In Defense of Adverbs

As a struggling-to-get published writer, I read a lot of blogs and Twitter feeds about the craft of writing. I never took writing in college, so I feel I need to educate myself in order to make sure I am doing the best I can. But what has really started to bother me is the "you're doing it wrong" mentality around using certain whole classes of words, like adverbs. If you don't believe me, just Google "Steven King" and "adverbs" and see what you get. I'll wait.

I get it. As writers it is our job to show, not tell, and adverbs have a bad rap for telling rather than showing, or for being redundant, but I feel I have to disagree. Yep, I don't care what all those English professors have to say about it.

As a non-professional reader (because I read far more than I write and I’m not a paid editor or agent), I feel adverbs help out with the picture the writer is painting for me. If there's an argument in the story, but one character cuts into it "quietly" there's something important being shown about that character there. What type of person cuts into an argument quietly? And what type of character gets listened to when cutting into an argument quietly? Hmm...

Writers also aren't supposed to use exclamation marks, but using an adverb to show the reader that a character said something loudly is also verboten and described as lazy. But as a reader, I appreciate it when the writer gives me a clue as to how the dialogue is going. It isn’t always going to be apparent to the reader, even if the writing is well done (especially since writers are only supposed to use “said” instead of “exclaimed,” “meeped,” or “shouted.”) I have often had to re-read scenes because I wasn’t entirely certain what had happened…did they have an argument or were they just discussing things? Did they make it clear that someone was angry, or had all those adverbs been removed and it was hard to tell? Sometimes, that slight difference is huge in “getting” what the writer is trying to say.

I've never been diagnosed, but I have a feeling I fall somewhere into the (lighter end of the) Asperger's spectrum. I don't get subtext or sarcasm (or body language) easily, especially in print. Being told someone said something sarcastically is extremely helpful to me. I think writers and editors should keep this sort of thing in mind for their readers. Is it clear, and I mean crystal clear, to the reader what is going on in the story if you cut out those adverbs? I feel that it is lazier for the writer to think, “Oh, they’ll get it,” than to use an adverb or two to make sure it is clear.

Of course, adverbs can still be misused, as in writing a sentence such as, “He moved quickly.” Well, you could use a whole host of other words in there to be more precise, like “ran” or “jogged” or any number of other, better words (zoomed, sped, fled, flew, etc.). This is more about being precise rather than being descriptive. While it’s true someone can move quickly, it is more precise to say they ran. Writers should be precise and descriptive, and so shouldn’t be afraid of using adverbs descriptively, as long as they are still being precise.

(A digression...I have another thing to disagree with Steven King about. In his rant, he uses "He closed the door firmly" as an example of bad adverb usage and declared "He slammed the door" as being much better. There is a distinct difference between firmly closing a door and slamming it. Tsk, tsk! Precision, precision, precision!)

I’m sure editors will disagree with me, and that’s fine. But remember that not all prose* has to be “perfect” (whatever that means) to be good. If the author is getting their point across, is using the language correctly, and is being both precise and descriptive, why not leave those adverbs alone? Why else have adverbs in the language?

These are simple examples, but you get the idea. Adverbs are a part of the English language, and, as a (struggling) writer, I feel like we should be using all of the language's power to describe what it is we are trying to convey.

What are your thoughts on adverbs? Do you have any horrific or excellent examples of adverbs being used in published works?

*I might have to write a whole new blog about the word prose (and what it means) and how much I detest it…

Why Science is NOT Like an Action Movie

Is watching paint peel more exciting than this? Maybe I can try that this weekend?

Okay, I get it. We need more people interested in science, especially more women people and people of color and anyone else who is underrepresented in science and technology fields.

But this is not the way to do it. It is my personal opinion that this is completely misrepresenting science. This does not help scientists. Yes, science can be exciting, and is a worthwhile career. It can be rewarding, and fulfilling, and one can be very successful at it. But how many people will read this and go, "Oh cool!" only to HATE IT once they get into it (*tentatively raises hand, then quickly puts it down*)?

But science is very, very boring, too. It's frustrating, it's stressful, it's annoying and can consume your entire life. Want a PhD? Kiss your friends, your free time, and your life good-bye. The next 3-5 years (or longer, depending on how lazy you are or how much of a jerk your PI is) is going to be spent in the lab, and you will be expected to spend all of your time there. All of it. ALL. If you're not in the lab, your boss will be wondering why they're wasting their time on you. Try 12 hour days (or longer, depending on what your incubation times are), every day of the week. Meaning Saturdays and Sundays are days of the week, too. Oh, and you're not getting paid. Well, if you're lucky, you might be, but it won't be much better than minimum wage.

And once you get your PhD, you get to do your postdoc, where you're still expected to be in the lab most of your waking hours, but you do get paid. Peanuts.

Science is hard, and takes a certain type of person. You must be willing to fail. You have to be persistent and stubborn. Frustration is part of your daily routine. You have to put in the decade or so of being the cheap labor before you land a professorship. Oh. Yeah, well, good luck with that, too. Waiting tables just might make you as much money.

Has the picture been painted for you yet? Does this sound like an action movie yet? In this action movie, we get to watch as Indiana Jones is unable to pay his bills! Bam! In this movie, we get to see Tomb Raider wondering where her next grant will come from (because NIH is funding at about 15%)! Zoom! Will she be able to pay her lab manager for another year? Let's find out; the crying scenes are the best!

Here's a more realistic look at this article (here's the link again, because I'll be referencing it):

1. Well, yes, science is a mystery that we are all trying solve. But comparing the quest to Sherlock makes about as much sense as comparing the justice system to CSI: or Perry Mason. It takes YEARS, maybe DECADES, not a few minutes, to answer those scientific questions. Some scientists spend their entire lives looking at one question. Sound exciting yet?

2. HAHAHAHA! A caper? Really? Most labs do have a team, yes, many with different skills. Most of the time, though, we avoid talking with one another because we're trying to concentrate. No witty movie banter in any lab I've ever worked in. You know that biochemist down the hall? Yeah, I'm only talking to him if I have to, because...well, he's weird. And creepy. Most scientists are a bunch of antisocial weirdos with abnormal social skills. IT'S WHY WE GOT INTO SCIENCE, SO WE CAN WORK ALONE.

3. Does getting eaten by leeches or stricken with Ebola sound like fun?! Who wrote this?! And good luck finding that archaeologist who found the lost city. Most of them find pottery shards and petrified garbage piles (which is really, really useful actually!) Finding lost cities is a news-worthy event, and happens very, very, very, very rarely.

4. Yeah, no. The vast majority of science takes a long time. It's never a "race" unless you're the tortoise. Drugs (including vaccines) can take upwards of a decade to develop and test. All the "science" you see in action movies and TV has been crunched in order to provide a neat package for presentation. You really wouldn't want to wait the 2 hours (30 minutes if you have one of the fancy fast machines) for a PCR to run (nor the extra hour it takes to make and run the gel to visualize the DNA...or the hours sitting at the computer redesigning the primers three times because those didn't work, and running the *&^% PCR three more times...and running those gels...you get the idea).

5. True Crime: this one I can definitely agree with. But again, these processes take DECADES, not the few minutes in a science montage in your favorite TV show. Once the process has been developed, it still could take days to weeks to run. A typical genotyping experiment (say for determining the DNA profile of a criminal) could take a few hours up to a week, depending on what system you have and how many postdocs/technicians you can goad into doing it (and how busy their schedule is). And that's if they don't have a backlog.

6. If your lab blows up, it's a problem. You're out of a job, and you might be up for criminal charges. It's not really as cool as it sounds, unless you're the Mythbusters and you have a TV-sized budget, explosion experts, AND a safe place to blow stuff up. Most scientists I know do not blow things up for a living, though some chemists might qualify. And then it would be under completely controlled circumstances and with very small amounts, which isn't as exciting as this. The closest I've come to an explosion in my lab was when I would electrocute bacteria and the cuvette would spark and pop and I'd risk my own electrocution because it was too wet, not cold enough, or the salt balance was wrong. It also meant my experiment had failed and I needed to start over. Not as exciting as an explosion, sorry. I also burned off part of an eyebrow and some bangs when I got too close to a Bunsen burner. Does that count?

7.  Yes, there are scientists that do that. But the blowing up part, or the cool part of watching a house get shaken by a giant robot? Do you know how many hours, days, weeks (years?) went into the planning of those machines? Probably days worth of debugging code, too. And don't forget how long it takes to build, not including the time it takes to draft. They don't show that in the movies, do they?

8. I actually worked in a genomics lab with robots. True, they do the work of one lab tech much, much faster. But you know what? Guess what that lab tech gets to do instead? Fill the robots' water carboys, fill the tip boxes, and line up the plates. Press buttons. Try not to get their head knocked off their shoulders when the robot gets stuck and needs to be taken apart. Watch a robot do their job for them. Feel like Indiana Jones yet?

9. Landing a robot on a comet is one of the coolest things that has happened in recent years. Again, this is a super awesome experience, and hurray for those scientists. That moment is why we do this. But not every scientist gets that moment. The majority of that team is behind the scenes, doing the unexciting grunt work of all the math and debugging code. It probably took them years of boring work to get to that exciting point. But most labs' work isn't nearly as sexy or exciting as even that. The stark reality is that the most needed science, basic science research, is just not getting funded at the rate it should be. It's not cool enough. The vast majority of scientists will never, ever have anything exciting enough to make the news.

The take home message: the lucky scientists, whether they are lucky for the sexy research they are doing or because they just so happen to answer the right question, are the ones who get their Indiana Jones moments. But even that is just the tip of the iceberg. Movies can't show us the years of dull work that went into finding that temple, building that robot, or sequencing that genome.

Science is boring.

But some of the time, it's worth it. And that's why we do it, even though it's the most boring, annoying, frustrating, exciting, awful, fulfilling job out there.



photo credit: Novartis AG via photopin cc

Bisexual Erasure

Hi there, I'm bisexual!

Now that we got that out of the way, we can talk about something that is important to me. You see, I've been bisexual for a long time. Well, all my life, actually, but I didn't even know what homosexuality was until I was in high school, so of course I had no idea that I was bisexual. I remember when I first heard about being gay: it was when I was watching Clue, and Mr. Green came out of the closet. I had no idea what he had meant by it and asked my mortified mother, being too naive to know how embarrassing that was for her.

Later, I realized that I had been crushing on some of my female friends just as much as I had been crushing on the guys. In fact, crushing on girls was almost easier. Sleepovers, locker rooms... They never suspected anything, and I wasn't dumb enough to get caught staring; I behaved myself (probably because I was also extremely shy as a kid). But I knew, somehow, that it was "wrong" to like girls and kept my feelings hidden for a long, long time.

I did prefer men, however, and dated them exclusively (though I came really close with one particular girl in college...the sexual tension between us was as thick as pudding), and eventually got married to a man (who later also came out as bisexual!)

But you know what? I'm still bisexual. That hasn't changed. I still like to look at pretty women. And men.

Bisexual erasure is a real thing. It's the idea that people aren't really bi. They are either just straights "experimenting" or are actually gay and just haven't admitted it to themselves (or others) yet. It's a form of discrimination, often called monosexism (both gays and straight people are monosexual). People have actually asked me if I was still bisexual because I was married to a man."Shouldn't you just call yourself straight?" I've been asked.

No, no I shouldn't.

Being bisexual is as intrinsic to me as being gay is to gay people. I can't change it just because I got married. Gays have had this problem a long time, too. Just because they got married (to blend in, because of social pressure, because of hostile times in history, etc.) didn't mean they stopped being gay. They just had to hide it and suffer through a marriage they probably didn't really want. Luckily for me, I don't have to hide my bisexuality just because I'm married. I even got really lucky and found a man who later came out as bisexual himself.

For a long time, though, I did have to hide it. It was frustrating to explain to people that I was married to a man but still identified as bi. A lot of times I got confused looks. I wondered if people thought I was delusional or kidding myself and really was a lesbian. But I had tried out that label before I had met my husband, and I just couldn't do it. I still liked to look at men. And women.

So I just stopped talking about it. I didn't "come out" to friends because I thought it wasn't important. Yeah, I was still bi, but I was married. I bought into bisexual erasure. My identity wasn't important because of my relationship status.

That sucks.

This is the last weekend of Pride, and I'm going to be marching in Chicago's Pride Parade with the Bisexual Queer Alliance tomorrow. And I'm proud of that. I'm telling the world that I am bi, even though I am married to a man, and that's okay. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and I'm certainly not going to stop saying I'm bi.

You can't erase me. You can't shut me up, and you certainly can't label me as straight.

I'm bisexual, and I'm proud of it!

(BTW: I do realize that the term "bisexual" is a little dated, and doesn't cover the entire spectrum of gender identity. I've always said that it didn't matter to me what was - or wasn't - in someone's pants, and that still applies. It's what is part of being bi...we like it all! "Pansexual" might be more accurate, but way harder to explain.)

Electronic Hijinks

I have always had a strange relationship with electronics. I love computers, even though most people my age distrust them to some degree. I was lucky; I grew up with computers because I had a father who was in engineering. We had computers - two of them - before most people even knew what a personal computer was.

Computers tend to obey me. They rarely break down (except printers...damn you printers!), rarely have severe problems, and I have never, ever lost a file at the last minute (okay, I did lose about 30,000 words of my Dark Crystal Author Quest submission once, but that was my iPad's fault).

Other types of electronics and I, however, do not get along so well.

Take elevators, for example. Let me tell you a story of the College of Nursing elevator. This lift really liked me, as in it followed me around. I didn't use it much on the way down; I usually took the stairs. My office was on the fourth floor, my lab on the second. With no one around to push the button, the doors would open for me on the fourth floor. I'd ignore it and take the stairs, only to have the doors open for me at the second floor, again with no one around to push the button.

This elevator liked me. It followed me.

The elevator in the College of Medicine was another story. It didn't like me. Any time I would get on, no matter how many people were in it (or not), the alarm would sound. When I stepped out of the elevator, the alarm would switch off. I got a lot of stares because of it.

Now, it's automatic doors. I guess my secret ninja skills have become so great that I no longer register on automatic door sensors. They won't open for me anymore, or they will open while I'm still thirty feet down the hall, then close just as I get to them - with no one else around.

What about you? Do you have any weird electronic hijinks stories? Do computers fritz out around you, like a certain Chicago wizard we all know and love? Do you have a pet elevator?

Photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc

Geek? Nerd? Writer?

Okay, so I'm not known for being consistent with blogging. I have three blogs and I barely write in any of them anymore. I suck.

I guess it's because I never know what to write about. I have lots of opinions about things, but I'm not always sure people want to read those opinions. So, yeah, I'm a little insecure about sharing things I like, especially since I am a nerdy geek. Or a geeky nerd. Or whatever. And a woman, and bad things tend to happen to opinionated women who have those strong opinions on geeky things.

I like Star Wars, and comic books, and video games. But I don't get much chance to do much about it. I work too much and I'm lazy. Yes, I just admitted that I'm lazy. But I am, and I'm trying not to be.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is that I am going to attempt to write more. I'm making writing a priority. I might even make a schedule, and put it in my calendar, and have it beep at me. Like I did for belly dance, and look how far that's gotten me! (Yep, this belly dancing writer is going to be teaching at Waking Persephone this year! Sweet!)

I will write about more than just writing here. I've contemplated renaming the blog, or just trashing this one and getting another. We'll see. I want to write about nerdy things and geeky things and stupid things. And writing. And dancing.

For now, thanks for reading, and hopefully this will all be worth something soon.

How Not to Write An Introduction

I recently read a pretty well known horror novel (you know, keeping up with the genre and because it was close to Halloween).  In the edition I was reading, there was an introduction by an extremely famous author.  Normally, I skip introductions, and I should have skipped this one.  But I thought he might have something interesting to say, so I decided to read it.  That was a mistake.

Why?

Because he gave away the ending.  Seriously, why do authors do this?  Yes, it was a well-known, rather old horror novel that's been made into a movie (twice).  But I had never read it (um, that's why I was reading it!), and if I hadn't caught on early enough, this famous author would have spoiled the entire novel for me.

An analysis, especially a blow-by-blow analysis, of a novel belongs at the END of a book.  In an afterward, or an author's note, or an editor's note, or something of that ilk.

Please, dear editors, dear authors, dear whoever-will-be-writing-introductions, don't spoil the book for your readers, even if the book is a hundred years old.  Chances are, there's someone out there who has never read it before and never seen the movie.  Do you really want to rip away the joy of that twist ending just so you can sound smart about it?

If you want your introduction to actually be read by someone, try introducing the novel, rather than analyzing it, okay?

Writing Flawed Characters

One of the most important parts of writing is character development.  But this is also one of the most challenging aspect of writing for many writers (including me).  Too many writers get into Mary Sue characters (for more information regarding this, see here ... for those who don't want to click, basically a "perfect" character or a stand-in for the author, often without flaws or in some other way idealized).  Bella from the Twilight series is often criticized as a Mary Sue, and for good reason.  There is no character development in Bella.

Writing flawed characters is actually much more fun than writing Mary Sues, trust me.  When I used to play roleplaying games, the characters I remember the most were the ones that were most unlike me, those that I had to stretch to play.  It was fun being someone completely different.  Writing flawed characters is just the same.  Mary Sues are boring to read and to write.

Let's take Lizzy, my protagonist from The Horror at Palmwich.  I will stay away from spoilers if you haven't read the book (hint: you can buy it here), but I will talk a little about some of her choices in general terms.  Be cautioned!

Lizzy is very definitely not me, in any way shape or form.  She's not even really my opposite, either.  But she is deeply flawed.  She desires to be--and sees herself to be--this great journalist, but she really isn't.  Watch how her voices changes throughout the story.  Her voice in the introduction to the "manuscript" (where she had the leisure to agonize over every word and make it perfect) is very different than the voice in the rest of the "manuscript" (something she probably did not want to read more than she had to, not wanting to re-live it).  She's more casual in the "manuscript" and much more formal in the introduction.  There was a reason for it.

Some of the choices Lizzy makes are also important.  Many of them seem irrational or misguided.  But what would you do if confronted with what she had to go through?  Would you act rationally?  She wanted to investigate this "hot story" but it got too personal, and then too scary, and she could no longer be the objective journalist.

When I wrote Lizzy, I was coming at her decisions and choices from a perspective that was not mine.  I had to step back and think not, "What would I do?" but "What would Lizzy do?" and that was difficult.  But it was also fun.  Lizzy was definitely a stretch and a learning experience for me.

What do you think?  Do you like reading Mary Sue characters so that you can insert yourself into the character, or do you want to read about someone else?