama is not a US Citizen. Because all of these attacks stink of the Dark Side.

And I'll pray that on November 4th, America rejects the Dark Side and steps back into the light.

Learning about Writing on Tapes

I've been listening to a set of lectures on writing called, "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft" and it occurs to me that I can practice these sentences in my blog. So the next few posts will show examples of different ways of extending sentences to provide more meaning and depth.

Even though I plan to write in what's called a "tough" style, employing simple, declarative sentences, and eschewing literary aspirations. I figure that it would be good to put more tools in my tool chest.

Writing that's simple and moving

A 9-year-old finds refuge in suburban Atlanta | csmonitor.com

I found this story in the Christian Science Monitor while eating my morning almond butter sandwich. It's quite touching and it made my nose tickle with emotion. In doing so it illustrates something that I try to bring to my writing.

The writing in this story illustrates the point made by Archer Mayor: "Don't show off. Don't screw up." The author of the story (Mary Wiltenburg) tells it with simplicity and detail. There are no literary flourishes. No inside jokes. No self referential comments. She stays out of the way and lets the people speak for themselves.

For example:

This Fourth of July, Bill eats dinner on his favorite spot: the black metal stairs at the back of the building that look out over all of Indian Creek. From his perch, he gnaws a small roll, surveying the comings and goings in the parking lots below.

The writing is nice, simple, clear, and, to me, moving.