The Pet Peeves of Editing

The recent “Fragments” post served to reinforce what I’ve known for some time — editing makes writing (and reading) a lot less fun sometimes.

As an editor, I constantly work to prune and shave words so stories read more clearly and succinctly. As a reader, I find myself editing already published work, and if the writer’s style (or lack thereof) bogs me down, I often don’t have the patience to finish the piece.

As a writer, my innate ADD makes staying on task a challenge, and as a result, I’ve been known to go off on tangents (aka this blog). “Fragments” was an attempt to find some closure for the postings that I start and abandon.

Earlier this year, I was asked to present at an Association Media and Publishing session on “The Art and Mechanics of Editing” with a colleague (Erin Pressley) who also is in this line of work. I actually enjoy presenting, although the prep work can be tedious at times.

The best part of this session came in developing a top 10 list of editing pet peeves. Take a look at the ones below and see if you can guess the ones that are mine. And the next time you decide to write something, reference them and see if you are making the same mistakes that we often deal with in our line of work.

#10: Passive voice  — Just plain boring, lacks action. Why was the road crossed by the chicken?

#9: Which vs. that — “That” introduces essential clauses while “which” introduces nonessential clauses. Gems that sparkle often elicit forgiveness. Diamonds, which are expensive, often elicit forgiveness.

#8: Who vs. that — “Who” refers to people. “That” refers to groups or things. Sally is the girl who rescued the bird. Jim is on the team that won first place.

#7: Misplaced modifiers — You modify something you didn't intend to modify. Wrong: I almost failed every grammar class I took. Right: I failed almost every grammar class I took.

#6: “–ing” Words — Unnecessary in many cases. Will be going — “Will go.” Should be doing — “Should do.” Have been driving — “Have driven.” Or better yet: “Are driving” (as in, me crazy)

#5: Absence of a nut graph — Do you have time for long and pointless? We don’t. A nut graph sets the scene for the reader and helps to telegraph where the rest of the story is going.

 

#4: Widespread use of “that” — Not to be “which-y” about it, but we could do with less of that.

#3: Stakeholders — Why do our bosses, sources, and even writers try to label some of our most important constituents as mini-Renfields? Doing so is often the lazy way out.

#2: Acronym-soup — Don’t think of us as SOBs for bringing this up, but we have an incredible reliance on institutional short-hand that often can clutter the story we are trying to tell. If you have to use acronyms, use them judiciously.

#1: And finally… My Pinkie Just Can’t Stop Hitting The Shift Key Because Everything We Write Is So Important That We Just Have To Capitalize It.


What are yours?

Fragments, Part III

Paraphrasing from a recent Facebook post: As an editor, you learn that some pieces are labors of love. Others feel like the writer was going through labor ... and left it for you to deliver.

••••••

I always tell my children: “Don’t tempt karma.” The minute you feel like everything is going great is the same moment fate’s shoe gets ready to drop and step on your head. This week’s example: Just when I started feeling good about the holiday season, the garbage disposal breaks, the plumber comes five hours late, and the replacement is defective — all because I bragged that my daughters got along at the mall a few hours earlier…

••••••

Most of us move through life in relative anonymity. Remember when it used to be that the only public recognition most people received was is in the police blotter (too bad) or the obituaries (too late)? Now, with the rise of social networking and the connections you make through Facebook, Twitter, et al, anonymity is fighting with print to become the “new vinyl.”

••••••

Recently in North Carolina, I rediscovered something that folks there have turned into an art form. Drivers pull out in front of you without hesitation, tires screeching. They travel about 30 feet and signal to turn left. Drives me up a tree (so far only figuratively).

••••••

Despite being a writer and editor for a full 3/5ths of my life, I do believe that print eventually will go the way of the vinyl record. School textbooks already are obsolete thanks to technology and our ability to instantly access information. And the Internet goes a long way toward satisfying our need for instant gratification, which in turn feeds into people having less and less patience to wait for what’s on the printed page. Why should they, when you can have it fed to you through headphones?

••••••

That said, I believe print still has a place because, like the vinyl record, paper provides a rich, full-bodied experience that you can’t get by tapping on a computer screen. Although, after getting one for Christmas, I must say the iPad comes close…

Fragments, Part II

I became a reporter because it combined three things I enjoy: talking to people, learning what makes them tick, and turning their stories into something for posterity (or, in the pre-Internet era, at least the bottom of someone’s bird cage). I became an editor to make a living wage, or something resembling that.

•••••••

Technology has replaced the automobile — and to an extent, the college textbook — as the most expensive disposable in our lives. Remember when it was said that you lost 30 to 50 percent of a new car’s value the moment you drove it off the lot? The same goes for every new device you buy. The moment you pull it out of the box, something newer and better is replacing it on the store shelves.

••••••

With four children having birthdays in the month of December, you could say God’s master plan was for me to emulate Him. Or, you could also say that He just has a wicked sense of humor.

•••••••

Another car/technology analogy: I’ve gotten five to seven years out of the last two desktops we’ve had in our house. By the time each was replaced, the reason was because they each had more than 200,000 miles on them, parts could be found only in junkyards, and the only way you could get them to run was if you slapped the top with your right hand on alternate Tuesdays.

••••••

Ben’s life in New York is, for the most part, confined to a 20-block radius from 34th to 54th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. Rarely a day goes by in which he doesn’t bump into someone he knows. I never thought I would say this, but there are times when Midtown feels like a small town, albeit with a huge amusement park in the middle.

••••••

Another December observation: Between the birthdays and Christmas, I have to wonder what fates I tempted to have 11/12ths of the family’s annual expenses come during a single 2½ week timeframe. (I exaggerate on the expenses part, but only slightly.)

Christmas Miracle, or UFO?

Tales from a wild Christmas week… Or living proof that a UFO has invaded my family,

• Nicholas, Emma, and I walked 7 miles through the streets of New York three days before Christmas — and didn’t buy a single thing except food.

• Ben joined us on the way home for his first trip to Virginia since Labor Day, and played a non-show tune song on his laptop that everyone actually enjoyed (“Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine).

• Donny Osmond judged the door decorating contest at "Billy Elliot" and had a picture taken with the boys, including Ben. Emma decided to wait outside the stage door to meet him — in 20 degree weather with a 30 mph wind chill. After much teen drama trauma, my determined little girl and her slightly frozen oldest brother met Jill's first crush in person — and had him sign a photo that we gave to her at Christmas.

• We DID NOT go to Disney World this year because, fortunately, Frosty Follies “stayed here.”

• All four children bought presents for each other and for us, with their own money.

• The state of Delaware was not under construction at midnight on Christmas Eve.

• Emma, normally the child we can’t manage to please on major event days, hugged me and said it was “the best Christmas ever.” This came two weeks to the day of “the best birthday ever.” I thought all 13-year-olds were supposed to be moody.

• We did not learn that Ben is in a show that’s closing in two weeks.

• Nicholas talked to Donny briefly — he was, after all, getting ready to run down the sidewalk — about the roles they shared in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Donny asked if Nicholas hit the high note in "Close Every Door." My son's "Yup" answer received a thumbs up — a nice gesture from someone who must have felt like he was being stalked.

• The threatened “Snowpocolypse 2” suffered the fate of many sequels — a whole lot of wind signifying nothing (except wind) — and left meteorologists scratching their heads (or other body parts).

• All they had to do, in my opinion, was put a GPS device on Jill. Last year, she was in Virginia for the blizzard. This year, the day after taking Ben back for a Christmas night show, New York was struck by a record one-day snowfall (20 inches). Must have something to do with the fact that she’s from the North Carolina mountains.

• Nicholas, after a relaxed and relatively peaceful (for us) week, managed to get back to North Carolina with only an hour delay despite a flight cancellation.

• In the course of a single day, my lovely wife helped a new mom — a mutual friend who reached out to us — bring her baby girl home from the hospital, took in two of her stranded cousins off the street, and managed to deliver Ben safely to “Billy Elliot.” And it was all during a blizzard — mostly on foot. Amazing…

• Kate and Emma spent two hours shopping together in a mall while I held court in the food area — and they managed to get along. (Or, to quote Emma, “That actually wasn’t half bad. I sort of enjoyed it.”)

Yes, Virginia meteorolgists (and others), there is a Santa Claus. Of course, this could change tomorrow when I drive with the girls to New York, but for now, things are good.

Father and Son, Vol. 1

“Son, wake up,” my dad said.

It was 3 a.m. on a school night, but the house was not burning down. There was no emergency, nothing that would qualify me for a future made-for-TV movie on Lifetime.

My dad just wanted his third-grade son to watch “Red River.”

In the days before cable, VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray, and video on demand, our local ABC affiliate showed old movies in the middle of the night. My father was nocturnal, especially during that period of my life, and he wanted company. My mother, who woke up as he went to bed so she could get ready to teach all day, would have harmed him — though lovingly — if he rose her out of bed to watch a movie at 3 a.m.

I didn’t know better, so I did as he asked, mumbling the entire way.

••••••


"Dad, why did you and mom get a divorce?"



The question, asked earlier this year en route from the airport to the beach, did not come as a surprise. I've been waiting for it for more than 15 years, ever since the day Nicholas’ mom and I split, just after he turned 2.



"I had become someone I wasn't," I told him.

Today, Dec. 9, my first-born son officially becomes an adult, although he still loves to channel his inner third-grader. It’s appropriate that Nicholas’ 18^th birthday kicks off our familial holiday parade of candles and chaos, a period in which all four of my children have birthdays in an 18-day period.

His upbringing has been very different from my own, which is what I hoped would happen, though not exactly in the way I thought when he was born.

In my case, I feel like I’ve been an adult since I was 8. That’s when things veered dramatically in my family, when my father’s illness consumed everything, sucking most of the oxygen out of the room. In the afternoons, my sister and I walked around on eggshells, worried that we would wake him up from a long (surely prescription-induced) nap.

If you think the mom threat, “Just you wait until your father gets home…” puts chills down your spine, think about this one: “Do you really want me to wake your father up to deal with this?” That definitely struck terror with my 8 to 12-year-old self, but I’ve got to give mom credit, it was also very effective.

At the time, I didn’t know what to think, but it’s safe to say I harbored a great deal of resentment amid my adolescent hormonal confusion. Or, as I told Emma earlier this week: “What you curse me for now, you will apologize to me for when you’re in your 20s, or at least by the time you become a parent.”

Today, as an adult and as a parent, I look back at what my mom and grandparents did for my father and for our family and think of them as heroes.

••••••

Every day, you see bits and pieces of yourself in your children, things that by habit, luck, or genetic predisposition they were bound to replicate.

Emma, in so many ways, reminds me of her mom. She is thoughtful, funny, smart, and beautiful. She and Ben get their blue eyes from me. She has an innate love for learning, which her mom and I share, is loyal to a fault (me, I think), and endlessly curious about things others consider trivial (me). Emma also is not afraid to ask a tough question (me again) but is not naturally assertive (Jill).



Ben can sing, dance, and act (Jill, in spades), but his personality and approach is much closer to my own. I can sit and watch his wheels go ’round and ’round, trying to figure out how to maneuver his way toward the next Nerf gun or Xbox 360 game (definitely me). We love to watch movies together, a trait I’m glad I share with him and with my father. If Ben likes something, he becomes obsessed with it (me again) but he is very good at measuring and planning his time (Jill).

Kate has my stubborn streak and Jill’s kindness, my gift of gab and Jill’s lack of patience when she feels her time is being wasted. She can vacillate dramatically from ambivalent to obsessed (me again) and has to get in the last word (definitely me). At the same time, she has an extremely strong moral code (Jill), great talent at almost anything she tries (Jill), and is extremely beautiful and smart (you guessed it, Jill).

With Nicholas, you would think I had little to no genetic role in his life, but his love for the arts and his alternately introverted/extraverted personality all come from me. It's one of the great ironies of divorce; every time I see him, I see his mom. Every time he appears on stage, she sees me.

••••••

Because each thing we experience is unique, memory is a fascinating quilt, especially where family is concerned. My perspective on my upbringing is different from that of my parents, just as I’m sure the perspective of my children will be different from mine.

Things I remember as fact, childhood memories that struck me as funny or terrifying when I was a kid, are mundane, run-of-the-mill moments to others. I call this phenomenon “familial Rashoman,” or in the case of my wife and kids, “The Magnificent Six.”

Other examples of selective memory are the conversations I had with my father.  
I can count the number of deep talks we had on one hand.  In fact, I really can’t count much past the middle finger, although that’s not his fault. Nor really is it mine.

Without question, when I look back at my dad, I can shake my head at his eccentricities, chafe (ever so slightly) at his political views — how a Kennedy Democrat became a Republican is one of the most vexing questions in my life — and marvel at his kindness and absolute love for my mom.

Of the three or four deep conversations we had, at least two were about those latter topics.

For any one of a number of reasons, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. It's a disturbing statistic under any circumstance, one made even more so when you are playing in the World Series of life and relationships with a whiffle ball and a tiny plastic bat. Separating from your spouse, no matter whether it’s necessary or not, is one of the toughest decisions anyone can ever make.



My parents were married for 43 years and three years after my dad's death, Mom still wears her wedding ring. They survived all sorts of physical strum and drang and managed to make it work, holding hands and looking at each other until the end.

By contrast, my first go-round was a seven-year relationship that flamed out before we reached our fifth anniversary. My sister took a similar path.

That night in the car with Nicholas, I cited my father’s advice as I tried to explain to him the reasons I left his mom. When I was debating whether to end my first marriage, I asked my father how he and mom had remained together.

“Well,” he said, “when I look at your mom, I still see the same person I fell in love with.”

Dad went on to explain that bodies change, that people change over the decades, that no marriage (obviously) is perfect. The difference, he believed, was that the fundamental reason he fell for her in the first place never changed.

“So many people get married for the right reasons, but at the wrong time to the wrong person,” he said. “It doesn’t mean the other person is a bad human being, but that they are just wrong for you. I got lucky.”

••••••

I am lucky to have had my dad in my life, fortunate to have memories of him waking me up in the middle of the night to watch “Red River,” fortunate to have listened to his advise, fortunate to have my stories (more of which I will share later). I hope that Nicholas, and my other children, feel the same about me when they are my age.

One of my great regrets is that my father and Nicholas did not know each other as well as I wish they could. When I was growing up, I felt surrounded by grandparents, and I know Nicholas would have benefitted so much from getting to know my father.

Sometimes, I wonder if they would have discussed art, a common talent they shared. At others, I wonder how they would have gotten along, because many of their interests are so disparate.  Either way, I know my dad would be proud of his oldest grandchild.

Just as I am tonight… Happy birthday, Nicholas.