A few months ago, I found myself in a conversation with other editors about a description that was given to a particular type of chair, asking whether people would actually know what a writer was referring to if they just used the name of the chair. There was a photo posted with the original post of some rusted chair that glided back and forth. You should have seen the comments that went back and forth about locality and age of editors. It was mad. Then I piped in, looking at the sample writing that was provided in the original post and the clunky description that was given to the chair.
In my comments, I provided a potential rework to the passage to smooth out the sentence flow and highlight the significance of the chair itself, but in my rework I had changed the name of the chair from glider to rocker. OMG, I was lynched, because apparently there is a big difference between a glider and a rocker.
My response to the lynch mob: Who cares what the chair is actually called? What matters is why the character is noticing it in the first place. (I think I actually wrote that on the forums too.) What is the significance of this chair, whatever it was called, to the plot?
A rose by any other name…
Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. While literary scholars will have their interpretation as to what this line means, this editor will be happy to apply this as an analogy to the current discussion.
To put it blunt, a rose is called many things by many different languages, but the significance of a rose will change from person to person, and from color to color.
A black rose can have death overtones, but those black roses often had their heads lopped off as Morticia Addams put the thorny stems into the vase. What you called that rose had little meaning to Morticia. It’s what she did with them that holds significance. She could have called them spiky delights for all we care. We still would have laughed as that rosebud was lopped off and thrown out with the trash.
For a conversation on social media, I was amazed at how quickly the conversation veered way from the description of that chair and the construction of the sentence, focusing entirely on the name change I had given it.
So, I called it by the wrong thing. Instead of lynching me for it, it would have been nice if they had seen my feedback for what it was: a comment on the sentence construction, shifting the focus from the chair itself to the significance that the chair held for the character. In reality, a person wouldn’t take the time to notice a chair, whatever it was, if it didn’t hold significance for some reason. But nope… It would appear that fixating on the name of the chair was what was importance.
I shall roll my eyes now.
Characters react for a reason.
In every scene, in every setting, there will be a reason behind a character’s actions and reactions. Nothing happens just because you, as the writer, want them to happen.
Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I mean, you are the writer, and nothing happens in your story unless you write it, but for a reader to accept the things as you’ve written them, actions and motivations need to make sense. If you want your character to take the time to describe a particular item, then provide the significance of said item.
Those hints of significance don’t need to be essays filled with details. It can be a simple one-line sentence. For example, the chair brought back fond memories of sitting on the porch with her grandmother watching the sunset.
Just because you don’t agree from an editor’s rewrite (totally disagreeing with their change of name), doesn’t mean that there isn’t something of value in the comments that they have provided. Take a look at the comments themselves and look at the issue they have highlighted.
Don’t become so fixated on the name of a chair that you miss its significance to the story.
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© Copyright, Judy L Mohr 2019