This week’s topic is courtesy of Miska Jenkins – What would you say your writing strengths and weaknesses are?
Oh, I love this question!
If you missed stopping at Betty Bolte’s you scoot yourself right back there, and see what she has to say. The woman is a marvel.
Okay, envision me rubbing my hands together here.
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| Me talking to 4th graders about writing |
Writing strengths: hmm … does a wicked sense of humor count? In my other life I’m a teacher, so the whole punctuation thing comes fairly easily. The biggest snafu with that is publishing house differing than industry standard or The Chicago Manual of Style, the source generally consulted for “how-to-do-it-right.”
I’ve been told three different ways to use ellipses, and only one is correct. I’m the queen on spotting comma splices and run on sentences.
Let’s see what else? I’ve been told dialogue is a strength as is creating believable characters and my attention to historical details. Some people love my descriptive writing, but others not-so-much.
Writing weaknesses: Does reading a sentence fifty times and still not noticing the missing word count? I can be too wordy when I write, and often do a major word pruning after the first draft is written. Some of my weaknesses have disappeared as I write more, develop my craft, and seek to improve my skills. Others like over-using some words, usually passive voice terms, still get me. I have to do a search and highlight the little buggers, so I can zap them into editing oblivion.
The I’m so embarrassed: this would be discovering I’ve made a glaring error in my research after the book is published, or using words not period appropriate when I thought for sure they were.
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| Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
For instance I came across the most delightful word about two years ago. I put it in my current WIP and even shared it with a class of fourth graders. We talked about the meaning, and I told them to go home and tell their parents they learned a new word. Two days later, my critique partner emailed me and said I might want to reconsider using the word, because the modern meaning was MUCH different.
As in I had taught the kiddos a word similar to snuggle in the 1800s, but today it is a homosexual term referring to a certain part of a man’s anatomy becoming stuck.
And I told twenty-eight fourth graders to tell their parents that word. Beyond awful!
I’ll leave you with that. Let’s see what Brenda Margriet’s strengths and weaknesses are, shall we?
