I can’t resist adding one more story to my two recent posts about Gone with the Wind.

Back in the early 70s, when I was living in New York City, I did all my banking at a savings-and-loan in Times Square.

One day while I was making a deposit, a middle-aged black woman on another line handed the teller two dollars and asked for a roll of nickels. There was no mistaking that voice! It was Prissy (“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no baby”) – the actress Butterfly McQueen from Gone with the Wind.

Everyone in that lobby (including me) let out a gasp…and then there was pandemonium. Bank business halted as tellers and customers rushed to shake “Prissy’s” hand.  Someone fetched the manager, who came down from his office and solemnly handed “Prissy” her roll of nickels. (I am not making this up.)

So much for blasé New Yorkers.

 *  *  *  *  *

One afternoon a few months later, I was riding the M104 bus back to my apartment on the Upper West Side – and there she was, wearing a coat with mismatched buttons, listening to the Mets game on a transistor radio.

I wanted to talk to her – but then I thought of the chaos that was sure to follow. (Imagine triggering that reaction every time you opened your mouth to speak!)

I got off at my bus stop a few minutes later, leaving Butterfly McQueen – Prissy – to listen to the Mets game in peace.

Click here to see a youthful Butterfly McQueen in a scene from Gone with the Wind.

___________________________________________________________

How do you get to “intelligent and interesting” without sacrificing readability? It’s a problem that besets every writer.

Today I’m going to use an incident from Kathryn Hulme’s novel The Nun’s Story to show you a useful strategy. Two missionary nuns – Sister Augustine and Sister Luke – are traveling on an ocean liner bound for Africa.

Although the nuns aren’t usually permitted to drink wine, the convent has lifted that prohibition for the cruise so that the two nuns won’t seem different from the other passengers. Hulme describes a dinner during the voyage:

[Sister Augustine] picked up her wine glass and turned it slowly. She smiled back at her companion as though saying, “It’s a good wine. We are blessed with the dispensation to drink of it freely on shipboard so as not to singularize ourselves in the eyes of passengers by drinking water.”

They ate in silence as always, anticipating each other’s needs for salt, more bread, a bit of horse-radish, passing these back and forth with practiced grace and little nods which occasionally caught the eyes of diners at nearby tables and made them stare musingly at the two white sisters who seemed able to read each other’s thoughts.

I first read The Nun’s Story as a teenager. Back then I was completely caught up in the story, and I’m sure I missed the deeper meaning of that dinner on the ocean liner: the superiors at the convent never thought about lifting the rule against talking during meals. The result is that the nuns are “singularized” even though they’re drinking wine like everyone else.

Old-fashioned convents were odd institutions. It would be easy for a writer to portray nuns as ogreish women who have lost their humanity. But Hulme’s novel never does that. Instead she shows us – again and again – how convent traditions got in the way of the purpose they were created for: helping nuns attain ever-higher levels of spirituality. I would certainly place The Nun’s Story in the “intelligent and interesting” category.

* * * * *

In my most recent post, I talked about the positive spin on slavery in Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind. Could she have written her novel differently – without turning it into a treatise on social justice?

I think the answer is yes. Mitchell could have done what Hulme did – offer readers small details that gradually build a case against slavery. For example, Gone with the Wind could have used a slave funeral to show us – without commentary – some of the indignities of slavery:

• the white slaveowner conducted the service
• he was in a hurry
• the slaves stood a respectful distance behind him
• the slaveowner walked past the slave’s widow without acknowledging her
• in a casual conversation later, the slaveowner speculated how much it would cost to replace the deceased slave

A brilliant novelist like Margaret Mitchell could probably have come up with much better ideas than I just did! But I hope I’ve made my point: understated, pointed details can build a powerful case without disrupting the story to explain why slavery was wrong.

The same principles apply to a memoir, a business report – almost anything that a thoughtful person might sit down to write. If you’re an ambitious writer who’s trying to take your writing to the next level, here’s a suggestion for you: keep a journal where you record details of your everyday life. Start looking for the meanings attached to everyday actions.

I’ll get you started with one of my own: After I moved into my own apartment, I came home on many Sundays to eat dinner with my family. My mother used to make oven-roasted potatoes because my father liked them – and mashed potatoes for me. If I were writing a memoir, I would be sure to put two plates of potatoes on the dining-room table.

My friend Janis Koike and I often talk about language issues and writing problems. Recently I put up a post about strengthening weak sentences. Janis quickly responded with an excellent example of her own. Here’s the original sentence, from a business email:

“I am copying Donna to make sure I haven’t missed anything.” (Donna is the manager.)

When I was teaching college writing courses, I noticed that this phrase turned up again and again in weak, poorly developed papers. It seems to be something that nervous students grab on to when they don’t have a strong position about a topic.

My advice: Avoid generalizing about today’s society. Find some data – tell some stories – get a strong statement from an expert. Always aim to start your papers with a bang.

2.  In my opinion

The English language is full of opinion words and phrases like good, better, worse, should, must, right, wrong. If you think the college library needs to expand its weekend hours, that’s already an opinion. Adding “in my opinion” or “I think” is weak, redundant, and unnecessary. Worse, it sounds like you’re apologizing for what you think.

I can’t resist adding that it drives me crazy when someone says something like this: “I’m sorry, but I think [whatever] is unacceptable.” It feels like they want me to congratulate them for taking a stand. Yuck!

Etc. can cause a sentence to sputter like a car running out of gas. Revise the sentence to avoid the need for etc. For example, you can introduce the list with “like,” “such as,” or “examples include,” as I did in #2 above.

 *  *  *  *  * 

Dashes are another route to stronger writing – and so is breaking a long sentence into two short ones. Take a look at the three sentences below. Although the basic information is the same in all three, #2 and #3 sound better to me than #1.

  1. For my birthday, my parents gave me an Apple Watch, which I use to enhance my fitness program.

2.  My new Apple Watch –  a birthday gift from my parents – enhances my fitness program.

  3.  My parents gave me an Apple Watch for my birthday. In two weeks my blood pressure had dropped, my heart rate had slowed, and my waist was an inch smaller.

Try experimenting on your own when you sit down to write – it’s a great way to sharpen your sentence skills.

I was an English teacher for more than 30 years. Ours is a noble profession that has helped countless students become skilled writers. I remember my high school English teacher – Bill Testerman – with fondness and gratitude, and there’s a little bit of him in everything I write.

But there’s a gap between what’s often taught in high school English classes and what’s required for success in real-world writing. Today I’m going to discuss three important differences that you might want to look for in your own writing.

1.  Grammar

Very likely you had a teacher or two who told you that memorizing grammatical terms and labeling parts of sentences would magically turn you into a writer. Not true. Most good writers acquired their sentence skills through reading (tons of it, often with a flashlight under the bedcovers when we were growing up).

2,  Sophisticated vocabulary

I used to work with an instructor who endlessly complained about the lack of sophistication in her students’ essays. I wish I’d thought of thrusting one of those essays into her hands and asking her to rewrite it. I can guarantee that the results would have been pompous gobbledygook. You can’t stuff fancy words into an essay about – say – your grandmother’s kitchen or your part-time job at Dairy Queen.

Mind you, I’ve read marvelous – even publishable – student papers about those topics: lively, insightful, and full of vivid detail. But calling your grandmother’s stewpot a “large capacity culinary vessel” doesn’t make for good writing. What’s worse is that the fancy-words habit is difficult to break later on, when you need strong, vigorous writing in the workplace.

3. Hedging

High-school students don’t have the life experience and critical-thinking skills needed for in-depth writing about topics like prison reform, medical marijuana, or legalized prostitution. Not surprisingly, some instructors tell their students to take a cautious middle path when they write about a controversial subject. The papers that come in a week later are empty of content and loaded with qualifiers: rather, somewhat, in most cases, for the most part, usually. 

It’s not difficult to see why teachers might want to rein in their students’ writing this way. But this cautious approach means that students may never learn how to write with passion and conviction.

Gifted teachers like my beloved Bill Testerman find age-appropriate ways for students to develop the writing and thinking skills needed for real-world success. Today, though, I’m talking to writers, not teachers. Do you have some leftover writing habits that are holding you back? Are you ready to build some new habits that will serve you better? And are you determined to start today?

                                    Bill Testerman