I hoard phrases! I can’t point to an exact time when I started, but as a young girl, I became acutely aware of other people’s seemingly sublime ability to spew clever retorts, express mundane occurrences with flourish and wit, and offer wise advice that was clothed with astute figurative aplomb.
I first began collecting words and then phrases in elementary school. Back then, I collected words to meet general education requirements. Armed with the notorious Students’ Companion – a textbook that served a smorgasbord of words with their meanings, synonyms, and antonyms while also dishing out proverbial sayings, quotations, figurative language, and more, I chewed words in an effort to commit their details to memory and swallowed them to digest memorization into knowledge. In time, I developed a habit of squirreling away words and phrases for future use. Then as a bored-out-of-my-mind student, I began reading the dictionary. Perhaps these were the geneses of my word collecting and, more importantly, phrase collecting, which sometimes creates angst when I engage in the editing and revising processes.
Coco Chanel’s famous admonition to remove one thing – an accessory or item of clothing –before leaving the home can be similarly applied to the writing process. And just like those who have a more is more aesthetic to decorating or dressing, word collectors often struggle with getting rid of words – or in my case, phrases – once committed to the page. For starters, finding the correct word or phrase that adequately captures and conveys the mood of characters, settings, or emotions is in itself an art. So, mastering clever wordplay cannot be taken for granted. However, as writers, we live with the knowledge that inevitably, we will be asked to slash and contain phrases for the sake of “the work.”
Yet even though we know it needs to be done, the pain and anxiety of losing that special word or phrase can at times be terrifying. Some writers plunge into the what-ifs. What if I fail to replace it with a more competent alternative? What if I can use it in another paragraph or chapter? What if I (horror of horrors) forget the eloquent concoction? Naturally, such terror is magnified when the thing to be sliced and diced away consists of numerous phrases, sentences, or paragraphs.
Revising is at times, an arduous but always necessary process in creating one’s masterpiece. If you, like me, have consistently practiced word hoarding, extricating clever phrases once deployed to the page requires a steely determination to delve into your purpose for writing. Moreover, it requires discipline to move beyond mere words on a page and to fearlessly commit to crafting beautifully compelling work.
If you suffer from the manuscript-defeating condition that coerces you to amass words and phrases on your pages, here are a few suggestions that might help.
- Save them. Create a separate file where you can safely stockpile those memorable phrases you’ve creatively concocted. There would be numerous opportunities in the future where you can dive in and retrieve your hoarded treasures to unleash on the literary world.
- Cut them. Yes, I know it hurts. I’ve experienced the pain of extricating marvelous anecdotes from my work, and heaven helps me if they are funny, witty, or dripping with sarcasm or wisdom. Alas, knowing when to effect brutal cuts at crucial moments in your masterpiece will ultimately save you from further torture. An additional upside is – see 1 above.
- Remember the end game. Whether writing for pleasure or for a career, the story cannot and should not suffer because a writer stubbornly refuses to recognize that the result you desire is to produce work that is captivating and memorable for all the right reasons.
So yes, I hoard phrases. I know that there are many of us out there. It was and is in listening that I have accrued some noteworthy phrases that I’ve packed and stored away for use one day. Luckily, I’ve also discovered that I too have, over time, developed a knack for such, and I lay them out on paper or on-screen with relish. Yet I also appreciate that in crafting each opus, I must eliminate any dross that might be bogging my writing down, regardless of how funny or profound it might be. (Yes, that’s an oxymoron, but true!) I encourage you to write on! Plaster your words and phrases and magnificent sentences across your pages. Do all of this fearlessly and wonderfully. But know this – in the end, you cannot commit it all to the page.
About the Author
Alethea McCollin is a playwright based in Central Virginia. She is delighted to serve on JRW’s Executive Board, and is committed to story-telling. She is an avid gardener gone rogue, a proud but mediocre bread baker, and a shoe addict. Alethea finds joy in simple things.