All right vs Alright

Recently, Nathan Bransford mentioned that his usage of ‘alright’ brought out the ‘all right’ police. Which one is the correct term?

Here is what Merriam-Webster has to say.

All right :

1. satisfactory,agreeable

2. safe, well

3. good, pleasing – often used as a generalised term of approval

Alright means the same thing, though the usage of it is questioned. Alright appeared around 75 years after all right reappeared (apparently it had gone out of usage). Some critics still hold that alright is not the correct usage, and my own spell checker (UK English) shows it as a spelling error.

However, alright remains in use by some people, and was used by, among others, Gertrude Stein, a poet and writer, so I think using it is fine either way. Unless your editor insists on changing it.

Breakdown:

All right – Used more often (and perhaps more in formal writing, I’m not sure).

Alright – Used less often, however it is common in fiction dialogue.

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Making a Scene

This post is mostly inspired by the Scene-Creation workshop on Holly Lisle’s site. I love reading what she writes because she puts it in concrete ways – easy to grasp.

A scene is a single thing that happens in a story, usually out of one point of view and usually one place. But what is a scene, and what should a scene be?

Conflict. That is one part of a scene that is pretty important. The characters in the scene must have something they want, and at the end of the scene, they must either get it, or not. Things will stand in the way – these generate conflict.

Plot movement. A scene must move the plot forward in some way. Something in the scene must drag onward to the conclusion – instigate movement, development, whatever is needed. It can be a character that realises something (important), or it can be the discovery or mastery of some artefact. Whatever the case may be, the show/plot must go on.

That is the two most important things in a scene, I think. A character must want something that will move the plot forward, and something has to stand in his way. Then he must either overcome it or fail. End of scene.

Holly Lisle says it in the most concrete way possible, and I will remember those words every time I wonder what should happen in a scene. A scene must change something. In her words, “it isn't a scene until something changes; and once something changes, it's time to move on.”

That is the matter at hand. The thing that is important. Before a scene ends, something must change, be it a relationship, ownership, general feeling, the quality of the earth’s crust. When that something changes, you have a scene.

As a scene is the smallest piece of story, per se, that a book can be broken down into, the same can probably be applied to larger pieces. Could it be that each chapter must bring a change? Each novel must bring a change? Each series must bring a change? When you look at it, that should be exactly what happens.

Every piece of story brings a development of some kind (if it doesn’t, it probably doesn’t belong in your story). A scene is the smallest piece, but a very important one. Initiate change, move on. That is a formula I’ll keep in mind.

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Putting in the Hours

To be a master at something, you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice. That’s a concept that attempts to identify the cause of success.

I’m not sure who came up with it – I think it was Malcolm Gladwell.

Let me do the math for you.

If you spend two hours a day writing, you will reach 10,000 hours in 5000 days. That is somewhere between 13 and 14 years.

That’s a long time.

Still, it is reachable, right? Consider the words of the age-old saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Now consider the words of Vince Lombardi, a renowned football coach, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

So now we combine these two things. It will take you roughly 13 and a half years of perfect practice to get good at something.

Why exactly 10,000 hours? Why perfect practice?

10,000 hours is not necessarily a specific number, but rather a number so high that average people will never reach it. Most people give up before they even get close. Thus, only those who persevere get success.

What I think Lombardi means by perfect practice is that it doesn’t help you to practice doing something wrong. That won’t make you better at it. It probably applies more to football than writing, but I’ll try to apply it anyway. Let’s say your pacing is bad. By practising bad pacing, you’re not going to get any better. The only way to get better is to see where your bad pacing is and where your good pacing is and putting in more of the good pacing.

That said, I don’t think it works as shut and close as it sounds. Writing bad prose lets you see how to improve. Everything you write helps you grow. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it can be explained by psychology beyond my understanding. Either way, perfect practice might not be the correct word. Rather we should say deliberate practice.

As you can read on Justine Musk’s blog here (you should read it, well worth it), deliberate practice is practising hard. You have to work on the edge of your ability. Push yourself to do the best you possibly can. You will fail, but to quote Justine (who might have been quoting someone else, I don’t know), “the important thing is that you’re failing forward.”

Humans learn from mistakes. Someone once said that the key to success is to make mistakes faster than your competition so that you get more opportunities to learn.

You have to practice and practice, making mistakes and learning from them as you go. The more this happens, the closer you are to success.

For more on deliberate practice, the Dip and other awesome things, read Justine’s post here.

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