First A. I. D. for Writers

               

                                                                                                                                             

(1)   “She was upset.”

(2)  “Brigit pitched her favorite Precious Moments Birthday Angel against the wall above Arlen’s head.”

(3)   “A vein suddenly streaked red across the white of Brigit’s right eye, like blood lightning."

(4)   “‘This is the last time,’ Brigit hissed.”

            These are four ways we might capture a moment in fictional Brigit’s life: 

(1) is merely exposition—telling us, in general, what’s happening.  It is a gray throwaway sentence that could be applied to so many people and situations that it doesn’t mean anything. A key way to tell that you’re writing a sentence in an exposition mode, is that there’s no Action, Imagery, or Dialog.  Often, you can replace an important part of a sentence with almost any other word(s) and transfer the same nothing information.  The three sentences “He was upset.” “The dog was upset.” “The thing was upset.” are all forgettable yawns.

(2) is Action that clearly embodies Brigit’s emotional state.  Action is delivered through juicy verbs.  Notice that example (1) has the boring and general “was” as its verb.  (2), (3), and (4) all scintillate (like “scintillate” does) with vibrant verbs: “pitched,” “streaked,” “hissed.” 

(3) is a physical Image of how anger can manifest. Imagery appeals to our senses—the five in our heads and hands and the ones in the rest of our bodies. In (3), we literally see red, as Brigit does.  The word “lightning” strikes us with shapes and velocity.  Notice that Action and Imagery often coincide: Action is embodied in Imagery, and Imagery is relayed by bright Action verbs.

             (4) is a moment of Dialog—a direct quote of words or thoughts embodied in words.  Sometimes, it is most effective to forefront the words themselves, and just write “she said.” As in the case of our example, a more specific characterization of the speech act can amplify the dialog.  With all the sibilant consonance of s’s in “This is the last time,” it is natural to use another sibilant s to write “hissed.”

            A.I.D.e.  The word “Aide” means ‘assistant,’ and much effective writing is some combination of all four aspects. But the less our writing limps along on the crutch of exposition (the form that these two sentences are taking), the better. (Even so, notice that I enlivened my previous expository sentence with the Action word “limps,” and the Image of “crutch.”) To resuscitate your writing, First AID it.

            Here is how student Amanda Miller rescued her exposition-heavy first drafts with AID:

  

            Draft 1:

                 I wish I could go back in time.  I wish I could take back those words

            that screwed me.  Though, I hated it there.  Deep down, as obedient as I was.

            I hated it.  Living in my father’s house where his word was law, I hated it.

Although it is clear that the narrator of Amanda’s story is broaching a difficult story, this passage is entirely exposition—in general, what’s happening, but not revealing any of the details.  The verbs are not action verbs:  “go, take, hate, was.”  Even the word “screwed” is a cliché without specific evocation.  There is no Action, Imagery, or Dialog to resuscitate these sentences.

            Draft 4:

     “You ungrateful shit!” My father came bursting into my bedroom as I was grinding away my calculus homework and grabbed my left ear.  He pulled me off my desk chair and dragged me from the room to throw me into a kitchen chair down the hall.  I saw my mother in her blue secretarial uniform watching me with her hands clutched together at her heart.

This draft launches with Dialog, a clear and startling example of words that the narrator claimed “screwed” him in the first draft.  There is plenty of Action: “bursting…grinding…  grabbing… pulled…dragged…throw…clutched.”  Where the writing might brighten is with inclusion of more Imagery, as we wait until the mother’s “blue secretarial uniform” to incorporate other than the kinesthetic imagery embodied in the Action verbs above it.

            To revive your writing through First A.I.D., go sentence by sentence for prose, and line by line for poetry.  Ask yourself for each passage, “Is the Action, Imagery, Dialog, Exposition?”  “Is this sentence/line alive?”  Mark “A, I, D, and/or e” in the margins to indicate what form the writing takes as you read along. The more lively the work, the more you’ll find yourself bunching A, I, D’s together, and the fewer e’s you’ll have.  Wherever it’s grayed out with exposition, juice up your verbs, animate with Action, amp it up with Dialog, embody it with Imagery.

Post us before-and-after sentence or poetic line to show how it’s done!