It’s no secret that I love words. As a kid, my parents nicknamed me “Chatty Kathy”, but I was just as much at ease with my pencil and notebook as I was chattering away at the dinner table. I think I get this naturally. I’ve written before about how my Grandfather helped me write an April Fool’s story for a friend, and my Mum writes a column for her local newspaper.
As I grew older, my pencil was replaced first by a typewriter and then a computer, but for me wordplay has always been a means of telling stories – mine or those of others. One of the more fun parts of this for me is the range of language and style that can be used, depending on purpose and format.
This blog, for example, is far less formal than the writing I do at work. While I always try and keep my corporate writing less formal than some, if I used em-dashes with the careless abandon I do here, I’d be in the doghouse. It’s just not the place.
In my career I’ve ghost-written for many executives and have been told that I manage to make them sound like them. Some of them are impressed. What they haven’t realized is how many meetings I’ve inserted myself into, in order to learn the cadence of their speech and their word choices. Who among them uses sports metaphors? And is it football or hockey? What Americanisms or Britishisms linger in their speech patterns. I love this puzzle and figuring out how to put the pieces together to write “like” someone.
Editing someone else’s work brings its own puzzle. I’ve edited a couple of books and countless pieces of writing, for traditional publications, for websites, for presentations and speeches to be delivered. Each has its challenges, thinking through what’s appropriate for the medium, while keeping the sense of the person intact.
Unfortunately, we don’t talk in proper sentences. We repeat ourselves to make a point. We leave out important words. We don’t use punctuation. And none of that works on paper.
Recently, I’ve been helping a friend with doctoral thesis work. You’d think this would be an easy gig, because this guy can talk! He’s a superb speaker and paints vivid pictures with his words. But just like the instrumentalist who can’t carry a tune, his oratory doesn’t translate into written words. When I first started working with him years ago, I was shocked. And then I realized that he writes exactly like he speaks. I can hear him saying the words I read on the page.
So while he does all the heavy lifting through research, concept development and opinion forming, I play the role of “cleanup crew” bundling these well-formed thoughts into “more correct” and formal language suitable for the pen. I think of it as taking a cloth to a well-built piece of furniture – polishing it up so to speak.
This is not every writer’s favourite thing to do. But just as I’ve often said that I see myself as a helper to tell others’ stories, I actually enjoy this. Of course, some of it is routine – going through each paragraph line by line and word by word at the very end to weed out every error and catch every inconsistency. But other parts are much more fulfilling. I can look at a page of text and see where paragraphs need to be broken up, where a sentence needs to be longer or shorter, where a comma is out of place, and where a semicolon needs to be inserted to instantly make meaning out of a clouded thought. It’s as if the plain black words on the white page (or more likely these days, the white screen) combine to form their own tapestry in front of me. I can take in the whole picture, or focus on just a small part of it to make it shine.
Of course, it’s impossible to see that tapestry in my own writing – as I’m sure my readers have noticed in previous (and this?) posts. When I eventually get around to writing the book (books?) bouncing around in my head, I’ll have to find another “me” to do that job. For now, I’ll satisfy myself by bringing more clarity to others and gently taking their words to new heights,.
