Letoria: Blog

There's an ironic old saying that "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I sometimes take things I see on the news a little too personally, more than is healthy in all likelihood. As wrenching as the recent drama in Boston was (and I live relatively close to Boston), I find myself much, much more upset by the story of the teenage girl in California driven to commit suicide after she was raped by "friends", and graphic pictures of her after were splashed across the internet. As troubling as that was to me, another story in the same vein much closer to home has caused me sleepless nights.

It seems this 14 year old girl in an especially rural part of the state where I live was outed as a lesbian. I don't know who outed her -- a "friend" she trusted with her secret, someone with an ax to grind -- and I suppose it doesn't matter. What matters is that she was suddenly subjected to intense and unrelenting bullying by her peers for being gay. She and her family did everything by the book, going to school administration and reporting it, contacting police; but nothing was done. What makes that even more astonishing is that the principal of her school is obviously a lesbian herself. So, bullied relentlessly, not receiving any help from those who are supposed to help, she hung herself. There we go, that's a fine and decent outcome, isn't it people. Drive a 14 year old girl to kill herself because she's a lesbian. That's real goddamned 21st Century.

I often get asked why I didn't come out until I was 30, married to a man, and with a teenage son. I was 14 in 1982. If this is the kind of shit that happens to 14 year old lesbians in the 21st century, why is it SO GODDAMNED HARD to understand why I buried myself in a closet 30 frickin' years ago? Excuse me, I was not brave enough to even contemplate subjecting myself to that kind of peer pressure. It was ever so much easier to lie and pretend to myself and everyone around me that I was as straight as an arrow. Some have called me cowardly. So be it, but I lived to fight another day. That girl didn't.

So I was under the delusion that things had changed for the better in this country for LGBT people, and I suppose by and large they have, but they didn't change for that girl. She's dead. Those who drove her to kill herself are complicit in her death, and I hope they have enough conscience that it haunts them every day for the rest of their lives.

So you see, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We have a looonnnnng way to go.

The most asinine language arts rule I was ever taught was the spelling mnemonic "I before E except after C." It's weird that such madness could get enshrined as a rule resistant to either educators or bureaucrats. Yet by eighth grade, we've all at least heard it. It reigns supreme despite being the height of counterfeit aids to learning. It's a heinous educational sin.


Alright, how many words in that paragraph? 62 for those who don't want to count. How many violations of the I before E rule? I'm not telling. If you're not sure, drop me a line and I'll tell you. Relatively speaking, there are a lot. Of course the paragraph is silly, but it's grammatically correct and structurally sound, so it works as an example -- besides, it's the best I could do off the top of my head while sitting here at the computer. For the record, the British have expunged the rule from their educational rule book (I think they have a Ministry of Stupid Language Rules).


When I was in elementary school, every week our teacher would give us a list of 10 words we had to learn to spell. The following week, she would give us a test on those words (all of my teachers until junior high were women). By Fifth Grade, the words she chose were invariably those that, in the eyes of an 11 year-old, didn't follow any discernible rule, such as "thought" and "would". I vividly remember having a moment of utter brain lock over the word "caught". I knew she wanted the "I caught a cold" variant, and I knew how to spell it. Somehow, it got diverted along the way when I tried to retrieve it. I finally shrugged and wrote "cot." She'd also toss in some words that complied with I before E, and some that snubbed their noses at the rule.


Her point in all this? The only rule when spelling English is that there are no rules. Spelling English is not easy. I'm not sure that it's even taught anymore, what with the ubiquity of spell check programs and instantaneous online resources like Dictionary.com. If that's true, it's sad. It's like letting teens take their driver's license test without taking a Driver's Ed course because they've played video games since birth. Taught or not, it ought to be a rule that anyone who writes for public consumption must pass a basic spelling competency exam.


Pick a random story here on SOL, and the odds are, you will find at least a handful of misspelled words, but likely as not you'll have to wade through gross lots of them. Personally, I don't care how hard it is to learn how to spell correctly. There is no excuse for more than the occasional typo when it comes to spelling. Turn on your spell check! When a little red line appears under a word, it's misspelled. Right click the word, and the damned program will even give you the correct spelling. Since spell check is hardly infallible (though a damned good starting point), there are back-up resources for those times you're not sure: Online dictionaries, real dictionaries, editors - you know, those fine people who actually paid attention in spelling class, and who now volunteer their services at no cost to the author.


With all these resources, incorrect spelling in a story is inexcusable. And yes, it does matter. Consistently misspelling words shows you don't give a shit about your story. If you don't give a shit, why should I? If you can't be bothered to make an effort with such annoying details as correct spelling, why should I be bothered with making an effort to read your story?


Always remember, it's your responsibility to make sure whatever you're trying to convey to me the reader is clear. It's not my job to decipher your gibberish to figure out what the hell you're trying to say.

There are things within any given story that you, the reader, don't see and never will. Sometimes these things are vital to the story, sometimes they're just little nuggets that might be interesting to know, but you never will and you won't (I hope) feel cheated for not knowing them. A lot these unseen bits of background details come under the cleverly titled heading "Back Story" (at least that's what I'm told it's called by those who know such things. I don't t do this for a living, and I haven't taken a class in writing in many, many years -- hopefully that fact doesn't show too badly). You the reader are aware -- at least you should be aware -- that this unexpressed detail is floating around somewhere, and you hopefully have faith that someone in charge of this world you're reading about knows about it. As I've noted before, I'll be damned if I'm confident I'm always in charge.

So Letoria, just what the hell are you talking about?

Let's take a look at my "Novel" Karen and Laci. There are unmentioned things in the background that are absolutely vital, or we'd have no story, things I know but you never will. For instance, the character Laci -- just who the hell is her father? She has a nasty skank for a mother, yet Laci herself is beautiful and intellectually gifted. That damned sure didn't come from her mother. When you look around what I call "Laci's World", most of the men are thugs, drunks, junkies, and bums, sometimes all rolled into one convenient package, the dregs of the welfare society. See that tatted up dude with the buzz cut, goatee, 10,000 piercings, flat-brimmed ball cap cocked at an angle under his dark hoodie, pants half-way down his ass, swaggering and bouncing up the street, grabbing at his crotch every third step? Is he going to produce a Laci? Well, genetic mutations do happen, or else Darwin was full of crap, but I wouldn't count on it.

So where does she come from? Well, I know. I know who her father (or maybe the word "sire" is more accurate) is. I know exactly how her mother got pregnant with Laci, I know why her mother, the inimitable Sandra, didn't have an abortion, and why Laci was the only baby she brought into the world, even when babies were a form of money. You'll never know any of this. Why? It's not that it isn't relevant to the big picture of the story. Clearly it is. It isn't however, directly relevant to the story that's unfolding before you. Strictly speaking, you don't need to know the details. Besides, how can I pass this information on when no one within the story knows it? Laci doesn't know who her father is. Even after an extended period of sobriety, Sandra could only make a half-assed guess, and it's highly doubtful she even remembers the actual encounter. The father has no clue he sired a child, and there's no reason to expect he ever will know. So how could I tell you?

I can't, so you have to make up your own details. I try my best to give you that opportunity.

We can make more or less the same observation about other details - how did Karen and her ex-husband meet, what's Laci's favorite color (pastel pink, if you must know), to whom did Karen lose her virginity? They're details you don't need to know, nor are you likely interested in them. I know these details, because I have to. The more real and complete she is to me, the more likely it is she'll be real and complete to you. And she is real to me, you know. As real as I am to myself.

I really don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I wish I did. Whatever comes out of me comes from a place I'm only just discovering. All I know is I have something gnawing at me to get out. I think I know what it is, so I rub my hands together and say, "Let's grab this puppy by the tail and get to work."

I think I can see where I'm supposed to end up, and the road to get there seems pretty clear, though it is a little foggy out. I driven in fog before. It isn't all that hard as long I'm careful. Sure the road is bumpy and potholed, and I might drive off it a few times, but I ought to get to my destination without any major accidents. After all, I'm driving this thing, aren't I?

Ha! Where did that little delusion come from?

I may be driving, but there's an annoying backseat driver who holds a switch that shuts everything off. If I misbehave and start trying to go anywhere other than where I'm told to go, poof! the switch is thrown and I'm stuck in the middle of the road, hoping nothing really bad is bearing down at me out of the fog. So I sigh, tell the backseat driver, "I'm sorry, can we please get going again."

Of course, I continue to think I know a better way, so I impudently turn down a side road, a short-cut I'm sure is a better way. "Hey dammit , don't slap me when I'm driving," I yell. "Now turn the frigging thing back on, or we aren't going anywhere."

"Will you ever learn? Sheesh, some people think they know it all. I told you, you drive, I'll let you know how to get there."

Back on the road -- the one she chose -- it's foggier than ever. Great, just what I need.

I must have pissed off the backseat driver, because now she informs me, "We may not be going where we first set off for. I think there might be a better place. I don't know yet, we'll see. Or maybe I do, and I'm just waiting to tell you when you need to know."

If we get wherever we're going and the whole thing is dented and trailing pieces, I'll take the blame. Fair is fair though; I'll also get the credit if we get there in one piece. So far, this back seat driver -- she seems to know her way pretty well.

It's not uncommon for readers to write me with suggestions, some of them pretty damned good. I promise in good faith to consider them, but everyone needs to understand, it may look like I'm in charge, but looks can be deceiving. We'll have to see what Madam Backseat Driver has to say.

A while back I commented on my belief that criticism delivered rudely or from a position of smug self-perceived superiority ends up having no constructive value. It's being intellectually nasty and exposes deep insecurity on the part of the "critic". Negative criticism can be delivered in such a way that it has great value to the writer.

I recently posted Chapter 6 of my ongoing series. I received an email from a reader who was upset over the actions/non-actions of the characters, and the sense that another seemingly minor background character was the victim. The criticism was delivered in a way that wasn't a personal attack on me. Even though the reader was clearly quite upset, his/her anger was directed at the characters, not me personally. That enabled me to sit down and contemplate his/her concerns. I quickly came to see he/she was raising some extremely valid issues, things I knew about but hadn't addressed (that comes in part from being an amateur and not really knowing how to manage a full-blown story on all the levels it needs to be managed on).

Now I know I have some issues that need to be addressed. If one person feels the way this reader does, then surely many more do, too. I owe it to them, the story, the characters, and myself to clarify things and confront the issues raised.

What it comes down to is the reader offered some fairly harsh criticism, but it was done in a way that I could extract a great deal of value from it. That kind of criticism needs to be embraced and addressed. It can only make me a better writer, and the story more interesting and (I hope) compelling.