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three in the morning, and other odds and ends
Generally my take on writer's block is simple. If you're stuck, you're trying to force the story in the wrong direction. This time it took me three days to figure that out, three days of inching forward against huge resistance from the characters and the story itself. Trying to figure out what was wrong, how I could fix it, how such a great scene could fall so flat.
Three in the morning, I woke up and realized that I was committing the great sin, the pushing-the-story-where-it-doesn't-want-to-go sin. Just as soon as that thought came to me, the floodgates opened and now I know what to do. Starting with deleting the scene which I like, but doesn't work right here, right now. Sometimes you have to do that, and it's hard. Generally I take such bits and pieces and stick them in a file called bitsnpieces, which I check once in a while to see if there's anything I can use.
In this particular case I'm going to have to do some drastic POV finagling, but I think it will work.
On a different matter entirely, this sentence from The Wall Street Journal:
And the perpetrator probably may not be a stranger.
Does this strike you as odd? probably may not strikes me as so odd that it took me a moment to parse it. I would expect to read probably is not OR may be, but not this unholy union of modal verb with adverb, that doesn't work for me -- and by that I mean, it doesn't strike me as something a native speaker of English would say or use. Is this a new construction that's making the rounds? If you've seen it in other places, please provide examples.
more soon.
October 9, 2005 09:33 AM
Comments
I think this may depend on your definition of English which seems to morph more each day into things I certainly dont like to read/hear. My old English teachers are surely turning in their graves with regularity. The ones that get me the most are the redundancies. If I had a dollar for every time I heard things like "3am in the morning" ....
Posted by: Alison at October 9, 2005 05:14 PM
I don't think that this strikes me as particularly odd for a native speaker to say although I can see where you are coming from linguistically. But then, I'm Australian so we probably may say things a little differently. On a similar note, an old lecturer of mine who was American always used to say "often times" instead of just "often". I find THAT odd.
Posted by: Jacqui at October 10, 2005 04:47 AM
I love the scenes in your books and the way they change and that they come from different perspectives. Don't worry about scenes falling flat. When you give the finished product believe me nothing falls flat as I read your novels.
Cynthia in Florida
Posted by: Cynthia at October 10, 2005 06:38 AM
It does seem awkward and a little redundant. Not as bad as "usually always" or the like where one modifier cancels the other out, but similar in feel. Although I understand what the author means, which seems like the best test to see if a particular construction is "valid."
Posted by: flamingbanjo at October 10, 2005 01:33 PM
You know, it sort of looks like a typo. You know, when you write something first one way, and then another, and then forget to delete all the parts of the previous version. And then it gets by the proofer.
Posted by: Karen at October 10, 2005 06:04 PM
Karen and everybody else too --
I wondered if it was a typo but then I googled "probably may not" and got like, 10,000 hits. People use this construction. I wonder when that started. I'm going to email a former colleague who keeps track of this kind of syntactic neoplasm.
Posted by: sara at October 10, 2005 06:38 PM
"Probably may not" is poor English at best.
Posted by: Joyce at October 11, 2005 03:05 PM
Alison, I'm entirely with you about redundancies. I am particularly sick of "also too" and "sum total". Sara, "probably may not" is indeed poor English and I'm horrified that it may be common out there. I am also Australian and it jars badly on me.
Posted by: Sheena Walsh at October 11, 2005 05:16 PM