The Trouble with "Up"... the Word, not the Movie

Just when I think that I'm done editing my new novel manuscript, The Dance of Rotten Sticks,  I learn of another abused or unnecessary word that can be expunged. If you follow my blog at all, you know that I'm a big advocate of the "find" function in Word for finding troublesome words. I call them "first draft" words, and they largely have no business in "nearing-final" drafts. I call them "nearing-final" because there's never a final. I remember a professor remarking once that Tolstoy did not read his own published manuscripts because he'd find, even on the first page, something he wanted to change. We abandon; we don't finish.

I have mixed feelings about the #WritingCommunity and even the use of Twitter for writers, but good communications have come out of it. I was very pleased to meet Leah Angstman of Alternating Current Press: here. Born and raised in Michigan, she is witty, generous, talented as a writer, and one hell of an editor. We usually have some pithy exchanges on Twitter, and this morning was no exception.

Angstman is also an accomplished writer, so keep an eye out for her forthcoming novel, Out Front the Following Sea, forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in spring 2022. Read more about the book (and join her mailing list): here.

In one of her tweet replies, she wrote: "I am a murderer of your Victorian 'up.' A character doesn't have to stand 'up.' He can simply stand. A face doesn't have to scrunch 'up.' It can simply scrunch. A plant doesn't have to shrivel 'up.' It can simply shrivel. Seriously, find your prepositions and vanquish them."

We had some playful banter about this, in which I told her to just "Shut" (as opposed to "Shut up." Yes, I know, I'm super witty and clever).

But, Angstman's thoughts on "up" got me thinking. Is it a word I have abused in my manuscript? 

Not possible. 

Over the last month, I've read through my manuscript 20 times. I couldn't have possibly missed anything.

Then, I put "up" into the "find" function in Word. After expunging 16 unnecessary "ups" I decided to write this blog post. Here's some more of what I found.

Here's the first one, and not everyone will agree with the change:

    Standing in water up to his knees,

I changed that to:

    Standing in knee-deep water, 

This next is more cut and dry: (some of these are just pieces of sentences, for brevity)

    open, he set the cooler up against the side of the wall 

Changed to:

    open, he set the cooler against the side of the wall 

I'm kicking myself as I find some of these "ups" because they are really stupid once you zero in on them:

    save for the rusty weathervane peeking up through the topmost branches. 

Changed to:

    save for the rusty weathervane peeking through the topmost branches. 

I am finding that quite a few "ups" go untouched, especially in dialogue. Since my novel is set in current times, I can get away with the colloquial "up" in my dialogue, but if you are writing a historical novel, you might want to know this about "up", via Leah Angstman regarding the use of "up" in speech (like "stand up" etc):

She writes: "Only in modern dialogue. People never said it (the unnecessary "up") until the late 1800s/early 1900s."

So, pro tip.

Okay, so I kept searching my novel... here are a few more examples of expunged "ups.":

    He slid the box from her loose grip and pushed it back into the backpack. Then he zipped it up. 

Changed that to:

    He slid the box from her loose grip and pushed it into the backpack, zipping it closed. 

Lots of changes going on there. I guess you get to decide if I made it better. (And, this after I edited the manuscript 20 times!)

Jesus, I even found one that Angstman used as an example!

    Adam stood up and walked over to the window. 

The obvious change:

    Adam stood and walked to the window. 

This one was serendipitous because Angstman had this to say about "over.":

"Yeah! All prepositions can be culprits. This story also repeatedly has someone 'walking 'over' to' something, instead of simply 'walking to' it. Death to 'over'!"

So, after "up" I will likely do an "over" search too.

(For the record, if you find an editor with Angstman's eye and ear, value everything that person says!)

Okay, maybe one more "up." Some of the point of line editing is to cut words that aren't really doing anything. Like, in this final example, you might think, "What was wrong with that 'up'?" Well, since its absence isn't felt at all in the rewrite, the "up" wasn't doing anything. So, death to it!

For instance,

    A jolt of pain shot from his knee up through his thigh and into his hip.

Notice the "up" isn't missed at all:

    A jolt of pain shot from his knee through his thigh and into his hip.

I mean, a pain can't go from one's knee "down" into his thigh, so the "up" does nothing. Kill it!

As I mentioned in the past, this doesn't mean kill every "up"... I think it could also lead to clunky sounding prose. At one point, my main character "held up a calming palm" toward his daughter. In this case, I think the "up" speaks to the raised action. Could it be "held a calming palm"? I suppose. Is "raised a calming palm" better? Maybe. Some might argue "held forth" but that sounds a little formal to me.

The big thing is to cut "ups" (and "overs") that aren't doing anything. Why? It's this kind of hardcore editing that can be the difference between publishable and just good.

If you find my blog posts instructive or illuminating, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division.

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here