Really, Leah

Dear Creative,

My cousin is a poet, and I didn’t even know it. During a recent trip to Atlanta, I sat still, captivated as I absorbed the elegant rhyming verses composed for his wife, who I affectionately refer to as my bonus cousin. (She’s a courageous stroke survivor whose recovery we rejoice in.) My cousin’s sister, however, knew her big brother had talent long ago. She admitted to lifting some of his prose for an English class during her high school years, if my recollection is accurate.  (Naughty girl, that sister.) Nevertheless, the recent revelation of another writer in the room inspired me to reflect on my own recent endeavors in poetry and the efficacy it has provided in my editing process, particularly within the realm of haiku.

You may ask, Haiku?

Five Seven Five syllables

Over three lines. Bless you. 

(My Haiku)

If you aren’t familiar with a haiku, as defined by Britannica, it is “a unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. The haiku first emerged in Japanese literature during the 17th century, as a terse reaction to elaborate poetic traditions, though it did not become known by the name haiku until the 19th century.”

A fellow writer, a successful author, and a good friend of James Patterson shared a strategy he used to tighten his books. In 2019, I mentioned my frustration about the amount of time I spent on edits. That’s when he prescribed a few pointers. One of them was the haiku. And here I am today, revisiting his advice and making tremendous progress on my novel. 

Presenting Katsushika Hokusai, an illustrious poet who extensively studied the original master of Japanese poetry, Matsuo Bashō, emphasizing his approach on writing, in “A Poppy Blooms”:

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then

A poppy blooms.

Isn’t that beautiful, natural, and precise. Isn’t that what you want your creative work to be?  I  know I do. As a writer, I appreciate how poets say so much with so few words. 

Hokusai’s poem reflects Bashō’s conviction that every syllable must possess significance. If a syllable holds importance, why not extend this principle to words? If a sentence carries weight, why not consider the importance of a paragraph on a page? Every component must serve a purpose; otherwise, it ought not to exist. 

Run-on sentences should not make it to the final cut, except to illustrate how verbose a character in a novel is. Right? 

Let’s try a tightening exercise. Here’s a sentence with over thirty words. Can you tighten it?

Susie seriously thought she would enjoy all the haiku suggestions, yet in her mind, it felt burdensome to condense her free-flowing thoughts when she preferred to let her creativity flow freely, but she decided to try anyway. (37 rambling words)

My revision:

Susie believed she could use the haiku to tighten her writing after she expressed her thoughts on paper. (18 words)

Less than half the words and the sentence is aspirational! Kudos, Leah.

How’d you do?

Haiku is better

Five Seven Five syllables

Free your page of waste.

(My Haiku)

How do we get there? 

Well, it’s true: writing is rewriting, and there is no way around that. Creating anything complex and meaningful, even something as short as a three-line poem, a letter, or a blog post, requires editing. There is always the potential for something better.

First drafts are often trashed for a reason. Either there is too much fluff or not enough substance. Or both. Combing through our creative work requires dedication and determination until all the “little darlings” are found and eliminated.

During our rewrites, we remove all distractors from the story. We strive to eliminate unnecessary words, just as we hope our government will reduce its unnecessary spending so we taxpayers can enjoy more of our money. We do the same work of slashing and pruning words on our creative end so that the consumer’s experience is effortless, and all expectations are exceeded. 

One editing tool I have found helpful is to take all the words and sentences that don’t move the story forward and store them in a separate document. In this wonderful world of technology, we can do this with a quick cut-and-paste. Sometimes, I use the extracted words, phrases, or sentences in other materials. It’s akin to killing my darlings in one piece and resuscitating a darling for use in another.

Natural imagery is common to haikus and effective in longer-form writing. Selecting words that enhance our perceptions of sight, sound, touch, and smell creates a lingering memory of our story long after the book ends. Think of your favorite book or movie and the emotions it evoked. While you might not remember exact details, your responsive emotions are unforgettable. I still remember the way I felt after reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. 

Haikus offer variety too. And in writing, everything from a book to a blog, we need diversity in our sentence lengths. Maybe not exactly five syllables for the first and last lines, and seven in between. However, incorporating shorter sentences to make the story move faster, and a mixture of longer sentences to take in scenery, works together for a good read. The ebbs and flows create a rhythm for your reader to enjoy without stopping. The consistent movement carries readers to the end. 

Never forget that we are working for an audience, which requires us to give them what they want. Our audience deserves the best and not a rambling thirty-word sentence, again and again. A reader should not have to skip through chapters to find their favorite characters, no more than a diner should have to cut huge pieces of fat off to find the tasty parts of a dish. Like a meal, a good book or blog should leave our end-user satiated, wishing they had more, but satisfied with all they have enjoyed. 

I already know that the haiku works for me, and I believe it may work for you too—adding variety to the structure and enhancing the visceral impact on the senses. It will require us to count our words and step away from the work before diving in again with the fresh eyes necessary to replace ineffective adverbs with strong verbs. Bashō illustrates this approach in one of his most famous haikus, “The Old Pond.”

An old silent pond

A frog jumps into the pond—

Splash! Silence again. 

Stellar wordsmithing.

Now it’s time to make a SPLASH with our creative work!  I know we can. Really,

Leah