As I explained in a post in 2023, the writing I do as an attorney creates problems for my fiction writing, such as over-explaining matters, overuse of dialog tags, overuse of the word “that” and the dangers of “grocery store syndrome.” However, there are ways in which my legal writing and my fiction writing complement each other, including the use of Microsoft Word, perseverance and engaging summaries.
Word “secrets” learned in one sphere carry over to the other. The first thing to understand about Word is that it comes loaded with default settings in place. Unfortunately, the person who chose those default settings was most likely a software engineer rather than a writer. The second thing to remember about Word is that it prefers to think for you, so unless you turn certain defaults off, Word does things you never expected or wanted. The third thing to remember about Word is that most of the stuff you want to do with it will never show up unless you click the “more” button. On the toolbar, the “more” button is a boxed in arrow in the lower right corner of each tool bar section, or an upside-down arrow next to a rectangular box or below a label such as “Styles,” “Editor” or “Compare.” The fourth thing to remember about Word is that most functions are never where you expect them to be.
An example of this is the way you get new sections in a longer work to begin page numbering at “1.” Go to the “Layout” tab, click the little upside-down triangle besides the word “Breaks” and click “Next Page” under section breaks. Doing so places a “section break” in your document, which tells Word it is okay for the numbers to start over if the author wants.
Of course, that information is useless unless you know how to put page numbers in to begin with. Page numbers are under the “Insert” tab about two-thirds of the way across the toolbar in the “Header & Footer” section. Click on the upside-down arrow beside the words “Page Number” and a menu opens up that lets you choose where you want the page numbers to go.
Another trick you won’t find by accident is centering pages vertically, which you might need for the title page of your manuscript. Click the little arrow symbol in the bottom right of the “Page Setup” box on the “Layout” tab. A “Page Setup” box pops up on your screen with three tabs. Choose the “Layout” tab in the little box, then look towards the center of the box, and you will see the words “vertical alignment” with a box beside it. Click on the little upside-down arrow on the box. One option is “center.” Choose it, and your page will be centered top to bottom. Remember to go back to that tab to reset the vertical alignment when you move on to the next page. A piece of cake, right? Or maybe not.
Perseverance in writing is something else my legal writing taught me. When the choices are get thrown out of court or get words onto a page, you learn to keep slogging along regardless of your inspiration level so you can meet the deadline. In fiction writing, the words don’t always fly from my fingertips to the keyboard; sometimes each sentence slumps forward at a glacial pace. The perseverance I learned writing briefs is useful then. I usually feel after such a difficult writing session that I have done the worst writing of my life, only to discover days or weeks later that what I wrote was acceptable.
There is a way in which my fiction writing has helped my legal writing as well. I almost never begin a brief now without giving the judge a few sentences about the case he is deciding in the most professionally dramatic way possible. I do this to help them understand why this case differs from the dozens (or hundreds) of other cases in front of them, and to help them care more about what happens to my client because of the brief. These summaries have benefited greatly from the same skills I learned to create a synopsis of a novel or story.
Unless you are one of the lucky people who can pursue this profession without a “day job,” how has your day job helped you with your writing or vice versa?
