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Sherwood's
Writing Riffs The best plot in the world is only going to read okay if the writing is merely adequate, or even mediocre. There are several writers who sell quite well about whom people say, I enjoy this author's stories but they aren't worth rereading. Or, Not a bad storyteller, but only for kids with no taste. So those of us who don't want to have our work dismissed like that are constantly working on polishing, rewriting, style, and all those good literary vitamins and minerals. Here are some of the things I hunt down and shoot when I find them when I'm revising. Cliche Clusters They are so small, and so harmless-seeming. When one is reading, they almost slide past, because they do denote a particular sound or image, funcitioning almost as a kind of placemarker or signpost. Music that is piercingly sweet or hauntingly beautiful; characters, usually female, often the heroine, whose fragile beauty is also sometimes haunting; people who, at sentimental moments, feel achingly vulnerable; stormy eyes and living rock and moldering castle. We all know what they mean, but do they really add to a scene, or do they just mark an accepted look, sound, or reaction so one can get on to the next bit? And most important, if we see enough of these prose signposts, don't we realize what's next in the plot? we often know just what's going to come next? Another pernicious form of cliche cluster is the easy phrase that everyone understands . . . but comes from this world, and not that. Now, some writers excuse using "okay", for example, by saying, "Well, if I translated from their language to English, 'okay' is the nearest term." You can actually make a case for that--but only so far. Your world is going to seem more real if people think and talk like they belong in that paradigm. You can only Jump off-track if that world has rail tracks. She tuned him out muddies your world building if they don't have radios there, so does or firing arrows when you mean shooting or loosing--unless they really are setting the arrows on fire, but then they have to loose 'em. Pistols were fired...and for that matter, are you using the word 'gun' when you mean artillery, or for a pistol, if you are writing something set in the past? You get the idea . . . watch your phrases, make sure they belong in the world of your story, and not in ours. Cliche Verbs These verbs don't mean what they used to; the cliche meanings have taken over. She stormed into the room. Even worse is stormed as a dialogue attribute, as in "I hate you," she stormed, after which her bosom usually heaved passionately, leaving me wondering what it heaves--and how? Verbs like filled are clear when you are putting something into a vessel, but the image muddies if shadows fill faces. Faces. Lots of cliches with faces. There are the pinochle games of the face, as in A smiled played about his lips making me pause and ponder what his lips were playing, pinochle? Or the military actions of features, as in Rage and anger battled across her face. Then there is the ol' personal raincloud as in A shadow crossed his face. Watch out for things constantly crossing, or creeping in faces--it's so easy, but at the end, so unmemorable, to see, over and over, A shadow crept across his face. Anger crept into her eyes. A smile crept across his lips. Anyway, to keep your prose exciting and fresh, make sure that pandemonium doesn't always reign, tables don't always groan under lots of food, and screams don't always pierce the air. Action cliches are another group: the hero doesn't just deliver his speech and leave, he turned on his heel and marched off. The party of heroes faced by a sudden threat all stood stock still. She was beside herself with anger-- she found herself throwing things. These actions are all actually damned hard to do (how does one get beside oneself? Tell me, and that extra can do my housework!) in real life. (Have you tried turning on your heel--and not immediately falling down?) Battery-Powered Eyes The eye cliches are probably the worst offenders: we find eyes bouncing, raking, falling, piercing, stabbing, flaming, and of course flashing off and on like Christmas trees in December. Scenes become unintentionally humorous if we picture a verb doing its otherwise understood purpose, and suddenly a scene is filled with eyeballs squashing about randomly, then arming themselves to commit mayhem on the bystanders. Eye cliches have been a shorthand for showing emotions just about as long as novels have been written. We all know that His eyes blazed means the guy is mad, and Her eyes glowed generally means some more tender emotion. So we note it and read on, but those cliches don't really have any effect--do nothing to enhance character. Instead, they make the character seem cardboard, just like every other character who expresses him or herself through these old cliches. If we want our characters' reactions to be memorable, then we have to work to show how real human beings react. So how to show all those changes of expression? Well, it calls for some close people watching. When someone is angry, what exactly happens in his or her face? Eyes widen or narrow; mouths thin, or pucker, hands are great for indicating emotions. I first noticed Anthony Hope's mastery of body language in how he reported on his characters' use of hands. Frequently he intersperses his vivid observations between phrases of dialogue, meaning he never stops the action to report on how someone looks or acts. The whole is so smooth that the flow never once jolts or bobbles. You can sometimes hear the breathing of someone who is endeavoring to control strong emotion. Posture is another great indicator; watch how people sit at work, or at a party, or in the park. Watch how people in a crowd react to a flash of lightning or to a car backfiring, or some sudden noise. They don't all react the same way. Look at old photos. You can frequently guess at who knows whom, who likes whom, who is comfortable or uncomfortable with whom. Watch old film reels* of real people; is a man holding a woman with his thumbs away from her body? That seems to be a subtle indicator for a situation in which A. is forced into proximity with B. but doesn't really care for B. By seeing how people really react to various types of emotion or confrontation and describing that, using verbs that mean what they say, the scene is strengthened. * I don't recommend watching TV or films to get people reactions because actors too often fall into cliches, especially in weekly shows. If you want to test this theory, turn off the sound and watch a popular show. Suddenly you notice how false everyone's posture is as they stand on their marks, positioned in the half-circle so the three cams can get them all. Gestures are either artistic or artful but not much like real people. Adverbs as Adjectives Adverbs have a lot of power if used sparingly. If they are necessary after each verb, then think about using stronger or more evocative verbs. The effect of strings of dull verbs followed by "ly" words is deadening. Also deadening are the double qualifiers, like the hauntingly sweet music and the achingly vulnerable eyes. The other adverb used as an adjective that makes me groan is very. ...before her very eyes or ...his eyes pierced to her very soul or the hauntingly beautiful music pierced to the very core of her being. What is the core of someone's being? Spleen, maybe? Liver? Isles of Langerhans? His piercing eyes tickled me very Isles of Langerhands sounds like something out of Bored of the Rings. Maybe it was! Weasel Words The easy way around defining very complex or difficult emotions is to fall back on the old something, but I think it robs the scene of impact. Something in her eyes . . . Something in the air felt . . . Something in his voice . . . after every one of these, I want to know WHAT in the air/voice/eyes. The other half of the weasel-somethings are usually just as bad. Something crept into her voice Do vocal tones really creep? . Something in her eyes told him . . . So eyes talk? Ooba-dooba, that would be handy in the classroom when my throat is sore. The worst offender in that category is "Something behind her eyes told me..." which a visual reader sees as dangling nerves and squishy viscera beyond the eyeball (ew, ew, ew!) having lips and a voice. Yeeeech. Because I am a visual writer, I am constantly struggling against the temptation to use easy word clusters to dash down what I see. Brilliant prose artists don't make the awful mistakes I do--they choose just the right word, and craft a fine, euphonious sentence. When I finish a draft, because I am a fumbler, I have to do a grindingly tedious search, but I've found of late that I can eliminate several thousand useless words when I perform this chore. That's right, several thousand words that contribute as much color and meaning as veins of fat running through a slice of meat. Here's a short list:
Each of these is good if everyone is not doing them all the time: grinned, sighed, muttered, murmured, lifted one eyebrow, arched an eyebrow--well, you get the idea. If you suspect you're falling into easy patterns, try searching on the word, and like as not you'll discover to your dismay that you used that action 674,785 times in the past 100 pages. Or you do if you're me. Simultaneous Actions I'm really guilty of this one; action that has people doing things simultaneously when you mean them to be sequential. Reaching for his sword, he attacked the evil minions. Or, As she flicked on the controls, she eased her ship from the dock. Or Easing the door open, he raced up the stairs. When I write at a headlong clip, seeing the action almost as fast as the actors move about in a summer movie, I end up with a whole string of these as-loaded or *ing subordinate clauses barnacling the frontend of my sentences. Sometimes they do work: Rubbing her eyes, she remembered the fight. One easy way to check and see if you are describing the impossible is to mentally put while at the front of the subordinate clause, and see if it snaps into clarity: While reaching for his sword, he attacked the evil minions. Oops. Now I know I have to reword the sentence to make it sequential action, rather than parallel action: He reached for his sword, then attacked the evil minions. This When I first started selling, two separate first-rate editors took me to task over the question of the "unattributed this". I was told, "NEVER use the word 'this' as an object!" If you can cut it, do. ("Has she heard this?" shortens better to "Had she heard?") Cut after the verb--or give it a noun. That word diffuses every visual, or issue, it doesn't define. Just about every time it's used each this could either be replaced by 'it' or cut, or given a noun to strengthen the sentence, instead of leaving the reader saying, over and over, "This what?" It is especially distracting if there is a cluster of uses of 'this' --and they all appear to indicate different things. Some otherwise good writers fall into what I call the TV language pattern of using 'this' as an object, I guess because they hear it on TV so much. "I want this," says a character-- who is not pointing to an object she wishes to buy. She could be referring to anything! Or even worse, "It isn't about this, it's about me." What? What does that really mean? Nothing--because we don't know what 'it' refers to, or 'this' yet you now hear such sloppy expressions all the time. Especially on commercials. (A good rule of thumb is: if you hear it on a commercial, then it's marketing language, not art.) Said Bookisms This is a shorthand term for dialogue tags--the verb indicating speech. Was I surprised when I finally sold my much-rewritten Wren to the Rescue to be told that "Oh, how fun," she grinned was a said-bookism. A what? "You can't grin words," the editor told me. When dialogue is attributed by a verb that can't actually produce words, well, that's a said-bookism. Though we can all find books wherein said-bookisms abound, they are klunky and sometimes drawn attention to themselves...such as in the (probably apocryphal) romance novel containing the line: Wow, she's hot!" he ejaculated. 'Said' is nearly invisible. The occasional use of other verbs adds flavor, but only if used sparingly, and they must be verbs that can actually produce words. You can whine words, you can cry words, but you can't press words, or oblige words. If you want to indicate changes in tone, do it with a quick, simple sentence. Noting body language is also a vivid, effective way of adding visuals to speech. Examples Incorrect
Said-Bookism: "I'm worried," frowned the girl. Further note: words such as 'commanded' or 'exclaimed' work more smoothly after the character name, not before. When they occur first, they draw attention to themselves (read the sentences aloud into a recorder, then listen, and you'll see what I mean). When they are placed after the name, they read and sound more natural. Awkward
Example: "Go!" commanded Fred. Maid-and-Butler Talk vs. Data-Dumpage You've been told not to interlard your scenes with long encyclopedia articles of information, commonly called data-dumps. Readers tend to skip these, and editors, finding too many, are easily convinced to set aside the story...and return it. So the beginning writer thinks: Ahah! I'll put the background stuff into dialogue! Then it can't be a data-dump, right? Wrong. There are few things that bounce the reader right out of a story quicker than characters who tell each other, in detail, what they both already know. Just as we don't say to our auto mechanic when we drive in for the yearly tune-up, "As you know, Ted, I bought this car in 1985, and you have been working on it since '93, when you first put brakes in it." "Yes," says Ted. "And as you know, I first studied mechanics back in 1978, when I was living in Illinois..." How can characters have any kind of real reaction? They can't; it's unrealistic, and to force your characters into this situation is to make the scene feel at best contrived, at worst, absurd. Now, you might need to get all that information into the story, but it MUST come in a natural way. A good key to remember is that information should create reaction, and emotion--the character must want to know it, perhaps even need desperately to know it. The greater the need in the character, the more the reader will be curious. It is a mistake to shovel in loads of information before either character or reader cares. The skilled writer waits until the information is necessary before fitting it in. What about settings and background? This problem besets the fantasy or sf writer who has created a new world. In contemporary novels we only have to include the briefest sketch to orient the reader. But in a made-up world, how to get across all the history, geography, mythology, and so forth that we've invented? The best method, I've found, is to use the layered cake method: to slide that information in one item at a time, so the reader is never aware of learning about the world, and about motives, and past actions and history. Characters can make assumptions about a situation based on past history; characters can repeat gossip and be corrected; local details can be fitted in as a character enters and assesses the locale. The key is: a bit at a time, preferably have a character react to it, and don't stop the story to include a long flashback or history lesson. A stopped story is one easy to put down--and never pick up again. As always, there are exceptions. From what I've seen from readers' reactions, they are perfectly happy to read lots of data-dumps if the narrative voice is entertaining. Back in the 19th C when the omniscient view implied a narrative presence, it was clear to the writer that there must be an entertaining voice at all times. Our modern preference for tight third, in effect denying a narrative presence, sometimes has authors who work hard at vivid character and dialogue slipping into a dull neutral tone when offering background or explanatory info. The effect of this is like having the action and dialogue read to you by James Earl Jomes--and all the explanations and data read by Ben Stein in his deadest monotone. Take a look at Terry Pratchett and Steve Brust to see how they make their narrative voices engaging no matter what they are writing about. Pratchett even makes footnotes fun! |
