Happy Holidays!
In Today's Journal
* Happy Holidays
* Dangling Participants
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Happy Holidays
I guess I'm an odd duck. Most of the time, happily, I don't even know what day of the week it is, much less whether it's a holiday.
I don't intentionally 'not notice' like some old Grinch. I'm usually just happily lost in my characters' worlds. I’m fortunate that way.
When I need to know whether it's a particular day for some reason, I ask my lovely wife, "Hey, is this Tuesday or Wednesday, or what?" Then she confirms or corrects my guess.
If, when I come in from a day of writing, there's a feast on the table and the house is filled with wonderful aromas, Ah! It must be Thanksgiving!
Recently I came in and found a smiling bride and a faux conifer tree in the living room. The tree was bedecked with a string of pearls and some lights and some ornaments. Hmm. A clue. Wait, is Christmas coming up?
Okay, I’m not that bad, but almost.
My wife had provided an earlier clue when she asked me to bring two big storage boxes up from the shed, which I did. I knew vaguely what was in the boxes, but soon after I parked the wagon near the back door, I was back in the Hovel and writing. Hey, it’s what I do.
So a special, public thank you to my beautiful bride of 40 years for keeping me involved in the more traditional celebrations. She takes up all the slack I don't want to lift.
As she has long known (and abided), I'm not a complete clod. It's just that in my world, I give no particular day anymore significance than any other. That doesn't make me "right," but neither does it make me wrong. Just unusual, maybe.
The sunrise and the sunset share the distinction of being the most spectacular events I've ever seen, and I get one of each every day. Seriously, how lucky can one man be?
If I see the sun come up and then watch it go down, that is a good day. And just think: For the most part, what happens in my life between those two events is all up to me. And when what happens isn't up to me, how I react to what happens is. Again, how lucky am I?
So this is all my longwinded way of saying I often don't think to wish others a happy birthday or happy holiday until after the fact. In my world every day is special and deserving of celebration, so such "officially” special days have never held any particular interest for me.
But I know they are significant to many others, and I'm glad.
So this year I want to pre-empt my usual oblivion and wish all of you Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah, which, coincidentally, my friend Mardy Grothe (see Of Interest below) informs me begins on December 25 this year.
Whatever holiday you celebrate, even if it isn't floating in the mainstream drift, I hope it will be the best you've ever known, or that it will evoke memories for you of the best you've ever known.
And of course, you're always invited to celebrate the rising and setting of Sol and all the joy and opportunities those events bring.
Dangling Participants
(or Don't Leave Your Characters Hanging)
I call this effect "dangling participants," a play on the always humorous "dangling participles."
One great example of a dangling participle is "Sitting on the park bench, the sun disappeared behind the clouds."
Obviously, the sun wasn't sitting on the park bench, but that's how the sentence sounds. That's because the participle, "sitting," is intended to modify a subject that isn't there (probably "I" in this case): See? "As I was sitting on the park bench, the sun disappeared behind the clouds."
So dangling participles are always funny, but they don't do your story much good, and they might drive away your readership. Few experiences in reading is more annoying than bursting into laughter in the middle of what was meant to be a tension-filled scene.
A "dangling participant" will have the same effect on your readers, mostly because it will leave them confused.
If your character John twists around in the front seat of a van to talk with a character in the back seat, at some point you have to let the reader see John face front again. Otherwise, in the reader's mind, John will remain twisted around in the front seat while he's driving.
If he then suddenly twists around in the seat to say something else, it will confuse the reader.
If your character Raymond is standing at a curtain looking out over a veranda, and in the next sentence he and Melanie are walking along a hallway, that will confuse the reader too.
When did Raymond turn away from the curtain?
For that matter, who in the world is Melanie and when did she come into the room?
Did she say something to Raymond that caused him to turn away from the curtain and accompany her out of the room and down the hall?
What did she say?
The good thing is that more than likely, as you're writing the scene, all of that is in your mind. But if those thoughts don't make it onto the page, your reader won't have a clue what's going on or how it came to be.
Just so you know, I'm no exception to this. Dangling participants is one of the problems I sometimes experience while writing. But during the cycling process, the characters fix most of that.
So try to take the time to be detailed. Take the time to describe what your characters are doing. Don't leave your characters (and readers) hanging.
For more on taking your time, see
Talk with you tomorrow.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week: "Holy Days & Holidays" I found this post interesting, inspiring, and informative.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 990
Writing of Blackwell Ops 33: The Intermittent Ghost: Jack Temple
Day 1…… 4202 words. To date…… 4202
Fiction for December………………… 76299
Fiction for 2024………………………. 822399
Nonfiction for December…………….. 23110
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 385680
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,208,079
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3633
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 19
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 103
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
Happy Holidays, Harvey. Your dangling participle/participant angle was very helpful this week. And thanks so much for your very kind words about my newsletter! Your Sunday postings are like a warm hug each week.
I certainly have the problem that there is much more going on in my head than makes it onto the paper/pixels. But, I also have the problem of telling all the background that I know about upfront, instead of letting the characters introduce it at the right time....