The Power of Writing

Writing may be one of the least favorite parts of an elementary school kids' day. I'd wager most of you have a child that hates to write, even if they love to read.

I have one of those. Mary hates writing. Her mother is a writer. Our home is overflowing with books. She is rarely without a book. Literacy is a integral part of our family, so why does Mary hate writing?

I have no idea. A big part of it is the physicality of actually writing on the page (Mary has terrible handwriting), but that can't be the only reason why. I've tried to figure out why Calvin loves to write. He writes pages and pages of creative writing for fun, on his own time, and he never complains about any of the writing I have him do for home school, and I have him do a lot, way more than he would get in traditional school. 

Lucy loves to write too. Unlike Calvin, it isn't so much the story she loves, but the language. She likes to write poetry (unlike me!) and she likes to put beautiful phrases together. 

So far, Shaemus seems to enjoy writing as well, though his writing is more structurally based. He likes following a formula, and he has started using formulas (goofy alphabet books, retellings of fairytales) to write stories for fun. (But his grade went down in writing this past quarter because his handwriting has gotten worse. His teacher told me he is a brilliant little first grade writer, the most literate in the class, but she couldn't give him the highest grade because of his handwriting—and now I'm watching his self-esteem sink a bit. Not too happy about this subjective grading system... 4, 3, 2, 1)

So why Mary? Why does she hate any and all forms of writing? And how do I change this?

If you have time, read this great article on how a college English teacher got his non-writer students totally excited about stories. And writing. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/books/review/straight-through-the-heart.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

If I believe every child can love reading—and I do—then I also believe every child can love writing. Really. I believe that. Writing is not a subject, it is a tool to get across a point to an audience. Like reading, the more you write, the more confident you are in your ability to write well. The greater your confidence, the more you enjoy yourself as you write. And the more you write.

But how do we achieve this? If I believe this, why isn't it happening in my own home for Mary?

It's not happening in my own home because Mary has yet to experience for herself two major truths: one, stories are incredibly important things, not just fun, important. Exciting. Meaningful. Life changing. World changing. Two, Mary has yet to believe that she has the ability to harness that power.

Notice I am not talking about interest here. I know some people might say, lay off! She just isn't interested in writing. It isn't her thing. But writing isn't like History or Science or Underwater Basketweaving. It isn't a subject. It truly is a tool. You can dislike writing fiction, because you don't enjoy fiction, but you may love nonfiction and you may love writing nonfiction. To say you hate to write, just plain write, means you hate to express yourself. To have ideas. To communicate.

I think if every kid believed in the power of writing to make a difference and if they believed they had the innate potential to write well, they would want that power. They would be motivated to seek it and develop it.

I've got to teach Mary about this power and I've got to get her to believe she can use it, and then I've got to give her the autonomy we all crave to use this power HOWEVER SHE WANTS TO. 

I cannot express how exciting it is for me to create a story. I love having these people in my head, I love giving them life, giving them actions and relationships and personalities and problems. These people are in my control, they are my play things. If you are writing nonfiction, you still have this power. You are choosing words that will teach and excite emotions in others. You are choosing what facts to share and when. You are striving to get across a point and convince others that you are right (or maybe just get them to think). You are bringing to life ideas and images that were invisible before.

Kids do not get autonomy in the writing they do in school (and with the common core, they will get even less autonomy than they've had in the past). For my master's degree in creative writing, I had creative work due regularly that was in every way my own. My stories were mine. No one told me what to write, only how to make it better. Even the critical writing I did for my degree—and I did a lot of it—was my own. I chose what I wanted to write about, what I wanted to study. All the writing I did during my master's degree was autonomous, and I loved (nearly) every minute of it.

I need to say to Mary, "How did that book make you feel? What did you love about it? What did you hate? What does it make you think about? Do you think this book is important? What words did the author use that made you feel that way? How did the author do it?" Then, once this discussion has established that stories are awesome (!!!) and writers are powerful, I need to say, "You know, I'll bet you could write a story that would do the same things, a story that is powerful. If you wanted to give it a try, we could publish it. We could put it on a blog and add segments of the story as you write them, or we could take your book over to Kinko's and have it bound, like a real book." 

I need to give her first, a spark of passion, second, autonomy, and third, an audience. In that order.

Your child is not Mary (obviously). What kind of a child do you have? Why don't they like writing? What can you do to help them discover the power in writing? What can you do to love writing more yourself?

Said is not Dead

Shaemus came home from school the other day with an editing checklist. One of the things on that checklist:

Have I used words other than said?

Ohhhhhhh. That sentence made shivers go up and down my spine. Then the shivers went up into my head, giving me a massive headache and a possible cold. 

Where do these editing checklists come from? Who makes them up? I don't know, except I do know one thing. 

They don't come from professional writers.

But my little school in North Carolina is not the only school where this is being taught, that said is dead. My own sweet mom said it to me just the other day, right before she went to teach a class on teaching writing to other teachers working on their master's degrees. I had to give her a little lecture, which she took very well, but she told me that this is a thing all teachers teach. That "said is dead" is part of the educational jargon of today. 

Check out your own kids' writing checklists. I'll bet you a lot of money (Monopoly money) that you will see something about said on that list. Some kind of encouragement to use a different word than said.

Google "Said is dead." There are plenty of writing websites with articles about how said is not dead. Every website that proclaims "Said is Dead!" will be an educational website, a school's website or a teacher's blog. 

Now go open a book or a magazine or a newspaper. Check out how often said is used (a lot). Check out how often substitutes for said are used (not much). Said is a dialogue tag. It is a simple word that allows an author to attribute dialogue to a character so the reader is not confused. Said is alive and well. Said is extremely popular. Said is awesome.

Said is not dead. 

Here is a little commentary from John Warner, author and creative writing teacher:

Recently, the most disturbing news I’ve heard in a long time came across my Facebook feed. It was supplied by Matt Bell, a writer and creative writing teacher of my acquaintance who had heard this very troubling thing from the students in one of his classes.

They told Professor Bell that when it comes to tagging dialog in their fiction, “said is dead.” He inquired where they learned this, and they answered, "school."

As a creative writing teacher, I am loathe to hand out “rules” to students, preferring them to experience the freedom necessary to create something meaningful, and see the possibilities in words for themselves, but using “said” as a dialog tag as in - “I can’t believe that some students think said is dead,” he said -  comes as close to a rule as I can imagine.

As my friend, the writer Jim Ruland put it to me, “A tag on a line of dialog is like a tag on a garment: you're not supposed to notice it and it's slightly embarrassing when you do.”

The point is to allow the audience to focus on the character’s words, rather than drawing attention to a “he exclaimed!” or “she enthused!” lingering there at the end.

There really is no argument to be had about this. It is as certain and fixed as gravity or Donald Trump’s comb-over.

My first instinct was to blame J.K. Rowling, who is a serial and incorrigible abuser of this rule, but when I went to Google, I saw that the movement is far broader than I could’ve imagined.

We have fliers and lesson plans declaring that “said” is “overused” and that using a “synonym” such as “squeaked,” “gossiped,” or “gloated” will make students' writing more lively.

A class in Kentucky held a funeral for “said” and other “worn out” words.

These lessons seem grounded in good intentions, the goal of students expanding their vocabularies and being open to varieties in word choice.

But these good intentions, and others like them are, unfortunately, creating dysfunctional writers.

In my own class this semester, as I spoke about how to handle dialog tags, I remember seeing a certain amount of cognitive dissonance cross my students’ faces. I figured it was just because we were close to lunchtime, but having subsequently been alerted to the “said is dead” movement, I returned to class and asked how many of them had heard this wisdom, and half the room raised their hands.

This sort of instruction is hobbling students when they get to college and are introduced to the joys and complications of making the right choice of word at the right time.

(Except when it comes to dialog tags, which should 99% of the time use “said.”)

Mostly I’m bothered because these well-meaning rules close off the beauty and struggle of writing well. It suggests that writing has rules, rather than guidelines or practices. I think it even signals that writing well is a skill we ultimately just achieve, rather than a process that everyone has to employ, a process where we always fall short of perfection.

(Which is a beautiful thing, I think. The struggle is eternal, but it is good.)

They are not being taught how to think, how to choose. We have to stop this “said is dead” business, right here, right now.

If you teach writing in elementary, or secondary schools, please do not perpetuate “said is dead.” Find a different way to expand your students’ vocabularies. If you have school-age children, tell them said is not dead, right after you counsel them to just say no to drugs.

 “It really is that important,” he emphasized encouraged implored said.

Don't you love that last sentence? Doesn't it show you how ridiculous this is? "It really is that important," he emphasized. He encouraged. He implored. He begged. He pleaded. He pronounced. He remarked. He illustrated. He insisted.

He said.

I was speaking to a woman the other day who runs a co-op homeschool. She and her husband were discussing developing a software that will help kids with writing. It would analyze the children's paragraphs and say things like, "Oops! You've used "said" too many times in this paragraph. Choose another word!!!" Or, "You don't have enough "ly" words in this paragraph. Can you stick one in there?"

This is not writing. Writing is not simply looking up and down your words and picking ones that seem sparkly or different or unique so you can get a check. Writing is getting across a story to the reader in clear, interesting ways. Using "remarked" instead of "said" does not suddenly make a paragraph interesting. 

This is important. Why is this important? (Oh, who cares, Lindsay, quit making such a big deal out of dumb little things...) 

It's important because rules likes this—said is dead, you have to use "ly" words, etc, etc— make kids HATE writing. So many kids hate to write. I would wager most of you with school age children have at least one who hates writing. 

Wouldn't you? If you had to look back at everything you wrote and worry about finding a different word for a very basic word like said, instead of focusing on what your writing is really saying, instead of thinking about your story and what your characters want and what their next adventure might be. 

I am trying to work up the courage to tell Shaemus's teacher the truth. That said is not dead. That there should be no funerals for said. That ninety-nine percent of the time, you should use said as an invisible tag, a punctuation mark. Think of it like a period, because that's really what it is.

Encourage your children at home, in their writing, to use the word said. When they grow up, when they get into college, if they choose any profession that involves writing, this will be important for them, and it will give them freedom! Freedom from made-up writing rules that make teachers feel as if they are teaching their kids how to write, when they are really not. They are teaching them things they can check off so they can give kids grades for their writing and feel consistent about it. 

If their teachers balk, if you start getting papers home asking your kids to use "intoned" instead of "said," tell the teacher the truth. That said is not dead, and may it live a long and robust and healthy and sparkly and vibrant and vigorous and energetic life. (Another school rule is to use lots and lots of adjectives. Lots and lots and lots. The more the better. :) )

Viva la said!