April Fool 2010

Marty’s Muse
Something to think about …
April 2010

1 April

All fools’ day

I think I was crowned king

And such a court I had today

No other king in any Age

Could sport

Or match me

In my reign

-M.L. Gorsching, A Little Book of Poems, PublishAmerica LLLP, 2007

April, the Month of Fools and Lovers

Tradition. Ever notice how our long held religious events, beliefs and traditions grow out of some much older custom seemingly unrelated to the current celebration, from a different culture, or even from pagan rites and rituals? So why do we hold them so dearly and defend them so passionately?

Because, it’s Tradition. [Cue music: “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye sings.]

Easter, the religious event we sometimes observe in April, and the term Easter both arise from the Anglo-Saxon celebration of Oster-monath or Eostur-monath, the period sacred to Eostre, the pagan Saxon goddess of spring (see also: Ostara, Astarte, Aristarte and Astaroth). The good monks of the Christian mission to pagandom merely superimposed the celebration of the Christ’s resurrection over an existing holy day.

So where does All Fool’s Day (or, April Fool’s Day) come into this picture of religious celebration? And what does that have to do with the writing life? I’ll get to that.

As with many of our traditions, this one has a long, varied, and mostly obscure history. We’re not quite sure where it comes from. The tradition of the tradition is that in the 1500s, when the Greco calendar replaced the Julian, the celebration of New Year moved from the first of April to the first of January. Some people insisted on continuing to celebrate the arrival of the new year on April 1, and earned the sobriquet “April Fools.” On the first day of April, those with a prankish nature would drop in on these unsuspecting neighbors, trying to convince them that it was a New Year celebration visit; thus garnering gifts and a meal from their foolish neighbors, and thus giving birth to the plague of pranks which descend on this day.

However, there are other contenders for the title of Origin of April Fools Day Pranks:
· The fickleness of Mother Nature and her weather fool us into thinking spring is sprung; so we’re all April fools
· The day commemorates the fruitless mission of the rook (a crow), which was the first envoy sent out from Noah’s Ark
· It commemorates the Vernal Equinox
· It ties-in with Hilaria, Rome’s year-end celebration, or, the end of the Celtic new year festival

I like the Rites of Spring connection for “Fool for a Day.” Is there anything more foolish than a young man in springtime or in love? An April fool if there ever was one. So why celebrate “love” in February? April is by far a more romantic month. April is warm and snuggly compared to February. Heck, February feels like winter. February gets the honorific as the month of love because, according to Tradition, St. Valentine died on February 14th. Also, in the Roman world, Feb. 14 was the day the Romans kicked off their annual Feast of Lupercalia. Marriageable young men and women participated in a sort of love lottery. The boys picked the girls’ names from a jar, and the couple spent the day together getting to know one another. These pairings often resulted in marriage. From which arises our tradition of the Valentine Card.

Maybe.

That’s the trouble with tradition: it’s been going on so long, no one remembers why or how it all got started.

So what does all this have to do with writing? Well, you just read a 650 word essay about the month of April and the origins of April Fool’s Day. Get it?

[Use your favorite research application to find out more about the Feast of Lupercalia, St. Valentine and his Day, and why Easter sometimes is celebrated in March, sometimes in April.]

Just keep writing!
Marty “I’m-a-fool-for-you” Gorsching

Story Flow

Marty’s Muse

Something to think about …

Mar 2010

Story Flow

Often I’m asked (okay, one person asked me one time) how to make a story flow, how to keep it moving forward. Readability. That’s the key. Make it readable. A reader won’t keep reading—or even start—if it’s not readable.

So, how do you do that, make it readable? Some things to look for and eliminate:

Redundant, intrusive dialogue that does not add to the story or move it along. It’s simple. With each piece of dialogue you write, read it aloud, then ask yourself these questions: Does it sound natural? Does it sound like people talking? Does it make sense? Does it fit (is it appropriate to the storyline?)

Wordiness and run-on sentences disrupt the flow of words, distract the reader and detract from the story. Cut the fat. Trim down adjectives and (especially) adverbs. Strive for strong, evocative verbs. Break long, complex sentences into a series of shorter ones. Shorter sentences lend impact to action scenes and tension to suspenseful moments. On the other hand, too many short, Dick-and-Jane sentences are an equal distraction.

Sexually or racially biased or obscene language – I leave this one to your discretion. If the language is appropriate to the story, use it, but do so with discretion. If you’re writing a non-fiction piece, these elements require closer scrutiny.

Shifts in tense, voice, point of view. Some authors have achieved great success manipulating the “rules” of tense, voice or point of view. Explore outside the norms, but do not go swiftly into that strange land. Remember that misuse or misapplication of standard forms (rules) of grammar, syntax, usage, structure, punctuation can be interpreted as just plain bad writing.

Blatant misuse of punctuation: too little or too much. Writing is communication and communication is about understanding. If you throw around punctuation haphazardly, no one will understand what you mean, and you will not have communicated what you want to communicate.

Loose application of fundamental grammar rules. As with the other elements mentioned here, play with the rules of grammar at your own risk. Learn them first. New or struggling writers especially have to be extra cautious so their works do not appear amateurish and unworthy of appraisal.

Just keep writing!

Marty “Flow-on” Gorsching