Poetry Friday--"To the Terrestrial Globe"

To the Terrestrial Globe
by a Miserable Wretch

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
        Roll on!
What though I'm in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache's ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
    Never you mind!
        Roll on!

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air
        Roll on!
It's true I've got no shirts to wear;
It's true my butcher's bill is due;
It's true my prospects all look blue--
But don't let that unsettle you!
    Never you mind!
        Roll on!

                                      [It rolls on.]

W. S. Gilbert a.k.a. the Miserable Wretch

There's something comforting about knowing the Earth will continue to "roll on" despite us, because sometimes it seems we're doing our damnedest to destroy her. I only hope that while continuing to roll, she'll also heal.

This week's Round-Up is taking place at The Poem Farm!

--Diane

Image showing the Arctic and high latitudes by Norman Kuring, courtesy NASA.

The Right Verb

In my mind, verbs are the words that make stories exciting and real.  Taking the time to find the right ones can be the difference between a good story and a great one.

Verbs are action words.  If you can do it - walk, run, sing, dance - it’s a verb.  And then there are those other verbs – am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, have, has, had.  In my day, we called them irregular verbs or helping verbs.  They are states of being, as opposed to actions, and will do almost nothing for you.  Avoid them if you can.

So let’s look at what choosing the right verb can do for you.

John Smith went to the store on a lovely Saturday afternoon.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and John suddenly had the feeling that he was going to be lucky today.

This example is filled with those ‘other’ verbs, the irregular kind you don’t want to use.  

John Smith went to the store on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

The verb here is went, which tells us – John went.  But that’s all it tells us.  It’s vague and uninteresting.  So how did John really go?  Did he skip, run, jog, stroll?  Using any of those verbs will not only tell you how John went, they also say something about his state of mind, the kind of mood he’s in.  Changing one word has just added more to this scenario.

The sun was shining and the birds were singing, and John suddenly had the feeling that he was going to be lucky today.

Here are all those irregular verbs that don’t do anything but make the sentence passive and excessively long.  Simply cut the irregular verbs and change the ‘ing’ verbs to ‘ed’ verbs.

The sun shone, the birds sang, and John suddenly felt lucky.

The sentence has been shortened by half, the writing is cleaner and smoother to read, it’s active instead of passive, and because John is no longer ‘going to be,’ lucky, (which doesn’t tell us when, which is why we need ‘today’) we can even cut ‘today,’ because today is now implied.

Which leaves us with –

John Smith strolled to the store on a lovely Saturday afternoon.  The sun shone, the birds sang, and John suddenly felt lucky.

Now let’s suppose we’re in the middle of an action scene.  John, it seems, was not as lucky as he thought he’d be.

John gave his money to the clerk and the door opened behind him.  Two men entered, guns in hand.  They wore ski masks that covered their faces.  They pointed their guns at John and the clerk.

The above example is informative, but that’s about it.

John gave his money to the clerk and the door opened behind him.

The verb gave is fine here.  John is just handing over some money that isn’t at all important.  But if you wanted to show us a bit of John’s personality, he might slap it on the counter, or count it coin by coin into the clerk’s hand.  The verb opened, however, is too tame for the situation.  Opened says anybody might be coming in, and there is no hint of danger.  But if we change opened to an adverb and choose a better verb—the door burst, or crashed, or banged open—it  makes the moment a bit bigger, it creates suspense, and the reader knows something is about to happen.

He turned.

If the door only opens, then turning is fine.  It fits the situation.  But if we change opened to something stronger, then John’s reaction should be stronger, too.  He might spin around.

Two men entered, guns in hand. 

Entered, like the verb open, isn’t strong enough to suit the situation.  These guys are robbers and the door just burst open.  They might charge, or rush, or barge in.  If they are clumsy and stupid, they might stumble in.  If they are reluctant robbers, they might inch in.  Again, choosing the right verb will not only tell the reader what someone did, it can also tell us something about that individual.  And while ‘guns’ is not a verb, the same holds true for nouns, so we night change ‘guns’ to a specific type of gun.  An AK47 says one thing about your robbers, a Derringer says another.

We might also replace ‘in hand.’  Perhaps their guns are leveled, or threatening.  Either verb makes the scene feel more dangerous.

 They wore ski masks that covered their faces.

Here we have two verbs that basically say the same thing and neither is all that interesting.  We could say, ‘Ski masks hid their faces,’ which lends a bit of mystery to the scene.

They pointed their guns at John and the clerk.

Pointed isn’t bad, but a gun pointed at your face doesn’t seem as dangerous as a gun aimed at your face.  Nuance comes into play here.  Pointed is threatening.  The gun may, or may not, be fired.  Aimed, however, is one step closer.  It gives the sense that the gun is about to be fired.  Or, instead of just pointing their guns, the robbers might nudge or shove John with them.

So now, we might have a paragraph that reads like this –

John gave his money to the clerk and the door burst open behind him.  He spun around.  Two men charged in, AK47’s threatening.  Ski masks hid their faces.  They aimed their guns at John and the clerk.

instead of like this -

John gave his money to the clerk and the door opened behind him.  He turned.  Two men entered, guns in hand.  They wore ski masks that covered their faces.  They pointed their guns at John and the clerk.

Now imagine both versions sitting in a slush pile.  An editor has to decide which one to purchase.  The two scenarios are the same.  The only difference is the few words we changed. Which do you think the editor would choose?   That’s the difference between a perfectly good manuscript and a better one. 

The example used could be improved even more, but the point today is the verbs.  Take out some of your own work and look at the verbs you’ve chosen.  Can they be improved?  Can a different word make your sentence more exciting, or scary, or funny?  Can it add something to characterization or setting?

The competition in this field is fierce, so it makes sense to give yourself every advantage you can.  Take the time to choose stronger verbs and make your manuscript the better one.

Poetry Friday--"Museum Piece"

The following poem is by Richard Wilbur:

Museum Piece

The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.

Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.

See how she spins! The grace is there,
But strain as well is plain to see.
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.

Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed
To hang his pants on while he slept.

The poem tickles me, especially the line, "A Degas dancer pirouettes/Upon the parting of his hair." It reminds me of photographs of tourists in front of famous structures. You know the ones--where the Eiffel Tower, or Washington Monument, appears to be growing out of the visitor's head. Sort of like the one below which shows the earth balanced on my daughter's head!

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Day and that you're going to be spending the rest of the weekend resting and relaxing. Take some time to enjoy the poetry found today at A Year of Reading.

--Diane

Women of Wednesday: On the Mayflower

Since today is the eve of Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to nod in the direction of those incredibly brave women (some of them nameless to history) who stepped into that little ship and crossed the Atlantic in 1620.  They faced both the known dangers of the sea crossing and the unknown dangers of the wild land ahead; the sorrow of leaving behind friends and families; the certain struggles of daily life (not easy for women anywhere in that time) and the uncertain ones of establishing a new community.  Just 29 women and girls sailed on the Mayflower, consensus seems to be that there were 18 married women, a few daughters and maid-servants of nearly-marriageable age, and a few girl-children.  Only four of the 18 wives survived to celebrate that first Thanksgiving - and to maintain the distaff side of the tasks of living in the little village.

Pricilla Mullins gets all the press, romanticized by the story-tellers and myth-makers.  The Mayflower Women memorial, erected in 1920, records the names (if known) of all 29. An ongoing project is attempting to identify and reconstruct the lineages of all the Mayflower women.

Thousands more would follow them, of course - including the four women whose husbands left them behind in England, who came over in 1923 to join their husbands.  And even though more than 10,000 arrived in New England over the next 20 years, and the risks and challenges were great for all of them, none faced quite the dire circumstances of those first "foremothers."

Tomorrow when getting dinner on the table starts to feel overwhelming, I hope I'll remember what that first Thanksgiving was really like, and take a minute to honor women who faced challenges I can't even imagine.

Mentor Monday: Knowing your rights

 This weekend one of the Sisters saw the premiere performances of the stage adaptation of her picture book. I’m hoping Diane will share her experience and some pictures soon. For Mentor Monday, however, this wonderful event raises the subject of subsidiary rights.

Huh?

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

I think Samuel Johnson was wrong – there are lots of good reasons for writing that have nothing to do with money, but if you’re working on developing a writing career, then publication, and getting paid for your work, are or should be a significant factor. They may influence what kinds of things you write. They should influence the forms you choose and the way you send out your work. And when, at last, your work finds its way to the person who wants to publish it – you find yourself immersed in a question of rights.

The “Rights” in question are the rights to use your work, and each possible use of your work represents a distinctive right. As the creator, you have the right to control the ways that your work is published, until and unless you choose to transfer that right to someone else.

If your work is a picture book and you’re in the US, you are most likely going to be offered a contract for “First North American book rights.” If it’s a magazine article, it will be “First North American periodical rights” – although in either case it might be “English-language rights,” in which case if your work winds up being reprinted in Australia or in the international edition of the magazine, your publisher will receive the payment. (Some publishers will split or pass along reprint rights income, but if you sell “All rights” or “reprint rights” they are not obligated to do so.)

But subsidiary rights covers uses far beyond reprints. Subsidiary rights include adaptations of your work in other forms (like the stage version of Run Turkey Run), translation rights (my “Little Jesus” and “Little Mary” books were translated and published in Poland), and, perhaps most importantly today, electronic or digital rights, from the picture-book-on-the-ipad to a video game version of your book. Some contracts contain language covering “any current or future media or format” in order to try and include technologies not-yet-imagined. (A subset of subsidiary rights fall into the category of licensing – stuffed animals, educational products, breakfast cereal advertising, etc.) For each of these uses, you, the creator, deserve to be compensated or to have the choice of whether to allow the use. So after you get over your excitement over that first contract, take the time to read the fine print. Ask your writer friends about the language. Consider having it reviewed by a lawyer who works with “intellectual property rights.” (If you belong to the Author’s Guild, they have a contract review service – lots of writers first join the Guild expressly for that benefit.) Because you never know!

Fantasy writer Mindy Klasky offers this great list of subsidiary rights on her website. 

And of  course, HaroldUnderdown’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books addresses the subject in much more detail.