People of the Internet: Please stop writing in clichés

Shove your cliché in there and see what happens.

Communicating in clichés is nothing to be proud of. It means you are thinking on autopilot, lack creativity, or are not articulate enough to express yourself with originality.

If you pay attention to what you type on message boards and in comment threads, and you pay attention to what other people say on message boards and in comment threads, you should be able to identify when a phrase starts becoming rote. And when everyone has that same cluster of words playing on an endless loop in their brains and can no longer not use it, it has become a cliché.

For those who are unsure: Clichés suck donkey sausage.

Alas, a new cliché has taken over the internet. I hate it more than I hate the 1998 American Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick. It is typically expressed when the commenter is exposed to something he dislikes, and it is now being “shoved down my throat” about 50 times a day.

As in, “Why is gay marriage always being shoved down my throat?”

Or, “Why are people always shoving their religious beliefs down my throat?”

Or, “Stop shoving your political views down my throat.”

Or, “Whenever I get an endoscopy, the doctor shoves a black hose down my throat.”

Not your fault dude.

Well, maybe the last one is okay. But otherwise, for the sake of the language, and for the impression you give of yourself to the world, and for my sanity, please stop freaking saying things are being shoved down your throat.  You sound like a moron. If you are angry about other’s beliefs (and if you are like almost everyone on the internet, you are damn angry about something), don’t be a cliché. Find another way to say it.

Warning: If you leave a comment below making a joke that I shoved this post down your throat, I will shake my head with bitter disappointment at your predictability. It will be a withering headshake you won’t soon forget!

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In other news, and the real reason I created this post, is to report that I beat my August 31 deadline for completing draft # 2 of my novel. You have the option of reacting in one of more the following ways:

1. With resentment and envy because you haven’t touched your WiP in months.
2. By feeling inspired to set and meet your own deadlines, thus bringing you closer to your goal of writing a literary classic or, if not that, a bit of commercial tripe that nevertheless becomes a blockbuster and gets turned into a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Shaquille O’Neal.
3. With indifference because you lack empathy for the dreams of a humble man who only wants to make people happy.
4. With derisive laughter because you finish a novel draft every two days.
5. All of the above (in which case you might need to see a specialist).
6. Any combination of the above.
7. Other.

 

When Bad Books Get Published

There are two realities: The one we insist upon and the one that actually is.

For writers, the insisted reality is that nothing less than perfection will get us a sniff at publication. Agents, publishers, editors, other writers, and bloggers don’t mind telling us everything we’re doing wrong in our quest, either.  Taken in toto, their advice demands that our stories have intriguing, likeable, and flawed (but not too flawed) characters who interact via engaging, authentic dialog and whose arcs roll out in perfect synchronization with an expertly paced, surprising (but not too surprising) plot, within which we have woven the perfect balance of descriptive details and crisp verbs while employing a narrative style that utilizes all five senses, avoids adverbs like bubonic plague, layers in foreshadowing that is not too obvious yet not too obscure, and speaks to the human condition in an original, innovative, and commercially viable way.

The actual reality is that most books fail to meet these demands yet are published all the time. Go to any bookstore, and within 5 minutes you should be able to find at least one novel that is a derivative, bland, and cliché-ridden exercise in tedium, the sole purpose of which seems to be: I dare you to finish this. Within a half hour, you can probably find a dozen more like it.

I say this because I am currently reading a debut novel that is, at its very best, mechanically competent on a sentence level. I’m reading it because it’s set during the early Italian Renaissance, a period that intrigues me, and because someone lent it to me.

None of the characters offers anything close to a personality or motivation, tedious exposition stands in place of a plot, and tension is nonexistent. I’ve invented the following dialog exchange for your amusement, yet I feel it captures the character interplay quite accurately:

“It’s not fair that you are sending me to the monastery. You know that all I long to do is paint and to become a great artists like my father!” said Luigi with a wince.

“You know what is not fair?” replied Super Mario. “It is not fair that you stole that apple from the street vendor, forcing me to give 3 florins to the jailer to secure your release! It is not fair that your mother died of consumption those five years ago and left you in my care, for, prior to that, I had no worries in the world. Oh, what else can I do with you, Luigi? It’s a monk’s life for you, I’m afraid.”

This followed by a three pages of exposition detailing the hitching of the cart, the ride into town, the condition of the roads, the oppressive atmosphere at the monastery, and so on.

To end up in a bookstore, this manuscript had to interest an agent then be pitched and sold to a publisher, edited, printed, and distributed, despite the writing being objectively poor.

As would-be professional novelists (presuming no best-selling authors currently read this blog), we show good form by not whining in public about our struggles to find success, not trashing our contemporaries by name, and taking our lumps from experts with humility. But you know as well as I do that lots of awful books get published and sometimes—admit it—you think, “Geez. I would have written that so much better.”

Which leads me to this question: When you browse a novel that forces you to stifle your gag reflex over its dreadfulness, do you end up feeling bitter or motivated?

As if the world needs another post about Adverbs.

Standing in a circle, we face each other, panting and glazed with sweat. Blood-smeared clubs dangle from our hands, heavy now from all the blows. On the ground before us lies a mass of pulverized meat, guts, bone, and hair.

It’s the Adverbs Suck horse, and we have killed him across all the known universes of the cosmic alliance. He is ready for the glue factory, little in the way of processing needed.

Then Baker says, “Can I just make one more comment about adverbs?”

The rest of us groan.

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Never Use Adverbs 98% of the Time

So I happened upon a dude’s blog the other day in which he discussed the “ly” thing. I got the feeling he didn’t think they were the worst thing ever, but also that they weren’t great and should generally be avoided.

Generally.

Yeah, I used an adverb.

I’ve long maintained here that writing rules aren’t rules but firm guidelines. When you begin to view rules as absolute, you lose sight of the story. Would you wreck a sentence that works to ensure it conforms to rules?

I agree that adverbs can be indicators of lazy writing and that they tell instead of showing, the main knocks against them. I don’t agree that they are absolutely unacceptable under any circumstances.  See, I just used another one, absolutely. It works for the sentence. It lends dramatic emphasis to “unacceptable.” I could find another way to write that sentence, but the sentence would be equal, not better, and it might even be longer.

Adverbs can make a point in an economical manner. Or, they can do it “economically,” which is more economical. Ready for some blasphemy? Sometimes telling is OK, like when it’s necessary to connect the interesting bits of the story with a line of exposition so quick you won’t even notice it’s exposition. Every writer uses exposition, and everyone who freaks out over one line of it is too worried about rules and not enough about enjoying the story. Dickens’ “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times,” what some may argue is (AKA arguably) the most famous line in all of fiction, is exposition.

I’ve digressed. Adverbs are 98% bad for the reasons often cited. Here are my guidelines for when not to use them:

1. When integrated into the action. This is the lazy part people mention.

He struck the horse angrily, as if somehow killing something already dead would make people realize that JJ Abrams ruined Star Trek, despite the movies being pretty good, winning acclaim, and being successful.

A better choice: He struck the horse until his palm stung…

2. When integrated into a dialog tag. This is the telling part people mention.

“I’m going to keep hitting this dead horse until you admit I’m right,” Pinky said passionately yet frustratedly.

A better choice: Pinky’s face knotted and he challenged Mina with a glare. “I’m going to keep hitting this horse until you admit I’m right.”

3. When it makes you cringe.

You know, this is a pretty good guideline for any component of writing. If it sounds awkward, it is.

The moral of the story: Adverbs are not great, but neither is unbending compliance to and enforcement of any single writing “rule.”

Thoughts? Comments? Abuse?

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Bonus content!

Gender stereotypes are silly, and few are more silly to me than the notion that a woman carries a purse and a man does not.  I’ve got a wallet, a big wad of car keys with two remotes and a bunch of store cards, a Samsung Galaxy phone, lip balm, nail clippers, minty sugarless gum, and sometimes a CD or two to carry around. You think all that junk is going to fit in the pocket of my jeans?

So here it is, as requested by my blogging buddy Janna Noelle, a picture of me with my brand new man purse. No, it’s not a “messenger bag.” It’s a purse. I grew a beard and scowled just to accentuate my manliness. That is, if this Chuck Norris-like bucket of testosterone can carry a purse, so can you, fellas.

Baker and his man purse. You gotta prollem widdat?

Time’s Up for This Cliché

8 years and counting…

Andy Warhol made many unique contributions to popular culture. I wish he would have made one fewer.

When the pop-art guru said, in 1968, that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, I don’t think he intended his words to become the de rigueur insult in response to every single last stinkin’ internet article about a current celebrity.

I happen upon this hackneyed cliché at least a dozen times per week, and it always irritates. But, like Joan Crawford discovering a wire hanger in her daughter’s closet, I finally snapped this Tuesday. The online article that sent my synapses into electric fury appeared on a popular entertainment site discussing an alleged feud between early ‘90s pop singer Sinead O’Connor and current pop singer Miley Cyrus over the usual nonsense from which celebrity feuds are contrived.

The feud is irrelevant. The reader responses, however, made me very grumpy (pointlessly so to the people around me, it turns out. Their reactions were rather less passionate than mine). Not only did at least 412 people write, “Your 15 minutes of fame are up, Miley,” another 275 wrote, “Weren’t Sinead O’Connor’s 15 minutes of fame up 20 years ago?”

Dear people who write things on the internet: Please, for the love of Zeus, stop using “15 minutes of fame” in reference to people who are actually famous. I don’t think that’s what Andy Warhol meant.

You see, Miley Cyrus is actually famous. She’s a multimillionaire, has sold millions of records, has performed before hundreds and thousands of fans and many millions more on TV, and has been a widely recognized public figure since March of 2006 when Hannah Montana debuted to huge ratings.

Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West, Kristen Stewart, Ben Affleck, and other reviled celebs who draw similar comments are actually famous too, and many have been for a long time. Way longer than 15 minutes.

Being a commenter on entertainment web pages who comments that famous people aren’t worth commenting about because they are almost not famous anymore… well, that’s like me, a blogger with a web footprint the size of a post-it note (the small kind) saying no one uses Facebook anymore.

My relative obscurity won’t stop me from offering this bit of advice, though: I implore you, internet commenter, to stop using the expression “15 minutes of fame.” It is a cliché. Clichés equal bad writing. When you use clichés, it means you are unable to express your own thoughts. Or, more likely, that you don’t have your own thoughts. And there’s really no reason to leave a comment about Miley Cyrus on the internet if you have nothing to say, is there?

15 minutes of fame… Your 15 minutes is up.

Worst 100-Word Story… My Version

So apparently there’s this newfangled concept I just found out about called “being ethical.” Basically it means I cannot enter a Worst Story contest I am judging because I will be “biased.” Can you believe that malarkey? Think of the time and effort I’d save by winning a prize that’s already in my possession!

Anyway, now that my worst story contest is over and the winner announced, I might as well show you what I would have submitted (title not included in the word count). I hope you think it sucks:

Love Reflected is Love Unaccepted

By Eric J Baker

“Gwendolyne!” Brock proffered feelingly.

“Don’t,” Gwendolyne chirped in response, feelingly. She turned away.

“But… I don’t love you,” he announced, somewhat less feelingly.

She turned. “What?” She was surprised.

“I am in love with Robotman,” he declared with finality. He turned. “It’s true.”

She turned. “But I love Robotman. What shall we do?”

“I don’t know.” They turned.

From a distance, Robotman watched with unnecessarily luminous eyes, unbothered by the sunlight glinting off his chrome. He did not love either of them. He lacked human feeling. He wasn’t even sad about it. Then he activated “Giant Mode” and flew away.

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It’s not too late to enter my Worst Short Story contest!

I’ve gotten some good, I mean bad submissions so far, but I hope to see even more drek before this whole thing is done. Make the judging really painful for me!

You have until 11:59:59.999999 p.m. on September 30th to enter. The rules, prize, and other details are here, but the basics are: I’m looking for the worst short story you can write in 100 words or fewer. This is real Blaze of Glory stuff. Make your family proud.

Enter My “Worst Short Story” Contest!

Why pay money to some jerk to submit your writing when you can enter my contest for free? Especially when the winner of my contest gets a real honest-to-goodness prize?*

That’s right; I am sponsoring my very first ever Worst Short Story Contest.  I’m looking for the absolute worst piece of flash fiction you can come up with. I want clichés, cringe-inducing dialog, hideous metaphors, and whatever else you can squeeze into 100 words.

The rules:

1. Your story must be 100 words or shorter. I’ve haven’t got all day!

2. It must be something unpublished that you wrote.

3. It must follow qualify as a work of fiction with at least one character and some sort of conflict.

4. You are not permitted to cry if you win. There’s no crying in fiction.

Sign here if you agree to these terms _________________________ (go ahead and write on the monitor. It’s fine)

*Anyone can enter, but I’m only shipping the prize within the continental U.S. I love you, but my love is worth $2.50 in first-class shipping, not some crazy airmail amount. More details below.

If I get swamped with entries, I will have to come back to this post and update it as “closed.” If I don’t get any entries, I will be embarrassed, so make sure you submit something. I am the judge, jury, and executioner, and I will announce the winner at the end of September (21 days from now, which is plenty of time for you to come up with something dreadful). I will run the winning entry in October, along with three runners up, if I get enough submissions.

Want to know what you are playing for?

Only a brand-spankin’ used copy of William Shatner’s The Transformed Man, featuring such classics as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Sweet!

Estimated prize value:  Negative $3

HOW TO ENTER: Go to my contact tab above and e-mail your story (pasted into the e-mail only… no attachments, please) with the subject line: Worst Story Submission.

Disclaimers: As I wrote above, I’m only mailing this CD within the continental U.S. first class via the USPS, because overseas shipping is insane. Trust me, you don’t actually want this “music.” If the winner comes from outside the lower 48, I will instead donate $5 to a an established national or international charity of her choice, provided it is not in any way religious, anti-gay, racist, or political, and I reserve the right to ask for a second choice if I am morally opposed to the first one. Oh yeah, I’m asking for one-time rights to publish the winning entry and those of up to 3 runners up (if I get enough submissions), mostly because it sounds cool, like I’m a publisher or something. One entry per person, please.

Good luck! I think?

Mole People Fan Fiction

I never knew until my last post how much you loved Mole People, so I’ve decided to dip my toes in the fan-fiction pool for the first time ever. Thanks for the inspiration! My apologies to Universal Pictures for the copyright infringement, but they shouldn’t have made their mole people so damned sexy.

And now, without further b.s., the greatest work of Mole People Fan Fiction ever created:

Levity is the Mole of Wit

By Cire Nhoj Rekab

Bella Swan and Darth Vader sat back to back, their hands bound with tree roots, as the Mole People brought forth armfuls of sticks. Here, deep within the Earth’s crust, a breeze issued from an ancient lava tube, chilling Bella’s arm and shoulder exposed by the tear in her dress.

They were about to die, burned alive in sacrifice to the insect god Garfoobel.

The raven-haired Bella showed no fear (a childhood injury had paralyzed her face muscles, which often led people to wonder if she could act feel emotion at all). Yet she was fearless not from bravery. Being this close to Vader, feeling the firm muscles of his black-caped back press against her flawless, porcelain skin, hearing the masculine hiss of his breathing apparatus… made her feel so alive. “Let them bring fire,” she thought. The burning she felt for Vader was hotter than the torches of a thousand Mole People.

But Vader pondered not love or fire. He thought of what he had witnessed just hours before aboard the Enterprise, a scene that shook him to his very respirator: Captain Kirk and Spock, lying in passionate embrace beneath satin sheets, violating Starfleet regulations nine ways to Sunday. Despite all his power, Vader could not Force the image from his mind.

“I see you’ve resigned yourselves to your fates,” said Ian, the Mole Person in charge of gathering flammable materials for sacrifice. “That’s good. Your little wizard friend, with the funny glasses and the yellow and maroon scarf… he thought he could defeat the great god Garfoobel, but he was wrong.”

Bella thought that skull stuck in the dirt over yonder had looked familiar. If she weren’t so busy brooding, the realization would have made her scream, “Haaaarrryyyy! Noooo!”

Vader mustered all the menace he had in him and turned his helmeted face toward the Mole Person. “Ian. I am your father.”

Ian tossed another branch on the pile. “No you’re not.”

“Search your feelings,” Vader said, impressing himself with his soulful delivery.

“One,” Ian said, “Mole People don’t have feelings. And two, that’s my dad right over there making Garfoobel’s tea. His name’s Archibald but, of course, we call him Stan.”

Damn, Vader thought. That worked so well last time. If only he could shoot finger lightning like the Emperor, this would all be over in a jiffy.

Garfoobel!

“Come on, then,” Ian said. “Over to the stake with you. And no funny business.” He hoisted the entwined couple to their feet and shoved them toward the iron post at the center of the Circle of Sacrifice. “You’re actually doing the topsiders a favor, you know. Without human sacrifices, Garfoobel would be up there smashing up the place. So think about that when the fire starts to lick your toes.”

The voice came from behind them. “Stop right there! They’ll be no sacrifice tonight!”

The Mole People, Bella, and Vader whirled around (which should have been a physical impossibility, given that the lovely waif and her planet-destroying love interest were tied together). Standing before them was Dr. Who, pointing his weird little screwdriver thing. His travelling companion, Clara, clung to his arm.

“And why not?” the Mole Person asked.

“Because,” said the natty Time Lord, “You cannot kill trademarked characters like Bella Swan, Darth Vader, and Harry Potter without the expressed written consent of Lionsgate, Disney, and Warner Brothers!”

An epic battle was about to break out when the exceptionally beautiful Clara turned from the page and gazed directly into the eyes of the guy writing this story, which startled him, to say the least. “So why are you wasting your time writing this bollocks? Especially when I’m standing right here, waiting for you to notice me.”

“Well,” the writer said, finding the attention she gave him rather implausible given the severe attractiveness mismatch. “I’ve got this Mole People thing going, and I really ought to–”

With that, Clara stepped through the writer’s laptop screen, into the room, and put her arms around his neck. “You’re new at fan fiction, so I should tell you that you can make it end however… you…want.” She tapped his nose with her index finger for punctuation.

And they lived happily ever after.

Clara (Jenna Louise Coleman), formerly Dr. Who’s time-travelling companion.

Banned Words

You’d think a gory-horror-movie loving, rock-n-roll heathen like me would be opposed to censorship.

Normally you’d be right, but when it comes to protecting America’s collective intelligence from inane, trendy words and phrases that spread through the world of online journalism like an Old Testament-grade cockroach infestation, the oppressive dictator in me comes out.

That’s right. I’m calling for a ban. A burning even.  I’m saying, “Let’s go Fahrenheit 451 on its ass.” If you’ve been anywhere near an entertainment page recently, you know the term I’m talking about: baby bump.

Please, gossip scribes of the world, I implore you for the sake of substantive writing everywhere… stop saying “baby bump.” Every time I see it, I feel as if a rabid goat is chewing on my last nerve. Outside of my general compassion toward all humans, I really don’t care about Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy. I wish her and Kanye a healthy, happy child, but you really don’t need to tell me every time her “baby bump” makes a public appearance. Women have been giving birth for at least 70 or 80 years (as far as I know; it could be longer), but we haven’t had to hear about baby bumps until about 2 years ago. Do we have nothing better to talk about?

And while you are in the process of learning how to make better choices, entertainment writers, can you also rethink the wisdom of “Sideboob”? You know, like when an actress shows up on the red carpet wearing a top that exposes her flanks and you seem to think it warrants an article with a sideboob declaration in the headline. Amanda Seyfried’s sideboob! Scarlett Johansson’s sideboob! Louie Anderson’s sideboob! Holy crap, three-dimensional objects can also be seen from the side! Why didn’t Stephen Hawking tell us?

Where are all the frontboob stories, by the way? I think every time a female celebrity steps outside and isn’t wearing a deep-sea-diving suit or some other encumbrance that obscures the existence of her breasts, we should get an article about it. Newsflash: Anne Hathaway’s frontboobs arrive at a given destination .05 seconds before the rest of her body!

Perhaps calling for an outright ban is a little too Kim Jong Un for a patriotic blog like this one. I know entertainment writers are under a lot of pressure to generate material in the internet age. How about I just foster the notion that self-respect and dignity are, in the end, at least as worthwhile as a few clicks.

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There are certainly plenty of songs with “baby” in the title for me to choose from. Here’s a pretty good one by The Supremes. Note: My apologies to anyone  who is offended by the gratuitous frontboob taking place in this video It’s hard for them to sing in deep sea diving suits, I’m told.

Expedient does not mean “fast”

In my editing travels I have come across this error far more often than you’d believe. Indeed, I find “expedient” used incorrectly with greater frequency than I find it used correctly.

For the record, expedient means advantageous or advisable.

I surmise that, because the word is similar in spelling to “expedite,” people sometimes conflate the two. Also, the second syllable sounds like speed. It’s as if the word gods set a bear trap for us. What did we ever do to offend them? Other than mangle the language all day, that is.

Some example of incorrect and correct usage of “Expedient.”

Incorrect:

Captain Kirk seduced the green alien woman in an expedient manner, having beamed down to her planet only minutes earlier.

Correct:

It would be expedient for the green alien woman to get tested for an STD after spending the night with Captain Kirk, a noted lothario.

*

Incorrect:

Usain Bolt ran the 100-meter dash expediently.

Correct:

If you intend to run the 100-meter dash against Usain Bolt, it is expedient to practice as often as possible. Nevertheless, you are going to lose.

*

Incorrect:

Republicans and Democrats worked together and passed the anti-Godzilla legislation in an expedient fashion.

Correct:

It was politically expedient for Republicans and Democrats to work together on an anti-Godzilla bill, what with the massive beast closing in on Los Angeles.

*

Incorrect (though, in its wrongness, still true):

When you write expediently, you run the risk of making silly mistakes.

Correct:

If you think “expediently” means “quickly,” it is expedient for you to buy a dictionary.

*

Today’s theme song is Faster than the Speed of Light by Swedish hard-rock guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen, whose fingers sure are speedy. Vocals by the great Joe Lynn Turner of Rainbow. They don’t make rock singers like that anymore.