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For some reason, people have forgotten what a qualifier does. And because of this these words have been tossed about like seals in a shark pool.

In case you were unaware, a qualifier lessens a meaning. For example: Sylvia can be a redhead or (qualified) sortof a redhead. In the second instance we know that Sylvia’s hair might be disputed as ‘red’.

I’d also like to point out that Word gives that nasty red underline to ‘kindof’ and ‘sortof’ as these aren’t real words. And I know that some of you may be cringing at the very use of them. But I’m okay with new words. I like words, legit or not. I am a firm believer that if you don’t know of a word for the situation, you should use existing words to cobble a new one together. But you don’t abuse the grammar. The rules are what allow us to know what’s going on. A smart man is quite different from a smarting one.

My little brother once said that bad milk had a foresmell. You know this, that very faint odor that tells you something is wrong with the milk (even though you often ignore it and take that first, sputtering sip anyway.) There’s no word for ‘an indicative odor that prefaces a fermented food’. ‘Foresmell’ follows the rules using a common word and a known prefix. I think we should adopt it and kudos to my brother for making it up.

So while we can accept ‘kindof’ and ‘sortof’ into the lexicon, the real issue is all the over-qualification folks are doing today. I had to break my friend Alex of a perennial favorite: kinda sorta. This one shames me as an English speaker for so many reasons. ‘Kind of’ and ‘Sort of’ are slang to begin with, though enough folks use them to give them meaning. But while I can clearly abide writing each of them as one word, dropping that last letter is cheap and lazy. (And that goes for any last-letter dropping. “Darlin’” is one of the worst! If you are fond enough of someone to use this term, don’t they deserve the ‘g’???)

Stacking two qualifiers is ridiculous. He kinda sorta doesn’t like ice cream. Really? By the time you get to the end of that one, I’m gone. I’ve never met anyone who needed even a single qualifier to tell about their preference for ice cream. You either like it or you don’t. But two such words? Is that like a double negative? I declare it so. The next time someone tells you they kinda sorta don’t like something, give them an extra serving!

In the South, we have “might could”. Yup, you might could make it to the semifinals of the Qualifier Crackdown with this one. Ack! I know a bunch of you out there right now should put your fingers to your foreheads, where you might could feel the knot you get just above your nose when you are sortof making that face.

In the end, we need qualifiers. In many cases, something doesn’t quite make the grade and we need way to say so. We also need a way to be nice. “I kindof don’t like it” is the acceptable alternative to “Wow, that’s fugly!” And the person we said it to can walk away with hurt feelings, but maybe without being openly insulted.

Unfortunately, qualifiers have spread like a virus, needlessly getting sloughed off on person after person until their use is rampant. We have to wash our hands of this plague so that future generations don’t think it’s fine to needlessly qualify things.

If we undertake this eradication now, we might possibly defeat it sooner than we may think. Yes, I bet you we probably could!

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There’s a serious crime out there. And it goes unpunished every day. In fact, to many people it’s invisible, but for those who see it, it makes us cringe and wish we could put a stop to the horror. I’m talking about Adjective Abuse.

I’m not talking about the kind of misdemeanor that results from the slightly off adjective. Though that’s often a bad thing, we can all live through “the grisly trees” or “a Curacao sky”. In fact, from the right author we just might call it poetic.

Adjective Abuse occurs when the word either changes the meaning to something you know wasn’t the intent or obscures the idea to the point of bad advertising.

Here’s the most recent one I encountered . . . Perhaps you have seen one of the wand-waving, rune-gathering games that are popping up throughout the nation these days. The one we played this week involved “The Ancient Book of Wisdom”. Um, right. The pages were printed on paper commonly referred to in business as ‘slicks’. It was folded in the middle and stapled. And a fresh clean copy was handed to each participant. There was nothing ancient about this book. (In fact, even the term ‘book’ is a misnomer, it was really nothing more than a pamphlet.) I’m pretty sure they intended this thing to be “The Book of Ancient Wisdom.” Though, since the company is quite new, I doubt there’s anything ancient about it, wisdom included. Though I guess they don’t really care about accuracy if you consider the way they are making money hand over fist – some of it mine!

It’s not just the odd place where this pops up. I know English teachers everywhere feel they are fighting an uphill battle, and the truth is: they are. Poor word choice is everywhere. Why would anyone want to do things right when wrong is so acceptable? I could fill a book rather than just an entry here, but I’ll refrain and keep it limited.

Another good one was at a convention where I was sitting in a booth selling my books. Some of the good folks coming by were quite excellent, while others asked questions along the line of: “So what you are saying is that the markings on the pages are ‘words’ and they tell a ‘story’?” Thus, it was no surprise that the glossy brochure had advertised a “fun, family-filled weekend”. I guess they were right. There were families there. But it seems they really meant a ‘fun-filled, family weekend’ or a ‘family-fun filled weekend’. In the end I am still hard pressed to figure out how to stuff a weekend with people instead of activities . . .

Most of my personal favorites come on food. These companies may not be using poor phrasing so much out of bad form, but in an effort to obscure ingredients. The FDA is really strict about names, Kraft cannot change their mac’n’cheese to “Cheese and macaroni” because there isn’t enough cheese in the product to carry that name first. While this practice has led to a handful of alternate spellings (we said there was cheeeez in it, not actual cheese!) my favorite word is ‘chocolatey’. The addition of the ‘y’ makes it an adjective and excuses the company from inserting any actual chocolate into the product. (I’m not sure how many folks must agree that a food tastes ‘chocolatey’ in order to get this moniker . . . . but maybe we don’t care if there’s actual chocolate as long as the combination of chemicals we are eating tastes a lot like cocoa. )

Still, Charleston Chew candy bars take this one step further.
“Chewy flavored nougat with a chocolatey coating”

Mmmmm, fun-filled tastiness.

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There’s definitely an art to beginning a story. Some writers just have the knack for giving us a compelling opening, and sadly others don’t. What’s a real shame is that a lot of the writers who lack the knack are truly great writers – but they won’t get read because the story was picked up and then quickly put back down.

If you are a writer, then there’s a reasonably high chance that you have shared your work with someone else: someone who will read the whole thing, if only because they love you. There’s a bit of a problem here if you are looking to get published. And the problem is this . . . how many opening lines do you remember?

As an avid reader (at about 100 novels a year!) I can’t say I remember more than a small handful. In fact, some of my favorite opening lines are as bad as those quotes that no one ever said. (Darth Vader’s words were “no, I am your father” not “Luke, I am your father” and Dustin Hoffman’s Graduate never says “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”)

In my favorite opening, Humbert Humbert writes “She was Lo, plain Lo, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But to me she was always Lolita.” Yes, that’s a mouthful. And if you check it you’ll see that I’ve bungled the ending. You’ll also see that it’s the second paragraph and not the opening line.

You can see really great openings on TV, too. Think about the ones that had you hooked right from the start – in my case ‘Dexter’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy’. And then think about the ones that were slow to build – ‘Hung’, ‘Dollhouse’. The two that got it right used a standard trick: they dropped you into the middle of the story. Wait, Dexter analyzes his own crime scenes? And who the hey is Sam Crow? You had to keep watching, because you had to find out.

‘Hung’ and ‘Dollhouse’ suffer from start-up costs. Not in actual cost of the show, but in story-telling currency. ‘Hung’ began at the beginning. Within one episode we knew all we needed to know: his wife left him, his house burned down, his job doesn’t pay enough, and he’s decided to go pro. Unless you just love this guy, there’s no real reason to come back. Sure, you might want to see what hilarity can ensue, but . . . you aren’t likely to invest. ‘Dollhouse’ used a similar tack. While we see our ‘dolls’ already incarcerated, too much time was spent (a handful of episodes) setting up the ‘way it goes’. Got it. Thank you. Next week I’ll tune into something else.

Why compare writing to TV instead of movies? Well, with movies, you invest at the trailer. I’ve only ever walked out of two movies in my life. And if the middle and end are good, well then, I’ll tell my friends to see it. The beginning is of much less consequence. But with TV you invest anywhere along the way – maybe even come in at the middle. And (like a book) you can UNinvest at any point, too.

If you want to sell a book, you must get your reader (agent?) interested at the first bite. (They won’t even stick around for the whole first episode!)

Now for a few ways to do it.

My personal favorite is to drop the reader into the middle of the story. You can always fill in the necessary pieces as you go. This is a great method because it limits the background info as well. Writers often feel they know the characters they create, and therefore want the reader to know them as intimately. Don’t suffer from this. It isn’t necessary! Dropping the reader into the middle (and continuing from there! No breaks for background chapters!) creates a need to read.

If you have already started a story (or attempted to snag an agent) try this, chop the first two chapters off the book and see if you can start from that point. See if you can even use the opening line of the chapter as the opening words of your book. Or go to the earliest big action scene and chop everything before your best line.

Another great method is to reveal something terribly interesting about your character in the opening sentence. “His life would have been quite different if he hadn’t been caught sniffing glue in the second grade.” What? Where was the author’s brain? Well, the kid had heard about sniffing glue, so he tries it with white ‘Elmers’. In the end, he gets nothing to show for it but detention and a seriously stuffed up nose. But you need that second part, about the Elmer’s and the fact that it’s white glue.

Again, if you already have something started, go back. Find the second most interesting thing about your character and reveal it right off the bat. (Save the most interesting thing to keep a reader later!)

Another option is to make us sympathize. Reveal your character’s greatest hurt. Kill his lover or foreshadow it. Share something deep and traumatic. Damage of a sympathetic kind will pull the reader in.

Lastly, instead of giving your book out to someone who loves you and will read the whole thing, give your opening page to ten people. This isn’t an imposition. They aren’t obligated to read the whole thing. And it won’t mildew in the ‘to do’ pile. If at least three of them don’t ask for more, then go back and re-write your opening!

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I could go on about grammar and such. I don’t always speak correctly, or write correctly. But I do like to think that I know what ‘correctly’ is. And I do wince when I hear someone say “Whenever I was ten, I used to . . .” as though being ten years old was something that happened occasionally.

I do see the irony in “Ten items or less”. Yes, it should be ‘fewer’. ‘Less’ is for things you can’t count, like sand on a beach or bread flour. You measure it, but you don’t count it. The sheer fact that we are supposed to count how many items we have in our cart means we can’t have ‘less’. But that’s taking it a bit far.

That’s what I get for hanging out with a grammarian. Still, there’s a good word that many people misuse. It’s my favorite word to cringe over – Literally.

My Webster’s Handy College Dictionary doesn’t even have ‘literally’ as a listed word. You have to look up ‘literal’ and figure it out for yourself. But it means ‘exactly what the words mean’.

Instead of being used properly, ‘literally’ has simply become a bastard version of ‘really’ – not as in any reference to what is real, but as in ‘I really, really hate it when people say literally and don’t use it right.’

A few years ago, there was a radio ad for Savon Pharmacies that said “Our pharmacists are literally working around the clock.”

I almost cried when I heard that. No, those pharmacists are not! I wanted to call Savon headquarters and ask where these mysterious (or stupid) pharmacists were, working and working . . . in circle . . . with a clock at the center. Because that’s what it means, folks.

How did someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word better than that get into writing ad copy? I truly don’t understand.

Still, it gets better. There are seriously tons of times the word gets misused. There’s a blog recording such abuse at www.literally.barelyfitz.com. Try these: “it literally tore my heart out” – that’s just gross. “He literally charmed the pants off everyone” – perhaps a handy skill to have? “Cars were literally flying down the road” – no, though we all thought cars would have that capability by the new millennium, they just can’t fly, people! The accompanying pictures on the website are funny, because, well, what you say when you misuse ‘literally’ is pretty funny.

But my favorite was in a movie review. Aren’t movie reviewers journalists of a sort? Aren’t they trained in the art of writing the English language? It’s really sad.

This movie review was quoted in a huge national TV campaign and said “Denzel literally sets the screen on fire.”

Well, I had to go see the movie. I wasn’t interested before that. But after that review I literally flew to the theater and didn’t care that I literally forked over my life’s savings for a ticket!

I waited through the whole thing. But Denzel didn’t light the screen on fire. He didn’t even show. I would have been happy to have some random person named Denzel come in with a Bic lighter and set off a smoke alarm or two. Sadly, none of this happened.

“Denzel literally sets the screen on fire”, my butt! I was lied to! I deserve a spark or . . . or something!

Those advertisers make me so mad! But I think I have legal grounds on terms of false advertising. Hm! I am going to literally sue the pants off them!

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Not only is there bad science fiction out in the world of TV, there’s just a lot of . . . well production that could use a fact checker (or three).

Some of the worst offending shows have – thankfully – gone off the air. Need I even say “Tru Calling”? The show had an interesting concept, but got so many basics wrong it was just difficult to watch.

The second episode had a firefighter who died while rushing into a building to save a little girl. He went with no gear whatsoever. Okay, I can maybe buy that. But he did it with a truck full of geared-up firefighters right there on the lawn. He was maybe half a second ahead of the others into the house. Of course Tru couldn’t save him, it was just natural selection at work, my friends!

This show was so riddled with holes it was a veritable swiss cheese. Yet on TV.com the viewers are consistently rating it superb. Who are you people?

Currently Prison Break is grinding to a halt. Perhaps the show is off the air due to scenes like this: The amazing Kathleen Quinlan (whose character is supposed to be off-the-charts smart) rigs a dental floss contraption, then calls to the woman who is holding her hostage in the bathroom (hence the floss). When she goads her keeper into slamming the door, the doorstop is yanked from the wall giving her a tool (the sharp-ish screw) to cut her duct tape bonds. AAAAACCK! Those things just unscrew! They simply un screw. I’ve had to tell each of my kids not to do it, even though it’s just so easy.

The Mythbusters have made a living constantly de-bunking MacGuyver-like TV stunts – and sometimes actual MacGuyver stunts.
We know that very few ever get it right.

True, there is a sense of unreality to TV and movies. (Notice I’m not harping on Wolverine here.) But I am a firm believer that you shouldn’t have to do something unfathomable – or even incredibly stupid – to drive your story forward. If you can’t get a plausible reason, you aren’t a good enough writer.

Yes, it’s more than possible to shoot a hundred bullets at a stationary man and never hit him. Adrenaline is just funny that way. But why is the good guy always the best shot? It needs a really solid explanation.

Also, no one ever bleeds enough on TV. Somehow a steel toed boot to the head only makes the kickee grimace for a moment before he hops back up, madder and meaner. In the real world, you would hop back up dead.

There ARE special ops guys out there. And Navy SEALs. It IS possible to take on five guys at once and win. But the bad guys don’t come at you one at a time. I find it far more plausible that the man emerging from the handful of bloody street thugs out to kill him was a vampire, than that the crooks saw this fantastic fighter and decided, hey fair is fair, we take him one at a time.

The major problem with these errors – whether they are in TV, movies or books – is that if you don’t see them, you are fine. But if you do, then the whole thing is often ruined. You wonder about the other things in the show. You lose the joy of being caught up in the drama. And since that’s probably what you came for, factual errors or storylines you just don’t buy will make something un-enjoyable.

On the other hand, I have to applaud JJ Abrams and Star Trek. At the beginning of the movie, Kirk gets himself into a barfight with four guys. He starts off calling one of them ‘cupcake’ and ends up bloody and backwards over a bar table. Ahhhh! Now that’s believable.

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10 Qs from Justin Sachs
I’d like to introduce you to Justin Sachs who is the author of a new book, Your Mailbox Is Full and is the founder of the Creating Possibilities Coaching Program in which Justin helps teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, and create balance in all the areas of their life.

1. What do you do?
I work with teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, create balance in their lives, and overcome any obstacles standing in their way of success.

2. Tell us about your new book.
Your Mailbox Is Full is a book for teenagers, that teaches them the tools they need to become successful in school and throughout their lives. They learn things like goal setting, time management, living a healthy lifestyle, and modeling and attracting success.

3. Why did you write it?
When I was 14 years old I went to my first Tony Robbins Seminar and I was in a room full of thousands of adults thinking, “Where’s all the teenagers?” “Why aren’t other youth here getting these powerful tools and strategies?” It was with that realization that I found my passion: Empowering teenagers with life-skills and leadership development tools for success. That’s what my book is all about: Teaching youth the most powerful skills they need to know to create enormous success and fulfillment in life! Now, teenagers don’t have to wait until they are 30 or 40 to get these tools and strategies, they are available to them within Your Mailbox Is Full.

4. What makes you an expert in your field?
After going to Anthony Robbins seminars for 3 years, I began working for his product sales team and non-profit organization at all his events worldwide. I then began working for Mark Victor Hansen, the co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, and learned even more about life-skills, writing a book, and supporting people in bringing possibility into their lives. I then read everything I could get my hands on from The Secret, to Jack Canfield, to Stephen Covey, to Eckart Tolle, among many others. I learned everything I possibly could about personal development and transformation such that I can now create transformation in others!

5. What type of people should read your book?
The book is designed for teenagers and young adults, but parents throughout the country are reading the book and loving every page! The contents of the book are limitless, this is the perfect book for anyone looking to take their lives to the next level, especially youth!

6. Are you on any social networks? Eg. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Yes, on www.Twitter.com/JustinSachs or http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511068642

7. Advice for Teens or Parents of Teens
Follow your passions and never give up on your dreams! If you have a goal, a vision, or a hope for the future, hold on to it, focus on it, and take action to make it happen! You’ll be amazed at how quickly your dreams will manifest themselves when energy is focused on them.

8. Favorite Quote
Every day, every week and every month, you must challenge yourself to continue to grow to new heights and to take your standards to higher and higher levels. ~ Justin Sachs

9. Favorite Theme Park
Walt Disney World of course!!!

10. How can we purchase your book? Learn more about you? Do you have a blog?
My book is available on my website: www.YourMailboxIsFullBook.com To learn more about my coaching services visit www.JustinSachsOnline.com and be sure to check out my new radio show at www.MotivationalMindsRadio.com

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That’s the problem with the largest bookstore and purveyor of, well, everything. It’s brilliant and stupid all at the same time.

There’s a wonder to buying books online. How did it get so big? As a bibliophile, I really like me a good bookstore. I like to use my legs to browse. I like the heft of a good carbon-based copy of a book in my hands. I don’t need an audio book to read it to me - I read quite well all by myself, thank you. AND I do the character voices in my head way better than any single reader out there. In addition to all this sheer lunacy I clearly exhibit, when I choose a book, I like to start reading it. (Does anyone say ‘Wow, That looks like a great book, I think I’d like to start reading it in three to four days.’?)

And yet, despite all this, Amazon is . . . well, Amazon. And it’s not just books. I’ve found so many things there (bedsheets, chocolates, barns) that I’m waiting for the day you can adopt a kid on Amazon. Think of the possibilities. You could see the kid’s picture, hear them read a book, get ratings from former foster parents . . . Now I’m just waxing poetic. (Seriously, if anyone knows about this already happening (or something similar) please email me: AJ@AJScudiere.com))

But the problem with Amazon is that they have issued a new (stupid) edict. Read for yourself at http://www.bookmarket.com/AmazonIsStupid.htm. You must sign your review with your name (okay - that part makes sense) and ONLY your name. They are also kicking out any review already posted that violates the new rules. Ouch! This means no more tag lines a la “AJ Scudiere - Author of RESONANCE and VENGEANCE”. Yup, that would get me kicked out. Also adding in a link will get you booted. Even though Amazon provides the tools to make the link. What is this? Make it but don’t use it?

Let’s face it, they’ve always been a little touchy. Lots of us have had postings mysteriously disappear. And it isn’t worth it to call them. (Have you tried calling them? It’s a great way to spend a day.) If you email, a lot of the replies are ambiguous, like: ‘there are a lot of reasons we might delete a post. For example: explicit material, obvious pandering, the post resembles Spam, we had our heads up our butts and weren’t paying attention, and we play Russian roulette with the posts on a daily basis, maybe yours got unlucky.’ Okay, I added those last two in, but the ‘including but not limited to’ phrase leaves a lot wide open.

The result is the same: your post mysteriously disappeared like the last Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and you’re never gonna know where it went and you aren’t gonna get it back.

Still, let this be a warning to all of us: shape up and sign right! Your name only (no rank, no serial number (REALLY, no ISBNs - they’re banned!)) And we only know this because someone got their hands on a missive. Amazon wasn’t going to tell.

This all seems a little ‘Big Brother’ (from the book, NOT the reality show! This is about books!) or ‘anti-first amendment rights’ to me. (Are there rights online? Is Amazon a public or private space? I want to be clear that I am NOT inciting anyone to riot.)

Regardless, if there is something you can do, please do it. I, unfortunately, am like most of us: I feel this violates my basic principles to have my signature be so restricted (I mean, they call it a ‘signature’!). But it also violates my basic principles to spend a lot of time fighting for something small against such an amazon corporation. Even if they are being weenie-heads.

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I’m going to state flat out that I think authors should use different pen names when they write in different genres. I understand the desire to show one author can do it all, but let that happen when everyone gets excited at the “Joe Schmoe is really John Doe?” stage of the game. No one should force a different genre on their readers.

Stephen King once did the Nom de Plume thing, and he didn’t even switch genres. Hell, he didn’t even switch writing styles or word usage. I’m sure it wasn’t just me thinking, ‘hey, this Richard Bachman guy has totally ripped off ole Steve King.’ I grew more curious as Steve failed to sue Rick for blatantly stealing a style. But then I found out why. And I’ll be honest, I’m not even sure why Stephen King decided he needed a pen name to do what he’d always been doing.

Yet so many authors go out on a limb and write something totally different under the same name. Grisham quasi-pulled it off with his humorous Christmas story. King wrote fantasy under his own name (why? when he’s clearly not averse to pen names??) And a good handful of female suspense writers have gone back and forth between thrillers and romances (and covered all the ground in between). Unfortunately, I think they’ve shot their own gender in the foot.

Here’s the issue - readers want what they want. That’s probably not news. But it’s really disconcerting to pick up horror novel and find a comedy, or vice versa. And it may be something you would love, IF you’d known what it was when you picked it up.

This is what I have referred to as the ‘Home Fries Problem’ for a while now. Do you remember the movie “Home Fries”? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It came and went fast enough that if you blinked you’d miss it. Despite its big name cast (Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, etc.) this one zipped through theaters and disappeared before you could tell the ticket girl you wanted two for that, please. The issue is that this film was marketed as a romantic comedy. And it wasn’t. At all. Yes, two characters (kind of) get together, but it was dark. Pretty damn dark. I loved it. But only because that particular day I was really open to a dark movie. Or I just wasn’t into romantic comedies and got my butt dragged there - but that’s a discussion for another day. No one liked this film because it was mislabeled. Even though it was well acted, directed and written, who could enjoy it?

This happens with books. A lot. And it seems to be happening with female authors more (sorry ladies). I’ve met more than one author who was excited to have her book picked up by a big publisher only to find out that it got repackaged with a cute name and a woman who can’t quite keep her blouse from falling off plastered across the cover. This is regardless of the genre. I know a few female authors who have been told by agents to make a minor change: get two characters together so we can market it as chick-lit.

I know male authors have the same problems: the cover isn’t in keeping with the story, maybe it’s offensive to your core audience, maybe it’s even got some flat out error on it. (One version of the preliminary cover for my book ‘Vengeance’ had the girl with the sword pointed toward herself !?!?!?) But most men don’t get their genre changed on them.

To a certain extent, writers need to be flexible if they ever want to see their work in print. No one is going to buy ‘your baby’. And no one will work with you if you refuse to edit your book they way they want. But while you have to be willing to edit, you also have to draw that line - don’t let anyone change the genre. That will just kill you. Future publishers will want to know what you sold and if it’s a true crime book that’s actually a self-help, well . . . it’s all downhill from there.

If you truly do write in more than one genre, just give yourself a different name. We all know what happens when you pick up your coke and find out it’s root beer. It just tastes wrong. Even if you really like root beer. Or what if your coke turns out to be DIET? That’s just rank. And a lot of people like diet, too. There’s a big market for your diet coke, if only it had been labeled correctly. This way no one will pick up a Joe Schmoe book expecting his usual acerbic outlook on life in the burbs and get a political mystery.

Let’s face it. No author is going to get red carpet treatment anywhere just because he whipped out his credit card and it said John Doe. “Oh, are you THAT John Doe, the writer?” The paparazzi aren’t going to wait to catch you taking out your trash, either. So who cares what name you published your other book under? Just be sure we know what we are getting when we pick up a book to read. That’s what makes us happy!

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