Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Yawn

Yawn,

Well I stayed up and saw the Greenbay/Seattle game. Something wasn’t quite right about that last call. Still the Seattle Defense showed its mettle and handed the Packers a whipping in the first half. The Packer Defense, not to be outdone, opened a can of “Whoop Ass” and served it to the Seattle offense throughout the game. Yes, the last call was the worst I have ever seen and will be talked about for years in the football Hall of Infamy… and I was there and saw it all.

(As writers try and be a little less abrupt and show more finesse in your transitions than I have shown here.)

Usually I spend the early part of the first week of a workshop going to my student’s ports and trying to get a sense for where they are as writers. All my students are not the same and I don’t treat them as the same. Each one is at a different stage in their development and has a different skill set of talent, experience and know-how. The approach I take is that they are the only student in the class and try and point out the things that will help them improve.

When I begin reading the vignettes the first look I take is the “Art Look.” I call it that but it also includes a good bit of the grammar basics mixed in. The approach I take is an editorial one and I start at the beginning of the vignette and go paragraph to paragraph looking for issues worthy of comment. When I get to five or six I stop… enough is enough. There is only so much criticism a student psyche can absorb. Sometimes, I actually get to the end of the vignette, not having found anything grammatical to point out before turning to word choice.

My goodness gracious! Does word choice ever get a student’s hackles up. What right does Percy have telling me to use his words instead of mine…. My words are part of my unique and personal style!

Actually there is plenty to say about word choice…. The two biggies are repetitive use of words and overuse of modifiers… (adverbs and adjectives). These two are red flags showing a writer’s maturity and professional development.

In my opinion the best type of editorial review is the “Rewrite.” This allows the student to go line by line and compare what he/she wrote with how I would have rewritten it… had it been in a draft of mine that I was cleaning up for publication. I know! I know…. If you want to get somebody spun up here at WDC do a review that involves a rewrite of their work… How dare he put my writing into his own words… who does he think I am anyway… I think I’ll go to his port and do a retaliatory review and ruin his day just like he has mine.

Now please, before becoming too indignant…. A student shouldn’t take any review to heart…. Just keep in mind that what better way can a reviewer express what they see in a work, than to rewrite it like they would have written it? I have never gotten such a review and would welcome one. It would show in the most unmistakable way, exactly what the reviewer has in mind rather than beating around the bush, trying to balance criticism with praise.

So in the first part of a vignette review, the “Art Part,” I try and address the grammar, modifiers, repetitive words and offer some rewrites to illustrate what I’m trying to say.