It’s summer and Ruth is buried under a mountain of editing on her novel due to her agent soon soon. Gwynn is buried under last-minute prep for the Northumberland Festival of the Arts running Sept 16 to Oct 2. Sooo…. we decided that we would rerun one of our most popular blogs because the tips in this list never grow old and we can all do with a reminder now and then.
1. Get the action going
Replace passive, weak verbs, especially forms of the verb “to be”
Before: It was a dark and stormy night.
After: The storm raged through the blackness.
2. Keep things moving forward by reducing the use of “had”
“Had” refers to “completed’ action. It has no forward movement. Use “had” once or twice at the start of a section/paragraph to establish the time period, then revert to simple past tense.
Before: She had been the only one in the house, and had paid the rent faithfully each month. She had taken care of the place and had put up drapes and painted.
After: She had been the only one in the house, and paid the rent faithfully each month. She took care of the place and put up drapes and painted.
3. Keep the action going
Delete empty words like very/somewhat/really. Energize the word being modified instead.
Before: Despite the very hot afternoon….
After: Despite the afternoon’s sweltering heat…
4. Keep your actions strong; beware the “-ly” adverb
Can you replace it with a stronger active verb?
Before: He went quickly
After: He ran – or dashed, charged, bolted…
5. Change up the senses you use in description.
We default to the sense of sight. Try replacing visual details with ones of another sense.
Before: Anita set the gold-rimmed tea cup on the lace cloth…
After: The tea cup rattled in the saucer as Anita placed it on the lace cloth…
6. Take your reader deeper into the world of the story
Look for named emotions (happy, sad) or physical states (fearful, tired) and replace with concrete and sensory detail.
Before: She felt disappointed
After: She sank onto the bench and hugged her knees
7. Keep your writing fresh
Look for tired and overused clichés. (Microsoft Word’s grammar checker notes clichés with green squiggly lines.) Create visuals that add to the story or your character.
Before: His beard was as white as snow
After: His beard was as white as his lab coat
8. Eliminate repetition. Eliminate repetition.
Identify any “writer’s tic” that you know you have. Phrases, descriptions, gestures and so on, rapidly lose their energy when they are overused or placed too closely together.
How many times do your characters “roll their eyes” or “take a deep breath?”
How many times have your told readers it’s “a red car?”
9. Keep your tricky words tamed
Are there words you constantly mispell…um…misspell? Are you working with strange names or technical terms? Keep them correct and consistent by adding them to your software’s dictionary or AutoCorrect function.
How to: Right click on the word. Choose either Add to dictionary or AutoCorrect
10. Know your country
Is it color or colour? Are they good neighbours or good neighbors? Writing for American readers, Australian readers or British readers? Incorrect spelling won’t please your publisher. Make sure your software is defaulted to the “right” English.
How to: Most MSWord programs have the language default on the bottom info bar. Left click to select your language.
If you found this helpful, let your writing friends know. Share it!
Our congratulations to Helen Bajorek-MacDonald for winning Writescape’s summer Postcard Story Contest, with her story Woman with Cigarette
You can read her winning story below, followed by our comments on why we chose this story as our winner. And after our comments, read why and how Helen wrote this story. Truly inspirational!
If you missed them, please follow these links for the 2nd-place and 3rd-place winning stories and our comments on those.
Here again is the contest image that inspired this story.
Woman with Cigarette
by Helen Bajorek-MacDonald
You think you want to crawl over me, slither across my skin, creep into my soul.
You think you can create a masterpiece with your authoritative direction and with darkroom magic. One that will earn what you expect: praise for your technical skill, for your ability to render beauty.
You think you can possess me, after you gift me with your obsessive eye, and the promise of immortality.
And you think you can do all this with a click of the shutter.
Maybe.
You perform as artiste.
Uncompromising behind the camera, you peer through the viewfinder.
Click.
Then the sound of the film advance lever.
Click-advance.
Again, again, between prompts and coos and directives barked by a lusty hound.
Click-advance.
“Good! Almost there! Lift your face. No, don’t look up. Chin up! A little. Eyes on the camera. Look deep into the lens.”
The staccato rhythm of the shutter-and-advance-lever echoes the intensity of your tone and commands.
“Don’t move. Just look. Right at me.”
My head’s right, but the eyes aren’t.
More barking.
My neck’s right, but the shoulders aren’t
“Raise your arm over your head.”
Not a question.
I thought it would be easy and fun. First one, then the other, taking photos for our first portraiture assignment. It’s just a few weeks into our photography programme where I am the sole female student, and already it’s all insistent tones and breathless snapping. Just another reminder that I am – merely – subject. For your camera and of your desires.
You complain that there’s not enough light because of the storm.
The rain beating against the window of your shabby one-room apartment makes me shiver, and I wonder … when will you ask me to take off my clothes, for the sake of art?
More instructions.
“Back in a minute,” you announce as you get up from your crouched position on the hardwood floor.
~~~
As she stands to stretch, her eyes sweep the room. Her camera waits on its tripod. Atop a beaten dresser, cup circle stains are partially exposed under the clutter of keys, cigarette packs, matchbooks, a brimming ashtray, and other miscellany.
Maybe it was the clatter of thunder that drums an idea into her mind.
She moves quickly and purposefully.
She sets up her camera. Pre-focusses on the couch. One frame left in the roll of film. One chance to get the focus and exposure right, and to coolly pose herself.
She grabs a cigarette from atop the dresser, sets the camera’s self-timer, dashes to her position at the couch.
Pose. Gaze into the lens. Be you!
Click.
She and her camera are gone before he emerges from the bathroom.
Later, under her darkroom’s safelight, the image reveals itself in the developer tray.
A whisper: Woman with Cigarette.
Why we chose this entry as the winner
Risk in any art form is part of stretching the creative soul and we feel that in this story, huge risks were taken, and they worked. Risks in POV and content themes.
Narration/voice/POV – the writer took a huge risk in moving from what seems to be second-person narration but what the reader is surprised to realize is first-person narration by the character directed at an anonymous “you” — followed by a full shift into third-person narration at the point the “I” narrator takes control of her movements and poses, makes the decision to photograph herself with the last shot in her film (which means she likely expended all but one on the fellow student who is male.) It’s unexpected and despite common advice to not switch POV in a short piece, in this story it works. It does take time to realize what is happening and may challenge some readers, but the payoff was worth it. The story begs a second read to savour the story again with that realization.
Theme: Tackling a familiar subject — the female as object — is also risky because it has been done and done and done. But this feels fresh, partly because of the intriguing shift in POV.
Intensity of the moment which is always a plus for a postcard story — like the click of the camera, a few minutes only are captured and shared to create an emotional effect on readers. Little is given as background or character relationships, but a lot is implied.
Layers – even though we see only a few moments of story action, there are big issues presented for readers to consider: We’re asked to consider the idea of “subject” as seen through the lens of the camera — and that that lens takes a perspective from the person lining up the shot. We are asked to consider the trope of female model posing equals permission for sex. We are asked who has control – of the art and of the model?
Twist: the tropes of subject and model and control as part of the production of perfect art is upended with the sense of the personal as she takes control of the last photo — she chooses the lighting, the pose and backdrop — all of it her decision.
The style of the first part is staccato like the click click of the camera. Short sentences and paragraphs, sometimes even just one word per line. No descriptions of setting or characters. Everything is focussed, mechanical, shallow, artificial, dehumanizing. In the second half, the writing becomes more fluid and human. We see some of the surroundings and there is character movement and building to a motivated point. The reader is involved in the action and outcome.
Both of us felt that the writer’s attention to craft in this fine story was as strong as any we’ve read over the years in various journals and anthologies.
We asked Helen why she entered and what was it about this photograph that took her into this story…
Helen Bajorek-MacDonald
Over the last two years I have been home ill, battling sarcoidosis. Symptoms include debilitating fatigue and visual and cognitive impairment. Not good for a college professor who teaches communications!
When the Covid-19 quarantine struck, I was already accustomed to self-quarantine. But, my world grew even smaller. While unable to devote more than a few minutes each day to reading or writing, I decided as the quarantine dragged on that I needed something to do. So, I turned to Writescape as I knew of the work of Gwynn and Ruth from Writers’ Community of Durham Region (WCDR). A blog is short, requiring little time and energy, and it is easy to enlarge text on a computer screen. It was something I could give precious time and resources to, without compounding my health challenges.
Ruth’s blog, “Picturing Inspiration” resonated especially strongly. Firstly, because it combined two things I love to do: writing and photography.
Secondly, the image haunted me. Maybe because of the times, but I kept thinking about the masks we wear. Yet, the woman in the photograph seems to be unmasked.
Further, she is in repose, but this didn’t make visual sense to me, so I kept turning the picture around to see what the image might ‘say’ if she were erect.
I was especially struck by the direct gaze of the woman in the photograph. Not blank, I wondered what she was projecting to the photographer. What was the photographer trying to achieve? And who was the photographer? Further, there was a nagging whisper over my shoulder … why was her cigarette unlit?
These and other questions led me to conclude that the woman must be the photographer. Her gaze suggests a certain confidence, defiance, direct communication with the camera’s lens. Though this is no 21st century selfie. It’s a self-portrait. It’s art. But how did she come to take the photograph? And what was her motivation for the self-portrait?
I began to think about the reasons one does a self-portrait. Lots of history and critical mass of the male self-portrait, in painting, photography and in writing. Not so for women. Even less awareness of the female self-portrait.
Frida Kahlo Self Portrait
Perhaps predictably, I imagined the woman in the image to be a student in a photography programme. I determined she was a trailblazer. Defiant. Confident. Keenly aware how others might view her self-portraiture – as ‘less than’ in the art world [yes, I imagined her an artist; she’s got something of a beatnik look to her which helped me determined her era] – similar to the reception given to painters Frida Kahlo and Tamara de Lempicka, who woman-with-cigarette might have known, and photographers Elsa Dorfman and Vivian Maier, who remained largely unknown throughout their lives, and about whom woman-with-cigarette likely would not learn of in a school of photography.
As I thought of the challenges woman-with-cigarette would face in her aspirations to be a photographer, I was reminded of the work of African-American photographer Deborah Willis, who was told when she entered an all-male Bachelor of Fine Arts (photography) program in the early 1970s that she was taking up a man’s seat, when all she’d end up doing was have babies. One of her earliest and most profound works is Willis’ self-portrait triptych, “I made space for a good man.” A direct, confident, and political response to those who would silence her creative voice.
And so, I envisioned the woman-with-cigarette in the late 1960s; maybe early 1970s. A nascent feminist and emerging artist, committed to the study of photography, and most certainly possessing some skill and creative talent. She was going places with her art!
And, I determined, she knew enough about art history to know that Woman with Cigarette is almost a cliché over-saturated subject for painters. The greatest challenge in writing “Woman with Cigarette” was to find a subtle way to expose her ironic joke with self.
Writescape’s contest became a much-needed distraction during challenging times, as well as allowed writing to become part of my wellness plan.
Thank you to Writescape for offering the writing challenge, “Picturing Inspiration”. It’s not easy to write to spec. But, Ruth’s blog and the image were a perfect Goldilocks challenge for me. Absolutely, the right time! Just the right length to manage with my limited personal resources. The image checked all of the right inspirational boxes. And, most important, because I struggle with brevity, clarity, and conciseness in my writing, the postcard parameter of the competition offered a perfect opportunity to wrestle with these skills. As Timothy Findlay once observed, a writer must learn to “kill her darlings”. Not so easy! My first draft was almost 900 words.
Thank you, Ruth and Gwynn, for this writing challenge, for your feedback, and for allowing readers to read the three finalist stories. It is inspiring to read the unique approaches to the telling of ‘her’ story.
Helen Bajorek-MacDonald is an educator, writer and photo-text artist, whose writing has been published in books, journals, anthologies, magazines and newspapers.
Helen has exhibited collaborative visual/textual works with partner Jean-Michel Komarnicki, such as “Water and Iron” in Clarington Taken (Visual Arts Centre of Clarington), and in a group exhibition, Reading the Image (Whitby Station Gallery).
Today we continue with our 2nd-Place winner, Lori Twining and her story Smoke Job. Our comments and suggestions appear after the story.
Here again is the contest inspiration image.
SMOKE JOB
by Lori Twining
There’s an off-duty cop in the backyard blowing leaf-litter all over the grey Ford sedan and the black Cadillac SUV, both stolen days before in a violent carjacking. There’s an ex-con sprawled out on the living room floor wielding a highlighter over a set of blueprints. There’s a young techie perched over the kitchen table setting all four watches—stolen in a smash and grab last month—to the same time because seconds are crucial.
Lastly, there’s a liar, a thief, and a snitch stretched across the leather couch enjoying her last dart. She contemplates several of her life choices, especially the ones she neglected to make, and the one she made hours ago, but regrets already.
Individually, the four of them are troubled souls with big dreams, but together, a powerful force.
Stella blows a smoke ring above the ex-con’s head and stares at the clock. In less than two hours, she’ll be celebrating her last heist, boarding a plane, and sinking her toes into the soft sand of the Virgin Islands. Nothing beats the smell of deep-fried conch fritters basted with sweet and spicy sauce wafting from Hemingway’s Caribbean Café unless it’s the salty taste of her forever sea.
* * *
The sedan stops in front of the building. Four individuals touch their watches to begin the countdown. They are clothed in black, wearing balaclavas, with guns firmly gripped in gloved hands. They step out of the car, leaving the doors wide open and rush toward the bank.
Ten seconds later, Techie has them inside. He uses a jamming device to knock out the security cameras, along with the alarm system. Blueprint guy heads to the vault, with off-duty guy hot on his heels. They have five minutes.
Stella stands in the shadows scanning the street for activity. Waits three minutes. She reaches into her backpack and retrieves the item, pulling the pin and tossing the frag into the sedan. She races into the bank, down the hall, and out the backdoor to the waiting Cadillac. She climbs behind the wheel.
Her mind wanders as she tries to remain calm…Serial killers still feed their goldfish, pyromaniacs still swim with dolphins and the president still swears on an upside-down and backward Bible, while spewing lies.
She holds an imaginary cigarette between her fingers and blows another invisible smoke ring. This will be her last. She’ll be sure to tell her offspring she never smoked a day in her life.
Sirens sound. Soon, they’ll be running for their lives from Police with dogs, helicopters with reporters, and grandmas with their I-told-you-so wagging fingers. There are many decisions in life, and now, she wonders, should she stay or should she bolt?
The snitch would kill for another smoke. Instead, she drops her hand to her belly, fingers splayed. She whispers, “Time for Mommy to disappear and time for Daddy to have a 20-year sleepover with all the men who hate him.” She presses the gas pedal to the floor.
Strengths:
Authentic voice — hard-edged and worldly yet tentative. Stella is a complicated narrator telling a tale of betrayal. The slow reveal of her betrayal is tantalizing with tension building nicely and the ending packs a nice punch.
Deliberate attention to detail and word choice – This is a story that invites a second read to look for the clues offered. The two cars: the team think she’s distracting by blowing one up but she’s faster than they are, and the SUV waits at the back door for her to leave the three holding the bag. She’s “the snitch” — and told us so in the beginning. We just didn’t know she was snitching on these particular three at this particular moment. No names here but hers which helps us believe she can be that cool to make this choice. And the coming baby – lots of echoes in the text — “offspring” and “Virgin Islands” for example — that fit with her pregnant state.
The twist: Her motivation for betrayal becomes crystal clear — it’s not the lure of escape for herself but for her baby. After all, she’s already given up smoking for that baby.
Loaded title: Smoke Job. So many definitions for that title and all of them relevant to this story. Smoke job – hiding the truth; smoke job – exposing others; smoke job – sexual heightening by the woman; smoke job – destruction.
There’s subtle, clever and topical humour here. Very difficult to pull off successfully, but well done in this piece. “Serial killers still feed their goldfish, pyromaniacs still swim with dolphins and the president (purposely lower case) still swears on an upside-down and backward Bible (purposely uppercase), while spewing lies.” Or “She’ll be sure to tell her offspring she never smoked a day in her life”
What could be stronger:
In such a tight piece, clarity must be paramount. Readers should not need to re-read a line to be sure to understand the events. The leaf-litter being blown over the cars was intriguing but didn’t seem logical as the heist was “in less than two hours”. Was the leaf-litter to hide the cars? Was the leaf-litter being blown OFF the cars in readiness? They were stolen days earlier.
Postcard stories are stories of the moment – resist long lead- ins and begin “in media res” if possible. We know you wanted the image (like the contest image) of Stella “enjoying her last dart”, but perhaps consider starting instead driving to the bank, and converting the beginning part to her thoughts on the ride.
Naming only Stella was a good choice, but “tag-names” can get confusing. Especially when they change: Off-duty cop became off duty guy; ex-con became blue-print guy. Suggest using consistent tags as names with Caps – still impersonal, but easier to understand: “Off-duty Cop blows leaf-litter …. Ex-con sprawls on the living room floor… Techie perches…..
Passive construction rears it’s ugly head a fair amount in this story. Lots of “to be” verbs keep readers distanced from the rising tension. Look for “was/is/are” and replace with more active verbs or reorder the sentence to avoid them as much as possible.
Also, proofread to catch grammar errors like police vs Police — generic so no capitalization.
A quirky and fun ride, Lori. We enjoyed reading this story — congratulations!
That’s two winning stories down and one to go….the 1st Place winner. We’ll publish the winner next week complete with our comments.
In the meantime, perhaps you have a flash fiction piece you can polish up and submit to one of these contests or journals:
Thank you once again to all who entered our contest from Canada and abroad, and to our longlist finalists announced last week.
Today we take great pleasure in announcing and congratulating the top three winners:
Drum roll please……
1st Place: Helen Bajorek-MacDonald – Woman with Cigarette
2nd Place: Lori Twining – Smoke Job
3rd Place: Ann Rocchi – Quarantine Dreams
Beginning today with our 3rd-Place winner, we will share these stories with you over the next three weeks and tell you why we chose them.
Before you read Ann Rocchi’s story Quarantine Dreams, here again is the contest image that served as inspiration.
Quarantine Dreams
by Ann Rocchi
Like a bad penny, her smoking returned. It was something to do! Something to fill the empty hours. Adrienne was usually a busy person – too busy, her friends said. This enforced isolation was not going well for her. She was lethargic, unmotivated…she felt like she had a piano tied to her ass. So. Cigarettes. Social media was advising everyone to reach out to connections from the past. She always felt connected when she was smoking. Connected to the cool kids, the ones who wore buffalo plaid shirts over their school uniforms and reigned over the rearmost bench of the bus. Connected to the hip crowd in college, lighting up after one-off sex with whoever you had brought home from the pub. Connected to her ex-husband; even when they could no longer hold a civil conversation, they could sit in silent communion with their smokes. She still smoked when she drank. And her drinking had skyrocketed lately, too. Kool-Aid coloured cocktails with paper parasols in fishbowl-sized glasses. Why, oh why, had she gone through with the whole fortieth birthday trip? Of course, everything was booked and paid for long before a whisper of “pandemic”. But they deserved it, right, she and her posse of single moms? They had worked hard all winter, shoveled their own driveways, carpooled till the cows came home and now it was time to park the kids with the grandparents and party. It felt so good to lie in the sun, a lovely buzz going from that fourth fruity drink, without some sticky little hand grabbing at her. There had been one sticky hand that trip, though, and not so little, either… Brendon? Brandan? One of those boy band names. He was tanned, taut and tattooed. They were partners for the Traditional Firewalking Event at the resort. He had talked her into it, had even done it already as a team building exercise back home with his work, Millennials R Us, or some other bullshit company she couldn’t remember. She was sauced, and when their leader exclaimed how empowered and spiritually connected she would feel afterwards, she ditched her shoes, grabbed the young hipster’s hand, and casually strolled across a fiery path of burning coals. She had ridden him like a goddess that night. Adrienne leaned over, chugged her beer, then tapped her cigarette butt in a houseplant to dislodge the ash. She took a quick peek through the curtains at her kids playing in the yard, then nestled back into the curvature of the couch. She inhaled deeply, held, exhaled. She felt like a lazy, good-for-nothing underachiever. This was her last smoke, she vowed. She would get up and make a healthy dinner for everyone. Baby steps. Just a quick rest first. Resolved, Adrienne finally relaxed. Her head bobbed, her cigarette drooped. Her vision blurred, hazy and ash gray, like the smoke of the firewalk. Adrienne slid into a deep sleep, not even the whiff of charred fabric interrupting her descent.
Strengths:
voice — believable narrator, unreliable and sad – always in character of bargaining, denial, trying to fit in, lacking self-confidence etc.
the ending — oh we fear for her, for the smoking fabric, the fact she’s been drinking, the kids in the yard — it’s all about to go up in smoke.
especially enjoyed that the element of surprise at the end is built logically through the story but is still unexpected. The girls trip and that one night with Brendan/Brandan feels real from risking the firewalking to risking a random one-night stand.
setting the story during Covid19 lends a topical and contemporary feel. We all understand how depression and so many other feelings seem to be heightened in these times. Makes this scenario all the more believable.
good subtle foreshadowing throughout starting with the first line. We know things will not go well: Her smoking returned like a bad penny.This was her last smoke… ash grey, like the smoke of the firewalk.
style — mix of sentence lengths for effect, repetition and sets of 3 for effect, building on ideas such as “connected” from school to adulthood: Connected to her ex-husband; even when they could no longer hold a civil conversation, they could sit in silent communion with their smokes. (Especially effective as this narrator is clearly not connected emotionally to much — a worsening drunk making deals with herself to manage everyday life.)
some fresh and effective figurative language: like she had a piano tied to her ass; her posse of single moms; nestled into the curvature of the couch.
As she begins her final decent into lethargy, the language becomes slower and more lethargic too. No vivid descriptions. Short simple sentences. And one moment of heightened tension (peek at the kids in the back yard) to make the reader want to reach into the story and shake her out of her stupor.
What might strengthen this piece:
While this character is certainly increasingly passive and reflective as she slips deeper into her drink and eventual sleep, we suggest fewer instances of passive verb construction: lots of “to be” verbs, especially at the beginning, keep readers distanced from the rising tension. Look for “was/is/are” and replace with more active verbs or reorder the sentence to avoid it as much as possible: This enforced isolation was not going well for her. She was lethargic, unmotivated. Other possibilities: Enforced isolation left her lethargic, unmotivated. Or Lethargy and lack of motivation had gripped her during this enforced isolation.
Timeline glitch: 40th birthday trip took place “long before a whisper of pandemic”, but she went after “they had worked hard all winter.” The pandemic started at end of 2019. It reached us around end of Jan and into Feb. Lockdown began in March.
Quarantine Dreams was a pleasure to read. Congratulations Ann on crafting such a great story.
Next week we publish the second-place winner along with our comments and suggestions. In the meantime, if you would like to enjoy reading or learning more about flash fiction or postcard stories, check out these links.
For the month of May 2020, we imagine many of you are thinking about your manuscripts. Isn’t it time to give yourself time away from focusing on hand washing and sterilizing the grocery bags? We think so. This month’s 10 on the 10th blog post is designed to help you spot story pot holes and set about fixing them. Happy writing!
1. Refuse to Revise: Perhaps someone, somewhere, sat down and wrote the perfect 87,000-word novel without making a single change, each word falling onto the page like an elegant dance of perfection. Um. No.
Truth is, for most of us, the successful novel or story is the result of repeated revisions. Not just proofreading and editing for spelling and grammar. We’re talking revisions. Dropping the first three chapters of backstory and starting just before the inciting incident. Rewriting the ending completely with a different purpose in mind than the original ending. Revision is not for the faint of heart, but getting your hands deep and dirty into your manuscript is part of shaping it into publisher-ready material.
2. Start in a perfect world: A perfect world without any hint of discord or danger is a fantasyland. From kids who leave dirty dishes in the basement to the pestering pets demanding attention, our ordinary lives are full of irritations and disappointments. But remember to save the big issues for the inciting incident. That big crack in your main character’s world is what drives the narrative into the meat of the story.
3. Only develop your protagonist: You know everything about your main character from favourite pets to emotional wounds, from the layout of a childhood bedroom to motivations for every action taken.
But the other characters in the novel circle like stage actors waiting to appear and act for the sole convenience of the protagonist. Life and stories don’t work that way. All characters should act from their own motivations and experiences. Ditch the cardboard, and put flesh on everyone’s bones.
4. Avoid Danger or Fear: For effective fiction, tension is necessary. There are degrees of tension used by writers. Some books (especially thrillers) can start with a bang but others gradually develop tension in a variety of ways. From a foreshadow (“Careful Maeve, that horse is skittish”) or bit of figurative language (looming dark skies, thunder in the distance, etc.), skillful writers learn to raise the stakes with tension as the story goes forward.
5. Rely on Expounding Exposition: Scenes with action, dialogue and tension propel your story forward. Lengthy passages of and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened will put your reader to sleep. Seek out places where you give information that could be better delivered in a scene between characters.
Ginny was worried that Dewa’an was afraid. It was his first sleepover at her house. She comforted him by reading a story and leaving the light on.
OR
“Dewa’an, would you like me to stay and read you a story?”
He barely nodded, his eyes still wide and searching.
Ginny held up Stuart Little. “My kids loved this one. Maybe you will too.”
She’d barely read ten pages when he fell asleep. Ginny kept reading for two more pages just to be safe. Before she left the bedroom, she switched off the biglight and turned on the wee nightlight on the dresser.
6. Clog with Filler Scenes: Sometimes we don’t realize we’re writing a filler scene. It’s a great scene with strong dialogue and character bits and foreshadowing and lots of great stuff. But if you look closer, it’s covering most — or even the same territory as a scene you wrote earlier. It’s advancing the same elements that the earlier scene advanced.
Time to murder this darling. Or revise it so it’s doing new work to move your story forward. All scenes need to add forward progression with at least some of the following: answer some questions and raise more, enhance character qualities or introduce new ones, add or enhance setting details, and so on. The scenes you write are meant to pull the reader’s engagement along to the next scene and all the way to The End.
7. Use Droning Dialogue: Dialogue in fiction is the illusion of conversation. And it has specific jobs to do when you use it: convey information that relates to the plot, to the characters, the setting and so on. So like Filler Scenes, mindless chit chat does nothing to add to the reading experience. What does your current dialogue do to advance your story? Learn to spot the fat and then pare it. And pare it again.
8. Pack in Know-It-All stuff: You’ve done your research. You know exactly how many steps it takes to get from the front door to the attic. The map of all the islands, ports, harbours and rocky shoals is ingrained in your mind and you want your readers to know you know. Don’t. Just don’t. There is a huge difference between a strategically placed reference or two to help ground your reader and a litany of details that soon become a list readers must wade through before getting back to the story.
9. Display your vocabulary: Yes, it’s important for writers to be widely read and in the process, you’ve developed quite a vocabulary. Whoopee for you, but like the know-it-all research, don’t try to impress your readers with a display and get in the way of the story. Use words suitable for the genre and audience and stand back and let them do their job. Don’t excavate a cavity, just dig a hole.
10. Be Predictable: It’s important that your characters react and that the story follows a logical path. But beware the characters that never veer from what we’ve come to expect or storylines that offer no surprises. Take this approach with your dialogue and try for exchanges that show two very different agendas. Many of our conversations don’t quite go as expected, like for this retail store customer:
“Good morning, I was wondering if you had any—”
“Did you close the door?”
“Ah. Yes. Now I was wondering—”
“They get in when you don’t close it tight.”
“I closed it. Now, listen, I’m looking for—”
“There’s one now. At your feet.”
“What— What is that?”
“A displaced soul.”
There you have it. Ten ideas to consider and help you take your manuscript forward. Happy writing.
Your story may be dynamite, but stylistically these energy zappers could be undermining it. They’re subtle but can do damage nonetheless. Avoid them to add energy, or use them to dampen when you want to.
Negative constructions
“Is not” and “do not” sap energy, because readers prefer to hear about what something is or what someone does. Often negative construction is paired with weak verb choices too.
Ralph did not like the way Bill treated Liza. Better: Bill’s treatment of Liza disturbed/disgusted/horrified Ralph.
Wishy-washy
constructions
Be confident about what you write. Is your character walking or not? Is the baby crying or not? Did Jimmy understand or not? Using started to/began to/seemed to constructions weaken the action.
Tom started to get up and close the door. Better: Tom jumped up and closed the door.
Unnecessary tags in internal dialogue
When we are “in the character’s thoughts” seeing, feeling and hearing what the character sees, feels and hears, using “I see”or “I hear” or “I feel” is unnecessary, and distances the reader and lowers energy.
I hear a phone ring in the telephone booth. Better: A phone rings in the telephone booth.
Nominalization
Avoid turning an action word into the subject of the sentence i.e. using the noun equivalent of a verb. To up the energy, re-order the sentence to let the verb do the work.
They had a discussion about . Better: they discussed
Verb weakeners
Re-order the sentence to eliminate these “weakeners”: need to; should; might; could
You need to get motivated. Better: Motivate yourself.
Neutrality – non-human references.
Readers feel close to people not things. So whenever you refer to a person in a non-human way, you distance the reader.
If you're the type of individual who likes luxury, Gateway Spa is for you. Better: If you love luxury, Gateway Spa is for you.
Redundancies
So easy to do. How often do we hear
about the new baby; or joining together. By default, babies are “new”;
joining things results in them being “together”. Restating the obvious sucks energy.
Sam kneeled down to examine the sword Better: Sam kneeled to examine the sword
Passive construction /Grammar expletives
No, we aren’t talking swear words
here. In grammar circles, a grammar expletive is any word or phrase that does
not contribute meaning. The most common culprits are: It is; there are; there
is; etc.at the beginning of a sentence.
It is two hours before the sun rises. Better: The sun rises in two hours.
Meaningless intensifiers.
Really, very, so.What is the difference between a tasty dinner and a really tasty dinner? If you want a degree more of tastiness, use a stronger verb rather than an intensifier. A delicious dinner.
He knew Dana was very smart. Better: He knew Dana was brilliant.
Latinate vs. Anglo-saxon words
Latinate words (those ending in -ate. -ite. -ation and other Latin bases) usually refer to areas of law, administration; government and abstraction. It’s a throw-over from the days when England was governed by Rome and later by France. Anglo Saxon words were the tongue of the governed, the workers – words to do with farming and labouring. That’s why they carry a more earthy energy.
He excavated a cavity. (Latinate) He dug a hole. (Anglo-Saxon)
Have you ever read a section in a novel and then skimmed or skipped pages to get to the next interesting bit? Have you ever got frustrated over having to plough through screeds of internal character soul searching before anything actually happens? How about being confused and frustrated about where the story is taking place or who the character is and only finding out pages later?
In my recent blog, “What is a scene” I examined what a scene was and its function in a story: namely it is a building block in your story that moves the story forward, actions and tension that result in a change of some kind, either in the growth of the characters/relationships or the course of the plot or both.
If you are including these elements and your scenes still feel flat or confusing, how can you up the energy? Ask yourself these questions:
Is
this scene dramatic?
Image by Isa KARAKUS
I don’t mean: is there violent action or overwrought
emotion happening? I’m talking “show don’t tell.” Make your reader a witness to
what happens. Is the reader “hearing” the character actually speak the words in
dialogue or merely being told that the character said them? Is the reader being
told that a character is angry or actually witnessing the physical or verbal reaction
of that character that shows the anger? Is the reader observing the setting
through the eyes and emotional perspective of the character, or being given a
dry listing of the stage set?
Is
the setting right for the scene?
Important
news delivered in place from which there is no retreat or where expression of emotion
is difficult will add tension. A child being told they are adopted on the
school bus. A wedding engagement broken off in a busy restaurant. Being
followed at night versus in the day.
Sometimes
just changing the weather helps. If a marriage proposal takes place on a cliff,
a lovely sunny day makes things easy (and likely boring). What if there’s a
high wind? (element of danger or resistance) Rain? (negative feelings). Even
proximity to the edge of the cliff can change the feel of the scene and either
heighten or play against the emotions being expressed.
Is
this scene repetitive?
Image by prettysleepy1
Because we write novels over long periods of time, it’s easy to forget that we have already mentioned something earlier. Did the reader already witness a scene that showed the tense relationship between siblings? If so, is this new scene showing something different in the relationship, like an escalation or de-escalation of that sibling tension?
Is
this scene in the right place in the novel?
Would it help to move a scene closer to the
beginning or end? Perhaps if the reader knew that a character hated her father
early in the novel, her negative reactions to other male characters would seem
more natural. Finding out early in internal dialogue that Amy really loves
Jimmy despite her actions to the contrary might deflate the tension. If the
reader believes like Jimmy that she hates him, the later realization and revelation
of her love for him would be a more dramatic moment.
Can
I up the stakes or make things harder?
Can
you inject extra complications, or greater emotional or physical strain?
Anything you can do to make things more difficult for your character helps.
They don’t have to be big things. Rushing up a hill rather than on flat ground;
running out of time; car trouble; interruptions…
Is
this scene important?
If it’s important, slow it down. Our natural tendency as tension mounts is to go
faster and faster, but the opposite maxim applies to good pacing in scenes. If
your action is over too quickly the readers don’t get to enjoy the excitement.
If the moment is high tension, give readers all the details, all the reactions,
all the choreography.
Did
I “Get in late and leave early.”?
I don’t know where I heard it, but I use this advice
all the time to examine my scenes. Excessive internal thought, long description or
exposition, or purposeless action or dialogue is a killer of tension at the
start of a scene. It’s what one of my writing mentors refers to as “throat
clearing”. Get to the action as soon as you can.
Image by Frauke Flohr
Consider this: The scene begins with a groom stuck
in traffic. His cell phone is dead and he’s getting more angry with the taxi
driver who moves him slowly though the traffic so that they finally arrive at
the church just as his tear-stained bride is leaving on the arm of her father. —OR
—The scene begins as a taxi screams into the church parking lot with the groom just
as the tear-stained bride is leaving on the arm of her father.
And the same for leaving early. When a tense action
scene has finished, don’t deflate the whole thing with a page of internal analysis
or angst from the character. Yes, we do want to know how the character is
affected and what they are going to do next, but use that page turning tension to
start the next scene.
You might even consider ending mid –action. Now there’s a page
turner. Or perhaps end with a character epiphany, or a promise of further
revelation, a discovery or a threat. As they say about so many things: “Leave
them wanting more.”
Last Word
Tighter, richer and more textured scenes make for a tighter,
richer more textured novel. Examining individual scenes and making them as
strong as you can is worth the effort.
It’s Writescape’s 10th anniversary and we have lots of excitement planned for writers in 2018. This installment of 10 on the 10th is the latest in the series of monthly writing tips, advice and inspiration. Think of it as Gwynn and Ruth sitting on your shoulder and nudging you along. Share with your writing colleagues and encourage them to sign up for more.
As an editor and writing coach, I’m always surprised by some of the dialogue mistakes some fiction writers make. This list should help eliminate those punctuation and style errors and keep your manuscript in the “clean” status editors and publishers value.
1. Quotation marks cradle the words spoken out loud by a character. They don’t go around any narrative that isn’t spoken out loud, like the attributive (dialogue tag) Manuela advised in the example below:
“Think of quotation marks like a blanket, containing a character’s words,” Manuela advised.
2. Punctuation that belongs to the words spoken out loud are also contained inside quotation marks, and not tacked onto the attributive or dialogue tag in the examples below:
“That’s incredible advice!” Jerry replied.
“Why are you surprised?” she asked.
3. Attributives or dialogue tags help readers know who’s speaking. But once those speakers are established, there’s little value in constantly using them. In fact, they can get in the way of the conversation and bore the reader, so drop them whenever you can.
“I guess I’m always surprised by how much I still have to learn.”
“All of us writers are always learning, Jerry. It’s part of developing our skills.”
4. Adverbs in dialogue tags are rarely needed.
“Skill development? It’s why I’m here. Make way for Super Skill Development Man,” Jerry shouted excitedly.
5. Beats or business placed before dialogue can set up the tone of the spoken words.
Manuela took a deep breath before answering. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jerry, please take your seat and get ready for today’s class.”
6. Beats or business placed after dialogue can set up the next speaker’s tone.
Manuela took a deep breath before answering. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jerry, please take your seat and get ready for today’s class.” She took a step back just as Jerry punched the wall, his knuckles now scraped and bleeding.
“I hate myself. I’ll never be a writer.”
7. Start a new paragraph with each different speaker. This clues in the reader to switch characters, like watching a tennis match.
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Can’t help it. I never wanted anything so bad.”
“Even so, you need to learn to channel that passion onto the page. Here’s a couple of bandages. Head to the washroom and clean that up. Then, if you’re serious about writing, come back, take your seat and get ready to write.”
8. Let your reader know when someone else joins the conversation.
A quiet voice from the back of the room piped up. “I guess he used to take drama, so he’s using Method Acting to develop his characters.”
Manuela searched the room for the speaker and found Angelique’s grinning face next to the back door. “Thanks for your input but next time keep it to yourself.”
9. Interior thoughts are not dialogue, not spoken aloud, so they are not placed inside quotation marks.
A quiet voice from the back of the room piped up. “I guess he used to take drama, so he’s using Method Acting to develop his characters.”
Manuela searched the room for the speaker and found Angelique’s grinning face next to the back door. “Thanks for your input but next time keep it to yourself.” Oh great. Class clown in the making.
10a. Some writers use single quotes for interior thoughts but they shouldn’t. Single quotes are only used for dialogue that is quoted inside spoken words.
Manuela faced the rest of the class. “The next one who offers up a comment like ‘I guess he used to take drama’ is going to find themselves out of my Writers Craft class. Understand?” Now that, she thought, should shut down the nonsense.
10b.Some writers use italics for interior thoughts but italics makes words and phrases stand out, like attention-seeking banners. Hi there. I’m an interior thought. It’s also more difficult to read and downright deadly when you write whole paragraphs of interior thought. Consider creating interior thoughts without any italics. Think about ways for you to craft thoughts in a way that doesn’t need to draw attention to itself.
And that, we think, is a valuable skill for all writers.
It’s Writescape’s 10th anniversary and we have lots of excitement planned for writers in 2018. To kick off the celebration, we’ve launched 10 on the 10th. This series of monthly resources will bring tips, advice and inspiration directly to your inbox. Think of it as Gwynn and Ruth sitting on your shoulder and nudging you along. Share with your writing colleagues and encourage them to sign up for more.
Here are your first 10 tips:
1. Get the action going
Replace passive, weak verbs, especially forms of the verb “to be”
Before: It was a dark and stormy night.
After: The storm raged through the blackness.
2. Keep things moving forward by reducing the use of “had”
“Had” refers to “completed’ action. It has no forward movement. Use “had” once or twice at the start of a section/paragraph to establish the time period, then revert to simple past tense.
Before: She had been the only one in the house, and had paid the rent faithfully each month. She had taken care of the place and had put up drapes and painted.
After: She had been the only one in the house, and paid the rent faithfully each month. She took care of the place and put up drapes and painted.
3. Keep the action going
Delete empty words like very/somewhat/really. Energize the word being modified instead.
Before: Despite the very hot afternoon….
After: Despite the afternoon’s sweltering heat…
4. Keep your actions strong; beware the “-ly” adverb
Can you replace it with a stronger active verb?
Before: He went quickly
After: He ran – or dashed, charged, bolted…
5. Change up the senses you use in description.
We default to the sense of sight. Try replacing visual details with ones of another sense.
Before: Anita set the gold-rimmed tea cup on the lace cloth…
After: The tea cup rattled in the saucer as Anita placed it on the lace cloth…
6. Take your reader deeper into the world of the story
Look for named emotions (happy, sad) or physical states (fearful, tired) and replace with concrete and sensory detail.
Before: She felt disappointed
After: She sank onto the bench and hugged her knees
7. Keep your writing fresh
Look for tired and overused clichés. (Microsoft Word’s grammar checker notes clichés with green squiggly lines.) Create visuals that add to the story or your character.
Before: His beard was as white as snow
After: His beard was as white as his lab coat
8. Eliminate repetition. Eliminate repetition.
Identify any “writer’s tic” that you know you have. Phrases, descriptions, gestures and so on, rapidly lose their energy when they are overused or placed too closely together.
Example:
How many times do your characters “roll their eyes” or “take a deep breath?”
How many times have your told readers it’s “a red car?”
9. Keep your tricky words tamed
Are there words you constantly mispell…um…misspell? Are you working with strange names or technical terms? Keep them correct and consistent by adding them to your software’s dictionary or AutoCorrect function.
How to: Right click on the word. Choose either Add to dictionary or AutoCorrect
10. Know your country
Is it color or colour? Are they good neighbours or good neighbors? Writing for American readers, Australian readers or British readers? Incorrect spelling won’t please your publisher. Make sure your software is defaulted to the “right” English.
How to: Most MSWord programs have the language default on the bottom info bar. Left click to select your language.
If you found this helpful, let your writing friends know. Share it!
1. Get the action going
4. Keep your actions strong; beware the “-ly” adverb