When To Delete {Editing Tips}

 

All I can say is: be ruthless when it comes to anything that’s — clunky (awkward), redundant, superfluous, extraneous, clichéd, telling, overdone…

When it comes to having a nice fluidity to your narrative you have to ensure you remove things that simply don’t need to be there, simple! Take them out and if it still works then you are on the right track. Some writers think they have to say it in unique and interesting ways. While, to some extent, that might be true it can, if you work too hard, really feel forced. Then it simply doesn’t work! I have seen some wonderful metaphors and similes lost in a crowd of metaphors and similes! The trick is to use such devices sparingly and in just the right place. This gives them power. Got it?

 

Here are just a few things to ponder… I will talk about filler and the things you can lose from the actual story tomorrow!

• Description — this is important for allowing the reader to really ‘see inside the moment’, to visualise it as you intended them to, but they don’t need every single detail drawn in for them — just enough and perhaps more importantly to create the right mood, or tone, perhaps, even, to create the right sense of danger if you are leading them to the edge of a cliff face, for example. Sparing, yet vivid wins the day! So it really does come down to how you use your words and which ones. And if in a moment of great tension then whatever you do don’t stop to admire the view, make the description an active part of the movement itself. Look at how other writers do it!

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• Look at things like attributions; the ‘he said/she said’ in dialogue. You will find that a lot of the time you can remove these as long as you can stay with the flow of the conversation. Better to show some body language so we know who said it. And don’t write  ‘they paused’ — create the pause with an action! None of us stop and pause, well not really! Lose adverbs that are redundant if we can see how something is done or said. Lose different words for said when said is just fine (I have talked about this before!) Punchy and sharp!

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• Lose clichés as these are considered to be lazy prose! The tears streamed down the face… ugh! How about she dabbed her cheeks or some other more interesting way to show she was crying!

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• Telling tags: These tell why something is done or said when it’s usually obvious! She stopped the man to ask the time because she was worried she was late. Telling! If we see her rush and ask the time as she rushes we can see it, it’s shown! See what I mean?

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• Lose ‘that’ and ‘very’ and ‘just’: a lot of the time … see some of my deliberate crossings out. Also see the use of italics when I think the word is more functional so I left it in…  The way that he said it made her smile; he was just so angry (more active?); she was very jealous (though better to show this through actions… right?) Also think about some of the adverbs we overuse! Like ‘suddenly‘… So often there is no other way to interpret the action so lose it and just show the action!

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• Pleonasms: nodding the head; shrugging the shoulders; thinking in the mind… Where else? Get the idea?!!!

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The message here is very simple: if you can lose it, lose it. That way the writing becomes sharper! 🙂 Only repeat expressions or use words that are less functional in a sentence when part of character voice and there is a difference as I will show you later in the week!

Happy Tuesdaying!

 

 

Clunkedy clunk

No I am not talking about fastening your seat belt.

I am talking about one of the phrases I use a lot when I edit — clunky — also sometimes: awkward, unnatural, overwritten.

As writers we often want to show off — to demonstrate why we’re writers. We don’t just say it as it is,  we say she felt the adrenaline surge through her body making her hands shake and her body sweat with anticipation of the event she knew was coming. But is this okay? Well apart from the cliché of the surging adrenaline it’s clunky — especially the ‘in anticipation of the event she knew’ 😦  …  and it’s telling.

But I see sentences like this all the time in work I edit.  I think we all do this as we learn but the more experienced we become as writers the more discerning we also become. Often less is indeed more and while you should always look for ways to show emotion like this rather than report it, also look for simple ways to do it. So let’s look at this sentence I plucked from the air by way of example.

What does it mean?

Adrenaline = fear? Excitement?

Sweat= panic? Fear?

Anticipation = expectation, she knows what’s about to happen.

Well the knowledge that something is about to happen is a good teaser for the reader —  and this thing evokes fear or angst —  so we need to think of that as the function of this sentence.

So how can she show her fear?

She pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans — shows they might be trembling?

She raked her lower lip?

She sucked in a deep breath, held onto it.

Sweat soaked her blouse.

A line of sweat snaked along her top lip?

She closed her eyes.

There was no way to stop it now  (better tease?) 

All some or none of the above?

Also of course it’s hard to avoid clichés because even raking her lip might be seen as that.

Try to visualise the scene is a filmic way and show the reader how she moves, what she thinks, provide subtext so the reader assigns the emotion and the feels the uneasiness rather than simply tell the reader this is how she feels.

As part of your editing make sure you read your work out loud as this is a great way to capture these clunky phrases. Be succinct but that doesn’t mean you can’t be poetic, but think about the language you use, making sure it’s in voice and if you really can’t do it without the clunk — just say it as it is.

 

Have a great day everyone!

What an editor does …

I love getting up close and personal to other people’s writing — but what I love the most is seeing how suggestions and comments are put into practice and when the final version comes back it is so much better. I feel then that my role is justified.

New writers often ask  what to expect from an editor. Do they change your work? What if you don’t agree? Can you keep it your way?

In simple terms, an editor doesn’t just change your work and write a whole other story the way they’d do it! If they do — sack them! They do offer constructive and useful comments. I would change grammar errors where there is a hard and fast rule ,and I would remove run-on or words I feel are redundant but ONLY in track changes so the author can reverse the change if they disagree. And occasionally, if I think it’s the best way to show it, I will change a sentence to demonstrate  a point — see how this sharpens it, for example — a more hands on approach if I think the writer needs that and more often for a critique than a copy-edit. I tend to favour making suggestions — this is overwritten, consider sharpening — and I might suggest what could be better but leave it to them.

By marking your MS and highlighting the weaknesses it really is the best and fastest way to identify weaknesses in style, plot, narrative etc. I had read a great many books on writing but just reading that you need to show not tell and even with examples you can not always see how that applies to your own writing. So you have to let an editor into that personal creative space.

There are various tell-tale signs of the new writer, and we all do this  when we start to write — head hopping mid scene (often because the writer hasn’t even thought about it), telling rather than showing, overwriting using ‘awkward’ or ‘clunky’ phrasing, adding too much back-story and lifting the reader out of the story, overly long descriptive passages that slow the story, too many adverbs especially after dialogue (it’s telling), telling what’s already shown and use of other forms of repetition to drum home a point (tell the reader only once) and using as any different words for said as they can find!

Now these will all be ironed out as you learn and get feedback and new writers who invest in a professional critique will most certainly find this is a short cut to identifying key weaknesses so by the time they start sending work out it’s good.

If it’s good enough to be accepted or publication another editor will be appointed and you need to trust their judgement.

In my opinion there is no room for divas! Luckily for me this is incredibly rare and by this point the writers know the importance of the editorial process and have long since shed their tiara and  learned to take constructive criticism. They will already know that a good editor or critiquer  is worth their weight in gold. Because, and this is very  much my philosophy,  a critique, a copy-edit, even a proof read is a teaching aid and if you get a good editor you will learn. It’s still you writing it — but an editor makes it stronger — and we all need that guidance. At the end of the day it’s about making your writing as good as it can be. And this should be the goal of the writer and the editor and it has to be the goal of the publisher as he needs to sell the book!

So can you argue with the editor? Insist on not changing things? Of course you can — it’s only one opinion but it has to be remembered it’s a professional and experienced opinion (or it should be if you pay for it) and so you need to think carefully about the advice. But if you did something a certain way for good reason and make a good argument an editor will listen to you and wants you to be happy too.

As someone who has straddled both sides of the proverbial fence, even when I wasn’t so sure there was something wrong with something my editor had questioned —  I looked at it very closely and nearly always made some kind of change to remove any trace of ambiguity. I trusted her and she did make great suggestions.

Don’t be a diva!

Have a great weekend all — out shopping for a new tiara!

Style versus Voice in Writing

Today when I looked at the flashing cursor I reached for one of my many writing books for inspiration and flicked the pages imagining some invisible person said: STOP.

The book I picked up was: Larry Brooks  Story Engineering Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. I STOPPED on page 221.

Two expressions  that jumped out at me were writing style and writing voice — both of these often get confused and I do discuss them separately when I critique work professionally. Even when I Googled it the two words are used interchangeably. I guess it’s down to pedantics.

I  see the Writing Style  as separate from Voice. 

Writing style, Brooks claims, in akin to the literary uniform that you — the writer– dons. It’s how you compose your narratives: long or short sentences. laden with similes and metaphors or simple sentences, poetic or more direct, descriptive or not — and so on.

I would also suggest that you could extend this to encompass how you build those sentences into creating your structures, hence how you move your plots: i.e. use  of flashbacks, exposition, where you switch narrators as you follow your story arc to its resolution and denouement.  So in other words what devices you use in your story telling to tell your story effectively. For the purposes of critique, I tend to talk about use of phrasing, clunky words, overuse of adverbs, dialogue, description, even formatting (if they do it wrong for dialogue for example) here, as well as how they use flashback, back story — all of these general overall points under the heading style, looking for the things they commonly get wrong or don’t do as well. 

I tend to look at structure more in my discussion of plot but in reality it’s all part of  overall style.

Voice on the other hand is how  the story is told and you might think that also includes the things talked about above. And again it’s down to pedantics, labels. But I prefer to discuss voice with viewpoint. It’s WHO YOU HEAR. In the modern age where we shift away from the more old-fashioned, more prone to ‘telling’  voice of the omniscient narrator, the focus is a lot more on character viewpoint narrators. While it is your voice strictly speaking talking for your characters — it’s their voice we  hear.  So again, voice is who  the reader hears. So it could be you as the omniscient all-seeing narrator but more than likely it’s a character or in multiple viewpoint novels a succession of characters (but no head-hopping mid scene — new character narrators for chapter or  if needed scene but clearly formatted!). And as I have said before, even in a third person where we imagine it’s let’s say the author telling the reader Flo’s story — she thought —  the closer you get to her, the more intimate the connection and in essence it’s not really the author we hear — it’s Flo. We hear her dialect, her way of rambling in her own head i.e.  it’s her jumbled thoughts we’re privy to, no one else’s!  People struggle with that claiming the third person who’s narrating is you the author watching her and listening to her thoughts and therefore you organising those thoughts and translating them for the reader.  So your voice not theirs? Again partly true but have a look at how closely a Stephen King third person character is to first person? How invisible is the third person so all we really hear is the character? So you wouldn’t have the character even in third person say how they’ve gone pale or look tired unless they’re seeing themselves.  That’s what I’m talking about!

So for the purposes of a critique I would look at how the character narrates, quirks, odd phrases, first or third person, tense, their body language even — and this is why I tend to discuss with viewpoint.

So in a nutshell I would say Voice is how the character speaks (through you) and style is the technical stuff in terms of what words you choose and how you structure that.

It might be a game of labels, but so long as the author takes on board what works in their own writing and is receptive to improving weaknesses and working on both their style and their voice then that’s what matters.

I’ve found the more I read and the more I experiment with voice and technique my own distinctive signature style of writing and the voices I use, develop. After all, we are all unique — aren’t we?

Or are we?

More musings on all things writerly tomorrow. Got any nagging questions? Anything you want me to discuss — just ask away! I like a challenge — to stretch my writing muscle!

Happy Thursday!

Saying too much …

Getting a first draft down is a voyage of discovery. You are learning about your characters and their desires and conflicts as they steer you through the course of their journeys. And so there is a tendency to tell too much, to use too much back story (or exposition) and what you do is not only pause the action, but you lose any intrigue.

When we first meet someone they don’t tend to tell you their whole life story in the first five minutes (well most don’t!). We learn, we make preliminary judgements (often wrong) and we start to work them out. And that’s what you want to do in your writing. Show the reader enough and then build on that slowly. It’s much more enjoyable for the reader that way. And when you do reveal something put as much of it in the subtext as you can, shown through their actions and words, rather than tell us Mr Graham was a quiet sort; probably because his first wife never let him get a word in but now he’s remarried to a quieter woman he seems to be coming out of his shell.  All of this can be shown and woven like an invisible thread through the story.

A lot of the saying too much comes in early drafts and that’s okay if it’s your way of finding your way, getting acquainted with your character. Later you need to take it out and only show what’s needed when it’s needed (and if the above detail about Mr Graham is completely irrelevant because he’s the butcher who we only meet in the story once then not at all!). When you know the characters inside out, that is often enough to allow you to subtly write only the key features that makes a character seem real without the extraneous detail — as I always say if it doesn’t reveal character, move plot or at some level explore theme — lose it! But knowing all the background is still important to allow you to create real characters. Even Mr Graham with his two-minute cameo when the protagonist goes in to buy meat for her boyfriend (even though she’s veggie and has been since she saw a chicken beheaded on the farm she visited one summer with a friend because their family were big on farms and after the son died by choking on a peanut the family really needed a holiday and since it was her best friend whose brother choked on said peanut she wanted to be supportive but has never eaten meat since she saw that headless chicken) PAUSE for breath, where was I? Oh yeah even if Mr Graham only has a cameo you can still splash him with enough colour to  make him seem real without ANY of his back story unless you want to foreground something needed for plot. Got that? Glad someone has! And while my little back story excursion there isn’t as bad as some I see — trust me I do see them!

So get it down in a first draft if you have to, but then lose it.

The more experienced a writer you become, the less you will do this, even in a first draft.

When I see it, okay not as bad as my example, but when I do, it says amateur. Now that’s fine when I am mentoring or critiquing for a client because that’s the point, I’m teaching and learning at the same time (it’s two-way) — but when I see it in submitted work when I have my publisher hat on, I know this writer needs to work more on developing their craft.

It’s okay — we are all somewhere along that learning line. But get it right when you submit if you are hoping to be accepted for publication, that’s all I’m saying.

Right, back to my new short story …

Have a great day all. Still working on some more In The Spotlights for the Autumn … so watch this space. I also saw some more potential covers for the novel yesterday, one I LOVE in particular — all I will say is it’s very bold. Watch this space as I will reveal it here first.

And the same with characters …

We all fall down …

I thought I would do that looking in one of my writing books today and seeing which page I landed on and I landed on story structure.

I have talked about this before of course but it’s actually a key component to why some short stories and novels fail and why some really work. And I found not only did I have to get a real grasp of this for my own writing — but if I was to define what doesn’t work in someone else’s story I needed to really ‘get it’.

Some stories oddly, like one I looked at recently, kind of broke the rules, it moved over a large time gap in a short story, it also used an authorial voice shifting from one character to another and it’s structure was slightly skewed in terms of arc and the conflict driving it — yet it worked and so it forced me to look more closely at how it was structured. And it also proves we need to know the rules, we need to ‘get it’ before we then play around. And while we might say with something like the arts, there has to be room for subjectivity (and who’s arguing) at the same time we need to know how to build our houses  — so they don’t fall down. And there are many ways to do that right? But while there may be many types of houses, they all need the same key features — good foundations, support work, roof etc and this metaphor can be applied to how we structure our stories.

Actually when I did tease apart the structure of the story mentioned, I saw that what ran through it was something that connected each character, in different times and places and almost took on the role of the character the reader engages with even though it’s not a person, it’s not even a living thing. And here formed the skeletal backbone around which the other components assembled. And that’s why it worked. It did follow the rules!

Structure is key. Might sound obvious but trust me when I say how many stories I read that fall down, literally because not enough attention is paid to this very thing. It isn’t always enough just to tell the story in a linear way but at other times it’s exactly what’s needed to help along a limping,meandering, overcomplicated plot. So as you can see it’s no exact science.

For me it’s about making sure the basic structure is totally sound and then starting with a simple arc, a strong story and then add the complexities to it BUT never tear up the foundations (the THEME) or the joists or the walls that hold it together or it will fall down.

If you do it right you will feel it and you will measure that in the reactions to it. And if you think it was more by fluke than design take a closer look. Study the structure — do the same with books and stories you love and think how you can use that in your own work.

When I do my second bit edit on a completed first draft it’s the structure I look at before I start getting pedantic about the words and the way I develop voice and use language (also integral to the story but more interior design than stabilising walls). And since you might well lose characters and whole plot points in the ‘redesign’ then start with the structure and redecorate later.

So what you ask is structure precisely? Well it’s how is the story told? Three first person narratives at different time points? Multiple narrators chronologically? Using the past and the present in an alternating way? Time slip … etc. And again this all boils down to the question I ask my clients all the time BUT IS THIS THE BEST WAY TO TELL THIS STORY? Look at voices, who’s telling the story? Does the tense work? Do the voices sound different? Would it be better to start at the climax and work back? Do you need all the build-up, why not start in the action and then go back and build to it? Do you need all the exposition (back story) at the beginning (NO!) — you carefully drip feed on a need to know basis?

And how is your scene placement and function tied to the theme — how does it explore it since everything needs to EXPLORE THEME — and REVEAL CHARACTER AND MOVE PLOT. So does it?

There are many ways novelists and short story writers structure their work and so the only way to really grasp it is to read what other writers do well and not so well and write, write and oh er — write. And if you have a story written one way, let’s say a very articulate first person monologue of let’ say a woman talking about the loss of her child — now see if you can tell the same story in a different way. Can you use a different voice, alternating narrators to show a whole other perceptive, start at the end and move backwards and now see what works the best?

In a world of infinite possibilities, there is an exciting assortment of methods and techniques and structures out there — you won’t be reinventing the wheel, but the more you play, the more you might just hit upon a masterpiece in structural engineering. And it might feel new. I think that’s the magic agents and publishers are looking for — that thing that’s so hard to define.  But they know it when they see it and so will you. And the odd thing is when I  come across a novel like that, or its film adaptation even though it might feel new and innovative and exciting — it also feels like a story I know! And one I wish I’d written. Do you get me?

So always worth mixing up your writing and trying something new.

And won’t it be fun trying.

 

One that falls down?

When ideas come …

Sometimes they fall like Autumn leaves to make a rich carpet around you. Like confetti tumbling out of the sunshine.

Sometimes they burrow with the ferocity of a squirrel stashing nuts — you need to work to tease them out.

Sometimes they bathe you like waves washing over you — and sometimes they drown you, obsess you, drag you to the surface gasping for air.

But then they come, they come.

And you need to hold onto them and breathe life through them.

That is the job of the writer.

Have a great weekend everyone! Enjoy the sunshine 🙂

Pleonasms …

No they’re not some kind of intergalactic creature off Dr Who (although that might be SO cool), nor is that gunge  the oozes in the wake of ghostly apparitions the GhostBusters seek.

And no I haven’t misspelled neoplasms which is something altogether different.

Pleonasms are in essence superfluous words or phrases like — thinking in the mind, seeing with the eyes — a common one I just removed about 5 of in the final copy-edit of my novel — nodding the head. See how thinking, seeing, nodding, unless you are one of those intergalactic creatures from Dr Who with anatomical anomalies, can not be effected by any other part of the body and so become redundant, or pleonasms.

Pay attention to this, they might ask a question about it on The Chase: Is a pleonasm: A. A cancerous growth of cells. B. Slimy exudate secreted by ghostly apparitions or C. A superfluous of redundant phrase in literature.

Well they could!

(Get to the point Debz or this whole post will be pleonastic! (If that’s even the  word!))

I often mark a text with ‘superfluous’ — I don’t tend to use the pleonasm word for fear the client will think the Martians have finally invaded my head. But it is an important concept for us writers to grasp — being spare in language, using just the right word and not repeating, or telling what’s shown all form part of superfluous or redundant phrasing and their removal from text does two things — one, first and foremost, its removal has no impact on the meaning of the sentence and two, fundamental to good writing, it SHARPENS the writing.

So take a look at how many of these you use. I know I do and I try to use a ‘remove superfluous phrasing’ or ‘pleonasm’ edit — although of course if we can think about it as we write we writer sharper!

To return to that ageing chestnut of showing and telling, what I often see is something like this:

He felt really hot. “God I’m boiling,” he said, wiping a handkerchief across his brow. Then slowly he peeled off his jacket, large inkblot stains of sweat clinging to his armpits.

Now at first glance you might think this reads okay and you’ll see just this kind of thing in published texts but what you have is telling the reader ‘He felt hot’, then the character tells the reader and THEN you show it.

So consider  simply: He wiped a handkerchief across his brow. Then slowly he peeled off his jacket, large inkblot stains of sweat clinging to his armpits. 

In other words (and yes I know this imagery is a bit gross but that’s my warped mind I guess!) JUST SHOW IT. Now you’re using ACTION to scene build, and you can now use your dialogue more effectively so it moves plot; something like He looked across at her, watched the way she fumbled with her uncle’s watch; leaned towards him. “Please help me find him,” she said. He wiped a handkerchief across his brow. Then slowly he peeled off his jacket, large inkblot stains of sweat clinging to his armpits. “I’ll try,” he said. “But I can’t make any promises.”

Okay yes this was written totally off the cuff now so no prizes for how it could be better — but see how now all your give your reader is a visual image of a girl asking for help and see him sweating (maybe the room’s hot, maybe he’s nervous, maybe he knows that happened to the uncle) but this is where the reader starts to work and that’s empowering for a reader. But nowhere here did you say he felt hot, he never said it — but we know it because we see it.

See?

So no more seeing with the eyes, thinking in the mind, nodding the head or telling what’s shown!

Today’s challenge — teach someone the word ‘Pleonasm’ who didn’t know what it meant! A random stranger if you dare!

A snatch of beauty by yours truly 

Where thoughts wander …

Not a Poem

 

 

The world is a lush green, air misted with rain.

Sounds of bird song and dog padding — splashy.

Cool mist refreshes skin as we walk .

The lane curves, edges billow with life.

Distant voices — children.

Smells of wet earth.

How delightful a morning walk even in the rain.

And now — smells of wet dog and footprints on wooden floors — drippy.

But how wonderful the day can be edged with such finery.

How lucky.

My Country Garden … looks like it just happened.

… a different kind of buzz …

I recall a few years ago after a long day of sightseeing in San Diego, flopping wearily onto the bed in our motel room and deciding to order a pizza while we relaxed.

At some point while waiting I had drifted into a snooze when I felt someone (or so I thought) shaking the bed violently. I opened my eyes in most likely an accusing manner to see Nikki, my friend on her bed way across the room with her face caught in what I would call a scream. It was the first official earthquake I had been awake or still enough to notice. And when it was over we buzzed with a kind of scared excitement.

In the three months or so I spent in the San Fernando Valley, right over the San Andreas Fault I seemed to have an uncanny knack of missing the earth tremors. Sometimes asleep, sometimes on a bus, and Jan my friend would say “You must’ve felt the one today?” And I’d say “No!” Don’t get me wrong I know the devastation earthquakes can cause so it’s not said flippantly. I just wanted to feel a small one that caused no damage.

And last night I was again shaken awake around 4 am. I didn’t look at the time, I just knew it was light and birds were tweeting but that there sounded like a bus engine parked outside my bedroom window and at one point; the point I was rudely awakened, my headboard was juddering the way a bus vibrates. I jumped out of bed and said to the cats, “What was that?” I then went to the windows, front and back — no bus or van parked outside.

I did wonder but I thought maybe I was dreaming. The cats were looking at me weird, like I’d done something!  Er … no! I did even wonder if there had been a van outside and maybe the juddering was the cats scratching in tandem and shaking the bed– but unless I had full-grown tigers on my bed — it was an unlikely scenario.

I did, needless to say, fall back to sleep. And this morning it might all have been a dream had I not turned on my phone to see a Facebook Post from a friend saying “Only I could sleep through an earthquake.”

Ah I thought.

Ah.

Oh … yes. Ah indeed.

Rosie didn’t seem to hear it or if she did, she didn’t care.

Now this isn’t a post about writing or reading. But it did make me think, at 4 am how fragile we all are. How small we all are. Can you imagine the power of something like that that shakes the earth and this was only a small one.

And in a funny odd sadistic kind of way, I enjoyed the feeling.

I think I will need to use that in a story some time.

Oh life is really a buzz sometimes …. literally.

 

 

BBC News — here’s the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22699004

Expect the unexpected…