Wit

I’m no great wit, plus I don’t get humor, generally. I even tend to tell people jokes go right over my head, literally. And I’d said that several times, before I figured out why people who know how short I am laugh at it, see I really don’t understand comedy. It eludes me.

As a teen, I have clear memories of me trying to explain to my father why what he just said was illogical while my stepmother and the oldest of my siblings present laughed hysterically, and the youngest two (who were toddlers at the time) watched with looks of wonder on their faces. It took me years to figure out that they were laughing as much about my reaction as they were about the joke my father just shared. This wasn’t a one-time memory. It happened at just about every dinner we had as a family.

It’s like a standing joke in my family that I don’t get jokes.

I’m not very droll either.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come up with excellent comebacks a week or two after the fact. It’s kind of annoying, since words are supposed to be my strength. I find it even harder to take that while words are not my husband’s forte by a long shot, he is a wit.

Case in point, I was watching TV when a commercial came on for a company selling power chairs, and my husband walked into the room just the announcer said, “Who are you going to call?”

And he looked right at the screen and said, “Ghostbusters!”

Now that joke I got, but I’d have never thought of saying it, not in a million years. And I own both Ghostbusters and Ghostbuster 2 on DVD. I like those movies.

I sorely wish I could be that quick, but at least my characters don’t have that problem. Of course, they have the advantage that I go over their dialogue dozens of times before I even show my story to my twin. Actually, I tend to rewrite dialogue at least a half a dozen times before I move on the next scene, and I still might just go back a day or two later to make even more changes, when I finally come up with a better response. J

On the harder scenes, I rewrite the dialogue well over a dozen times before I move on. So, you see, my characters never have to relive some event and think about what would have been a better comeback. They’re lucky; they’re not me.

Plus when it comes to putting humor into my stories, I’m never sure I managed it, until my twin says I did. That’s part of why I let her read my rough drafts. (If you can honestly call something that been edited a dozen or more times unedited. Though, technically I do let her see it before I edit for such things as echo, redundancies, typos, and grammar errors, so it is rough. Maybe I should say, “Revised.”)

Of course, I’m sure other authors out there would find something else the hardest part about writing. I know some who bemoan needing dialogue, and others who have trouble just deciding which POV to use. We all have differences.

Why don’t you share what you find the hardest thing to accomplish in your writing?

Beta Readers

In the world of writers today, we have something which we call beta readers. What are they? Well, for starters, they’re not professionals, they’re not writers, editors, or publishers, they are everyday people who are a capable of sharing an opinion, but not much else.

Beta readers are a good tool to use in our writing. I had one once who noticed a character of mine was behaving illogically, and I’m very grateful for her help. They have their place in our lives, but let’s not depend on them too much.

Depending on a beta reader as a critique partner is like a contractor depending on a homebuyer to inspect his work. It just doesn’t work.

A buyer can see that the trim is in place and everything works, but he can’t possibly understand that the building doesn’t have the correct kind of wiring, the right size of pipes, or the appropriate amount insulation. Those little things that make the difference between a house that will stand the test of time and one that will crumble around your feet.

Sure, a beta reader knows what doesn’t make sense, and may be able to point out grammar errors, but what does such a person know about echo, redundancies, passive vs. active voice, showing vs. telling, and using strong verbs instead of adverbs, or avoiding adjectives. They know nothing about using specific terms instead of general. They don’t know the rules that mean the difference between acceptance and rejection.

So don’t depend on beta readers to help get you published, they don’t know what will help the most, and you’re not going to learn to write better from them.

Depending on beta readers would be the same as if I’d stayed with that first critique group I joined. I improved my grammar under their care, but that’s all. They didn’t even notice that I was telling more than showing, let alone all my echo, redundancies, and passive voice.

Stagnating at a level of a high school grad isn’t going to induce an agent or publisher to buy your manuscript, at most you’ll get a letter telling you to edit it, and then maybe they’ll look at it again.

Of course, how are you going to fix it, if you don’t know what’s wrong?

Think about it. J