I’ve been gone for awhile.

I’d explain, but it’s a long story, and not even a long, interesting story. It’s a story that meanders without a point, similar to this prologue. So, instead of explaining why I disappeared, I’ll give you some of the elements involved in my disappearance and let you create a more interesting excuse: a pickup truck, my father-in-law, Wickliffe zoning code and two tons of gravel.

(If you guessed “building a deck,” you’re right… and boring. A better answer would have involved a shootout and a dying wish.)

I have a lot of ground to cover and want to be concise. I’d like to revisit one of Tricia’s comments and, also, the Hack Test one final time before giving it a respite. My co-blogger Tricia (who has carried the weight for me during my absence) and I have what we call the McDonalds Theorum.

Every reader, no matter how erudite, needs a way to unplug. I like the occasional comic book. Tricia likes romance novels. My favorite English professor swore by lousy pulp fiction. The most developed palette needs a cheeseburger every now and again. (That's why we call it the McDonalds Theorum.)

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a cheeseburger. However, Tricia took it a step farther when she wrote: I think we should ban usage of the word good when talking about authors and books.

Tricia and I disagree here. Some writing is good. Some writing is bad. You want proof? Read our newspaper — some of the writing is brilliant; some of it isn’t. I’m not knocking my coworkers. I’ve churned out more than my share of workmanlike copy. Deadlines make hacks of us all.

You can enjoy bad writing if you like, but that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as good writing.

Robert Pirsig phrased it more eloquently in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Quality… you know what is, but you don’t know what it is. But that’s self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There’s nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exists … Obviously some things are better than others… but what’s the “betterness”?

To say there is no “good” or “bad” is to deny that anything is good. But some things are good. We may not be able to say what makes them good, but we know that good exists.

I have a secondary reason for mentioning Pirsig and Zen. In his book, Pirsig recounts how he tried to find a scientific way to define good rhetoric (like my proposed Hack Test). The end result? Pirsig had a psychological meltdown because there is no absolute scientific way to define good rhetoric.

Pirsig’s plight might seem obvious to others. Occasional commenter Neil noted that counting adverbs is not going to give you a guaranteed way to rank literature. I agree.

But I never intended the Hack Test to be an absolute test like Pirsig tried to devise. I paint in broader strokes. I simply wanted to devise a test that might indicate the quality of the narrative based upon measurable quantities in the text.

So I present the inaugural run of the Hack Test. Because I don’t have the years to devote to counting modifiers and “to be” verbs, I ran a mini-test on the first two pages of three books: Kyra by Carol Gilligan, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor and Italo Calvino’s collection of Italian Fairy Tales.

One final disclaimer: You can’t assess plot or character confidently from two pages because almost nothing has happened.

For example, Kyra begins with two characters playing chess. I suspect it’s a symbol for matching wits. That’s an overly familiar plot mechanism; but I wouldn’t call the plot of Kyra cliché. Similarly, the characters or setting do not stand out in two pages, but I the characters being the highpoint of Kyra the first time I read the book.

Consequently, it is unfair to assess plot, character or setting based upon two pages of reading — just language. All of these elements are vital to good reading, but I won’t pretend to assess them on the microtest.

Kyra
How many modifiers does the author use?
I counted 22 (but there could have been more.) Perhaps, more importantly, it felt like there were more. Gilligan did not describe a chair or room or piece of fashion without adding its color. I do not know the two characters’ last names, but I do know the color of their eyes. I’m not saying their last name is more important their eye color, but a lot of emphasis has been placed on pigment in these first two pages.

How many of those modifiers could be removed without changing the intent of the sentence?
I realize already this question is subjective. I thought it was objective. I was wrong. As a journalist, I’m trained to keep my writing tight. I would have excised most of the modifiers—11, in total; but someone else might feel differently. (Hence, any hack test would need to be personalized.)

How many cliches does the author use?
Two.
“standing around the fireplace”
And one character asks another what they are thankful for on Thanksgiving.

How many pathetic fallacies does the author use?
None. Gilligan wrote a line about the “sun igniting yellow leaves;” and while she wasn’t being literal, it’s not a pathetic fallacy.

How many times does the author use a tense of the verb “to be?”
13

How many times does the author use an extraneous phrase that could be removed completely? (Not just a modifier, but an entire phrase.)
I intended for this question to identify wasted verbiage: for example, when people say they are going OVER there. I counted three examples.

One other thing that should be noted about Gilligan’s text: she often used passive voice when it wasn’t necessary. In fact, she did it twice in her second sentence.

A Good Man is Hard to Find
How many modifiers does the author use?
18

How many of those modifiers could be removed without changing the intent of the sentence?
I would have only removed four, maximum.

How many cliches does the author use?
One
“seizing at every chance”

How many pathetic fallacies does the author use?
I counted none.

How many times does the author use a tense of the verb “to be?”
Eight

How many times does the author use an extraneous phrase that could be removed completely? (Not just a modifier, but an entire phrase.)
I counted one.

O’Connor devoted most of her first two pages to dialogue. Consequently, there were less opportunities narrative sloppiness.

Italian Folk Tales
How many modifiers does the author use?
12 (Most of these modifiers came from the character’s name, Dauntless Little John, being repeated.)

How many of those modifiers could be removed without changing the intent of the sentence?
Four.

How many cliches does the author use?
I expected a lot of clichés because fairy tales tend to depend on tropes (daring young men, people in distress, haunted houses et al) and, while the plot has some predictable elements, I only counted two narrative clichés. They involved “lighting the way” and “living happily.”

How many pathetic fallacies does the author use?
None.

How many times does the author use a tense of the verb “to be?”
Twelve.

How many times does the author use an extraneous phrase that could be removed completely? (Not just a modifier, but an entire phrase.)
I counted five. Most of them tacked “up” or “down” unnecessarily to the end of verbs.

Conclusion
The only conclusion I derived from my mini-test is that the actual number of modifiers used does not seem to matter. Gilligan and O’Connor both used several modifiers, but O’Connor’s writing felt much more concise.

The most important statistic was the number of modifiers that could have been removed; and identifying useless modifiers requires the reader to be subjective, which defeats the purpose of the Hack Test.

My hypothesis was that “language can be used to objectively rank the quality of the writing.” My microtest seems to have proven my hypothesis false.

Damn. I hate when that happens.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com