My Holiday Recipe for more Peace, Love, Time, Faith and Money.

Given what we have all been through this year, what could you use more of right now?

Peace?

Love?

Time?

Faith?

Money?

All of the above?

Stop for a moment. Think carefully about your answer. Visualize your answer.

I am serious. Before reading any further, think about it. If your answer is all of the above, take a moment. Visualize what you would do if you had more peace, love, time, faith and money. Exactly how would having more of these precious resources change your life? How would you use them to improve your life?

Now continue reading.

With the end of the year approaching, here is an approach to communicating that can help you augment the first three (peace, love and time), and possibly the last two (faith and money).

You can use this approach in written and spoken communications. You can apply it in the workplace with co-workers, at family gatherings, or at parties.

It also works in every area of communications including business writing and artistic writing.

All you have to do is notice people. Not judge them. Notice them. There is a big difference.

By noticing people, you can improve your relationship with them. And that, in turn, can yield rich rewards.

Everyone likes to be noticed. That is universal. If you notice people, they will like you more. Notice readers in your written communications and they will like your writing more.

From what I have written so far, you might assume I am suggesting that you go around telling people that you like their shoes, haircut, purse, nails or clothing. But I am not suggesting that at all. Quite the opposite.

Issuing compliments does not necessarily create rapport with others, especially when the compliments are not authentic.

The trouble with compliments is that they are ''I'' statements. I approve of your shoes. I approve of your nails, etc.

I know this runs counter to all the personal success pundits who say you should search for something that you like about another person and tell them that you like that single thing. Flattery can work in some cases I suppose. It can even get you everything you are looking for if what you want in exchange for the flattery happens to be what the other person wants to give. However, this approach does not always lead to a feeling of mutual trust. It can also quickly become boring and seem like a chore if it does not come from the heart.

What is the approach I am suggesting you take here? Beginning sentences with the words, ''I notice,'' or opening conversations with what you notice, and, in the process, skipping the ego statement. When you address someone by telling them something you notice about them, you create instant rapport.

By following this approach, you will be making ''you'' statements rather than ''I'' statements. And you will be making yourself more appealing.

Imagine you are standing in line beside a woman who has little cartoon characters painted on her nails. You may hate little cartoon characters painted on nails. You may despise them. I am NOT suggesting you say to her, ''I notice how much I hate your nails.'' I'm not even suggesting you say, ''I notice your nails.'' Instead, I am suggesting you go more general and positive with a comment that gives the other person more freedom, more room to move.

Say: Oh, your nails are so colorful. Or: Wow! Nails that tell a story! Notice you do not have to use the words, ''I notice.'' But you could if you like: I notice you pay a lot of attention to your appearance. Or: I notice you put a lot of effort into putting your look together. Or: I notice you like fashion. Or: I notice your nails. How do they do that? Adding the question ''How do they do that?'' gives her room to explain.

The moral: What you think of her nails is irrelevant. As a direct result of what you noticed and mentioned, you will have an interesting conversation with someone that helps you establish rapport. In my opinion establishing rapport and finding out what makes people tick makes life interesting.

You will start having conversations with people you would never have dreamed you would have.

By noticing people, you will be giving them more freedom to be themselves, to feel more comfortable being around you. It's likely they'll reciprocate. They'll notice you. You'll find common ground. You might strike up a friendship.

Noticing your readers. It's not necessary to address readers directly in your writing in order to notice them. In your business writing you can show your readers that you notice them by writing about subjects that address their concerns as well as using appealing styles. It's pretty standard stuff: Doing an audience analysis before you begin writing, and writing to that audience in a way they appreciate.

Noticing your characters when writing fiction. What author would neglect to notice his characters in a novel or a screenplay when the success of the work is dependent on the writer's insights into what makes his characters tick? Not a very good one. Writers are constantly noticing their characters' internal concerns and conflicts and how they affect their behavior. Yet their characters are often capable of teaching their authors new insights and understandings of what they are capable of as a story develops. That is one of the things that makes writing fiction so much fun.

How can noticing others lead to more peace, love and time in your life? Building rapport with others makes you a more effective person. That, in turn, can bring good things into your life.

If my holiday recipe brings improved interpersonal relationships (and I believe it will) your life will become far more interesting. I hope you'll notice you have more peace, love and the time to enjoy being with your loved ones. And if you improve those first three, can the last two (faith and money) be far behind?

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Flex your Verbs, not your Nouns.

Powerful writing comes from sentences that depend on active verbs to work. They are always more effective than sentences made from noun-forms of those verbs.

What do I mean by that?

Here is a list of verbs:

Specialize

Analyze

Explain

Recognize

Explain

Reconcile

Discuss

Limit

Eliminate

Save

Establish

Here is a list of nouns made out of those verbs:

Specialty

Analysis

Explanation

Recognition

Explanation

Reconciliation

Discussion

Limitation

Elimination

Savings

Establishment

The following sentence depends on a verb to work:

After studying many subjects, he specialized in one.

Here is one that depends on a noun to work:

He had many specialties before choosing one.

Which sentence (of the above two) seems to be written more professionally?

Here is a sentence that depends on nouns to make its point:

After a great deal of discussion, the committee decided on the elimination of expense accounts for overall department savings.

Here is one that depends on verbs to work:

The committee discussed the issue and decided to eliminate expense accounts to save money.

Of these two, which seems more succinct and professionally written to you?

Which sentence do you prefer?

The one dependent on nouns:The reconciliation between expenses and revenues was established.

Or the one dependent on verbs:The audit team reconciled expenses with revenues.

Which sentence gets to the point faster?

The establishment of the elimination of the deficit as its primary purpose dominated the discussion.

Or:

Ways to eliminate the deficit dominated the discussion.

Here's a second strategy: Zero in on clauses beginning with which or who. Zero in on sentences beginning with There were, There is as well as It is and It was. These sentences can usually be improved.

Which sentence do you prefer?

The Industrial Revolution, which was marked by the development of mass production methods, began with the invention of the cotton gin, which was invented by Eli Whitney in 1793.

Or:

The Industrial Revolution, marked by mass production, began with Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793.

Which of the next two sentences sounds wordy?

Any person who works all the time to the detriment of his relationships and outside interests can actually be less effective than the person who takes off and enjoys weekends.

Or:

People who balance their work lives with their social lives often make better employees.

Which sounds more professional?

There are many reasons why people find mathematics difficult to master.

Or:

People find mathematics difficult to master for many reasons.

Which sentence to you like more?

It was in 1848 that America's westward expansion became manifest.

Or:

America's westward expansion became manifest in 1848.

To summarize: Strength in writing comes from focusing on the power of well-chosen verbs instead of using nouns made from those verbs. Avoid clauses that begin with which or who. Avoid sentences that begin with There is, There are, It is and It was. Those are all symptoms of wordy sentence constructions.

Adventures in Morocco and Spain

Last Sunday, Gina and I returned home from a two-week tour of Morocco and Spain. Allow me to share a few impressions of our trip while they are still fresh in my mind.

The Marrakesh Local

I had hoped to catch the Marrakesh Express but we had to satisfy ourselves with the local. With no seats available in the warmly air-conditioned compartments of the train, for the first three hours we stood beside our luggage in the long, narrow hallway of our car wiping sweat away with one hand and holding on with the other.

Outside our smudgy window the rugged, ruddy desert passed by. It resembled broken pottery.

And here’s a shocker: The train we were riding on was packed with Moroccans. Incredibly young. Very courteous and helpful. Smiling eyes. Thin, long faces. Dusty, tan skin.

Most of the women wore headscarves. Some wore hijabs; some, colorful silk robes; and some, black wool burkas. Most were dressed in fitted jeans with Tommy Hilfiger shirts or the equivalent. The men were uniformly thin and rather tall. They wore sprayed-on jeans with long-sleeve leather jackets despite the heat of the day. Our guide told us that Moroccan men are convinced leather actually cools them in hot weather. I rolled my eyes. Something had to be lost in translation, no? Perhaps they think they look cooler in tight leather. Ah, to be twenty again. (Everybody looked about that age.)

In my head I was humming along to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Marrakesh Express.Listen to the song. Thinking, Ah to be twenty again when I first heard that song.

Arabic is their first language; French, their second. Morocco used to be a French colony. As you approach the northern area of the country, up by Tangier, they speak Spanish, too, because at one time Spain controlled that area.

Trying to Escape the Sweep of History

Everywhere we went we couldn’t escape the sweep of history, try as we might.

In the medina (the old Muslim quarter) of Fes with its narrow, winding passageways, donkeys are a common mode of transportation. Pictogram signs inform pedestrians to yield the right of way to passing donkeys. Once we stopped for one loaded down with iPhones and firewood. That qualifies for having two hooves in the twenty-first century, I suppose.

The city of Fes received a UNICEF grant that today allows craftsmen to continue making fine leather goods using the same process they’ve been using for eight hundred years. We visited a pottery factory where they use the sun to dry pottery before oven firing. How energy efficient is that? Our tour guide told us the hot summer days are not the best because the clay dries too quickly. This time of year, October, is perfect.

All the women bring their bread for baking to a central oven. Now that’s energy efficient, of course, but it also gives the women a place to gather and talk.

They reserve the longer time for women at the Turkish bath (In the late afternoon. They reserve the late morning for the men to gather and sweat). In the late afternoon: That’s when the women get to luxuriate and exchange news. They don’t get to luxuriate very long. They work, making crafts and taking care of their families while the men get to sit at cafes sipping mint tea. No women here! And that’s how they’ve been doing it for the last eight hundred years.

Seeing Jewish Ghosts

Everywhere we traveled in Morocco ghosts of the Jewish presence hovered over the land and we the living. Their presence in Morocco dates back to just after 70 C.E. when the Romans destroyed the ancient temple in Jerusalem, according to this Wikipedia article. Read the article. Today only about 7000 Jews live in Morocco.

All the guides we talked to (and we talked to quite a few) claimed that Moroccan Jews lived in harmony with Moroccan Muslims. Jews lived in separate quarters, of course, but in quarters that were side by side.

One guide told us that Jews fought alongside their Muslim brothers in wars against Spanish Christians. Another one said that when a baby boy was born, Jewish parents would call the Muslim “mohel” to do the brit milahor circumcision; and Muslim parents would call the rabbi to do the brit milah. It didn’t matter to them because the communities were that close; it was the same religious ritual, the same covenant the baby boys were being born into, after all.

Although Jews in Morocco are scarce today, Jewish symbols appear in pottery and in other crafts made there. The plate we purchased in Fes (which you will find on my Facebook page) displays a Star of David in the center, surrounded by a traditional Muslim design motif, meant to emphasize harmony of traditions over the centuries.

The sweep of history has both the Moors and the Sephardic Jews being swept out of Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1493; then swept together into the dustbin of Morocco where they joined their brethren already there. As you can imagine, this caused a tremendous sense of loss and grief among all the displaced people.

Exploring Volubilis, a First Century Roman Settlement

Traveling through the scenic high country north of Fes on a small bus, we stopped and inspected the Roman ruins at Volubilis. It’s in the center of what once was a rich agricultural heartland.

On these lonely, windy outcroppings about two thousand years ago as many as 1,500 Romans lived, grew wheat and other crops, sending all the grain, olive oil, grapes and figs, the spoils of conquest, home to Rome. Our guide told us that Roman legions fought the Berbers for two hundred years before being allowed to settle in Volubilis. (I put a photo of what these ruins look like today on my Facebook page.)

That night we slept over in Moulay Indriss, a city built on a steep, rocky cliff that has its own rich history. The only way we could bring our luggage up to the hotel? By donkey. I had this strange feeling we were in Tibet, at the top of the world.

Visiting the “White and Blue City”

The next day we proceeded on to Chefchaouen, a city founded by displaced Jews and Moorish exiles from Spain who, in 1471, gathered up in the mountains to fight against the invading Portuguese who wanted to enslave them and take their land.

The Jews and Moors fought bravely and ran off their attackers. And they stayed where they were. The Jewish people began painting their homes blue while all the Muslims began painting their homes white. That’s what you see now, a town of stucco white and blue block homes.

Yet no Jews have lived there for a long, long time. It’s another case of the Jewish ghosts. So why do descendants of the Moors still paint certain homes blue (if no Jews live there)?

The guide told us that the people of Chefchaouen got it into their head that blue keeps “the evil eye” away. So why don’t they paint their entire city blue? No one knew the answer to that one except me: Over the centuries, the people of Chefchaouen came to identify with their “blue and white city” positioning. That’s how it’s known today, “the blue and white city.” It’s a good marketing ploy and makes for standout photos. (See one that I recently put up on my Facebook page.)

Everyone in the town, both women and men, pitch in and repaint every house in Chefchaouen once each year. The women paint the walls as high as they can reach without ladders. Then the men use the ladders to paint the rest.

Organized by Intrepid Tours

Our tour, produced by a company based in Australia known as Intrepid Tours, included one week in Morocco where we visited Marrakesh, Casablanca, Fes, Rabat, Moulay Indress and Tangier; and one week in Spain, visiting Seville, Granada, Madrid and Barcelona.

Barcelona is the Austin, Texas, of Spain

I could go on and on, but I won’t. Just one other thing: Like everyone else, Gina and I fell in love with Barcelona. I have a theory: Barcelona is the Austin of Spain. Culturally speaking (if you squint your eyes like a Travis County country singer who’s had a pretty rough life) the Catalon people resemble the varieties you find around Austin. They have their own language (Catalonia), music, wines, cheeses, meats and cuisine. They’re aggressive about sustaining their very distinct culture.

We attended a food festival in front of the main cathedral in the Gotic neighborhood of Barcelona. What a blast I had when one of the merchants showed me a map of part of Catalonia with all the country wineries marked off. Let’s rent a car and stock up on Catalan wine! They must have “visitor centers,” right?

There was a lot of talk in Catalonia about an election that’s coming up on November 25th: Catalonians may vote to declare their region economically autonomous from Spain. I’ve got news for you: All the people at that food festival were aggressively declaring their independence the same way they do it in Austin, by keeping it weird, in the case of Catalonia with wacky spellings and pronunciations of Spanish words. It's Catalon, to them a completely different language. It’s a hoot! Ya gotta go! Next thing you know: Austin and Catalonia unite!

(Historic fact: During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Catalonia was a place where anarchists gathered. Maybe Catalonia a little bit too much like Austin for my blood.)

SEO Strategy: Lean Copy Wins Every Time

Want to optimize your web content to get the best web engine rankings? One of the most overlooked ways is to edit your content so that every sentence is clean, clear and succinct.

Best practices:

• Keep word choices, sentences and paragraphs short, simple and to the point. Remember, most people do not actually read web copy, they scan it. Therefore, simplicity is essential.
• Always put your reader and the action you're asking your reader to take first. Put everything else second.
• Drop any words or phrases that do not add to your meaning. Edit out clichés.

Here are seven common mistakes followed by cleanly edited alternatives:

Example #1:

Wordy: By clicking on the icon you're not only able to make reservations by e-mail, you can also download a map and directions to the location.

Edited: Click on the icon to request reservations and download directions.

Example #2:

Wordy and clichéd: If you're looking for hot deals on cool ski packages, visit (website address).com.

Edited: For the best ski vacation deals, visit (website address).com.

Or:

Edited: Visit (website address).com for the best ski vacation deals.

Example #3:

Wordy and clichéd: Before you make up your mind who you're going to pull the lever for in the voting booth in November, look up what each candidate stands for on this chart.

Edited: Before deciding for whom you'll vote, compare each candidate's position on major issues. (Note: Place the hyperlink on the word ''compare.'')

Example #4:

Wordy: To update your existing password for a new one, start by clicking on My Account on your Member page.

Edited: To reset your password, go to My Account (on your Member page).

Example #5:

Wordy and clichéd: If you want to track statistics of your fantasy football team from week to week, sign up for ''Mega-Fan Rights'' and build graphs that compare any two stats to your heart's content.

Edited: Click on ''Mega-Fan Rights'' to generate graphs that compare two statistics.

(Best Practice: Eliminate sentences that begin with the words, ''If you want to…'' Usually begin with the action, ''Click on...'' Note: There are cases where you might want to begin with the benefit your user will get out of taking the action and then follow up with the action.)

Example #6:

Wordy: You can purchase money-saving coupons by clicking on the dollar-sign icon.

Wordy: If you want to purchase coupons, just click on the dollar-sign icon.

Edited: To purchase money-saving coupons, click on the dollar-sign icon.

Example #7:

Wordy: Your iPhone comes with a downloadable emergency contact application that allows you to call all your e-mail contacts from any web-enabled device.

Edited: The emergency contact application lets you call your e-mail contacts from any web-enabled device.

On the Love of Writing

I know something about being a commercial writer by day and a novelist by night. Below are a few strategies that might help you live the life of a part-time artist with grace and equanimity (when you're tempted to take leave of your senses).

Trust. It takes time. It's a journey. Trust yourself that you will never quit until you get it right. Trust that the forces of the universe will align to give you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Trust that you'll know when its done and you will give it up to the world when it is time.

Stop the Stinkin' Thinkin'. By this I mean stop those annoying tapes that repeat in the back of your mind, tapes with messages like: This is such dreck! I can't write. I'll never finish. No one will ever want to read this. And the opposite Stinkin' Thinkin': I've got this knocked! Damn, I'm brilliant! Notice that they're both Stinkin' Thinkin'. Just do the work. Just be in the work. Don't think about the work.

Don't talk about it too much. Just write it. Writers have talked themselves out of stories by telling the story to too many people before they write it. Don't tacitly ask for permission to write your story. No one but you can give yourself permission to write it.

Stay in the now. Something is always happening. Notice what is happening inside you and around you. Turn off the observer-artist that wants to stay aloof and only observe. As much as possible, be part of what is happening around you.

Don't hold onto your artistic writing too tightly. Avoid getting all your identity from your artistic writing while, to yourself, you trash your day job. Find the love in all of what you do. I believe my artistic writing informs my commercial writing and the other way around. So it's not: I'm an artistic writer who happens to be writing marketing communications. It's: I'm both the artistic writer and the commercial writer. I get enjoyment and identity from both.

Don't forget to have a life. Sometimes the best thing you can do to finish your story is to go see a movie with a friend.

Next month: More advice on how to clean up your copy.

SEO Strategy: Clean Up Your Language.

There are many things you can do to improve your search engine ranking results. Weaving strategically important key words into the copy on every page is the first thing that comes to mind for most folks. However, the most overlooked way to optimize your web content is to edit your copy so that it is clean, clear and succinct.

''Succinct'' means short and to the point. And sometimes you may want to find ways to say more in fewer words. That's typically what editing is all about. However, in some cases it's appropriate to use more words, not fewer. It may be counter-intuitive that effective editing can include adding words that make the content more informative, but that's the way it is. Sometimes more words say more. Sometimes they say less or just sound wordy. Good writers know the difference.

So let's imagine you've completed your first draft and you want to make it better. Here are a few approaches:

First, try deleting all the adverbs (words that end in ''ly'') in your web content. Adverbs can give readers the impression the writer is pushing a point of view. It's known as ''editorializing.''

Using this approach, a sentence like ''The reporter scrupulously checked his facts'' or ''The reporter checked his facts carefully,'' would become, ''The reporter checked his facts.'' (I could have written, ''would simply become'' but using the adverb ''simply'' would be ''leading the witness,'' no?)

Let's imagine you know facts about the reporter's technique. You would be better off writing a second sentence (directly after that first one) that describes what caused you to claim you know about the reporter's technique. Using this approach, the first sentence is a short, simple declaration of fact: ''The reporter checked his facts.'' The next sentence digs deeper, saying, for example, ''He called his sources up a second time and confirmed his facts.''

Yes, this approach might delete a single word and add a twelve-word sentence in its stead, but the writing is improved because it gives more in-depth information.

Here's another way to think about it: Adverbs like ''carefully'' and ''scrupulously'' tell. They draw conclusions for the reader. The approach I just advocated shows rather than tells. It's more informative. It lets the reader read the facts and come to his or her own conclusion.

As a second approach, try deleting all the adjectives in your writing. I readily admit adjectives can come in handy. But try this: Instead of writing that it's a large business, how about writing, ''It's a business with more than 5,000 employees in 20 countries.'' By leaning on facts instead of adjectives, your writing will be more pithy, informative and persuasive. Let the reader come to his or her own conclusion about the size of the business.

Often we use adjectives as part of descriptions. Sometimes our temptation to use adjectives in descriptions causes, shall we say, dysfunction.

For example: ''The rosy, partly clouded-over orb sank beneath the horizon.'' I'd call that sentence a pushy use of description.

Instead, see if you can write a clear, declarative sentence and then follow that iup with a separate descriptive sentence. Your description doesn't have to be in-depth. A single brushstroke of description will do:

''The sun sank beneath the horizon. Its rosy glow was partly covered by clouds.''

It's simpler and more graceful when the descriptive sentence is followed by a simple, factual sentence. This way, you get to take the reader unawares.

Here's a third approach: See if you can delete unneeded words such as ''all,'' ''every,'' ''some'' and ''that.''

The sentence, ''All students are required to arrive at school by 8:30'' could become, ''Students must arrive by 8:30.''

Why do we need the word ''all'' in that case? We don't.

Note: The second improvement I made here is to take the sentence out of passive voice, ''…are required to…'' and to put it into active voice: ''Students must arrive…''

What is passive voice? It's a state-of-being verb (''are'' or ''were,'' for example) followed by a past participle of a verb (''required,'' for example). Usually, it's better to use active voice in your writing. I have discussed active and passive voice in depth in past EWAs.

You can often delete the word ''every'' with no reduction in meaning. It is rare that the word is necessary. ''Every student is required…'' can be edited: ''Students are required.''

I've written about deleting the word ''that'' in past EWAs. A few examples: ''He thought that…'' or She knew that…'' Not to say you should always delete the word; rather, that you should always look at deleting it. Read the sentence with and without the word ''that'' to see how you like it.

That's it for this month. Next month I'll do a deep dive on passive voice and reveal the dirty little secret nobody likes to admit about passive voice.

On the Beauty of First Drafts

It is my belief that hidden in the wordiness, awkward phrases, and poor organization and logic we find in our first drafts lie our true feelings. If we could only embrace our mistakes and find out what is true for us about them, these ugly ducklings could lead us to swans. In this way, we can harness and at the same time liberate our feelings and write more effectively than ever.

Whether you can make any sense of what I just wrote or not, I hope you have an intimation of what I’m getting at.

At least one best-selling book on writing says that writers should not expect anything good to come from their first drafts besides second drafts.

I think the author wants to give writers permission to dive in and commit words to screen or paper in their first drafts. The author is saying: “Hey, expect the first draft to be awful. The sooner you finish it, the sooner you can start the second draft and really begin the writing process.” That makes sense; however, it also runs down the first draft. It causes writers to want to put distance between them and their first-draft mistakes.

My advice is the exact opposite: Think of your first drafts as things of beauty.

I readily admit that first drafts can be pretty ugly things of beauty.

All I'm saying is don’t denigrate your first drafts. Revere them.

I approach my first drafts with the same devotion an archeologist approaches artifacts of Mayan ruins. They contain important clues to deeper intensions, subtexts, stories and histories. They can open you up to new worlds.

Norman Mailer once wrote, “I write to find out what I’m thinking.”

I write to find out what I’m feeling.

Let me give you an example from my own writing.

In my novel, Revolution, which takes place in Colombia, South America, three characters are walking along an open road as it enters dense jungle. The climax to the first part of my novel and a turning point for the principal character is about to take place, and it happens in that jungle. It’s important to me to use description here to create an enchanted place where nearly anything can happen. I don’t want to tell the reader that. I want to show that through my description of the place.

So let’s look at my first attempt to describe what happens as my three characters leave a straight, open road and enter the jungle:

“Suddenly the road went down a steep hill and curved this way and that as we entered the jungle. Green and mossy green everywhere we looked. We were surrounded on both sides by tall, funny looking trees. Very tall. The trunks with a gray-cream shade you don’t see in the States. Instead of branches, they had long tendrils that hung down, long rope-branches an ape-man could use to swing from tree to tree. The only branches and leaves were at the tippy-tops where they formed a green canopy. We walked among them, looking up at them in wonder, following the straight open road that had become just a wandering dirt trail as soon as it entered the jungle.”

Pretty bad, right? Typical first-draft dreck. What is important are my feelings hidden in the awkward phraseology:

The sense of entering a strange world where anything could happen: That’s what I set out to capture.

Obviously, the “ape-man,” “tippy-tops” and “funny-looking trees” are the wrong tone, totally wrong, but they give clues to the feelings I want to engender in the reader as he or she reads this paragraph.

Obviously, “looking up at them in wonder” is telling rather than showing. Could I show that the characters are looking up without telling the reader that they are? These are the kinds of questions I’m always asking myself.

Could I describe the marked contrast of moving between non-jungle and jungle besides using the word “suddenly?” In my imagination it did happen suddenly, the moment they entered the jungle. But “suddenly” tells. Is there a way to show it?

Now let’s look my second draft of this paragraph:

“The road we were following turned into a dirt trail going this way and that, and began a steep descent as soon as we entered the jungle. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by countless tall, slender trees. With taupe-colored trunks they towered above us, their only branches were at the very tops where their leaves merged with those of neighboring trees to form a dark green canopy that blocked the sun.”

This is better, don’t you agree?

I replaced “suddenly” with “as soon as” and made entering the jungle into an action. It tells the story of entering the jungle through revealed description. Notice “suddenly” appears at the beginning of the second sentence. I made a mental note: “As soon as” is much stronger than “suddenly;” in the next draft consider dropping “suddenly.”

I loved “towering above” because it shows them looking up in amazement or wonderment without telling the reader that that is what they’re doing. You can disagree, but that is my opinion.

I said to myself: Look, Chuck, the trouble you’re having here describing the road is that three things are happening to it at once: 1) It’s turning from a road into a dirt trail. 2) It’s descending rapidly, going down a steep hill. 3) It’s going first right, then left, back and forth, which often happens to a road when it goes down a steep hill. Is there a better way I could express that all three things are happening at once?

“Tall, slender trees” doesn’t quite do it for me as a description, although there’s nothing wrong with those words. Maybe there’s a way to add to those words? I wanted to show the potential for magic rather than tell it. How could I do that?

Notice I dropped the talk about the vines. I’m not going to have trees with vines unless I’m going to have my characters swing on them. I have no intention of rewriting Tarzan, so I got rid of the vines.

In the next paragraph, you’ll read the current draft of that same paragraph. It’s not final. It might change again. It probably will. But this is good enough for now and accomplishes what I set out to do, to show the potential for magic as my characters enter the jungle. Here it is:

“As soon as we entered the jungle, the road we were following turned into a desultory dirt trail and began a steep descent. We found ourselves surrounded by countless tall, slender trees. With taupe-colored trunks they towered above us, their only branches at the very top where their leaves merged with those of neighboring trees to form a dark green canopy blocking out the sun.”

Instead of running away from the awkwardness in the first draft, I moved closer to it and owned it. That helped me see the beauty in my first draft. From that, I was able to piece together phrases that helped me feel my way toward a much better solution in the next draft and in the one after that.

Notice, for example, that I dropped the notion of the dirt trail having swish-backs. “Desultory” was enough. And if my readers don’t know what that word means, they can look it up. I think it works in a magical way when applied to the direction of the trail.

First drafts are covered with tracks of our emotions. We just have to get out our magnifying glasses when we examine them to find clues that will help us get to a better, second draft.

Next month, more about how to effectively edit your first drafts.