“Suzy Harriston,” officials say, was never a student at Clayton High, and no one has ever been able to identify her as an actual human being.

All of which is a sharp reminder that the Internet can be a dangerous place. Do you know who your Facebook friends are? Do you know, really know, who’s reading your most intimate secrets? What would be the fallout if you wrote some pretty rotten things about your math teacher, and the teacher, disguised as a “classmate,” read every single word?

I’m not saying you ought to be paranoid the next time you friend someone. I just want you to use a little common sense. That perky little sophomore who likes icanhascheezburger.com may not be the person she claims to be.

Unfortunately, some writers get a little careless about gestures like these. Worse, no one calls them on it. I found the following sentence in a professionally published novel. It was nothing literary (an adult romance, if you must know) but I still feel entitled to certain standards of craftsmanship.

Try to visualize the action as precisely as possible:

With a snort, he swallowed some ale.

Really? At no place in the writing and editorial process did it occur to anyone that a character who snorts while swallowing is likely to choke and quite possibly die? Really?

So what, you’re asking, is an eggcorn? You probably already know; you just never had a name for the thing. The word “eggcorn” actually describes itself. Imagine that you have grown up in a place where oak trees are abundant and you encounter acorns on a regular basis. Your friends and family discuss acorns all the time. (You apparently have no Internet access.) Alas, you have never seen the word “acorn” in print. One day you go to school, and your teacher asks you to spell the word. What would you do?

You might, as a lot of people do, try to puzzle it out. Obviously, you think, the “corn” sound is related to the corn that we eat on the cob, so that part of the word is easy enough. Then you turn to the beginning of the word. It occurs to you that seeds are like eggs, and that someone once upon a time might have imagined that acorns are slightly egg-shaped. Most important, “eggcorn” sounds a lot like the word you’ve been hearing all your life. Further, you know that English words are not always pronounced the way their spelling suggests that they should be. So you think, close enough, and “eggcorn” it shall be.

Now let me make this absolutely clear. A person who uses an eggcorn is not necessarily stupid or uneducated. The analysis they’ve made is actually quite clever, taking into account a lot of linguistic knowledge that we are normally unconscious of. Eggcorns are normally generated only when a person is unfamiliar with the correct spelling (because they don’t read a lot) or when a person has not associated the written form with the spoken form.

And of course, eggcorns can be passed along from person to person in the same way we acquire most of our vocabulary. How often do we utter an eggcorn? How many eggcorns are out there? Often and many. Just ask a high school or college English teacher. Our students use them all the time.

You’ve probably used them once or twice yourself. Here are a few that come up pretty regularly:

• doggy-dog world in place of dog-eat-dog world
• take something for granite in place of take something for granted
• a mute point in place of a moot point
• once so ever in place of whatsoever

Here are a few characteristics of a true eggcorn:

1. It is not a simple misspelling. All parts of an eggcorn are correctly spelled, genuine words of the language.
2. It makes a kind of logical sense. A random substitution would be something else, not an eggcorn.
3. It sounds similar to or even identical to the correct word or phrase.

Learn more about eggcorns at the Eggcorn Database. For more information (some of it is technical; some of it is just plain funny) check out Language Log, a blog about linguistics. The folks who post there are experts in the field, and they are the ones who first described this phenomenon.

One of the things that makes the story interesting is the way Justina tells it. After pulling herself out of the ditch, she wanders into a 7-11 store. With the help of a clerk and a customer — funny characters in their own right — Justina reconstructs the events of the night before. And this is how the book is organized: a short chapter with the 7-11 ladies followed by a longer chapter that fleshes out the story.

Even better. Those stains on Rachel’s dress? Each one acts as a kind of memory trigger for the next part of the story. Is that genius or what? A novel organized around stains!

And yes, there’s a boy and some kissing.

What I will say is that it’s a romantic comedy (emphasis on comedy) that doesn’t take on any of the controversial issues that have characterized my other work. There are two main characters, a boy and a girl, and the story is told in the first person, using alternating points of view. So far, I’m really enjoying this technique.

The plot of the story depends on the Internet, so there is a lot of IM, email, and even some phone messaging. This kind of stuff is also fun to write.

Anyway, I’m about 30 pages into this beast, with a complete outline and very extensive notes. So far, I’ve never failed to complete a book once I’m this far along. THIS MAKES ME HAPPY!

The Master Guideline: When fiction works best, it creates what John Gardner once called a “vivid, continuous dream” in the reader’s head. Today we might call it a virtual reality. Fiction fails when it allows the dream to switch off, even for an instant. The guidelines I’ve listed here have nothing to with correctness. They’re about making sure the dream never switches off.

1. Speakers take turns speaking. For the sake of clarity, whenever a speaker takes a turn, start a new paragraph.

“I’ve had enough of this,” John said.
“But you can’t break up with me.” Sheila’s cheeks were smeared with mascara. “Who’ll water the plants?”
“I don’t care about the plants.”
“You’re the one who bought them!”
“I bought them for you.” <– This is John’s turn

2. When a pattern of alternating speakers has been established, stick to it. Even if a character has nothing to say, if it’s rightfully his “turn,” start a new paragraph and give him something to do. He can pick his nose, scratch his head, or think about his Aunt Helga. It doesn’t really matter.

“Give me the money,” the burglar said.
James stared at him, speechless.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.” <– This is the burglar’s turn

3. Direct speech must be placed within double quotation marks. Under ordinary circumstances, punctuation marks go inside the quotation marks as well, even if they don’t seem to belong there. And don’t try to get cute. Readers don’t notice punctuation till it’s broken.

4. Direct dialogue tags (he said, she said, Mary said, Bo asked) indicate who is speaking at any given moment.

5. The best tags are “invisible”––that is, they do their job without being a nuisance. Unless you have a good reason for trying something different, stick to the workhorses: “said” and “asked.” Occasionally use a more descriptive tag, such as “growled” or “barked” or “insisted.” But don’t overuse them, or you’ll draw attention to them and spoil the dream. Very rarely, and only where appropriate, use a more oddball tag:

“As for Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians . . .” the old minister prattled on. “Or was it Thessalonians? Anyway––”

And never, never use a tag that is physically impossible:

“You’re done for, Batman,” the purple fiend chuckled.

You trying saying those words while chuckling. You’ll probably get spit all over your shirt.

6. The same principles apply to what screenwriters call “wrylies” (as in, “The chap had it coming,” Tom said wryly). In other words, minimize the use of adverbs to describe the dialogue. The dialogue itself should convey the emotion. If Mary is angry, her words should be chosen to convey that anger.

“I hate you,” Mary said.

7. Tags are most effective when they occur immediately after the first sentence of a “turn.” If the first sentence is a bit long, it is customary to place the tag after the first natural pause. Note the commas and use of lower case:

“If at first you don’t succeed,” he said, “call a professional.”

It is extremely annoying and weird to read a paragraph of dialogue that finishes up with a tag. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS EXAMPLE:

“It’s all very simple. First I slipped the butler a sleeping potion. When he was soundly unconscious, I crept upstairs to the master’s bedroom. For an hour I hid inside the closet. Finally, the old man retired,” Nanny explained.

8. To avoid an endless series of direct tags, and to create an opportunity for descriptive detail, sprinkle your dialogue with indirect tags. An indirect tag names the speaker, but without any reference to speaking––usually in a separate sentence.

“That’s a lie.” Wilkins chewed the ends of his mustache. “I haven’t owned a gun in thirty years.”

Notice those periods, by the way. The following makes no sense at all.

“I’m worried,” Sheila tapped the table.

Unless Sheila is an expert at Morse code, that comma should be a period.

9. Tags (direct and indirect) can be even be omitted from passages of dialogue, especially when the speakers can be identified from the content or nature of their speech. This works especially well when only two people are conversing. Most readers can keep up with a back-and-forth pattern for at least half a page and often much longer.

“Nice hat,” Tim said.
“Thanks,” Haylie said.
“You know. If you like that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Trendy. Stylish. Middle class.”
“So now I’m too poor for you?”
“Au contraire. You’re obsessed with money.”
“And I suppose you’re not?”
“Do I dress like I am?”
“Hmm.” Haylie wrinkled her nose. “I guess you’re right.”

You didn’t really need to be told the final speaker was Haylie, did you? Still it was a nice reminder.

Keep in mind a few principles. As the number of speakers increases, so should the number of tags. As the sameness of the speakers’ dialect increases, so should the number of tags. As the length of speeches increases, so should the number of tags. And as the gaps between speeches increases, so should the number of tags. Otherwise, fewer is better.

10. From time to time, the drama of a story will demand that a character speak for a long time. Unfortunately, long speeches can bore a reader. Whenever possible, break them up. Give other characters a chance to question, comment, or even fidget (in separate paragraphs, of course). Give the speaker herself a chance to think or fidget. Take a short paragraph to describe the scenery. Mention the sound of a passing truck.

11. The more event–driven or idea–driven a story is, the more likely it is that the dialogue will be functional––that is, logistical and informative. The mad scientist needs a chance to explain how he created a nuclear weapon from a bottle of ketchup. The philosopher needs a chance to explain why socialism is bad for America. This is okay. BUT––readers may lose patience if they suspect that the characters are being used only as puppets for ideas. In the best fiction, dialogue will also reveal something about character.

12. In a character–driven story, the dialogue should primarily reveal character. Content and diction should be chosen to help readers learn something about who the characters are, why they might be that way, and how they interact with each other.

13. Dialogue should suggest the rambling, ungrammatical nature of true speech––without being a true imitation of speech. Real people do not speak in standard written English. They use contractions, they speak in fragments, they start a sentence in one way and finish it in another. They repeat themselves. They pause. But a perfect imitation would be as annoying as a character who speaks in poetry. Good dialogue preserves the flavor of true speech without sacrificing clarity or efficiency. Still not clear on the difference? Go to a mall and listen to two close friends talking in the food court. (Don’t get caught.) Write down everything they say. Better yet, record the conversation and write out a transcript of it later. The result will be all but unreadable. This is why I say good dialogue should only suggest true speech.

14. Dialect (think Huckleberry Finn) is useful for revealing things about a character’s background, way of life, education, and so on. It can add color and realism to a story. On the other hand, an overload of dialect can be hard to read. It may also suggest that the author is making fun of her characters. Dialect is best kept to a minimum, then. Spell just a few words phonetically. Never drop g’s at the end of a word. (All speakers of English drop their g’s most of the time.) Use grammatical quirks only occasionally. Avoid clichés. Give your readers a hint of reality, and let their minds fill in the rest. Which of these styles you would rather read for any length of time?

1. Ah seen ‘em hunters a-runnin’ up da hee-ul. Ah tole ‘em they a-betta sta-up.
2. I seen the hunters running up the hill. I told ‘em they better stop.

Most readers prefer the second. It does everything the first one does with just a few strokes.

15. Every speaker has a personal agenda, and the more character–driven your story is, the more your dialogue should suggest this. One character may ask a question, and his wife may respond with a wholly unrelated comment. The closer the relationship, the more likely this is. In a very event–driven story, readers will be willing to forgive characters who seem to forget their own lives in order to “follow the script” of the doctor, sergeant, professor, whatever. But they will also enjoy characters who interject their own agendas, even in a small way. Indeed, a story may depend on just such a character. My doctor talks about politics. My pharmacist talks about classic rock bands. And almost everyone you’ve ever met wants to laugh at something every few minutes. This is life.

“Ma’am, we’d like to ask a few questions about your neighbor.”
“Do you know how to unclog a toilet?”

I’m stopping now. If more guidelines come to mind, please post them in a comment.

COMEDY
Comedy is a genre: a kind of writing, in the same way that romance, horror, suspense, and mystery are all genres. It’s important to know this because if we’re going to label something a comedy, it must meet certain basic requirements. Being funny doesn’t always make a story a comedy. A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks has some very funny moments. But you would probably not call it a comedy.

In a nutshell, here is the essence of a comedic story. First, a character must be threatened with trouble. “Trouble” here is subjective. It might be as trivial as flunking a chemistry test. It might be as serious as death. It might be dashed hopes—of falling in love, of winning the big game. It might be the loss of a friendship. All that really matters is that the trouble must matter to the character. In the comedies most people enjoy, the trouble should also matter to the readers. That is, we must care enough about the character that his trouble becomes our trouble.

Next, no matter how close the character comes to the trouble, the trouble is avoided, and the story ends happily.

A comedy with any other ending is not a true comedy. It might even be a tragedy. It is no coincidental that the symbol most often associated with the theater is a pair of masks: one face laughs while the other cries. Comedy and tragedy are very similar. The essential difference is the ending.

Most humorous fictions are comedies.

Of course, comedies usually have another characteristic as well. They are funny. Humorous. When we read a comedy, we expect to laugh. I explore the kinds of things that make us laugh in the next sections.

WIT
Did you ever notice how some people are just good at making things sound funny? Puns, exaggeration, understatement, sarcasm, and double entendre all make us laugh. Used correctly, dirty words make us laugh. References to sex and bodily functions can all make us laugh.

We call this sort of verbal humor wit.

Characters can be witty. So can the narrative voice.

Not all comedies contain wit (or maybe they contain just a little) but wit is an extremely common feature of comedy.

One problem a lot of writers face when trying to write wit is that they are not very witty. It could be that your closest friends and family members laugh at your wit, but the rest of the world yawns. Or it might be that your wit is immature. This happens a lot to young writers. It’s a strange paradox. The same kind of wit that cracks up your friends in the locker room falls flat when you put it in a story. The reason? Readers expect more from a story.

IRONY
Irony simply means a reversal of expectations. Think of the old Road Runner cartoons. In almost every episode, the coyote tries and fails to blow up the road runner with a crate of dynamite. This alone is slightly ironic, but not much to laugh at. The payoff comes when the coyote inadvertently blows up himself. That’s ironic. The coyote expected one thing and got the exact opposite

Mistaken identity is another species of irony that often makes us laugh. A street bum stumbles into a meeting and is mistaken for a corporate executive. The irony continues as the “executive” makes decisions that benefit poor people and drive the company into bankruptcy. Dress a man as a woman in this same situation, and it just gets funnier.

Irony lies at the heart of many comedies.

Remember Holes? Think of all the expectations that suddenly get reversed at the end. Onion juice turns out to repel venomous reptiles. Kissin’ Kate Barlow buried her treasure in a suitcase belonging to Stanley’s great-grandfather. When the suitcase was discovered, it saved the day. I don’t know about you, but I laughed my butt off.

Here’s another one. The false friend who lies so that a character ends up doing extra work, losing his job, losing her boyfriend, or showing up to a party in costume, only to find out it’s not a costume party.

Really, I could go on forever.

SLAPSTICK
Slapstick, also known as physical comedy, is less common in fiction than it is on the stage or screen, but it shows up often enough to mention it. The key element of slapstick is that a character gets injured in a way that makes us laugh. One requirement here is that the injury must be reversible. If a character tries to sneak into a second-story window and falls, it’s funny if he stands up again. It’s a lot less funny if he dies. To be successful, slapstick must also be described very vividly.

It’s also best used in moderation, unless maybe you’re writing a middle-grade book.

END
I’m sure I’ve missed something. But this is probably enough to get you thinking about your next funny story.

First, let’s note that the novel really does prepare us. Katniss describes Rue like this: “She has dark brown skin and eyes.” Later, she notes of Thresh that he “has the same dark skin as Rue.”

So c’mon. They’re black. If you’re paying attention, the book makes it clear. (Note: I considered using the more “correct” African American, except that Thresh is played by a Nigerian-born actor who’s grown up in the United States, and that’s not quite what we mean by those words.)

So why wasn’t Collins more specific in the novel? I can think of two excellent reasons.

First, Panem is not the United States. Who knows what people in the districts learn about American history? Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall the subject of race or the slave trade coming up. It’s probably irrelevant to them. They have bigger problems. Certainly a phrase like African American would be meaningless to Katniss. So what would sound right? Anything?

Second, Panem is a world in which the people living in the districts are contrasted with those who live in the Capitol. THIS is the conflict and difference that everything in the story hinges on. Drawing attention to differences that mean something in 2012 USA would detract from that. The way I see it, black or white no longer matters in Panem. What matters is whether you’re from the districts or not. Katniss, Rue, and Thresh are all enemies of the Capitol. This fundamental similarity has to be more important than skin color.

If you read a book or watch a movie, you agree to set your own reality aside for a while. I think that’s pretty basic.

The problem is that the concept we call “scene” is not as helpful as you might think. At its most basic level, a scene suggests (1) stuff that happens (2) in a location. This led me to write scenes of “deep” conversations set in really cool places (graveyards were a favorite). Or I’d fill a story really interesting (read: obvious) symbols, like two guys conversing deeply over a game of chess. Bottom line, if the scene seemed cool, I was satisfied. I did not always take care to make sure that my scenes actually contributed to the overall story.

To understand what “contributing to the story” means, let’s talk about the outcome of a story. The outcome might be equal to the story’s climax, or it might be the state of affairs that follows the climax. It might be happy, sad, disturbing, ambiguous. It might be as large as saving the Earth from an asteroid impact. It might be as subtle as the main character realizing that she does in fact love her father.

The outcome is the payoff that readers have been waiting for. It’s the reason the story exists in the first place.

Now that we know that, let’s return to scenes, events, and stuff that happens. A good rule of thumb is this: if something happens in your story, it must affect (or have the potential for affecting) the outcome of the story. Alternatively, it must affect (or have the potential for affecting) your reader’s understanding of the outcome.

Seriously. That’s it. Those two things. Think about the outcome, or think about the way your reader understands the outcome.

What’s the difference? Let’s say your main character Spiff has been questing for some treasure. By the time he enters the treasure vault, Spiff has scaled cliffs, killed giant spiders, endured terrible tortures. And now the treasure is his. Hurray! Or is it hurray? What if the reader knows something that Spiff doesn’t know, because we overheard a conversation that Spiff wasn’t a part of. One of the things we heard is that the treasure is radioactive, and that entering the vault is lethal. So, as the story ends, Spiff is happy, but the reader has a different understanding.

When something happens that affects the outcome or the reader’s understanding of the outcome, I think of that “something” as an event. So here’s today’s lesson.  Fiction is series of events. Nothing more, nothing less. Stuff that happens that is not part of an event does not belong in your story. Remove it the way a surgeon removes cancer. Quickly. Without mercy.

What might count as an event? Big stuff, obviously. A sword fight. An argument. Blowing up a death star. But also more subtle stuff. Finding a treasure map. Reading a long-lost love letter. Learning that a character has unusual taste in clothes (because 50 pages from now we’ll need to be convinced that she’s a non-conformist so that we’ll believe that she really would run off with that cute biker).

Under the right circumstances, the wink of an eye might be a HUGE event, because it might communicate to your MC that everything his beloved is telling her father is a big fat lie.

Remember The Lion King? Remember the moment when Simba eats his first grubs? This was a crucial event, because it signaled that Simba was on his way to accepting the “no worries” lifestyle of Timon and Pumbaa.

It’s hard to say what won’t count as an event, because every story is unique. So let’s put it this way. If something happens in your story, and YOU don’t know how it affects the outcome, your reader probably won’t either. Have enough non-events like that, and your reader is likely to get frustrated and stop reading.

So what about scenes? Aren’t they the same as events? Well, yes and no. A scene might coincide exactly with an event, especially a short scene. A lot of writers even do that on purpose. One scene, one event. But a scene might also contain several events, especially if they are as subtle as the wink of an eye. It’s also possible for a complex event to span several scenes.

We’ve learned the word “scene” because it makes a difference to the way a play or film is produced. Playwrights and screenwriters worry about scenes because because doing so is practical. As fiction writers, we don’t have such limitations. If we want to move from the forest to the castle, all we have to do is begin a new sentence.

My best advice? As you plot your story, think about events, not scenes. A scene is a time and location in which an event takes place. If you manage your events, your scenes will take care of themselves.

Leave some comments on this. It’s a work in progress.

Fashion

1. Readers are often annoyed, I think, when teenage characters have names that they associate with their parents’ generation. It’s realistic to have an occasional Bill or Susan, but it would be unwise to name all your characters like that. It just doesn’t ring true.

2. On the other hand, readers may be just as annoyed if all your main characters have names that they associate with their own generation. It’s too BORING. A possible exception is to give a villain or adversary an extremely common name like Brittany or Josh. Names like that are way past their cool, so it’s easy for readers to hate characters who have them.

3. A lot of names that I see in popular novels are the same names that parents are naming their babies right now. So Googling “popular baby names” might turn up something useful. Be careful, though. A name chosen this way might sound way too trendy.

4. Names should be easily pronounceable. I’m speaking to the fantasy and SF writers, now. You might think it’s cool to name a character something like X’qdpkl. There may even be a few readers out there who agree. But the rest of us would like to injure you. Badly. The point is simple: if I can’t say it with my mouth, I can’t hear it in my head, and that’s going to spoil my experience. Remember Katniss and Peeta? These are exotic names, to be sure, but easily pronounced.

5. Whatever names you end up choosing for your main characters (not necessarily your secondary characters) they need to be interesting in some way. One reason is that readers like to fantasize (that’s why they read). Another is that ordinary names are easily forgotten. You don’t want your reader getting to page 10 and thinking, “Who?”

Distinctiveness

What I mean by this is that your characters should have names that are distinctive from each other. It drives me nuts when two important characters have names that are easily confused. So here are a few ways to add variety to your names:

1. Avoid using the same first sound. Bad: Bill and Bob

2. Avoid using the same interior vowel sound. Bad: Cobby and Noggin

3. Do use names with different syllable counts. Good: Kane and Rhyder

4. Do use names in which the accents fall on different syllables. Good: Andrew and Melina

5. Break any of these rules if it magically works to do so. Good: Nick and Norah

Fit

It was once common to choose a name that suited a character’s personality in some way. A writer might give the name Ernest to a serious character, Crouch to an angry character, Leetch to a suck-up, and so on. You can get away with this today in a comedy or romance, but otherwise I recommend against it. The technique draws a lot of attention to itself.

On the other hand, some names just seem to fit a character in ways that are hard to understand. For example, Cindi sounds good a dopey blonde (in my mind, anyway) while Ruth sounds dark and serious. Go with your gut on this one.

Then there are associations. A character named Thomas might remind readers of Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Edison (even unconsciously) and that might be a good thing. But a character named Miley will inevitably remind readers of Miley Cyrus, and that’s probably a bad thing.

Special names

Not everyone in the world goes by his or her first name. Some people go by their last name. Some people use a nickname. Others are called a nickname by only one or two people. In any group of people, you’re likely to find a good mix of all of these. That’s reality. Consider giving some of your own characters these kinds of special names.

Wait! There’s more!

I’m sure there are other strategies, but I’m done for now. Share some of yours in a comment.