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You Don’t Have to Love Brewing to Love Beer

July 18, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of teaching a group of close friends how to brew. We gathered in our host’s driveway like a gaggle of birds flocking to a piece of tossed bread, excited to gorge our brains on malty knowledge, to create and learn all in one very efficient swoop. I’ve taught classes at a corporate level before, slinging SharePoint solutions like a pro, but I’d never taught a class on how to brew. I went crazy with it. I even made a 7-page handout!

You forget, once you’ve fully ingrained yourself in a process, how many aspects of the art you take for granted. As I held up a cylinder full of golden wort to explain hydrometers, sugar density, and original gravity like these were concepts the average person should know about, it struck me how involved and complicated brewing must seem to someone who hasn’t been studying and physically doing it for nearly ten years. I did my best to explain (in less scientific terms) how water, sugar, hops, and yeast eventually become the drink we all immediately recognize, which forced me to reanalyze brewing as an activity, and it’s applicability as a hobby.

At some point, when I was explaining how to troubleshoot a stuck fermentation, and how relatively subtle changes in temperature can result in unwanted off flavors, I realized that homebrewing is a high risk, low reward venture. It requires a significant start up cost, large swaths of free time, and until you’ve done it for a while, results in pretty mediocre beer. It requires a lot of study, a lot of patience, and sometimes, a light sprinkling of luck. It’s clearly not a hobby for everyone.

A strange current undulates deep in the aquifers beneath craft beer culture, an ebb that pulls beer drinkers into production breweries, and a flow that pushes them to gaze upon rows of stainless steel tanks in jaw-dropped awe. The phenomena is unique to beer (from what I can tell); writers do not spend their time inside publishing company warehouses, admiring printers and book binding machines, while comparing and rating fonts. Foodies rarely walk into the kitchens of their favorite restaurants to grab a quick bite with the head chef while admiring his oven. In other fields, such behavior would be bizarre, possibly even ridiculed.

Part of the allure of a brewery comes from novelty; prior to the last few years, the only options you really had to see beer-making in action required generic tours through massive Bud and Miller industrial complexes. Many people who have loved beer for a long time now get to peek behind the curtain, see that the great and powerful is actually the organized and practical, demystify the processes and the people that lead to their favorite drink. General brewery openness to invite the libatious public into their work space shows just how welcoming our little community really is, but comes with an oft overlooked side effect that mars all that generous inclusivity with unintended exclusivity.

The obsession with breweries makes it seem like you have to love brewing if you already love beer. Everyone else seems enamored by the creative side, puppy-love smitten by the idea that beer is crafted by people, not just spawned in bottles and distributed to the masses. So why not you? I’ve heard several friends and colleagues announce, with much dejection, that they “just can’t get into brewing,” or “I tried homebrewing, and didn’t enjoy it,” their voices tinted with frustration and failure. There is an implication that the enjoyment of the product is inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the process, and that you cannot possibly be into one without being into the other. A subconscious malignant trend whispers mean words to the dark, suggesting that people who love to drink beer aren’t “real beer people” unless they frequent every brewery in a fifty mile radius, and homebrew every weekend.

I’m here to tell you that’s all nonsense. In a commercial context, there will always exist two subsets of people: creators and consumers. While there will inevitably be some cross over, in nearly every other modern industry, the lines are pretty cleanly drawn between the two groups. You don’t expect every voracious reader to also be a writer, or study sentence structure and grammar, do you? You’d never suggest someone who enjoys delicious food also learn how to cook every dish they enjoy, Iron Chef style, right? We appreciate the creators because without them we wouldn’t have our products to consume, but trying to culturally tie creation and consumption together will lead to a lot of unreasonable expectations, and possibly some alienating let downs when reality deviates from the prescribed popular path.

It’s OK to not want to try your hand at homebrewing, or to find the process tedious and unrewarding.

It’s OK to love beer for it’s mosaic variety and deliciousness without giving a single solitary shit about how it transformed from raw ingredients to decadent ambrosia.

It’s OK to not want to visit breweries, to not have an aesthetic opinion about stainless steel versus copper, to not really care at what temperature the grain for your favorite beer was mashed.

You can love, respect, and enjoy beer without any of that. You should still maintain a healthy respect for those who do spend their time making beer (as long as they do it well), but feel no shame in not wanting to pack up and move yourself to that side of the beerish world. While it would be pretty difficult to love brewing if you didn’t love beer, never let the culture, or any unspoken trend, suggest the opposite is true.

It’s OK, really, to love brew as a noun, but not as a verb.

“If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” ― Leo Tolstoy

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Part 2 – What are you reading?

March 20, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

If you’ve traipsed down the shadowy alley of writing advice, you’ve almost certainly come across the, “to be a better writer, you have to write!” obviousisms, which are usually followed by the trumpeting accompaniment of, “but you have to read, too!” I’m not here to deny either of those pieces of advice. To be a better writer, you definitely do need to write, and possibly more than you’re writing now. To be a better writer you do need to read good writing, preferably more on the side of good books and essays and stories, and less on the side of Buzzfeed and TMZ and DailyMail.

What you read is just as (if not more) important as what you write. It gives you examples of excellent storytelling and wordplay. It offers perspective from another, educated angle. It shows you what it takes to write something marketable, that people will actually want to read.

One of the best aspects of being a beer writer is that you’re not really a beer writer. I mean you’re not only a beer writer. Our bubbly beau topically involves culture, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, economics, and all manner of other abstract intangibles like love and passion and modern facial hair styles. Beer is pretty close to an ideal nonfiction subject; the simple topics can be broken down into ever more complex and curious ideas almost infinitely, like a Russian Doll whose last, tiny form is located precisely wherever your imagination happened to run out of energy.

There’s a draw back to having so malleable a topic: to be successful you’ll need to know about more than just beer. Depending on what you want to write, maybe a lot more. If you so choose to don the hallowed robes of beer writing, you’re going to have become a science writer, too. And a memoirist. And a social pundit. And a journalist. And a critic. And an essayist. And maybe a bunch of other things I’m forgetting.

You’ve got to be a writer first and a beer lover second. The best way to do that is to round-out your bookshelf (or Kindle, if that’s what you crazy kids are into).

When I started my masters program, sitting in class with a bunch of other bright-eyed, crazy-minded writers all talking about their day-jobs and future writing prospects, it struck me that I was woefully under-read. My peers were throwing out author names and essay titles that I couldn’t even pretend like I’d heard of. I knew from the very first session of my very first class that I needed to start reading more. The only problem was, given the massive spread of options on Amazon and the daunting sprawl of stacks at the local library, I had no idea where to start.

If you’re like I was then, I’m here to help. I’ve created a list that includes my favorite books about beer, but also lots not about beer to serve as examples of great nonfiction. This list is by no means exhaustive, it’s just the writing I’ve connected to the deepest, and learned the most from.

(I also encourage you to throw out your favorites in the comments if you don’t see them here)

Science/Brewing Beer Books

Principles of Brewing Science – George Fix
For the Love of Hops – Stan Heironymous
Yeast – The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation – Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff
Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers – John Palmer
How to Brew – John Palmer

Beer Culture, Styles, and Tasting

The Brewmaster’s Table – Garrett Oliver
The Oxford Companion to Beer – Garrett Oliver
Beer Tasting Tool Kit – Jeff Alworth
The World Atlas of Beer – Tim Webb
Beer, Food, and Flavor: A Guide to Tasting, Pairing, and the Culture of Craft Beer – Schuyler Schultz
The Audacity of Hops – Tom Acitelli

Science/Food Nonfiction

Ominvore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan
Oranges – John McPhee
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
Stiff – Mary Roach
The Soul of a New Machine – Tracey Kidder

Other Nonfiction

Up in the Old Hotel – Joseph Mitchell
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Hero With a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell
The Golden Bough – James Frazer
Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
The Perfect Storm – Sebastian Junger

Memoir

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolff
Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
The Pharmacist’s Mate – Amy Fusselman

Essays/Journalism

Strawberries Under Ice – David Quammen
The Search for Marvin Gardens – John McPhee
Frank Sinatra has a Cold – Gay Talese
Dark Horse – Lisa Couturier

I didn't mention magazines because I'm still dipping my toes into that pool. You can't really go wrong with The Atlantic, Smithsonian, NatGeo, or the New Yorker though.

I didn’t mention magazines because I’m still dipping my toes into that pool and can’t speak with much authority. You can’t really go wrong with The Atlantic, Smithsonian, NatGeo, or the New Yorker though.

It’s OK to be a Brewbie

September 20, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

In a post a few months back, I made mention of a “brewbie” (brew + newbie); that person new to the craft beer scene, overflowing with enthusiasm like a roughly poured pint. They are usually young, energetic, and raw, leaping on new beers and beer news like a kitten on a stinkbug. They mean well, but have a ways to go from “that person who knows about beer” to “a full-keg of beer expertise.”

I have a confession to make: I am a brewbie.

Sure, I know some things about beer. I’ve put my big white ale pails and heavy-ass glass carboys to near-constant use, dog eared and highlighted many books from Brewers Publications, delved as deep into the mines of malts and hops and yeasts as I’ve been able to in the time between writing, video games, and that place I’m forced to go to 8 plus hours a day. But I can’t deny my relative lack of experience, can’t deny that there are people out in this community who have been tasting, brewing, and studying beer for longer than I’ve been alive.

This has become more and more apparent as I’ve waded knee-deep into the ocean of beer-related media, started to really interact with the swimmers near me. I’ve noticed others who are much farther out in the water. Some are surfing. Others are playing waterpolo way past the breakers like it’s no big deal. Some even have boats! It suddenly makes my progress, which I was so proud of, seem significantly less impressive. Looking down at the water swirling around my calves, holding up my shorts as to not get the fringes wet, I feel like a failure.

But then I turn back and see that there are still hundreds of thousands of people sitting on the beach. They haven’t even got the energy or desire to stick a toe in the water, never mind wade out to where the other brewbies and I are figuring out how to swim.

So I say to anyone else in my position: it’s OK to be a brewbie. At least you’re out there trying.

We live in a world where social posturing and image crafting are not only accepted, but often encouraged. Because there are few ways to validate the claims people make on social media, we suddenly find ourselves surrounded by self-proclaimed experts who have done purportedly amazing things, who in turn, by comparison, make us feel bad that we haven’t done amazing things. One only needs to look at the “job titles” of a whole slathering of 20-something administrative-types on LinkedIn to understand what I’m talking about. Assistant Contract Proposal Coordinators with one year of experience, I’m looking at you.

As a result of this creeping feeling of inadequacy, a direct side-effect of having infinite information freely available a few clicks away, we try to puff ourselves up in terms of knowledge and perceived worth. We don’t want to suffer the embarrassment of not knowing, even if it would be perfectly acceptable, given our age and experience and education, to legitimately not know. I’ve been guilty of this too many times; hastily, awkwardly Googling answers to not appear dense or way behind the ever upwardly bending curve of knowledge. It’s a crappy feeling to be on the outside of a group you really want to be apart of. But it’s also a reality of trying to learn something new.

Despite the traditional model, learning isn’t a linear journey from A to B where you digest a predetermined set of data points like some kind of academic PacMan. We can try to quantify beer expertise with BJCP and Cicerone certs, but even well developed standards can’t capture everything. When your brain is spilling with beer facts, historical anecdotes, quotes from master brewers, you’ll still have so much more to learn. The end point is constantly moving, hurtling away from you at a speed that you can’t possibly match like a comet through space too distant to ever colonize with your brain settlers.

Good news though! Chasing that comet is the what keeps you growing.

The masters of the craft – the Jim Kochs, the Sam Calagiones, the Ken Grossmans – even with their encyclopedic knowledge and decades of hands-on experience, still have a little brewbie dwelling inside them, an echo of their 20-something self still urging them to try new things, to sip new beers, to write down those OGs and FGs in a never-ending quest for brewing consistency. They are experts by all definable measure, but that je ne sais quoi inside them still drives them forward. They got to where they are as the paragons of brewing because they were at one point total brewbies: guys with an unquenchable thirst to make an impact on American beer.

So accept that you’ll always be learning, about beer and about life and about how beer goes with life. Accept that even if you do eventually stumble backwards into the comfortable armchair of expertise, you still won’t know absolutely everything, because some tricky maltster will come up with a brand new magical malt roasting technique the second you think you do. Accept that you’ll learn your own things, at your own pace, which may not match the pace of others.

And before you know it, you’ll be debating if that piney aroma is simcoe or chinook, or if you are getting hints of vanilla behind the delicious burn of bourbon barrels. You’ll be explaining the difference between lengths of sugar chains and mash temperatures, the curse of Dimethyl Sulfide in homebrew, which yeast strains are your favorite and why. You’ll find yourself giving advice, helping newcomers out, passing your knowledge to that person who is a mirror of who you were just a short time ago.

The more you know, the more you realize what you don’t know. In some way or another, you and I will always be brewbies. But that’s OK, because so will everyone else.

Do you remember the giddy pleasure the first time you saw a row of these?

Ask Me Anything: A LitLib Q&A – Answers!

September 11, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I got so many good questions that I can’t focus on anything but answering them.

ro of FarOVale asks: “Do you read blogs written in other languages?”

I would love to read blogs in other languages. The problem is that, outside of some broken French and a few lines of Latin, I don’t speak anything but English. I’ve spent the better part of my adult life studying and trying to master my mother tongue, which didn’t leave me much mental space for the beauty and lilting grace of the myriad other languages out there. I know that I could use something like Google Translate, but then I’d lose all the nuance of the writing, which is just sad.

Melody of Melody and Words asks: “How do you use non-writing activities (such as photography) to jump-start the creative process?”

I think there are two ways, psychologically, to stir your brain into creative motion: sensory deprivation and sensory overload. It’s the difference between seeing the future in a crystal ball or seeing it in the colorful ornate drawings of Tarot cards. My brain likes overload; the more colors and textures and mental speed bumps for me to crawl over, the more stuff I have to hold onto and build from. I think that’s why I love Lego so much.

Using something like photography to jump-start the process is easy, because you’re forced to spend more time with whatever you’re taking pictures of, and as a result, building a mental relationship with that object. I’ll often get an idea for a beer short story just based on how I position a beer for a picture, or how the colors contrast between glass and background. I also then have this vivid reminder of all those ideas in the form of a picture, which almost always helps fuel the creative process down the line.

Josh of ShortOnBeer asks: “When was the first time you were proud of your writing?”

No one has ever asked me this before. I’m not sure I can find the GPS coordinates in my brain for that exact moment where I was first proud of my grammatical creations, but it was probably sometime around December 2011, when I got accepted into the Masters of Writing program at Johns Hopkins. I suddenly felt like real writers thought my writing was good enough to be compared to theirs. I’m proud of my words whenever someone says they’ve helped them or taught them something. That, to me, is the whole reason I type, to understand or help others understand.

Melanie of melanielynngriffin asks: “What is the best argument, in your mind, for each side of the question about bombing Syria in response to chemical weapons use?”

As a general rule, I remain as politically neutral as possible. I don’t like the conflict that comes with choosing a side, especially when neither side really reflects how I feel. That said, I see no best arguments for either side of this situation. It sucks, and will continue to suck, for pretty much everyone involved. While I appreciate the US trying to help out those countries who seem to desperately need it, I think the “chemical weapon” line is arbitrary, and if we really meant to help in a humanitarian way, we’d have intervened a long time ago when people were being beaten and shot to death. I’d be more inclined to support helping out the oppressed citizenry of another nation if our own country was a bliss-filled utopia, but obviously, we’ve got some serious problems of our own without sailing ships into the Mediterranean. If my vote mattered (which I’m more and more convinced it doesn’t) I’d suggest we stay home and put the money and energy towards fixing our own issues.

I’m going to lump two similar questions together here. Ryan of mouldsbeerblog, and Ginny ask: “Who is your favorite author/writer? -and- What is your favourite book/author’s work that you’ve ever read?”

This is like asking me to pick my favorite beer. There are so many options available, so many styles, so many writers who’ve written heartrendingly gorgeous prose, that it becomes nearly impossible to narrow it down to just one. So instead of picking a favorite, I’ll list some of those authors that have influenced me the most (in no particular order): Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Alan Poe, John Donne, Alexander Pope, Alice McDermott, Michael Pollan, Jennifer Egan, and, as much as I hate to admit it, Shakespeare. As far as the single piece that influenced me the most, I’ll have to go with “Walden” by Thoreau.

TheMadHopper of The Mad Hopper’s Blog asks: “When writing about beer and beer culture do you have a certain format you follow?”

Not really, but I may be a terrible person to ask, since I rarely follow any kind of format for anything. I think the most important thing, in general, is to do in-depth research on your topic (beyond a few Google searches, I mean) and make sure you’re respectful of the writers and people who came before you. Know what you’re talking about, and give credit where credit is due. Also, have fun. You’re writing about beer after all. As Scott at beerbecue said recently, “One can only read so many serious dissertations on beer.”

Penney of My Journey to Live an Authentic Life asks (slightly paraphrased): “How do you write about someone who has created conflict and drama (like a divorce or a bad breakup), without sounding whiny, when the experience made you become a better person?”

There is a fine line between bitter resentment and teary-eyed sentimentality, and it’s the writer’s job to walk it, carefully. I think it’s hard to approach something so raw and close to you directly. I almost always try to find some other vehicle to get into the story; something tangentially related or coming from a different perspective. By not having to just flat out tell the story and details of what happened, you can get the best ideas and insights into the piece without any of the personal baggage. The essay I wrote about my father’s passing is a good example of this “redirection.” I know I couldn’t have written that just about him and his death, so I used the star and his energy as the vehicle for something that would otherwise be far too emotional for me.

One half of Tammy and CJ of The Great Jollyhoombah asks: “What are the greatest craft beer US cities you’ve been to or know of?”

I’ve really just started my Homeric journey into the travel side of craft beer, but I’ve certainly been to enough cities to answer this question. I’m going to go with Boulder, Colorado (or really, just anywhere in Colorado) because of Boulevard Brewing, Great Divide Brewing, New Belgium, Oskar Blues, and Avery Brewing. I mean, that’s an incredible line up, and you can’t go wrong when choosing from any of these guys. Colorado is a veritable Mecca for craft beer people, so make sure you all face towards the Rockies when lifting your next pint.

Phillip McCollum asks: “If fear had a flavor, what would it taste like?”

Have you ever put a 9-volt battery on your tongue? Ever tasted that mix of metal and acid and energy that can only come from completing a circuit, using your body as the ground? Fear tastes like that.

theclocktowersunset asks: “If you ruled the world, what would you change and how would that playout?”

I would refuse to let anyone take life too seriously. It would be punishable by tickles. I’d like to think that a bit of enforced, widespread levity would make the planet much easier to live with, and on.

JHMae of byjhmae asks: “Who is your favorite Game of Thrones character?”

Beric Dondarrion closely followed by Sandor Clegane.

Thanks to everyone who asked a question. I hope I answered them to your satisfaction 🙂

Maybe ask me why I used a picture of a “No Surfing” flag in this post?

Ask Me Anything: A LitLib Q&A

September 10, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Writing can seem like a heavily one-sided conversation. The writer dwells in the dark with a keyboard, creating worlds and wonders in social isolation, publishing them with limited feedback outside of editorial review, only interacting with readers after the fact with public readings and signings, or the occasional guest appearance or podcast.

This model makes sense for a book, as it is a complete, stand-alone product, and the author can’t really be expected to follow every reader around, lurking just on the periphery of their day, ready to jump out and answer questions as they might arise.

But this model breaks down on a blog. I’m sitting right here, only distanced from you by an LCD, some wires, and some IP addresses. I can be expected to just answer questions. In fact, one of my favorite parts about blogging is reading and responding to the comments on my posts.The comments I got on my recent essay about my father legitimately warmed my heart, and helped me through an incredibly rough time. I have conversations with my wife about how to best respond to thoughtful, poignant feedback, and on more than one occasion, comments have given me ideas for new stories and essays.

Not only should I be expected to respond to comments, I actively want to.

So: Ask me anything. Seriously, anything, as long as it’s not vulgar or generally offensive.

Ask me about writing. Or beer. Or writing about beer.

Ask me about this site, or my day job, or what I dreamed about last night.

Ask me about grammar or photography or coffee or the State of Union. I’m game.

The only rule is that you only get to ask one (1) question. Post it in the comments below. I’ll pick my favorites, answer them as honestly as possible, and then link back to the blog of the person who asked the question.

Fire away.

Maybe ask me why I used a picture of a “No Surfing” flag in this post?

Longhand Fiction – Vote for your Favorite!

July 16, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Pens and pencils down! Quite literally.

I’d like to thank everyone who entered, and hope you had fun writing with a pen on some paper, especially if that forced you to change up your writing routine a little bit.

The hard part is done. Now we get to read all the wonderful entries from all the wonderful writers who scribbled these inken mini-masterpieces.

Voting will be open for one week; you only get one vote, so make sure you read all of the entries (they’re all well worth it!) and choose wisely.

I’ll announce (with much pomp and fanfare) and feature (with much respect and admiration) the two winners next Wednesday, July 24.

The stories (in the order they were received):

Beast of Burden – by JH Mae
The Virus – by Stuff and Things
My Blood for your Thoughts – by JC
Bereavement’s Brew – by Regina LaValley
The Grownup – by Phillip McCollum
The Wonderful Cost of Climbing – by Exist for Zen
The Writer – by John W. Howell
Dmitri – by Tkipsky

Cheers and enjoy!

Writing Contest – Liquid Literature – Vote for your Favorite!

May 5, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I would like to thank all of the wonderful people who took time out of their busy writing schedules of typing words and drinking coffee and swearing at the screen to write for this contest. Every entry has a unique perspective on the provided topics from literal to figurative, fiction to nonfiction, so there should be a little bit of something for every reader.

Voting will be open through next Sunday, May 12, 11:59 PM EST. You only get one vote, so don’t accidentally click on the wrong story. No pressure.

Here are the stories, presented in the order they were received. They are all under 1000 words and there is some really delightful writing in each, so I encourage you to read them all before voting:

Hitting the Big Time – Melanie Lynn Griffin
A confession from a bar stool – JC
The Pale Ale Induced Brutal Hangover – Philip McCollum
Pale Ale – Baltimore Bistros and Beer
On the Count of Three – RememberMemories
“Dubliners” by James Joyce – Melody Wilson

I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did. Good luck to all!

Craft and Draft: Frag. Ments.

March 14, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Not all sentences are privileged enough to grow up in a warm, loving home with supportive clauses and structured guidance. Some are forced to grow up on the syntax-streets, forced to figure out this crazy grammatical world with nothing but their guile and wit.

Sometimes these sentences don’t learn the rules, never understand why they should fit some mold invented by a system that abandoned them. They grow up functional, sometimes even beautiful, but ultimately incomplete, lacking in something baser, something important.

These sentences are the lost souls of the written world. They are the broken. They are the fragments.

A fragment, grammatically, is a subordinate clause turned into a full sentence. Think of it like a sandwich. A normal sentence is bread, meat, tomato, lettuce, mayo. A fragment is two slices of bread that someone is trying to pass off as a sandwich. It can contains nouns and verbs and prepositions and clauses, but is always missing a main subject (lunchmeat and veggies).

They should sound/read weird to an trained ear/eye, because they are not complete thoughts.

A fragment, practically, is something like this: “He stabbed blindly at the shadows in the alleyway, fear guiding his hand. A slash of luck, a jab of hope. He prayed to be the one who got out of this alive.”

There are no rules for fragments. No real, official, decided upon rules, at least. Some people say to use them as you see fit, wherever you see fit. Some people say to avoid them entirely. Many agree that they’re fine as interjections. Others say they shouldn’t be relied upon to convey important information. Other others say that should only be used to convey important information.

There should really be some rules.

Oliver’s Fragmentation Rules:

1. A fragment should have a direct relation to the sentence before it

A fragment is an innately odd structure to read, so it needs to have a strong relationship to whatever it is modifying for the reader to make sense of it. Trying to tie a fragment to a sentence earlier in the paragraph may confuse your reader and cause them to stop their forward progress to go back and figure out what you’re talking about. Trying to reference a sentence that comes after the fragment is equally confusing, as you’re trying to connect to an idea that hasn’t happened yet.

Like a resumptive modifier, a fragment should “resume” the thought, verb action, or direction of the sentence directly before it. Unlike a resumptive modifier, it doesn’t need to mirror the noun or adjective that ends said previous sentence.

“Oliver wrote into the night, his fingers flailing wildly over careworn keys. Wrote and wove those stories that refused to stay trapped in the prison of his mind.”

I’m referencing the main verb of the previous complete sentence, so my fragment makes sense and adds context/new information that the reader can quickly assimilate and understand.

2. A fragment should be used intentionally

A fragment is nothing but a normal old subordinate (dependent) clause, which means that it could easily be attached to and made part of a traditional sentence. Most of the time, you want your subordinate clause to be part of the main sentence, for simplicity’s sake.

But sometimes, for effect, you want that clause to stand alone. Carry its own weight. March on defiantly.

Fragment time!

Syntactically, they are quick and shattered, making them great for conveying panic, stream of consciousness, or frenetic movement. If you’ve got a character who is freaking out because he just witnessed a giant squid-crab eat a nuclear submarine whole, using fragments can syntactically support the action of the narrative. If you’re writing an essay where you are recalling some distant, fading memories of your childhood, using fragments can recreate the jarring phenomenon of trying to rebuild a scene from memory.

Fragments are great, but make sure you are using them intentionally for effect, and not just because you’re not sure how to include the information in the sentence. There is nothing worse than an unintentional fragment in the middle of an otherwise perfectly fluent sentence.

3. A fragment should not be an aside

If you haven’t noticed, I love asides. They are a great way to express an opinion (or interject something new!) without going on a rant. They tend to break the fourth wall which can be good or bad, depending on your format and genre.

Fragments however, do not make good asides. An aside tends to be non sequitur (which translates to “it does not follow”). If you turn a fragment into an aside, you run the risk of changing the focus or message of a certain section of writing.

A fragment reads as if it is part of the main-line narrative, unlike a phrase set off in parentheses or in between em dashes. This will cause your reader to view it as part of the whole (not just added on information) which might stop them dead in their mental tracts if it takes them out of or away from whatever scene they were reading.

Leave the asides to their little parenthetical prisons. Fragments should be free.

“We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That’s what connects us–that we’re all broken, all beautifully imperfect.” -Emilio Estevez (yes, really)

Craft and Draft: Branching Out

February 18, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Have you ever been reading a book when, without warning or reason, your brain wanders off onto some random idea (like tacos!)? Have you ever looked back over the pages you just “read” and realized that you didn’t actually read them at all, they just kind of passed by your eyes like a slow moving cloud?

The culprit, for once, may not be your underdeveloped attention span or lack of sleep.

The problem might be in the syntax of the writing.

Despite our contemporary attempts at universal equality, not all sentences are created equal. Some are stronger than others, or are innately more interesting to read. In standard prose there are three types of sentences:

Right-branching (or “loose” sentences)
Left-branching (or “periodic” sentences)
Middle-branching (also called “periodic” sentences, I don’t know why)

These sentences determine how subordinate information is provided to the main clause of the sentence, and determines the syntactic variety of our writing. If you want your writing to dance on the page, put on that tutu and really nail that Tchaikovsky, you have to understand what each type of sentence does, and why.

Right Branching (aka Boring, Mr. Traditional Pants)

The right-branching sentence is a writer’s comfort sentence. It’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes. It’s that favorite pair of jeans that you refuse to wash because you know when you do, they won’t fit the same. It’s our default syntactic form, and the one you’re most likely to encounter in everyday reading.

It’s also the first kind of sentence that English speakers learn to write. A typical right-branching sentence looks like this: “He ran to get to the sword on the other side of the room, hoping to reach it before the swashbuckling goat-man.”

The basic sentence is just subject + transitive verb + direct object, “He ran to get the sword.” The other “stuff” (call it whatever you want: subordinate information, embroidery, a fancy tie for your sentence-suit) comes after – or to the right of – the subject of the sentence.

This is the journalist’s preferred style, as it gives all of the information in a clear, often chronologically appropriate order, without the reader having to figure much out.

The right-branching sentence is great for delivering information quickly and cleanly.

It’s also pretty boring (sorry journalist-type people).

Imagine reading a long-form piece that was written with all right-branching sentences: “He ran to the store to get milk his sister desperately needed. He had no money, but that wouldn’t stop him. The milk was in the back of the store, so he had to pass the clerk to get to it. The clerk watched him closely, hoping he wouldn’t steal anything. He picked up the milk and ran out the door before the clerk could even yell in protest.”

Not terrible, but it sounds pretty choppy. All of that adjectival and adverbial supplementation dangles off the end of the predicate like a poorly attached fishing lure on some thin, cheap line. One big fish (or good reader) and that tackle is lost forever, claimed by the briny depths (of your recycling bin).

Fortunately, most writers recognize that writing like a third-grader isn’t the best way to get an idea across, and use (even if they’re not aware of it) another type of sentence to vary the patterns and cadence of their writing.

Left-Branching (aka Sir Rambles-A-Lot)

If the right branching sentence is your comfort sentence, the left branching sentence is that tumultuous but exciting relationship you had in your early twenties. Mysterious and fascinating, packed with new experiences, something you couldn’t help but be attracted to, even if only for the novelty of something different. But with excitement comes risk. The left-branching sentence can leave you pretty burned and bitter when it dumps you for a guy named Steve who totally isn’t as smart or successful or as good looking as you.

To prevent predictable, chunky prose, a writer must vary sentence patterns. I just wrote a left-branching sentence to explain why you should write left-branching sentences. Such writing, unexpected, even sometimes confusing, keeps the reader engaged. I just did it again.

A left branching is exactly what it sounds like: the embroidery of your sentence comes before – or to the left of – your main subject and predicate. It is very good at building tension, or front-loading a sentence with information that you as the writer feels the reader needs before he gets to the action of the sentence.

This is a great for for dramatic moments, where you want to drag out some emotional scene, or build-up to a specific, powerful realization.

It’s also great for pissing your reader off.

There’s little worse than a sentence that just won’t get to the point, and that’s the risk you run every time you write a left branching sentence: “In the fading light, under the mossy ruins of a fallen willow, hoping against hope that she would show up dressed in that red sundress that hugged her curves, praying he wouldn’t fumble as he reached for the ring in his pocket, Jason sat.”

Shit man, Oscar Wilde called, and even he’s bored. Get on with it. Building tension is one thing. Rambling for five adverbial phrases is another.

The left-brancher can be a great cog in the steam-powered mechanization of your writing, but writer beware. It should be used sparingly and with purpose. If not, it may alienate writers and muddle up your voice, leaving you sad and alone on your birthday even though she promised to hang out and watch Spaceballs with you.

Wait, forget that last part.

Middle-branching (aka Mr. Fear of Commitment)

The middle-branching sentence is living through a perpetual identity crisis. Sometimes it wants to be left-branching, sometimes right-branching, which leaves it stuck in the middle, waffling and confusing everyone. It can’t figure out where to drop all that heavy subordinate information, so it just gives up, drops it at its feet, and stomps away in a fuss.

The middle-brancher places subordinate information between – or, um, in between – the subject and predicate. This makes for some interesting appositives or adjectival phrases that make your sentences more interesting.

Or more awkward. It depends on the style or effect you’re going for.

A middle-brancher would sound like this, “He drove, filled with shame and self-loathing, to Walmart.”

A lot of editors might immediately want to “correct” these sentences and make them left- or right-branching, but in defense of all things artistic, they can be used to vary the flow of a piece, and present important information in a way the actively engages the reader. If you’ve already introduced your subject, immediately following up with adverbial or adjectival information is a way to place emphasis without having to add a ton of supporting words that scream, “pay attention to this part right here, it’s super duper important, for real!”

The middle-branching sentence relies heavily on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. If you really need to qualify how or why your subject did something (to say, build character, establish setting, or foreshadow) the middle-branching sentence might be exactly what you need. If the clause you’re placing in the middle is non-restrictive and just adds some other sundry detail for spice, left or right branching might be more appropriate.

Syntactic exploration is the cardamom and curry powder of writing

Next time you’re writing (or editing!), pay attention to the style of sentences you’ve used. Is it heavy on the right-branchers because you were a little too comfortable with your language when you wrote the first draft? Is it packed with tedious left branchers because you drank too much and started remember all the times you and ::named redacted:: went to the movies in 2001? Is it full of weird, lurching, awkward pariahs of language that dawdle about in the middle for too long?

If so, change it up. Any type of sentence can be transformed into another type with some clever grammar Feng Shui. When you review your own work, pay attention to the syntax just as much as the content and word choice. A little variation or emphasis passed on through the proper sentence structures can take your writing from “yea, I’ll read this” to “holy shit I can’t put this down.”

“Superfluous branches we lop away that bearing boughs may live” -Shakespeare

How to Read like a Writer

February 6, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Reading is like eating seven-layer dip.

At first salivating glance, you see piles of gorgeous green guacamole. A mountain range of avocado-salsa blend contained between four walls of Pyrex. It is easy to be emotionally overcome by the beauty of the guacamole, thinking that, from this angle, the dip is nothing but guacamole.

But if you maintained this perspective, and someone asked you to recreate the seven-layer dip, you’d be content to mash up 13 avocados, stick them in a bowl, and shove them proudly at your party goers with a grin that says, “I made dip.”

To successfully make seven-layer dip, you have to understand that is has, y’know, seven layers. Beneath the obvious top-guac hides delicious cheese and olives and sour cream and beans. The dip itself is kind of complicated. The flavor comes from a combination of foods, all working together to create a single unified taste.

This is the problem with reading casually, only paying attention to the events of the plot and the overall story. You’re only noticing the top layer of the dip. Sure, you’re learning about story telling and enjoying yourself in the process, but you’re missing out of the other layers of literature that make a story robust and complete.

To recognize the layers, stare through the side of the Pyrex dish. Cross-section, not bird’s-eye. Think of it in a whole bunch of parts and techniques sandwiched together to make an engaging story. Think of it in layers.

Things you’ll need:

-A brain (I’ve found that the one inside your skull is easiest to access)
-A book (preferably something with some literary merit)
-A beer (optional, I guess, if you hate all things that are good)

Step 1: Recognize what you should be recognizing

A lot of scholars have attempted to sum up what makes something “literary” (which usually results in a list of 10/15/18/22/25 “things”). There is a lot of grey area. There is even more debate. Some aspects of literature are forehead smackingly obvious, others…not so much. I covered my take on these a few months ago.

It’s up to your inner Sherlock to decide what tools an author used in writing her book. Which means you need to be paying close attention while you’re reading. Which means you can’t just flop onto a beach chair, plow through a Robert Patterson novel while mutating your melanin, and expect to come out a better writer once you reach the satisfying, bolded, 16 pt, “THE END.”

Therein lies the jerk chicken rub. A lot of us read to relax. It’s our escape from the hellish realities of our grey, damp, corporate dungeons. The last thing we want to do while we read is analyze. I get it, I really do. I’m right there wanting to read for leisure with you.

But I’ll play messenger and deliver the bad message even if it means the king will behead me: you need to turn yourself into an analyst. There’s nothing glamorous about it. If you want to write like the authors you’re reading, you have to study the writing.

Start recognizing when an author like Jennifer Egan uses structure and odd timelines to enhance her narrative. Make notes when you see someone like Erik Larson using dueling narratives and foreshadowing to build tension even when we know how the story ends. Start recognizing that these are deliberate choices made by the authors, not just magic leprechaun luck that innately comes from being born during a significant astrological event.

Good writing is the culmination of a ton of intentional choices that are transposed into words and onto the page. Start learning what those choices are, and why they were made. When you learn them, you can emulate them, and your writing will transcend.

Step 2: Recognize what’s missing in your own writing

Talent is weird. It’s like we’re forced through the water sprinkler of talent as kids. Where the spray of talent-juice hit our brains, we’re awesome. Where it missed, we’re clueless.

Some of us are great at playing with language, turning phrases, being grammatically devastating Others are amazing at building tension through dialogue and scenes. Others can use structure to arrange a story in such a way that it is fresh and unexpected to the point where the reader yells, “no effin’ way!” at the book in disbelief.

It’s good to know what you’re good at.

It’s even better to know what you suck at.

If your stories seem one-dimensional, notice how great authors use back story, probing dialogue, and action within scenes to enhance without being all up in your grill about it. Study the latent symbolism in a work and learn how that helps connect the reader to the story in a more universal, approachable way.

Read authors who are great where you are terrible (also admit that you are terrible at certain things). Learn how they do it. Eat it, process the calories, make that technique part of your physical being. The only way to learn what talent didn’t give you is through mindful application of a stubborn will.

Step 3: Take your time

Unless you’re involved in some sort of underground reading death challenge (and yes, I’m fully aware of what the first rule is), the stakes are pretty low. No one except maybe your book club peeps or that one annoying friend (who really only wants to talk about the book, so her intentions are good) really cares how quickly you read something.

It’s not the Daytona 500 with little paper cars with words on them. You can read at your own pace.

Actually, no. You should read at your own pace. Take as much time with the words as you need to understand them. Reread if you’re really trying to internalize a specific technique, or figure out why something was so effective.

The book or essay or whatever won’t self-destruct after five seconds. You’ve got plenty of time to read. Take it.

Step 4: Take Notes

If you can’t seem to dive deep into the creamy nutrient filled sub-layers of literature, force reading to be more active by gluing writing to it.

If you’re like me, writing in the margins of a book is painful (reading is the closest thing I have to religion, so marking up a book feels sort of like defiling a sacred relic). But sometimes, to remember certain spots, commit the best parts to memory, it is necessary. With the help of our new computer overlords, we can at least do this without taking ink to page.

Open a Word doc or keep a notepad nearby when you read. Write down the stuff you find interesting. Ask questions. Try a certain technique to see how it’s done.

By writing while you read, you’re engaging more than just your eyeballs. You’re introducing your fingers and possibly ears to the dance. The more senses you use, the harder your memory works and the more points of reference it has to build a permanent structure in your brain. It’s science, bitches.

Step 5: Read good shit

Sorry about the “bitches” thing. I got carried away.

None of this fancy advice matters if you’re not reading stuff that is well done. Not that everything you read has to be a timeless classic, but it should at least be worthy of your time.

The old saying is, “You are what you eat.”

In our world, “You write what you read.”

The books and essays and memoirs and news stories and shampoo bottles and billboards and waffle iron instruction manuals will seep into your unconscious. Each one makes up part of the synaptic web of what we understand to be “writing.” Each has it’s place and it’s purpose and teaches us something (even if that thing is what color dye is used in peach-scented Alberto V05).

If you’re going to read, read well. Read up. Spend your time with things that will make you smarter. Challenge yourself and strengthen your writing web.

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” -Sydney J. Harris

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