Category Archives: -Sue Remisiewicz

I Pledge Allegiance to the Flow

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When did you first know that you were a writer? I can trace it back to saying the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school. Whenever we got to the line “one Nation under God” I thought it sounded awkward. Now mind you, I had no knowledge of the political forces and controversies surrounding the words “under God” in the Pledge. My reaction stemmed purely from the writer’s sense of something being wrong with the flow.

When a piece has good flow the words and sentences have a smooth, unbroken rhythm. Think of reading a passage and following the words with your finger as you read. If at any point your finger pauses too long or stops completely, you have a potential problem with the flow. It means your brain is either working harder to process the written words, or it has come completely out of the story.

In fiction, good flow requires such things as: no logic problems in the plot; no out of character behaviors that are incongruent with the plot; and no inconsistencies like the color of a car being red on one page and blue five pages later. Any of these things may draw the reader’s brain away from the story and off on a tangent saying, “That’s not right.”

Good flow also means there are no awkward pauses or phrasing, no irregular word usage, and no sentences long enough to make you winded if reading it out loud. The reasons behind these problems are usually much harder to articulate. Authors and readers can often tell good flow from bad, but the mechanics are not easy to define.

It would be years later before I learned that “under God” came about through government editing of author Francis Bellamy’s original work. As it turns out, there have been five editing jobs on the Pledge since being published in the September 8th, 1892, edition of The Youth’s Companion. Each change either improves or disrupts the flow and I decided to try and figure out the reasons why. Let’s start at the beginning with the Pledge as it first appeared in The Youth’s Companion:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

The first editing on this piece came from the hand of Francis Bellamy himself. He inserted the word ‘to’ before “the Republic”:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

What does the alteration do for the statement? In the original form, “the Republic for which it stands” has only a passing relationship to the earlier subject/predicate “I pledge allegiance.” By adding the word ‘to’ in front of the phrase, the connection is made stronger thus improving the flow. The change also helps reduce some slight ambiguity of the word ‘it’ which could refer back to either ‘allegiance’ or ‘Flag.’ In the new form of the sentence, I not only pledge allegiance to my flag, but also to the republic for which my flag stands.

At some point in time, the colon in the Pledge gets changed to a comma. Since I couldn’t find exactly when this change happened, I’m going to take some license and examine what the change does while the sentence is in a simpler form:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

While use of either a colon or comma is grammatically correct, the tone is different depending on the choice. Read the version with the colon and then the one with the comma. Did you give a little more emphasis to the words “one nation” when reading the version with the colon? Was the flow a little more monotone when reciting the version with the comma? A colon adds some drama to the sentence while a comma is more casual. In this case, I think the colon is the better option because it fits in with the ceremonial nature of the Pledge. When grammar rules give you a choice, take care that the tone imparted by a colon is in line with the character and tempo of the overall piece.

In 1923, the National Flag Conference released a new version of the Pledge designed to take away any confusion immigrants might have about which flag they were honoring. The words “my flag” became “the flag of the United States”:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The following year, the conference added the words “of America”:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Before adding “of America” the flow is choppy. Is it just coincidence or luck that using the full name of the country improves the flow? I don’t think so. Referring to our country as “the United States” is the common way of speaking. It’s only in formal situations that we add “of America.” The flow of the 1923 version is uneven because the casual usage of the name is at odds with the formal nature of the Pledge.

Congress adopted the Pledge as part of the national flag code in 1942 and it remained unchanged until 1954 when the words “under God” were added:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So what did I hear that made the flow sound off to my young mind? The phrase “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” is complex with no verb or conjunction to help the brain process what is written. Even without the addition of “under God” the statement is hard to interpret. However, the extra words make it more difficult. The complexity becomes more apparent when you see the translation the brain has to do to understand both statements:

Before: one nation standing indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

After: one nation standing under God and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

The difference may seem subtle, but it is important. I’ve never heard the Pledge spoken without a pause before the words “under God” even though there is no grammatical reason (e.g. a comma) to hesitate there. That stop in the flow is the brain doing a synaptic two-step trying to process the sentence. Tough enough for an adult to figure out let alone my grade school self!

Food for Thought: It Starts with a Story

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Last month I mentioned that I like to visit a website where I can  listen to people tell stories about their lives.  I watch a lot of programs on PBS and happened to catch a short, ‘filler’ spot attributed to StoryCorps with a note at the end to check out their website to find out more.  I did and have been hooked ever since.  Sometimes I laugh.  Sometimes I cry.  Always I’m amazed at the rich fodder people carry within their memories; stories they could use as raw material for complete memoirs or books of fiction.  The fact is I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone without an interesting story to tell, and that’s where writing starts – with a story.

If I were to ask you to tell me a story about your life, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?  Hold that thought, or better yet, write it down and try to write it exactly as you would tell it to me.  Is it easy?  Do the words flow from your mind to your hand without hesitation?  Or do the gods of grammar and punctuation get in your way making you stop, erase, and rewrite your words till you no longer think your story is any good?

I think the grammar gods get in the way for most people.  Even for those where the words flow freely at first, there comes a time where you have to apply ‘craft’ to your writing.  What is ‘craft’?  It includes grammar and punctuation, of course, but it also includes plot, characterization, setting the scene, narrative, dialog, structure, building suspense, voice, flow – the list goes on and on.  Feel intimidated?  Too scared to share your writing with other people?  I don’t think you have to be afraid.

During my time as a member of the Deadwood Writers Group, I’ve read hundreds of writing submissions by dozens of people.  In all that reading, I’d say each piece had at least 90 percent of the mechanics of craft already in place.  Many had even more of the mechanics down.  So my experience tells me that your writing is probably a lot more interesting and in better shape than your fear of the grammar gods will let you believe.  That’s not to say your piece will be perfect.  If you’re seeking truthful feedback, people will help you find the craft areas that you still need to develop.  You might even have an idea of what those areas are and can ask for help in those specific places.

The point to keep in mind is that people with a love of reading and writing seem to have absorbed a lot of what they were taught in English classes in school.  If you share that enthusiasm, have faith in what you’ve learned and write with the confidence that you have the basics inside of you.  If you have a story to tell, you’ve started and are already more than halfway there.

Food for Thought: On Being Read and Reread

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Every once in a while, I go to a website where I can listen to people tell stories about their lives.  The tales are entertaining and inspirational and represent, to me, the ancient tradition of oral storytelling that is all but gone today.  Sure, grandma and grandpa may share memories with their grandchildren, but the passing of information from generation to generation does not carry the reverence or importance that ancient peoples worked to establish.

Writing and publishing played a role in changing that perspective.  When important events can be written down and mass produced, there is no reason to commit things to memory.  You don’t even have to do the writing yourself.  Journalists and authors fill libraries, websites, and all manner of e-media with accounts of the major happenings of the world.

But what if you want to add your viewpoint to the public record, or just have a good story to tell?  You can share your observation and reaction in a short tweet.  If you want to express more than that, you can write something longer in a blog.  You can even self-publish a 500 page treatise with any number of e-book distributors.  The thing is, once it’s out there, is anyone going to read what you have to say?  Will anyone even find your story to read it?  Will it be good enough for people to recommend to others and come back and read more things written by you?

If it’s important to you for your writing to be read and reread by other people, there are three things that will help you build your audience:

  1. Learn and practice your craft – If your writing is unpolished and you don’t take steps to improve, it’s unlikely that anyone but your closest family and friends will stick with you.
  2. Decide how you want to get your story out in the world – Are you after the traditional brick-and-mortar path to a book deal?  Or, do you want to enter the world of electronic publishing?  Maybe social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or blogging is where you want to express yourself.  There are many options in today’s world and it takes some exploration to find what is right for you.
  3. Build an audience – Draw attention to your work through traditional marketing and social networking – today’s e-media enhancement to ‘word of mouth.’

My goal from this blog is to share ‘Food for Thought’ in these three areas.  I want to foster a conversation that is as fun and helpful to you as it is for me.  You see, I enjoy the discussion that comes from putting my words out for people to read.  Whether it’s giving and receiving feedback with my fellow Deadwood Writers, or an exchange of comments between me and my Facebook friends, this is fun for me.

If you think about it for yourself, I suspect you’ll realize these interchanges are fun for you as well, because writing alone in a vacuum is a very lonely place to be.  Come join me in the conversation and let’s enjoy the journey to being read and reread together.