Mistake Murderer - vol. 2

Why yes, it was I who sent you last week’s unedited run-on story riddled with typos.

About ducks, no less.

Why?

1. I sent you the story to get the word out.

The prodigal ducks have returned!

Let us feast! Bring forth the fatted… one of them. (Okay, we haven’t eaten any of our ducks. Yet. One is in our freezer, but that story is for another day…)

2. I sent you that letter to hit a deadline.

Deadline Destroyer

I’ve decided to send this newsletter on Sunday afternoon Monday (or when things spiral out of control, Sunday evening). Not my initial choice, but it works.

I hate deadlines. But great ideas — like writing 40 issues before launching — don’t happen unless you follow deadlines.

Great outcomes need great deadlines, sometimes.

At least, that’s how it works for me.

How do you force yourself to meet a deadline? Especially when you’re doing something creative? Tell people your publishing schedule.

When is your story getting written? Announce it like it’s a movie showing.

You’ll probably figure out a way to write something by then.

It will probably stink.

It won’t as good as you imagined it would.

But that’s how you’ll get it done.

Go and do likewise.

3. I sent you the letter with nary an edit…

to model imperfection.

It was very hard. Very.

I may have restarted a sentence once or twice, but I never reviewed the email. Not word by word, line by line.

No, Sir.

And birthed from this magical mess, were some spectacular typos.

I know I haven’t converted you yet. Why else do you think I keep coming back to praising typos?

What if you stopped looking at typos like an insecure teenage girl?

You might finish more.

You might write more.

You might get read more.

Typographical errors are the spice of writing. There, I said it.

Now you’ll protest, “That’s because you’re a humorist — you can get away with typos and grammar malfeasance because you write outlandish comedy!”

Well, duh.

Why do you think I write like this?

You think I stacked the deck?

You bet, I did.

Now go and stack likewise.

If a few typos are keeping you from writing more, rig the game in your favor.

Did I tell you about the game of capture the flag I played once?

Insufferable.

Two hours of sweating and neither team was getting any closer to winning.

So I took my teams flag (which was a soccer ball?) and ran it across the enemy line.

Then we got to play a real sport — volleyball.

Too extreme?

Just use that little disclaimer you see on emails. You know, the one that says you wrote the email on your iPhone so beware of autocorrect. Here, just copy this:

Now if you get paid to write for a business… or a politician. I’ve got you covered. I’ve rearranged my calendar just for you.

Surefire Typo Targeting will now come out first (maybe in time for my birthday next month). It’s a tactical checklist to protect you from sending out a press release with a word like “were” printed in place of the actually correct “where” (hey, I was sick, okay?)

Name Redacted is a Facebook group I’ll launch later — around Thanksgiving/Black Friday at the latest.

Top Three Tpyos

Here vs. Hear

In my last email to you, I said the ducks could “here” Yo-Mama. Now, obviously, I meant “hear.” But you have to admit that “here” is much more elegant. Just look at the symmetry of each “e.” Why can’t we just write “here” and by context determine which word we mean? After all, that’s how we use the word “read.”

Qaucking vs. quacking

Well, you haven’t heard my ducks. They qauck.

Aggregable

This is my all-time favorite typo.

I wrote that Linda (our duck that looks like a female mallard) was “aggregable.” And she is, I guess. She is capable of being aggregated into a whole of which she is merely a part. Like the flock of 11 ducks I aggregated. Sure, I originally intended to write “agreeable,” but my typers came in CLUTCH.

Thanks, thumbs.

4. I sent you that story… but it didn’t end quite right.

Sure there was some conflict in the story about the ducks being lost.

But it ended too conveniently.

I could have increased the tension by adding:

• how I was getting soaked

• how my Not-So-Great Pyrenees was trying to follow the ducks out of the escape tunnel into my neighbor’s yard

• how once the dog was there he would have engaged in one of his favorite pastimes — chasing ducks

Or… I could have cheated.

I could have added a moment of time.

Wut?

Right when I catch Linda and send her back under the fence to our lawn, her rightful home, I could have hit pause.

Instead of immediately revealing how the plan worked, like I did in the story, I should have left it hanging for a minute.

I could have skipped to the other section of the email with the writing advice.

And then right before signing off…

BAMMO!

finished the story.

You can use this trick the next time the story you’re writing ends too quickly or resolves too neatly.

When your story doesn’t have the dramatic impact you want, suspend time. Add in a flashback, shift perspectives, interrupt the narrative with the rest of your article.

Let the reader build the suspense for you in their mind. Simply by leaving the story unresolved for a few moments, the ending hits harder.

That’s my theory anyway. Let me know how it works.

Felicity says “Hi.” (According to her sisters, this is her first word).

—DadFace

P.S. - None of this made any sense? Missed last week’s email? You can catch up on the story by clicking here.