Method to my Madness Monday: Grammar vs. Voice

Welcome to Method to My Madness Monday!

On Saturday I Facebooked a couple of comments my 92 year old aunt Olga Bloom made.

Bargemusic - my aunt's world-famous floating concert hall, which I helped build

This reminded of me of Aunt Olga’s reaction to the beginning of my novel, Saved by the Music – which is autobiographical, and also a tribute to her.

Aunt Olga in the early days of Bargemusic, with her dog, Lovely Bloom

Here’s the beginning of my novel:

The taxi’s spinning wheels spit pebbles and dirt as it left me behind at the marina’s gate. The dusty haze was a perfect fit for my state of mind.

I wobbled across the driveway and into the marina, trying to balance with my heavy suitcase. Sweat beaded under my bangs.

It was unbearably bright, like the sun was aiming right at me. But looking around, I decided that the marina needed all the brightening it could get. Damaged boats lined the gravel-filled boatyard, all of them in dry dock, up on stilts like big crutches—a nautical hospital. Their exposed insides were like my wrecked life. But at least someone cared enough to fix them.

The sounds of saws, drills, and hammers punctured the air as I passed the workers using them. I tried tuning out the men’s jeering whistles.

One yelled out, “Nice ass.”

Another called, “Hey, Slim.”

Some people really got off on taunting strangers.

I crunched though the gravel, kicking up pieces as I moved toward the water. Sailboats, cruisers, and yachts were all tied with rope to the docks.
So where was my Aunt Agatha’s barge? What did a barge even look like?

Aunt Agatha had told me about the barges that kings rode on centuries before, but she’d never actually described their appearance. There didn’t seem to be anything worthy of royalty bobbing about in this marina, at least not anything I saw.

“Over here, Willow!” a scratchy voice called out.

There was Aunt Agatha, waving from the deck of a huge and hideous metal monstrosity. This blows, I thought, doubting there’d be any cable TV on this scow.

My aunt hurried off the vile green vessel, prancing along a wooden plank across the water to reach me.

“What is that ugly thing?” I asked.

“That barge is our future concert hall!”
She couldn’t be serious.


You would think Aunt Olga would react in some personal way when she read this intimate story – which she was a part of!

But the first thing she did when she finished reading this opening was to look at me intently and ask, “Do you know the proper use of a modifier?”

This may sound harsh, but it was done with love. My aunt is old-school about grammar.

I said, “Not really.” I didn't even know what a modifier was, let alone the proper use of one. “But this is in the first-person voice of a fifteen year old, and they don’t tend to use modifiers correctly¸ either.” At least, this fifteen year old didn't - as she was based on the teenaged me.

She considered this for a long moment. Then she said, “Oh! I get it.”

This exchange illustrates today’s focus:

Sometimes, voice and grammar are at odds.

Sometimes, proper grammar kills.

I just ran my opening through an on-line grammar check service. It called my writing “adequate,” saying it could benefit from a revision.

It didn't like my modifier choices, either.

Furthermore, it recommended that I avoid contractions because they make my writing “too informal.” As a matter of fact, it called by use of contractions “a critical issue.” They were the largest reason why a revision would prove beneficial.

Guess what? A teenager’s voice IS informal.

To me, first person is like a running dialogue with the reader. However the person speaks, that’s how the writing should be. Once again I’ll use my favorite book The Catcher in the Rye as an example:

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

First page of Catcher - the underlining was done by someone else.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this writing is less than adequate, according to the grammar checker. But as an opening, you can’t get more perfect than this. We know this kid – just from these few sentences.

This is what my oldest worn-out copy of The Catcher in the Rye looks like

Here’s another passage:

“Old Selma Thurmer - she was the headmaster's daughter - showed up at the games quite often, but she wasn't exactly the type that drove you mad with desire. She was a pretty nice girl, though. I sat next to her once in the bus from Agerstown and we sort of struck up a conversation. I liked her. She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was.”

Ouch! The on-line grammar corrector would probably malfunction from overload here. But man, this is good stuff!

Everyone loves Catcher - even Chuck Schulz!

It would be fun to paste famous openings in the grammar checker and see what their “faults” are. If I had time, that is. (If you try any, let me know what happens!)

Bottom line: Be real. Unless your character is a grammar stickler like my aunt, don’t worry about modifiers – whatever they are. And embrace contractions. They are your friends.

Readers embrace authenticity.

That’s all I have to say about that.

J.D. Salinger's letter rejecting a film offer, which has nothing to do with this topic, but I found it on Google Images and I love it!

Method to my Madness Monday

            I thought I should address “voice.”

            But what can I say about it?

            “Find one” seems obvious.

            But how?

            I’m afraid the answer is obnoxiously obvious as well: “Look.”

            Just as Dorothy had the ability to find her way home all that time but didn’t know it, somewhere inside you lurks your voice.

            The way to go to it is to write. Write and write and write.

            Don’t worry how bad it is.

            Don’t worry that you’ll fall off a cliff by accident and people will find your pathetic efforts on your hard drive and they’ll say, “Poor thing, no wonder she jumped to her death.” This scenario is unlikely.

            Don’t worry that your story won’t get any better.

            The only way that it won’t get any better is if you stop writing it. (Or if you type the same line endlessly, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.)

            Assuming you’re sane and not possessed by an evil presence (bad marriages don’t count), your story will evolve. That’s the only way anyone’s stories evolve. You know that big secret successful writers are harboring? This is it: They write. Until their stories get better. Shhhh. Don’t tell.

            Yes, there are basic techniques. Of course. But voice is possibly the most fundamental. You get what you give. Give time and effort, get voice. Sorry, the voice fairy doesn’t come. And Santa isn’t going to wrap up your story’s voice in a big velvet bow. Even God is pretty adamant: he helps those who help themselves.

            So help yourself, and start pecking at those keys.

          It’s like Michelangelo said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

            You may not see your voice, but trust me – it’s there.

            The thing about writing is that it requires not only dedication, but faith.

            Trust me – it’s much easier to dig your voice out of the rubble that is your rough draft than to conjure it from the nothing that is your blank page.

            And typed words – no matter how mismatched – do rouse the spirits.

            I spoke at a writing conference this weekend. Many of the attendees fretted: “What will the market be like in the future?”

            “Who cares?” I answered.

            They did.

             “How will we know if we’ll ever fit in?” They soulfully asked.

            “You don’t. Just keep writing.”

            The frowning was widespread.

            Writers write because they want to – because they need to. Shakespeare wrote: “Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

            The Chinese put it this way: “A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”

            Sing on, my fellow starlings...

            Sing and soar.

            Hope is the thing with feathers, after all.