The difference one word can make
19 Apr
As I wrote a while back I try to keep down the language in the books these days. I don’t have any moral objection to swearing. I do find myself pissed off annoyed by unnecessary words.
Sometimes you can kill both with one well-aimed stone. Here’s the original sentence from the first pre-revise manuscript…
They turned into a short, bleak cul-de-sac littered with rubbish: paper and rotten fruit, abandoned market boxes, plastic bags of rubbish. The stench of cat’s piss was everywhere.
Here’s the rewrite…
They turned into a short, bleak cul-de-sac littered with rubbish: paper and rotten fruit, abandoned market boxes, plastic bags of rubbish. The stench of cats everywhere.
Better I think, on both counts.
Tags: Writing
Well, I’m a dog person myself, so I appreciate the joke. But you used “rubbish” twice.
That was the first rewrite. Another one on the way…..!
I’m torn on this example. I see what you mean, and I agree: swearing or other “harsh language” can definitely have a deleterious effect on a sentence, but I think that the second sentence is ultimately missing something that your first draft of it *did* have. It seemed more grimy, more real. Maybe finding another way to say it without using such a strong word like “piss”? Maybe something about the acrid scent of cats they could taste in the back of their throats? Something like that. Just a suggestion. Probably wrong, but I wanted to see what you thought of that.
-Ken
Well I am showing you something here that’s not really visible in context (and it is still a draft). It happens in a scene that makes it clear we’re in a pretty grimy and grubby part of the city. My principal objection isn’t to the swear word itself. I just don’t feel it’s necessary in this context. When you talk about ‘stench of cats’ I think it brings up the picture.
Though maybe I’m wrong and it’s too subtle.
Interestingly I got a whine from someone on Twitter who wrote…
…re-write paints a completely different picture (for a cat person at least). Swearwords are important.
But maybe I should put up a poll: Vote on whether the word ‘piss’ will be included in my 2012 book! Well actually it will be elsewhere. Just not sure about here.
Haha, I love the idea.
You will start a new trend of Piss Poles! Er, maybe you could come up with a better name for it.
If there is a better one it escapes me now
>>>The stench of cats everywhere.
It needn’t be just piss. It could be male cat spray. The worst! So, rewrite is also more accurate.
I like the edit–I’m all for word economy. In the end, it makes writing much more powerful.
In college I dated a race car engineer from England for a while. Now, the p-word doesn’t have quite the same sting on this side of the pond as it does over there. When I casually used it in front of him and his friends, you’d have thought I plotzed right there on the floor. They were horrified! Silly me. He turned out to be kind of a jerk, anyway.
See, I should have left off the “In the end,” phrase. More powerful. Right.
A race car engineer from England who turned out to be a jerk??? Who’d have thought it…
Should it be “the scent of cat” not cats? Just a suggestion.
I can’t think of any reason why it ‘should’ be the stench of cat rather than cats. You could have either. The plural seems more evocative to me.
“Stench of cat” (singular) would describe the air space of the entire cul-de-sac. Cats (plural) evokes a stench wafting up from the street where the cats have been and left their mark.
Now,how long did you say your book was?
“Stench” hung at the end of the re-write hangs the essence of cat, cats or otherwise in the air for me. Pew.
My wife is so laughing at me. I’ll just leave it there.
oops nearly rewrote the whole thing. I meant to type stench but for some reason typed scent! Not even the word in question! Sorry.
And Janie what has said summed up what I thought the phrase was meant to portray. I am not a writer so I’d best leave it to the professionals and just enjoy the end product, and of course the journey of writing it.
What did Einstein say of theories in physics? “Everything should be a simple as possible, but not simpler.” It seems to me the same applies to writing. The word “stench” already brings to the description quite a lot of useful freight – a sturdy, single-syllabled, Old Saxon/German root, redolent of “blench”, almost turns your nose up to say it.
Doesn’t need “piss” as well.
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