BOTH SIDES OF INERTIA

Posted on March 8, 2022March 9, 2022 by vlaw759

What happens when the **unstoppable force** of Kathrine Switzer meets the (apparently) **immoveable object** of the 1967 Boston Marathon officials and centuries of sports misogyny? Kathrine Switzer completes the Boston Marathon, the first woman to do so as a registered participant.

Check a thesaurus for words related to inertia. You’ll find plenty of alternatives, from attitude to Newtonian physics.

Apathy
Indolence
Idleness
Languor
Lassitude
Laziness
Lethargy
Listlessness
Oscitancy
Passivity
Sloth

Deadness
Dullness
Immobility
Immobilization
Inactivity
Paralysis
Sluggishness
Stillness
Stupor
Torpidity
Torpor
Unresponsiveness

Indeed, the first dictionary definition (n) is a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.

If you ask a physicist (or any one in a beginning physics class) you get a less one-sided view:

Inertia noun

In life in general, including one’s writing life, the remaining-at-rest side of inertia is typically a hurdle to overcome. In its simplest form, the longer one goes without writing (or scheduling a doctor’s appointment, sending condolences, making an apology, weeding the garden, etc.) the more effort it takes to make it happen.

Newtonian and social inertia at work:
Despite all the anatomical evidence available, crash test dummies used in car safety tests are modeled on an average male body from 1976. That might be why female drivers are 73% more likely to be seriously or fatally injured in a car accident.

Procrastination is a bear of not getting off the mark. Researchers suggest that it takes approximately 18 to 250 days to train yourself to a new habit. The first 21 days are said to be the most difficult, especially for a physical habit (regular exercise, quitting smoking, etc.).

This holds true for habits of thought, too. It’s a little more difficult to get precise numbers in this area, but studies show that you can train yourself to meditate, think positively, stop apologizing to everyone, even improve your memory. The brain, like the body, wants to remain at rest.

For humans, the continuing movement side of inertia, it seems to me, is both rarer and more beneficial. I think of it as being on a roll.

If you are on a roll, you may be having a run of good luck. (This expression, which alludes to success rolling dice, dates from the second half of the 1900s.) Enjoy it while it lasts, but the nature of luck is that it’s beyond one’s control.

*Inertia, as explained by Bill Waterson*

Alternatively, being on a roll can mean enjoying a success that seems likely to continue. Continuing in the same habits will likely lead to a series of successes. This is true of everything from an athletic success to the first book in a popular series.

*Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, a French physicist whose postulate for energy conservation in inertia I don’t even pretend to understand.*

Being on a roll also means a period of intense activity. This building momentum side of inertia comes to the fore when meeting deadlines, whether work or social (like Halloween preparations).

The outside force part of the physicist’s law of inertia is where a writer’s free will comes into play. There are all sorts of things you can do to overcome inertia in your life. Identify and remove triggers for a behavior you want to change. Set reminders on a timer or a note taped to your wall.

Those outside forces can be the basis for a character’s motivation in your writing as well. Perhaps an overheard comment sparks a character’s curiosity to begin a massive research survey. Perhaps a health scare inspires a character to change jobs and move to the opposite side of the globe. Perhaps new of impending alien invasion encourages an entire planet to move all habitations below ground.

BOTTOM LINE: If you understand both sides of inertia, you can make it work for you!

In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8th), check for biases in your life, in your thought patterns, even in your writing. At its core, bias is often just mental inertia.

EASY FIXES FOR FLABBY PROSE

Posted on August 3, 2021August 3, 2021 by vlaw759

By flabby prose, I mean prose that includes unnecessary words. Besides improving the quality of one’s prose, cutting out excess words can help keep the word count down when there are page or word limits.

Stop Mentioning the POV Character’s Senses

*“The flavors of carrots and mulch mingled on his tongue.”*

Yes, sensory images are rich and desirable. What’s unnecessary is citing the character’s senses.

~She heard squirrels scampering up her tree.
~He smelled the tantalizing scent of acorns.
~They saw flying squirrels swooping overhead.

~Squirrels scampered up the tree outside.
~The scent of acorns filled the breeze.
~Flying squirrels swooped among branches overhead.

*“The banana thief twitched his tail to remain steady for his heist, upside-down and backwards.”*
(Proprioception or equilibrioception)

If the character describes a squirrel stealing a banana, the reader knows that character sees it and needn’t be told that he sees it. Ditto for other sensory systems. If they are mentioned, make it a conscious decision for a writerly reason.

Don’t forget the other senses! In addition to the five we all learned about in school, scientists classify up to 21 neurological senses. The body’s awareness of its place in relation to surroundings (proprioception) is invaluable to any character in tight spaces or moving quickly. Feelings of hunger or lack of air are classified as chemical senses, very useful to characters undergoing any kind of physical deprivation.

Consider also balance, gravity, pain, temperature, air pressure, the passage of time, itching, muscle tension, or even the perception of magnetic fields. There is an entirely separate set of nerves to detect stretching in the lungs, stomach, bladder, and blood vessels. Just think what a character could do when paying attention to that!

Stop Telling What a Character Notices, Remembers, Etc.

*“The seed-stealer gyrated and spun, his prize always just out of reach.”*

If a character recounts something from the past, it’s clear s/he remembers it. When a squirrel was a hairless kit, his mother taught him how to steal from bird feeders. He doesn’t have to tell his friends that he remembers being a kit.

Your reader doesn’t have to be told that the POV character noticed the squirrel hanging off the bird feeder again. It’s probably an event that happens every time the bird feeder is filled.

This is similar to how one handles what a character sees, hears, feels, smells, or tastes: it’s typically obvious in the rest of the sentence.

Beware Is, Are, Was, and Were

*“Gravity worked overtime, and her limbs refused to work at all.”*

By and large, these verbs should be replaced by something stronger and less passive. “Fatigue weighs her down” is much stronger than “She is fatigued.”

**Reconsider -ing Verbs**

*“His eyes were glowing, following me down the road.”*

Is, are, was, and were often precede an -ing verb. For example, ”is walking” or “was walking” might better be replaced with “walks” or “walked.”

Question Every Adverb and Adjective

*“The graceful, red-furred, majestic, enormous, flying squirrel soars gracefully and majestically, proudly displaying its enormous, red-furred wing flaps in its graceful, majestic flight.”*

Some writing teacher or other once told me that an adverb modifying a verb is often hiding a stronger verb. For example, consider replacing “walked fast” with “rushed” or “hurried” or “scurried” or whatever fits the context.

*“This ~~pale, white,~~ albino squirrel displays ~~the very odd and unique trait of striking, brilliantly blue,~~ nearly cobalt eyes.”*

Saying something is very tall or very beautiful is vague, triggering different images for different readers. Specify “over seven feet tall,” for example, or say what is beautiful about the person, object, scenery, etc.

And for goodness sake, don’t modify things that shouldn’t be modified, that are already specific. There is no such thing as ”very unique.” Unique means one-of-a-kind. If it isn’t truly unique, switch to “very rare”—and then consider whether the “very” is really needed! A second and a glance are, by definition fast/brief. Enough said.

Examine Attributions

“You’re eating too fast,” he said.
“I’m hungry!” he said.
“You’re hogging all the jackfruit,” he said.
“This fruit outweighs both of us combined. Calm down,” he said.
“You’ll make yourself sick,” he said.
“Stop worrying,” he said.
“My stomach hurts just watching you,” he said.
“Krjxqkkkk…. Ahem….. Choked on a seed,” he said.
“Told you so!” he said.

Probably everyone knows that the most frequent, useful, and unobtrusive attribution is “s/he said.” True, when multiple people interact in a scene, the writer needs to identify whether it’s Joan, John, Susan, or Sam speaking. But when there are only two people in a scene, identifying/attributing every change of speaker gets clunky. Use sparingly.

If you’re unsure about whether it sounds clunky, try reading it aloud.

Bottom line: Go forth and tighten your prose!