Be Your Own Editor

H Devaraja Rao wrote:

Meteors fall. Why,then, “meteoric rise”?

Actually, meteor refers to the visual phenomenon that we see (and sometimes call a “shooting star”) when a particle from outer space enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Something to do with the extreme heat. Those few that survive this experience and actually fall to Earth are called meteorites. So there.

In any case, my guess is that the expression refers not to direction, but to speed. Or explosiveness. Besides, “meteoric rise” is a cliche, and we writers want to avoid those. Thanks for the fun question, though . . . I always appreciate people who think about such things!

In the words of Mark Twain:

I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. … There are subtleties which I cannot master at all,—they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me,—and this adverb plague is one of them. … Yes, there are things which we cannot learn, and there is no use in fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won’t.

Then again, Henry James said, “I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.” So who’s right? Both. Adverbs are perfectly respectable words that, like any others, should be used but used right. And too often, they’re not.

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Contributed by David B. Silva

You’re going to write a fantasy novel. You’ve come up with some characters, you’ve come up with some spells, you’ve even outlined your basic plot. Now what? How about research? The most important element of a fantasy novel is originality. Therefore the cardinal sin is not knowing what’s already out there.

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Courtesy of the the fine folks at the Edit Red writing website. As a New Yorker, I think I might be too overwhelmed with ideas to enter this one myself:

“City Smells” is a new literary project set up by the Edit Red Writing Community.

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JC writes:

I write in the fantasy genre and there are certain expectations that readers
have where language is concerned. However, the copy-editor I’m working with has balked at my use of “upon,” to the point where she changed all of them into “on.” She must have done a search and replace all because “whereupon” became “whereon.” *sigh*

My question is: How can I convince her that “upon” sounds more appropriate after words like “wait,” “lay,” “set,” “look,” and in phrases like “upon the instant,” “evening was upon them”?

JC, your question brings up two other questions: Does good writing mean different things in different genres? and, Why do you have to “convince” your copyeditor of something?

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I came across the fairly wacky website SeventhSanctum.com recently and can’t help sharing. It’s mostly a collection of “generators,” described by the site as “tools for writers, gamers, and artists; randomly assembling names, concepts, and more for when you need inspiration, or just a bit of amusement.” If you’re searching for your next idea (big or small), you just might find it there. Or something that leads you to it.

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